men on foot. They have many pack animals and wagons and merchants and
priests and women following them. Just as our army does." His breath and
that of his pony steamed in the cold air.

Daoud felt a prickling sensation rise on his neck and spread across his
shoulders. Two days' ride. The armies could meet tomorrow. Tomorrow
would decide everything.

Now, if only Manfred could conceive a plan for outmaneuvering Charles.
If only he would take Daoud's advice. He knew Europeans preferred to
fight pitched battles, and he prayed that Manfred would not choose that
way.

"Did you see a purple banner with three gold crowns?" Daoud asked.

Two weeks ago a courier from the Ghibellini in northern Italy had
brought word that Simon de Gobignon's army had passed through Ravenna,
on the Adriatic coast. It seemed unlikely to Daoud that de Gobignon
would catch up with Charles in time to take part in the coming battle.

"No purple banner. They fly the white banner with the red cross."
Nuwaihi turned his head to the left and spat. "And all the soldiers have
red crosses on their tunics." He spat again. His fierceness pleased
Daoud.

At one time, he thought, he would have been sorry to learn that Simon de
Gobignon was not with Charles's army. He would have longed to meet Simon
on the field and fight and kill him. But now he understood that he had
hated Simon because Simon resembled the Christian David that he might
have been. It did not matter to him that he would not meet the French
count again. Instead, he could feel relieved that Charles would not have
Simon's knights and men as part of his army.

Nuwaihi went on, "Their Count Charles, he who would be king, was at the
head of the column. I knew him because he wears a crown on his helmet.
His banner is red with a black lion rearing up on its hind legs."

Daoud looked over his shoulder and saw Manfred not far behind him, on a
white horse with a black streak running from forehead to nose. The king
of southern Italy and Sicily, in a cloak the color of springtime leaves,
was the center of a mounted group of his favorite courtiers. One
strummed a lute, and they were singing together in Latin.

_A brave spectacle. Manfred rides into battle singing Latin sonnets._

A Mameluke army on its way to war would have mullahs praying for victory
and a mounted band playing martial music on kettledrums, trumpets, and
hautboys.

The young blond men around Manfred, Daoud knew, were nimble dancers