Chapter 29
The track had climbed high enough to give him a view of the south end of the valley. With a glow of pleasure he saw that Daoud had kept the Sons of the Falcon intact. There was their green banner with its white inscription. There were their turbans, red dots forming a line across the valley.
A warm feeling swept over him as he made out Daoud's figure in the center of the line. Never had he met a man he admired more, not even Manfred. He caught himself praying that Daoud would live through the battle and be victorious.
He had seen the Sons of the Falcon attack earlier today and check the first French charge with their volleys of arrows. Now they seemed to be riding to attack again. What was their objective?
A flash of light above the battle caught his eye. Sunlight reflected on metal. He looked across at the bare gray rocks that topped the high ridge on the other side of the valley. He could see beyond the rocks the tips of a pine forest. Again the flash of light.
Helmets.
Ten or more conical helmets appeared between the forest and the rocks. Men were crawling over the top of the ridge. The lower slopes of the ridge, on the valley side, were heavily forested. Those men would be quite hidden from anyone looking up from the valley.
Who were they? And how many? The hills over there could conceal hundreds. They could be some of Manfred's troops, sent up there to make a surprise flank attack. But Manfred had rejected just such a plan.
He remembered now a conversation between Daoud and Manfred at dawn. Not all of Charles's allies had yet arrived. The Gobignon banner, for instance, had not been seen with Charles's army.
That could be a whole fresh army of Frenchmen up there on that ridge, about to fall like an avalanche on Manfred's forces.
And Daoud's Sons of the Falcon were rapidly advancing up the valley.
Lorenzo felt himself trembling. He wanted to scream a warning.
_I have to reach Daoud._
He jerked the horse to a stop and called to Rachel and Friar Mathieu.
"I have to leave you."
"Lorenzo!" Rachel's eyes were huge with terror.
He took her hands. "Listen. I love you like my own daughter. But I have just seen something--I have to warn them. Daoud--David--will be killed."
"David of Trebizond?" said Friar Mathieu. "You called him Daoud?" The old priest's eyes were alight with sudden understanding.
"Never mind." Lorenzo heard his own voice rising in panic. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then plunged back into the cart and seized the saddle he had tucked away in the back. He jumped down from the cart, unhitched the gelding, and threw the saddle over its back.
"Oh, my God, Lorenzo!" Rachel screamed. "Take me with you. Don't leave me here."
"I will be back for you," he said as he fought to get saddle and bridle on the horse. "I swear it. I have no time to talk. I have to do this." Wanting something more than a dagger to defend himself with, he grabbed the crossbow he had taken from the guard at the Tartar's tent, and strapped the quiver of bolts to his waist.
The gelding expelled a breath as he threw himself on its back.
Rachel was still screaming, but he could not make out her words over his horse's hoofbeats as he galloped away.
"Forgive me!" he cried over his shoulder.
LXIX
Daoud's dark brown Arabian stallion sidestepped a knot of fighting men. Daoud's heart beat slowly and heavily in his chest like a funeral bell. The field was still a chaos. The battle was still in doubt. But in individual combats more of Manfred's men than Charles's were falling. Daoud had seen--and it had made him almost angry enough to want to break out of his formation and pursue them--a group of Apulian crossbowmen running off the field. Bands of Charles's knights were getting together and overwhelming smaller bands of Manfred's.
It was the power of Christianity, Daoud thought. Charles's men had been told by the pope himself that they were crusaders waging a holy war and would be taken up into heaven if they died in battle. Manfred's Christian warriors had been excommunicated, without the sacraments, for over a year, and many of them believed that if they were killed they would go to hell. Daoud could not be sure how strongly the men on either side felt about these things, but it could be enough to tilt the battle slowly in Charles's favor.
On Manfred's side, the only ones who felt they were waging a holy war were the Sons of the Falcon.
Daoud recalled Lorenzo's words to Manfred months before: _I have never in my life doubted the_ power _of religion, Sire._
Manfred himself had disappeared into one of these whirlpools of combat. Daoud had searched everywhere for Erhard Barth, who should be pulling Manfred's army together and giving orders, if Manfred would not do it himself. He could find the marshal nowhere. There were no plans. There were no leaders.
