sed both hands flat against her belly and doubled over, weeping.

* * * * *

Daoud had just ridden through the northern gate of the town when he
heard his name called from above. He saw a pale blond head, gleaming in
the first rays of sunrise, looking down at him through the battlements
of a square gate tower.

"Up here, Daoud, come up!" Manfred's voice.

"This is the best vantage point we could ask for," Manfred said when
Daoud arrived on the tower platform. "Unless we were to climb those
mountains over there."

Lorenzo was on the tower roof with Manfred, and Landgrave Barth, and six
or so of Manfred's blond young noblemen, all in splendid cloaks of
peacock blue, sunset orange, and blood-red. They wore glossy silk
surcoats over mail that covered them from chin to fingertips. Manfred
was in mail, covered by a knee-length yellow and black surcoat. He held
his bronzed helmet, decorated with three nodding ostrich plumes dyed
emerald green, tucked under his arm.

"Have they come?" Daoud asked.

Manfred nodded, his face sterner than Daoud had ever seen it. "Anjou is
in the valley."

Daoud looked out from the tower. Like a field of wildflowers, hundreds
of their own multicolored tents, each one tall and pointed at the top,
spread out over the rolling brown landscape just beyond the town wall.
In front of the tents the divisions of Manfred's army were forming up in
squares. The faint notes of a military band came to Daoud's ear. It was
European music, which sounded jagged, harsh, and disconnected to him.

He saw the Sons of the Falcon now, over on the left, their rows
straight, sitting quietly on their horses, moving little. They all wore
red turbans wrapped around their helmets; he had insisted that they
dress alike so as to be easily recognizable. They, too, had their band,
a dozen men who played kettledrums, trumpets, hautboys, and cymbals from
horseback. The band was silent now, but would play when the Sons of the
Falcon rode into battle.

"Long ago the Romans called this town Maleventum, bad wind," said
Manfred beside him, "because they believed that the winds from the north
brought pestilence down from the swamps around Rome."

Just the sort of thing Manfred would know, Daoud thought.

"Even though the people who live here chose a more attractive name,"
Manfred went on, "we see that the ancients were not wrong. Look what
plague the wind has blown down from Rome today."

Daou