Why did I ever make love to him?
Sophia had asked herself the same question countless times since that day by the wooded lake. For two months she had managed to keep away from Simon. Now he was here, in Ugolini's mansion.
She stood before the door of Ugolini's audience room. The servant who had come to fetch her was about to open it. Sophia's hands felt coated with frost. Terrified of being with Simon again, she hated herself for what she had done. To Daoud, to Simon. And to herself.
The servant opened the door. She stepped through quickly and he closed it behind her.
And there was Simon de Gobignon, tall and handsome as ever, looking down at her reproachfully. Tension made her heart beat so hard that she wanted to put her hand on her chest to still it. Instead, she held her hand out so that Simon could bend down from his towering height and kiss it. She was so upset by his unexpected arrival that she did not comprehend his murmured greeting.
Behind Simon's back Ugolini, sitting at a large writing desk, rolled his eyes and stretched his mouth in a grimace at her. Simon was still bent over her hand, so she was able to shake her head slightly in answer to his unspoken question. Simon must have come here as a last resort, because after yielding to him in secret she had tried to shut him out of her life. She could hardly convey that to Ugolini now, even if she wanted to.
"The Count de Gobignon has come to call on you, my dear," said Ugolini, his smooth voice betraying none of his anxiety. "I have given my permission, provided it is also your wish."
"Your Signory pays me too much honor," she said softly to Simon. Her mind spun. How could she talk to Simon, when she did not understand herself well enough to know what lies to tell him?
She wondered what Ugolini would think of her if he knew all of what had happened between her and Simon when they met that day. Would he be shocked? Contemptuous? Would he tell Daoud? All he knew of her meeting with Simon in October was that Simon had again proposed marriage to her, and she had rejected him.
She said, "I find it hard to believe that Your Signory even remembers me. I do not believe we have seen each other since the reception for the Tartar ambassadors at the Palazzo Monaldeschi last year. Is that not so?"
An appreciative smile replaced the somber expression on Simon's face. His eyes twinkled at her. Doubtless he thought they were conspirators together.
The poor, poor boy.
But she could not see that look warming his sharp-pointed features without feeling it again—that surge of desire that had driven her to give herself to him two months ago.
What is happening to me?
"Many months have passed and much has happened, Madonna," he said, "but—forgive me if I am too forward—I have found it impossible to forget you. Now that we are together in a new city, I hoped to renew your acquaintance."
"This endless moving about will be the death of me," said Ugolini unhappily. "Papa le Gros no sooner arrives from England and is officially elected than he tells us he will be crowned in Viterbo and make that the new papal seat. I have hardly had time to unpack here in Perugia."
"Your furnishings seem in good order to me, Your Eminence," said Simon with a smile, looking around the large room with its row of large windows, its thick carpeting, and its heavy black chairs and tables. A large shield carved in stone over the fireplace behind Ugolini was painted with five red bands on a white background.
"These are not mine," said Ugolini, waving a hand dismissively. "Not my idea of comfortable surroundings at all. No, I simply bought this house and its furnishings from a Genoese merchant who was using it only part of the year. I would be ashamed to tell you how much I paid for it—you would think me a fool. A typical Genoese, he took advantage of my need. And now I must sell all, probably to the same merchant and probably at a loss."
"That is another reason why I wanted to see you, Madonna Sophia," said Simon. "I feared that you, like your good uncle, might find all this uprooting tiresome and might return to Sicily, and I would be hard put to find you again."
With an inward shudder, Sophia realized the strength of Simon'sresolve to possess her. Only the truth would kill that determination, and she would never dare to tell him that. Besides, there was a part of her that, mad as it was, delighted in seeing how powerfully he was drawn to her.
"I am thinking of going home myself," said Ugolini. "What need for me to go with the new pope on this tedious search for ever-safer safety?"
"If you returned to Sicily," said Simon to Sophia, "it might be ages before I see you again."
His words frightened her. Was he about to ask Ugolini for her hand, and how would the cardinal deal with that?
"Forgive me if I raise an unpleasant subject," said Ugolini, "but if your Count Charles d'Anjou accepts the pope's offer of the crown of southern Italy and Sicily, it may be a long time before any French nobleman will be welcome in my homeland."
There was no "if" about what Charles d'Anjou would do, Sophia thought. That was just Ugolini's courtesy.
"I know, Your Eminence," said Simon, looking grim. "I hope you will still think of me as your friend, despite events. Just as we have been friends while we disagreed over this matter of the Tartar alliance."
Ugolini clapped his hands suddenly. "Well, it is a happy occasion when my niece has such a distinguished visitor. Count, this house has a second-story loggia overlooking the atrium. It is private enough to shield you from prying eyes, yet not so private as to place you lovely young people in peril of temptation. Sophia will show you the way."
Bowing and thanking Ugolini, Simon followed Sophia out of the room.
She turned to Simon as soon as the door of Ugolini's audience chamber had closed behind them and said, "I need my cloak for the cold. Wait here, and I will go to my room and get it." Without giving him a chance to answer, she hurried down the corridor, desperately trying to make sense of her thoughts and feelings.
