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.