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 noblemen, all in splendid cloaks of peacock 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.