lmost have brushed the ground. His little
cart was piled with broken tree limbs, firewood to sell in the city.

The dwarf lifted his head and grinned at Daoud through a bushy black
mustache. Daoud smiled back, thinking, _God be kind to you, my friend_.

From within the city issued a familiar cry, in Arabic, that tore at
Daoud's heart: "Come to prayer. Come to security. God is most great." It
was the adhan, the cry of the muezzins in the minarets of Lucera's
mosques. For, though he was in a Christian land, Lucera was a city
mostly populated by Muslims.

Daoud wanted to fall to his knees, but he was pretending to be a
Christian, and could only stand and ignore the call to prayer as the
Christians around him did. He said the words of the salat, the required
prayer, in his mind.

The people near Daoud spoke to one another sleepily, softly, in the
tongue of southern Italy. Someone laughed. Someone sang a snatch of
song. When the Muslim prayer ended, they expectantly looked up at the
town wall.

Daoud saw two soldiers standing in the tower to the left of the gate.
They were accoutred in the Muslim manner, with turbans wrapped around
their helmets and scimitars at their belts. One lifted a long brass
trumpet to his lips and blew a series of notes that sent shivers along
Daoud's spine. With a few changes it could have been the call that had
awakened him every morning in the Mameluke barracks on Raudha Island in
the Nile.

Using ropes, the other soldier hoisted onto a tall pole a yellow banner
bearing a black bird with spread wings and claws, and two heads facing
in opposite directions. The double-headed eagle of King Manfred's
family, the Hohenstaufen.

With a great squealing of cables and squeaking of hinges, the tall
wooden door swung wide.

Daoud reached down and picked up the leather pack that had lain between
his feet. Leaning forward, he pushed his arms through the shoulder
straps.

He wore draped over his pack a long countryman's cloak of cheap brown
wool. His tunic and hose were of lightweight undyed cotton. Only his
high boots were expensive. He needed good ones for the long walk from
the coast to Lucera. A sword swung at his belt, short and unadorned, the
sort any man of small means might wear. He had chosen it in El Kahira
out of a stack of swords taken from Christian men-at-arms during the
last crusade.

He drew the hood of his cloak over his head. Later his blond hair and
gray eyes would guarantee tha