Lorenzo frowned at him ferociously. "You have given me the task. Let me
carry it out as best I can."
Daoud gripped his arm, feeling muscle like oak. "Go with God, my
brother."
"May your Allah bless your struggle today, Daoud." One last, long look
from the dark brown eyes, and Lorenzo turned away.
Again, as he had with Sophia, Daoud felt anguish that he had not told
Lorenzo enough of his gratitude, his respect, his love.
_And if Lorenzo dies an unbeliever, I will not meet him in paradise._
Manfred was standing at the battlements, staring north at his enemies,
looking, it seemed to Daoud, more sad than angry.
"Sire," Daoud said, "I know what you plan for today's battle. But I beg
the favor of one change. Let the Sons of the Falcon be the first of your
warriors to strike at your enemies."
Manfred turned toward Daoud, and as he did the melancholy vanished from
his face. He looked cheerful and spoke briskly.
"Let us review the plan. My heaviest cavalry, the Swabian knights, will
hit them first. The Swabians will try to break the enemy and drive them
back up the field. Our foot archers will form up before Benevento and
protect it from any Frenchmen who might evade our cavalry charge.
Daoud's Sons of the Falcon will ride in column up the west side of the
valley, turn, cut the French knights off from _their_ foot soldiers, and
attack them from the rear."
Erhard Barth nodded. "Excellent, Sire. But, if I may, Herr Daoud has a
good suggestion. We have seen the skill of his archers and lancers. Let
them lead the way, forming a screen for us. Let them fill the air with
arrows. The French will falter. Then the Sons of the Falcon will move
out of the way." He spread his big, square hands apart to show how the
Sons of the Falcon would part to left and right. "And we will hit them
with a wedge."
A better plan, Daoud thought. He had underestimated Barth. And perhaps
the king he served.
Manfred nodded. "Go to your men, Daoud. You will have my orders
shortly."
Looking into the faces of the two hundred men he had picked and trained
over the past year, Daoud felt a great weight on his chest. He could
even read the expressions of some in the front. Mujtaba, earnest. Ahmad,
fierce. Omar, determined. Nuwaihi, who had first sighted Charles's army,
eager. It was frightful enough to face one's own death in battle, but to
know that he was leading to their deaths men he knew and loved--the
burden was great. These men were like his children, and they would
follow him to destruction, and he wished before God that he did not have
to think about that.
Gathered in a semicircle, the Sons of the Falcon listened silently as
Daoud spoke to them from horseback. He made his voice big, so that it
echoed from the walls of Benevento, behind his men.
"You are fighting not only to help King Manfred keep his throne," Daoud
shouted. "Not only to protect the kingdom of Sicily from conquest by
these greedy foreigners."
That was ironic, in a way, because, to be sure, the Hohenstaufens were
not native Sicilians. Nor were these Muslims. But both they and the
Hohenstaufens had lived in Sicily for generations, and surely that gave
them more right to rule here than the French.
"You are fighting for Islam!" he cried. Their wild cheering rang in his
ears.
"You are fighting that you and your families may profess the faith and
live by the faith. This right, your wise rulers of the house of
Hohenstaufen have granted you. But if Charles d'Anjou rules this land,
your mosques will be turned into churches, your mullahs will be hanged,
your Korans will be burned, and your children's children will never hear
the sweet words of the Prophet, may God commend and salute him. They
will be raised as Christians and will never know they were anything
else. For us this war is jihad! Holy war!"
The waves of their cheering swept over him, and their scimitars flashed
in the rising sun. He had told them the truth, but there was an even
greater truth he had not told them. They were fighting, not just for
Islam in Sicily, but for Islam everywhere. If Manfred won this battle,
it would end, for this generation at least, the threat of Christians and
Tartars uniting to destroy Islam. But how to explain that in these few
remaining moments? Enough that they knew that they were fighting for the
faith in their own land.
Seeing their eagerness, he felt proud of them, and proud of himself. The
weight of sadness he had felt when he first faced them was lifted, and
his heart beat strong within him.
The cheering faded quickly, replaced by a murmuring. Men were pointing
past him. A faint rumbling came to his ears.
At the north end of the valley a long line of horsemen was moving
forward, bright banners fluttering above them, and creamy clouds of dust
billowing up behind them.
Barth rode up to him, his eyes bright, his thick lower lip curving
upward in a smile. "King Manfred has agreed to let you attack first. The
Swabian knights are now ready. We will be behind you. Slow their charge,
and then we will smash them." He struck a mailed fist into a mailed
palm.
Exultation bubbled up within Daoud like a desert spring. Dizzy with joy,
he thought Baibars must have felt like this when he alone led the
Mamelukes against the Tartars at the Well of Goliath.
A certainty that the battle was as good as won spread through him.
"If we leave you any Frenchmen to smash," he said to Barth, who laughed,
saluted, and rode away.
_Have a care_, he warned himself. _What happens today will be as God
wants. I want only whatever God wants._
He jerked on the reins of his brown Arabian to turn toward the French
charge. They were still far away. The valley was long. He called Omar
and Husain to him.
"Bows and arrows. Spread out in a line. When we are formed up, advance
at a trot on my signal."
He unstrapped his bow from his saddle and slung it over his shoulder and
across his chest.
The five flag men lined up behind Daoud. On their right rode a naqeeb
holding high the green banner of the Sons of the Falcon, inscribed in
dazzling white lettering with a verse from the Koran: HAVE THEY NOT
SEEN THE BIRDS OBEDIENT IN MIDAIR? NONE UPHOLDETH THEM SAVE GOD.