The Arabian's broad back rolled easily under him. He had kept the Sons of the Falcon in formation, ordering them to advance, hoping for a chance to strike a decisive blow. Staying out of the fighting they passed, moving around the groups of struggling men and reforming ranks, was frustrating for his men, but so far their discipline had held.
Staying together had protected them too. He estimated he had lost only about twenty men so far.
Music, familiar martial music of the kind he had often heard in El Kahira, flared up behind him, sending a thrill up his spine. The little mounted Muslim band had kept pace with the Sons of the Falcon.
He and the Sons of the Falcon had reached the midpoint of the valley. Benevento behind him and Charles's camp ahead were equally distant. In both directions the sights were the same--horsemen flailing at each other with swords and axes and maces, crossbowmen and pikemen struggling among the horses' legs. Few arrows flew now, because an archer was as likely as not to hit someone on his own side.
Daoud narrowed his eyes. He saw again at the north end of the valley the brown hill, a bit higher than any near it, the cluster of men on horseback.
Sunlight glittered on a helmet adorned with a crown.
He felt suddenly lifted up. He wanted to laugh aloud.
_Lord of the worlds! You have shown me the way!_
With one blow they could end the battle.
"Omar!"
His second in command rode to his side, white teeth shining in his thick black beard.
Daoud pointed up the valley. "Do you see that red and black banner and that group of knights under it? Do you see a gold crown shining on a helmet? That is Charles d'Anjou, he who would steal our lord Manfred's throne."
"I see him, Emir Daoud. May God send him to the fire whose fuel is men and stones."
"May we be permitted to help God send Charles d'Anjou to that fire. There is nothing between him and us but men fighting one another and a line of foot soldiers we can sweep away with our arrows."
"I see, My Lord. I see."
"Pass the order to charge. Charge at the red and black banner."
"Gladly, My Lord. Death to Charles d'Anjou!"
The blue flags, signal for a charge, rose and waved over the Sons of the Falcon. Daoud felt the tension build in the men riding beside him. He unslung his double-curved Turkish bow and held it high for all his men to see.
The naqeeb who carried the banner rode out before them, holding up the green silk with its verse from the Koran.
"Yah l'Allah!" Daoud shouted. He put all his strength, all his will, into the cry.
His men took it up.
"Yah l'Allah!"
"Allahu akbar!"
He brought the bow down to his side. The blue flags dipped. The kettledrums rumbled and thundered to a crescendo. The trumpets blared. He drove his heels hard into the Arabian's flanks. The horse catapulted forward instantly, throwing Daoud back against his saddle.
He leaned into the cold wind, squinting his eyes against the rush of air, feeling it blow through his beard. He looked to the right and to the left. The Sons of the Falcon were racing beside him, these good men, these warriors to whom he had taught his Mameluke's skills, these comrades he had come to love.
_Now we are truly Sons of the Falcon. We dive to kill our prey._
His left hand held the reins lightly, giving the horse his head. At this speed he had to trust the horse to find the way. They were partners. They jumped over a dead crossbowman. They leapt a great fallen Frankish charger. Daoud felt as if he had wings. He laughed aloud. They dodged around a melee. He rocked to the jolting as the horse's hooves hit the ground.
There ahead, the red and black banner planted in the soil of the hill was much closer. Daoud could clearly make out the black rampant lion. He could see the tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a blood-red cloak and the helmet with the gilded crown. The man was staring this way, perhaps only now becoming aware of his danger.
A crossbow bolt hummed viciously past Daoud's ear. To his right a man cried out and fell from the saddle. Hamid. He felt a moment's pain.
No time for fear or sorrow. He crested a small hill and saw lines of crossbowmen on a long rise of ground that ran across the valley. They were far away, still small figures, but growing larger as Daoud galloped on. They were turning their backs, having just fired. Their first volley had hit only a few of Daoud's men, because the Sons of the Falcon were still out of their crossbows' short range. Facing Daoud now were the big rectangular shields they wore on their backs. The row of shields leaned away from him as the men bent to draw their bows.
