holding the mace in both hands, de
Verceuil brought it down on Manfred's helmet.

"No!" Daoud screamed.

He heard a metallic crash. Manfred collapsed to the ground with a jangle
of mail and lay still. Blood streaked his yellow and black surcoat and
soaked the crushed green plume.

With a cry of rage Daoud threw himself at de Verceuil to drag him off
his horse.

He was knocked aside by a great gray charger that forced its way
between himself and the cardinal. Staggering back, he looked up into the
face of Simon de Gobignon.

"No, Cardinal!" de Gobignon shouted. "You will not kill this man, too,
before he has had the chance of honorable surrender."

Amazed, Daoud let his saif drop a bit. De Gobignon had ridden in, not to
attack him, but to save him from de Verceuil.

_But all he accomplished was to save de Verceuil from me._

De Gobignon, leaning down from his gray charger, pointed his curving
sword at Daoud, but not in a threatening way. Daoud took a step
backward, his saif lifted.

The struggle around them had stopped. The fighting men had fallen
silent. The handful of Manfred's followers remaining were quietly laying
down their arms. A German knight and a Saracen crouched weeping over
Manfred's body.

Daoud's arms and legs felt as if he were pushing them through water, but
he knew that if he began to fight again he would forget this weariness.
The worst of what he felt was the terrible ache of grief in his chest,
grief for Manfred, for threatened Islam, for Sophia.

"Look at him, look at his garb," said de Verceuil. "A Saracen with the
face of a Frank. If he surrenders, he should be burned as an apostate."

"You must be blind indeed, Cardinal," said de Gobignon, "if you do not
see who this is." He turned to Daoud with a grave face. "You are David
of Trebizond."

"I am," said Daoud.

"And are you truly a Saracen? I have long thought that you were an agent
of Manfred, but I never would have guessed, to look at you, that you
were a follower of Mohammed."

"You were meant not to think that."

"This battle--this war--is over now. I give you my word that if you
surrender you will be treated honorably. There will be no burning."

De Verceuil boomed, "Count, you cannot promise that!"

"I do promise it."

The two Christian warriors on horseback faced each other, the count in
purple and the cardinal in red, looking almost as if they might fall to
fighting.

"You need not argue," Daoud said. "I will not