The Saracen: The Holy War Part 73

"Do not use the word 'if,' Madama Tilia," said Daoud with a smile.

"I know Manfred is going to win," said Ugolini. "Otherwise I would not have followed his army all the way to Benevento. I believe he will go on to the Papal States and will persuade Pope Clement to restore me to my rightful position."

"If Pope Clement _waits_ for Manfred after Charles is defeated," said Tilia dryly.

That was Ugolini's explanation of why he had come north with Manfred's army. Daoud wondered what Tilia's was. Both risked being imprisoned and probably executed should Manfred lose and Charles capture them.

"Did you see Lorenzo leave?"

"Moments before you came down," said Tilia. "That big dog of his, Scipio, is inconsolable. I can hear him keening in the stable. I think Adelberto and I will take him up to our room and comfort him."

Daoud said, "It is a rare moment when Scipio is not at Lorenzo's side.

And I think, too, he can sense when his master is in danger. As we all are today. It would be kind of you to care for him."

With a tremulous attempt at laughter, Sophia said, "And who will care for me?"

Tilia laid her small hand on Sophia's arm. "We will stay with you, Sophia, if you want, until Daoud returns." She pulled Ugolini inside the door and it closed behind them, leaving Daoud and Sophia alone.

Sophia moved close in the lamplight outside the entrance of the merchant's house and looked up at him, her eyes large and solemn.

"Nothing but you matters to me. Come back to me."

Daoud still wished he could convince her that she had nothing to fear.

But that was foolish. She knew all too well that there was much to fear.

"I don't want you to be frightened," he said.

"I will try not to be."

"I will come back." There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much he realized now he had not said about how he loved her as he had never loved another woman in his life since--

Since his mother.

They were two people who had been utterly alone in the world, who had both lost everyone precious to them. All they truly had was each other.

_Oh, G.o.d, let me come back to her. I ask this not for my happiness, but for hers._

"I know I will see you again." She smiled suddenly. "Can you find your way to me?"

He looked up at the building and then at the street. Bulking large against the stars was the huge square shape of an arch, which had been built over a thousand years ago, he was told, by a Roman general to commemorate his conquest of Jerusalem.

With this talk of stars and portents, he felt it must mean something that this victory arch should be here in Benevento. Were not these wars of Muslim and Christian that had shaped his destiny wars over Jerusalem?

He said, "I will ride through that arch, and you will be on the third floor of the house with the carving over the door of San Giorgio slaying the dragon."

She smiled, her teeth white in the lantern light. "That is the Archangel Michael overcoming Satan."

"How am I to tell one Christian idol from another?"

She pushed at him. He saw the tracks of tears glistening on her cheeks.

His own eyes burned.

"Go quickly now."

He turned, fearing the sight of his tears might break her heart, as hers had broken his. He set his foot in the stirrup and vaulted into the saddle of the brown Arabian Husain was holding. He waited for Husain to mount his own horse and then started down the street. He kept his face set toward the triumphal arch. He dared not look back.

In her room, Sophia went through her chest and found her icon of Saint Simon Stylites. She kept the icon hidden when Daoud was around. He believed that praying to saints' images was idolatry, and she especially did not want him to see her praying to a saint named Simon. She knelt, clasped her hands, and prayed to the desert saint.

_Oh, holy Simon, bring him back to me. You who dwelt in the desert, you who know what it is to be alone on your pillar, keep safe this man who came alone out of the desert. Protect him from the swords and spears and arrows of his enemies. He is not of our faith, I know, but I love him so, and is not Love another name for G.o.d?_

She pressed 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 n.o.blemen, all in splendid cloaks of peac.o.c.k 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."

Daoud's eyes followed Manfred's pointing arm to the narrow north end of the long valley in which Benevento lay. The road from Rome entered the valley at the north end and ran through it to the gate above which they were standing. Rows of tents filled the northern opening of the valley, and the tiny figures of hors.e.m.e.n and foot soldiers were forming dark lines across the light brown fields.

Last night peasants from that end of the valley had come flocking into Benevento with cartloads of possessions and stored crops. Even though they were supposedly supporters of the papal cause, the people who lived around Benevento felt safer under Manfred's protection.

But this valley was a stone coffin, Daoud thought. Hills on either side, squeezing together at the top of the valley, the town lying across the bottom end. In this box, how could he use the Sons of the Falcon well?

He pummeled his brain.

One thing he could at least achieve. He remembered Nuwaihi's report that the Tartars were with Charles's army. He turned to Lorenzo.

"It falls to you to finish the Tartars. Make your way into Charles's camp while the battle is on."