Charles d'Anjou and the men around him were gesturing and pointing. Did they really expect these archers to save them?
Daoud pulled an arrow from his saddle quiver and nocked it.
"The instant they turn, shoot!" he shouted. He heard his order echoed as the word was passed down the line. The red flags went up. He took aim at the back of a man in the center of the crossbowmen's line.
The archers whirled, bringing their bows up. The red flags dipped. As he felt his galloping horse's hooves leave the ground, Daoud released the string. He saw the man he had targeted drop his bow and fall to the ground.
The Falcons' arrows swept the crossbowmen like a scythe. The powerful Turkish bows could shoot farther and be reloaded faster than the European weapons. The few archers not felled by their volleys ran to the sides of the valley to safety.
Charles was too far away for Daoud to read his expression, but his arms were waving frantically, as if he were trying to conjure up knights out of thin air. The men around him clutched at him, clearly telling him they must ride for their lives. One of Charles's men had pulled the red and black banner out of the ground and looked ready to gallop away with it.
Daoud slung his bow across his back and drew his long, curving saif from the scabbard. The noonday sun flashed on it as he held it high. His men roared and brandished their own swords.
The band had caught up with them, and the trumpets and hautboys screamed death to the enemy while the kettledrums rumbled.
There was nothing left to protect Charles d'Anjou now. There was not even time for the French leader to run for it. He seemed to know it. He had his sword out and he held up a white shield with a red cross.
Urging the Arabian on, shouting the name of God, Daoud raced toward triumph.
* * * * *
On hands and knees Simon stared horrified as the long line of red-turbaned riders charged at Charles's position.
The Saracen riders still had half the length of the valley to cross before they reached Charles's position. The French foot archers--some of them must be the same men Simon had briefly commanded before the gates of Rome--were lining up to protect their king. There was time, but very little.
"God have mercy!" exclaimed Antoine de la Durie.
Simon backed away from the hilltop, stood up, and turned. All down the side of the ridge hidden from the valley of Benevento, rows of knights sat on their great horses, hefted lances, thrust at the air with their swords. Some were still struggling into their mail shirts with the help of their equerries. Hundreds of faces looked up inquiringly at Simon. Trees hid the rest of his army, farther down the slope.
He took the polished helmet Valery held for him, its top adorned with an angry griffin spreading its wings, and set it down over the padded arming cap that held it in place.
De la Durie, de Marion, de Puys, and ten more barons gathered around him. They waited silently for him to speak.
He was shaking inwardly, and prayed that it would not show. He was afraid of death and of defeat. But, thank God, he was no longer in doubt about what to do. He knew.
"Over a hundred Saracens are about to fall upon King Charles. There is no one near to help him. We must go down there now and stop them. Straight over the side of this ridge. Mount your horses."
"But, mercy of God, Monseigneur!" cried de Puys. "That slope is long and steep. There is a forest. The men will fall. The horses will break their legs. We must find a path."
"There is no time to explore, de Puys. There are many paths down. We will find them. The horses will find them. We must go now. In a moment King Charles will be dead!"
The equerries holding the Gobignon and crusader banners rolled them up to take them through the forest.
Valery brought Simon's favorite war-horse, the pearl-gray destrier called Brillant. Simon braced himself for the effort, in full armor, of mounting the huge horse. He set his foot in the iron stirrup, hoisted himself, swung his leg, heavy with mail, over the saddle, and settled himself. He drew the Saracen blade Roland had given him.
_A Saracen blade to fight Saracens._
He put fear and doubt out of his mind, drew a deep breath and roared, "Suivez-moi!"
He spurred Brillant and slapped the charger's neck. "Good horse! Find a way down."
Then he had plunged over the edge and into the forest on the other side. He crouched, hiding his face behind Brillant's gray neck, as thick as a tree trunk. A branch struck his helmet with a clang, stunning him slightly, and he bent his head lower.
Twisted trees rushed at him and past him. All around him he heard men shouting, some yelling in wild abandon, some crying out in fear. He heard a terrible crash and clatter and the mingled screams of a man and a horse. Behind him came a thundering like a landslide as more and more of his knights plunged over the edge of the ridge.