Their lovemaking had been a terrible mistake. And yet, there had been times in those two months when the recollection of the two of them, wrapped in his cloak, lying on a bed of leaves, the depth of his passion for her and the wildness of her answering feelings, crept up on her unexpectedly and sent thrills of pleasure coursing through her.
As she rummaged in her chest for a warm cloak, her eyes met those of her icon of Saint Simon Stylites, and she felt shame wash over her.
How can I think that I truly love Daoud, when I gave myself so freely to his enemy?
But had that not been what Daoud had expected her to do all along? He had always been jealous, had always made it obvious that he hated the idea of her letting Simon court her. And yet, from the time he first encountered Simon, he had made it equally obvious that he expected Sophia to do whatever was necessary to make Simon fall in love with her. And from the moment Simon had kissed her in the Contessa di Monaldeschi's atrium, he had loved her, and never stopped loving her.
But to make him love her, she had pretended to be an innocent young Sicilian woman who could be overwhelmed by her love for a French nobleman. Sadly enough, she felt more joy and peace of mind as that Sicilian girl than she ever had known as a woman of Byzantium. And the confusion about who she really was had become much worse after she decided to keep secret from Daoud Simon's destination when he left Orvieto.
She felt a pounding pain inside her skull, and she pressed her hands against her bound-up hair. She shut her eyes so tight that she forced tears from them, and a little groan escaped her.
She was sure of one thing: If she had much more to do with Simon de Gobignon, the confusion she felt would probably drive her mad.
She fumbled through her chest and found a rose-colored winter cloak lined with red squirrel fur. She threw it over her shoulders and clasped it around her neck, the fur collar gently brushing her chin.
Simon was waiting where she had left him. He had allowed his bright blue cloak to fall closed around his lanky frame, so that he looked like a pillar. She wrapped her own cloak around herself, and side by side they walked to the stairs at the end of the corridor.
They said nothing to each other until they were out on the loggia under a gray sky. A chill wind stung Sophia's cheeks. She looked down at the rows of fruit trees in the atrium below. Their bare branches reached up at her like long, slender fingers.
"I cannot understand you," he said. "Why have you been so cruel to me?"
That sounded like typical courtly lover's talk, but she knew he meant the words literally. She looked at his face and saw the whiteness, the strain around his mouth, the slight tremor of his lips. He looked like a mortally wounded man.
"I, cruel to you? Did I not beg you to stay away from my uncle?Look what you have done today. He will send me to Siracusa for certain."
But she felt something break inside her at the sight of his pain. She had done this to him. She had hoped to give him something by letting him possess her one time, to make up for all that she could never give him. Instead, with the gift of her body she had bound him to her more tightly than ever. And then, haunted by her own feelings and the memory of what they had done together, she had simply tried to have nothing further to do with him. And now her effort to break with him was hurting both of them far more than if she had refused him that day.
"You drove me to this," he said, his eyes wide with anger. "You did not answer my letters or acknowledge my poems. When I tried to speak to you in the street and in church, you avoided me. I sent you gifts, and you sent them back."
She really would have to get out of Perugia. Back to Daoud. This would tear her to pieces.
But what about Rachel?
If she left Perugia, that would be as good as abandoning Rachel. She had sworn to herself never to do that.
Simon guards the Tartars. He must know what has happened to Rachel. Perhaps he can help her.
She stopped walking and leaned against the stone railing of the loggia. The leafless branches in the atrium below them rattled in the wind.
"There are many reasons that I did not want to see you. I do not know whether you would understand all of them. But one is that I have heard something very ugly about those Tartars of yours." She had decided not to admit that she knew Rachel. That would take too much explaining and too many more lies, and the lies would be like hidden holes in a leaf-strewn path, to trip her up.
"One of the Tartars, those men you guard so carefully, kidnapped a young girl from Orvieto and is holding her a prisoner now, here in Perugia at the Baglioni palace. It makes me unhappy to know that you are the protector of men who would do such things."
Down below, two of Ugolini's servants brought out baskets of newly washed tablecloths and bedlinens and began spreading them on the branches of the trees to dry. Sophia spoke in a lower voice, giving details of the attack on Tilia's house by de Verceuil and the Tartars as if it were something she knew about only through hearsay, while Simon looked more and more unhappy.
He frowned at her. "I know of this girl. It is John Chagan who keeps her. But what is she to you? She is not even a Christian. I am surprised that a woman of good family like you should worry about a prostitute."
How easy for a count to look down on a girl like Rachel. She felt her back stiffen with anger.
How he would despise me if he knew what I was.
But what am I?
"Does it lower me in your eyes that I worry about such a girl?"
He waved his hands placatingly. "No, no. Such charitable feelings do you credit. Iwouldlike to help her, and I know Friar Mathieu has already tried. I just wondered howyoucame to know and care about this girl's case." He looked earnestly into her eyes. His eyes were a blue as clear and bright as that lake where they had lain together.
"The story is talked about by all the servants and common folk of the town. I feel very sorry for her. She is just a child. I find myself imagining how she feels—kidnapped, helpless, raped by this barbarian, a prisoner. Have you not seen her yourself?"
