The dawn was streaking the east with faint gold, and transient sunshafts touched the woods, when Francesco stood before the doorway of his lodge of pine boughs. The men of the Duke of Spoleto were gathering in on every side, some girding their swords, others tightening their shield-straps, as they came.
The duke ordered a single horn to sound the rally.
The glade was full of stir and action. Companies were forming up, shoulder to shoulder; spears danced and swayed; horses steamed in the brisk morning air.
At last the tents sank down, and, as the sun cleared the trees, the armed array rolled out from the woods into a stretch of open land, that sloped towards the bold curves of a river.
On that morning Francesco felt almost happy, as his fingers gripped his sword and he cantered along by the side of the duke. The great heart of the world seemed to beat with his.
"The day of reckoning has come at last!" he said to the leader of the free lances.
The duke's features were hard as steel. Yet he read the other's humor and joined him with the zest of the hour.
"You smile once more!" said the grim lord of the woods, turning to the slender form in the saddle.
"I shall smile in the hour when the Frangipani lies at my feet," Francesco replied with heaving chest. "It is good to be strong!"
The duke's horsemen were scouring ahead, keeping cover, scanning the horizon for the Provencals. By noon they had left the open land, plunged up hills covered thick with woods. The duke's squadrons sifted through, and he halted them in the woods under the brow of the hill.