He had time to think in jubilation that he had given a frightening, difficult order, and the men had obeyed. Hundreds of knights and men-at-arms were plummeting down this perilous slope because he had told them to.
_If I die today, I die a leader._
But would they reach the valley in time to save Charles d'Anjou? While they rushed and fell and fought their way through this forest, that battle line of Saracens was galloping over easy, rolling ground with only Charles's archers to impede them. Just now Simon was crashing through woods so thick he could not see the battlefield.
Then there was light ahead and a meadow of brown grass. Brillant broke through the brush at the bottom of the slope.
The red-turbaned line was a little past the place where Simon had come out. They were riding those light, fast Saracen horses.
Where were the lines of crossbowmen? Gone--and now Simon saw bodies scattered on the ground where the foot archers had stood.
Charles's banner was still on the same hilltop. In moments the Saracens would be upon him.
"Faster! Faster!" Simon shouted, slapping Brillant's neck as the huge war-horse ran at top speed to overtake the Saracen line.
* * * * *
Daoud charged on, his eyes fixed on the crowned figure under the red and black banner.
The pounding of hoofbeats in the air all around him was suddenly louder than he thought possible. He had been hearing the ululating, high-pitched war cries of his men, but now heard screams of pain and shouts of battle and deeper war cries, voices shouting in French.
Coming from the right flank.
He turned. He glimpsed a purple banner rushing toward him. A white and red banner along with it. The horse beside his was thrown against him by a blow that all but knocked him senseless. Caught between the two horses' flanks, his right leg felt as if it were being crushed. As pain shot up into his hip, he reeled dizzily in the saddle and clutched the reins till his left arm ached, his right holding his saif aloft so as not to stab one of his own men.
His horse fell against the one on his other side. All around him horses and riders were thrown to the ground. The Sons of the Falcon were flung about wildly, their forward momentum broken by some unimaginable force that had hurled itself upon them.
At the sight, he felt a giant hand reach into his chest and tear his heart out.
The Sons of the Falcon were buried under an avalanche of mail-clad Frankish warriors riding huge armored war-horses.
_My God, my God! Why are you doing this to us?_
He wanted to fling himself down from his horse and smash himself on the ground, screaming out his grief. In an instant he had been flung from joy to the very darkest pit of despair. In an instant he saw that everything was lost. His staring eyes were dry. This was all too sudden, too shocking, even for tears.
Where had these devils of Franks come from?
Down out of the hills to the east. They were still coming, hundreds of them, pouring down the forested slope and charging over the level ground of the valley. Broadswords, maces, battle axes, rose and fell. Their war shouts filled the air.
"Dieu et le Sepulcre!"
"L'Eglise et le Pape!"
"Le Roi Charles!"
He saw the green and white Falcon banner go down. He heard the band instruments give out their last ugly sounds as they and the men who played them perished under maces and axes. He saw with agony the deaths of men he had trained and ridden with--Husain, Said, Farraj, Omar--heads smashed, bodies cloven. He felt in his own body the blows that killed them.
Daoud recognized the purple banner now. Three gold crowns. He had seen it before in Orvieto. Simon de Gobignon had come at last to this battle.
He should feel hatred for de Gobignon, but all he felt was a numb despair.
His few remaining men crowded against him, forcing him to fall back. He rode back toward Benevento, away from the triumphant army of Gobignon, crushed with sorrow. The Sons of the Falcon, the force he had taken a year to build, had been destroyed in a flicker of time, as if the earth had opened and swallowed them.
* * * * *
Lorenzo wept and cursed himself for being too late to warn Daoud before the French attacked. He stood on the edge of the field, holding his horse's reins in one hand and his crossbow in the other, watching the French knights sweep across the valley from east to west, trampling everyone in their path. Through his tears he saw the purple and gold banner of Gobignon fluttering against the cold blue-and-white sky.
_Simon de Gobignon. If only we had killed him in Orvieto._
All about him, men rode and ran and fought. Singly and in twos and threes, horses without riders ran wildly this way and that. He wondered if Daoud was still alive. What had happened to King Manfred and the other Hohenstaufen leaders? Charles d'Anjou still occupied his hill at the north end of the valley. Almost overwhelmed at the moment help arrived, he had never moved.
