As Manfred crouched over the map, his five-pointed silver star with its ruby center hung over a town, represented on the map by an archway and a church surrounded by a wall. The drawing was marked with the Latin name "Beneventum." "We can be in Benevento by nightfall," said Barth. "And Anjou's army will probably arrive at the same time. There is but one road they can follow." He pointed to a brown line that ran down from a large oval, at the top of the map, drawn around a collection of buildings and marked "Roma." Between Rome and Benevento was a series of towns, each indicated by a drawing of one or two buildings surrounded by walls. Mountains were shown as rows of sharp little points. "Benevento is a Guelfo town," said Manfred, "and deserves to have us move in on it and quarter our troops there. The town is at the end of a long valley that runs north to south. The opening at the north end of the valley is a narrow pass. Anjou's army must come through that pass. They will find it easier to get into the valley than to get out, because we will be waiting for them." Daoud felt a surge of exasperation, and quickly pushed it back down. Anger would not help him. "Waiting for them?" he said. "If we are making war, we do not _want_ to meet them." Manfred frowned. "If we drive them up against the north end of the valley, we will have them trapped." Manfred smashed his fist into his palm. "There will be nowhere for them to escape to." _He is getting tired of my giving advice that contradicts the way he thinks things should be done. After all, he did win battles before I came here._ But to simply meet Charles's army face-to-face, like two bulls butting heads, seemed lunacy to Daoud. "Such a battle will be bad for both sides," he said. "We will butcher each other." _Perhaps I should have spent less time training my men and more trying to teach Manfred._ "We do outnumber them," said Manfred testily. "And if every one of their men kills one of ours and every one of our men kills one of theirs, there should be a few of our men left at the end of the battle. Do you call that a victory?" "Show some respect for your king!" a Neapolitan officer snapped. "No, be still, Signore Pasca," Manfred said to the Neapolitan. "I want to hear Emir Daoud out. What can we do, except meet them and fight them?" Daoud remembered how he had wished that instead of scouts he had set men to ambush the Franks. He studied the map. "Let us send men into the mountains around here and here." He ran his finger over the angular shapes the mapmaker had drawn around Benevento. "Then, when Charles's army is in the valley, we will fall upon it from both sides and destroy it." No one spoke for a moment. The younger Swabian officers were looking at him with mingled horror and disgust. Manfred stared at the map with embarrassed intensity.