Manfred von Hohenstaufen sat at a table at the far end of the colonnaded
audience chamber, his pale blond hair gleaming in the candlelight.
"Come forward," he called to Daoud and Lorenzo. He beckoned to them, the
wide sleeve of his green tunic falling away from his arm.
Their booted feet echoed on the long floor of polished pink marble.
Daoud's stomach felt hollow. He _must_ persuade Manfred to carry the war
into the north at once.
A dark green velvet cloth, hanging to the floor, covered the table at
which the king of southern Italy and Sicily sat. The tabletop was strewn
with pens and open rolls of parchment. Two chamberlains in dark brown
tunics hovered at Manfred's back. He wrote quickly on one parchment
after another, and handed them to his two assistants. Even though it was
a sunny morning outside, this chamber had few windows, and Manfred, to
see his work, needed candelabra at each end of the table.
When Daoud and Lorenzo reached his table, he waved in dismissal to the
chamberlains, and they bowed and left, carrying armloads of scrolls.
Seeing Manfred at work, Daoud felt a powerfully protective impulse
toward him. Manfred was not _his_ king, but he had become a worthy ally,
and Daoud was prepared to fight Manfred's enemies. To die, if need be,
fighting them.
"An old friend of yours wants to greet you, David," said Manfred, his
bright smile flashing.
Daoud saw no one. In a candlelit alcove behind Manfred hung a painting
of a red-bearded man in mail armor partly covered by a black and gold
surcoat. It was not painted on the wall, but seemed to be on a separate
piece of wood with a gilded border, which was hung on the wall. The man
looked a bit like Manfred, and Daoud suspected it must be his father,
the famous Emperor Frederic. There was an idolatrous look about the
painting and the way it was displayed that made Daoud uneasy. It
reminded him a bit of the saint's image Sophia had kept in her room at
Orvieto.
"David of Trebizond!" came a cry from beside Manfred. Manfred reached
down and helped a bent, monkeylike figure scramble up to stand on the
table.
"God blesses our meeting, Daoud ibn Abdallah--this time," said the dwarf
Erculio.
He grinned at Daoud through his spiky black mustache. At the sight of
him Daoud winced at the memory of all the pain this little man had
inflicted on him. He still felt some of that pain, especially in his
feet, despite the tawidh's hastening of the healing process. But Daoud
also felt a sudden warmth that reminded him of the first time he had
seen the little man, here at Lucera. Deformed in body and soul, required
to do unspeakable things, Erculio had still found a way to serve God.
"If my lord Daoud wishes to kill me, I am at his service," said Erculio
in Arabic. "I have finished the work our sultan sent me to do in Italy."
Daoud found himself smiling in spite of himself. "You would have saved
me from a mutilation worse than death, Erculio. I cannot hate you for
that. You did your work well."
Erculio looked like a spider when he bowed, his head touching the
tabletop, his elbows bent upward. "I am my lord's slave."
He was the more admirable, Daoud thought, because despite being so
deformed, he had found important work to do in the world.
"How is your former master, d'Ucello, faring with the Sienese in
Orvieto?" he asked Erculio.