There were fewer and fewer of Manfred's men in sight, and more of Charles's with their accursed red crosses.
A line of about a dozen horsemen was coming toward him at a walk. Most of them wore crosses, but they looked like neither French knights nor their Guelfo allies. Lorenzo rubbed his eyes to clear his vision of tears and took a harder look. Two men rode in the center wearing bowl-shaped steel helmets and gleaming gray mail shirts without surcoats. They held short, heavy bows in their hands. The brims of their helmets shaded their faces, but Lorenzo could tell that their skin was browner than any Frank's or Italian's.
The men flanking them on either side wore conical helmets and what seemed to be leather breastplates and carried long, curving sabers. Bows were slung over their shoulders. One man on the right end of the line was dressed in a steel cuirass.
Lorenzo realized that he was seeing the Tartars and their Armenian bodyguards. And the man with the steel breastplate was Sordello. At the sight of the old bravo, Lorenzo felt fury boiling in him. Back in Orvieto, that man had deserted Daoud and him. Despite that, Daoud had sent him money through Ugolini in Perugia and Viterbo, and Sordello had sent them snippets of information. But Lorenzo had privately vowed that the next time he saw Sordello he would squash him like a bedbug. And now he appeared again, just after Simon de Gobignon smashed Daoud's final hope of victory.
The Tartars talked and gestured to each other, surveying the battlefield. Their attention and that of their guards was on a melee that was rolling rapidly toward them. A boiling mass of horsemen, the survivors of Daoud's Sons of the Falcon battling with the vanguard of the Frankish knights, was struggling its way to the western side of the valley.
Partly hidden from the approaching Tartars by his horse, Lorenzo readied his crossbow. He hooked the bowstring to his belt and put his right foot in the stirrup in front of the bow. He kicked out sharply, straightening his right leg, and the bowstring snapped into place behind the catch. It would be a pleasure to kill Sordello, but his first duty was to kill the Tartars. And thus he would pay the French back for Daoud's defeat. This would be much more satisfying than leaving poisoned wine in their tent. He raised the bow, loaded a bolt, and stepped out into the Tartars' path.
"You little monsters!" he shouted. The younger Tartar, Philip, brought his head up, giving Lorenzo an even better shot. Lorenzo depressed the catch, and the bolt smashed into the center of Philip's chest, right through the mail shirt. His eyes huge, Philip fell out of the saddle. His frightened horse galloped away.
Lorenzo ducked back and bent to draw his bow. A moment later something hit the side of his horse and the animal gave an agonized whinny and fell to its knees. By that time Lorenzo had his bow cocked and loaded again. He rose up from behind his dying horse.
John was just drawing his bow for a second shot.
"For Rachel!" Lorenzo called, and shot John in the same place he had hit Philip, the center of the chest. The force of the bolt knocked John backward.
John toppled from his horse and slid to the ground. He cried out some words in his Tartar language, shivered, and lay still.
Lorenzo stood a moment, breathing heavily. He felt the satisfaction of a man who has done a hard job that he had long wanted to complete. There was no satisfied blood-lust, no gloating over vengeance achieved. It was just the good feeling of an archer whose arrows had gone true.
"Kill him!" Sordello shouted.
The Armenians and Sordello thundered down upon him. Lorenzo set the crossbow stirrup on the ground and put his foot into it, but he knew he would not have time for another shot. He tensed himself for the bite of those saber blades into his unarmored body.
Then, like a curtain, the fleeing remnant of the Sons of the Falcon and the French knights in pursuit on their gigantic horses swept between Lorenzo and the Tartars' guards. Still clutching the crossbow, he ran.
A bay Arabian horse, riderless, its eyes rolling in frenzy, galloped toward him. Lorenzo threw down the crossbow and sprang into the animal's path, spreading his arms wide. The horse tried to dodge around him, but Lorenzo grabbed the reins, dug his heels in and jerked the horse to a stop. He spoke soothingly and rubbed its head, and when it was calm enough, he scooped up his weapon and heaved himself into the saddle.