Omar rode down the line relaying Daoud's orders to the officers and flag
men. When all was ready, Daoud raised his hand and brought it down. A
single line of two hundred horsemen, they moved out at a trot. While his
men could fire arrows from a galloping horse, the slower the horse was
moving, the more accurate the shooting.
He could see what was coming at him much more clearly now. The middle
and rear ranks of the crusaders were obscured by dust, but in the front
ranks a hundred or more helmeted heads bent over the armored brows of
their huge horses. The long poles of their steel-tipped lances pointed
at him.
To be hit by one of those knights galloping at that speed, with all that
weight of steel and horseflesh, would be like being hit by a boulder
from a stone caster. If the Franks got much closer, there would be no
stopping them.
Daoud unslung his bow. From the corner of his eye he saw the flag men,
whose duty it was to watch his moves and signals, lift five red pennants
high. He did not need to look to know that the Sons of the Falcon had
all dropped their horses' reins, guiding their horses with their knees,
and were drawing their bows.
His bow, like those his men carried, was double-curved, made of multiple
layers of horn and hardwood. His arrow had a thick steel tip that could
punch through mail armor like a spike driven by a hammer. He took aim at
a big Frank in the middle of the line. The intersection of the limbs of
the red cross on the Frank's white surcoat made a perfect spot to aim
at. Between two beats of his Arabian's hooves, he loosed his arrow.
The flight of Daoud's arrow was the signal for the red flags to go down.
Two hundred arrows whistled across the rapidly narrowing gap between
crusaders and Sons of the Falcon.
Daoud saw the man he had fired at throw his arms wide. His lance dropped
as he leaned sideways from his saddle. He crashed to the ground and
disappeared under the hooves of the horses behind his. His lance fell
across the paths of the oncoming crusaders and another of the big war
horses tripped over it, dumping its rider.
All along the crusaders' front, knights were spilling from their
saddles, horses were falling, lances were flying.
_Over a hundred years they have fought us, and they have never learned
to use the bow from the saddle._
Many riders in the crusaders' front rank were still galloping toward
them. And more in the rear ranks were dodging or leaping the fallen
knights and horses. Daoud whipped a second arrow from the quiver hanging
at his side, nocked it, and took quick aim.
His arrow went true again. He saw the targeted man fall. And the Sons of
the Falcon were pouring volleys of arrows into the Franks. Every third
crusader, in the front ranks at least, must be a dead man.
Daoud heard himself yelling in triumph. If they broke this first French
charge, the rest of Manfred's army could sweep the field clear of the
enemy.
The charge was slowing down, but it was still coming on.
"Split ranks! Pass them on either side!" Daoud called to Omar, who
relayed the order to the flag men.
Daoud heard a sound like an earthquake behind him and looked around. The
elite of the German knights, Manfred's Swabians, were galloping on in an
arrowhead formation. If the French knights and their horses were big,
the Swabians looked even bigger. He saw the nodding green plumes of
Manfred's helmet at the very point of the wedge. The surcoats of knights
and horses were ablaze with red and blue, orange and yellow.
Beyond Manfred's knights Daoud saw lines of crossbowmen formed up before
the walls of Benevento. Sophia was there in that little town. He wanted
to keep himself between Sophia and the French.
But Omar had relayed his order to the flag men and the yellow and green
flags had gone up, and, disciplined as any of his men, he rode off to
the left, turning the side of his Arabian toward the onrushing
crusaders.
When he reached the right flank of Charles's knights, he turned again so
that he was riding past them. He fired arrow after arrow as he went, as
fast as he could and still hit his mark.
He saw a tall figure in a red surcoat with a red helmet shaped like a
bishop's miter. Almost certainly de Verceuil. The cardinal brandished a
club with an iron ball at the end of it. Daoud loosed an arrow at him,
but de Verceuil lifted a red shield bearing a painted gold cross that
caught the arrow and sent it spinning away.
_I wonder if he recognizes me._
Looking north, Daoud saw Anjou's foot soldiers with spears and crossbows
advancing at a run, but they were far behind the last of the Frankish
riders. Charles must have thrown all his knights--eight hundred of them,
Manfred had said--into this first charge. He, like Manfred, must have
hoped to end the battle--even the war--with a single charge.
Farther to the north, beyond the foot soldiers, a dozen or so horsemen
in yellow and purple cloaks gathered under a red banner bearing a black
figure. It was too far away for Daoud to see clearly, but he knew that a
black lion on a red background was the standard of Charles d'Anjou.
Now Daoud and his left half of the Sons of the Falcon were beyond the
French knights. He ordered the flag signals that would turn his wing to
ride back the way they had come.
Dozens of Franks had died under their arrows. The charge had slowed,
with confusion on the front and confusion on the sides. Daoud felt
ripples of triumph course through his body. They had done the very thing
Manfred said no Saracen cavalry could do.
_We stopped the charge of the Frankish knights._
But looking toward Benevento, Daoud felt triumph turn to dismay. The
flying wedge of Manfred's knights had pushed itself deep into the French
line, but then had come to a stop. Even though the Sons of the Falcon
had hurt them and halted them, the French had held their formation. They
had not broken under the Swabian attack.
Daoud groaned in anguish. Both sides had stopped in their tracks, and
where they faced each other their formations had crumbled into a hundred
individual combats.
This was just what Daoud had feared and warned against. Endless
butchery, futile bloodletting, a battle that would go as badly for the
winner as for the loser.
_There must be another way_, Daoud thought desperately. _There must be a
Mameluke way to win this._