Simon nodded reluctantly, looking away. "Yes, glimpses. She stays in her room."
"She is forced to stay in her room." Sophia sensed that Simon knew more than he admitted about what the Tartar had done to Rachel and was ashamed to be connected with it.
"What has this to do with you and me?" he demanded.
"You are close to the Tartars. You might be able to help her."
Simon glowered. "If I had been there that day in Orvieto, you may be sure they would not have raided that brothel."
He might be on the enemy side, she thought, but he was not a savage like the Franks of her childhood. He was a genuinely good man, and that was what made the hopeless dream of marrying him so painful.
She put her hand on his arm and squeezed. "Will you try to get the Tartar to release the girl? Cardinal Ugolini will take her in."
When she laid her hand on the hard, wiry muscle in his arm, she did not want to let go.
I still want him! My God, what is the matter with me?
"De Verceuil would oppose me if I tried to take the girl away from John. Incredible, is it not? A cardinal involved in kidnapping a young girl for the pleasure of a barbarian?"
Sophia, taught by her Greek Orthodox priests that the Roman Church was a fountainhead of wickedness, did not think the cardinal'sactions all that incredible. Besides, was she not in league with another cardinal who was helping the Muslims?
"Theremustbe a way to help Rachel," she said.
He brought his face close to hers. "Sophia, I will speak to Friar Mathieu. But, as I said, he has already tried to persuade John to let the girl go free. With no success. And I am sure there is nothing more Friar Mathieu can do before tomorrow, when I leave Perugia."
She loved that serious, intent look. It was as if light were coming from his eyes.
But what he had just said took her by surprise.
"Leave Perugia? Where are you going?"
He shook his head. "No one is supposed to know."
"Simon!" She put anger into her voice, knowing he was vulnerable. If she could get some information of use to Daoud from him, she would have an excuse for having let Simon make love to her. And with Daoud far away in Manfred's kingdom, there was no chance this time that he could hurt Simon.
He touched her cheek with the tips of his long fingers, and she could feel him struggling with himself.
"Swear you will tell no one."
"Of course."
He really thinks I can be depended upon to keep an oath.
"All right. I had a message from Count Charles—he who gave me this task of guarding the Tartars. He calls me to meet him at Ostia. That is why I came here today, even though I knew you would not want me to. Knowing I would be leaving here and might not see you for months made me desperate."
Charles d'Anjou at Ostia—the seaport of Rome!
As she realized what Simon's words meant, terror raced through Sophia. She was going to fall from the loggia and break into a thousand pieces, like an icicle.
Anjou was going to take Rome and cut Italy in half. Instead of trying to cross the Alps and then fight his way through the Ghibellino cities of northern Italy, Charles must have come by sea. Now he would be able to strike directly at the heart of Manfred's kingdom.
What will Daoud do? What will happen to Manfred? If only we had Tilia here, with her carrier pigeons.
Despite her fur-lined cloak, a chill seized her.
She had feared for Daoud, that he might have to fight a great French army. And though she had long since ceased to love Manfred, she had feared for him and his kingdom. But the thoughtof the many obstacles between France and southern Italy had comforted her. Now, knowing that Charles d'Anjou was so close to Manfred's kingdom, she felt herself actually trembling.
He put his hand on hers. "You're frightened."
Staring down at the bare trees, she whispered, "Yes, for my people."
His hand gripped hers tightly. He bent down so that he was speaking softly into her ear.
"I know you cannot forget your people, but you could escape this war. My service is done, now that the new pope has confirmed the alliance with the Tartars. I do not have to stay in Italy."
She was glad he did not want to fight for Charles. The thought of him and Daoud meeting on a battlefield was horrible. But surely this brother of King Louis would make every effort to draw Simon into the war.
"Count Charles will want you to fight."
"If you will marry me and come to Gobignon, nothing else will matter to me. We will live content in my castle in the heart of my domain. We will shut out the world and its wars."
She turned to look at him, and the longing on his face was painful to see.
She felt the tears coming, hot, blurring her vision.
"Simon, I cannot!"
His grip on her hand was painful. "Again and again you say that to me. And you never tell mewhy. Are you secretly a nun? Have you taken vows? Does your husband still live? I demand that you tell me! Stop tormenting me like this." His usually pale face was suddenly scarlet with rage.
His anger dried up her tears.
I know how I can put an end to this.
"I will, Simon. But I am not ready to speak of it today."
"Thenwhen?"
"Go now and meet your Count Charles at Ostia. By the time you come back to the papal court we will probably have moved to Viterbo. And when I see you again, I will tell you why I cannot marry you."
The shadow cleared from his face. "Do you promise with all your heart? And if I can persuade you that your reason is not good enough, then will you marry me?"
For a moment she hesitated. Even though her life depended on deceiving him, she could not bear to make such a promise. But then she saw that she could honestly agree to what he asked.
"If you still want me to marry you—yes."
I can say that because if you ever come to know my true reason for not marrying you, you will hate me more than you have ever hated anyone in your life.
He left her soon afterward. She went back to her room and cried for most of the afternoon. Every so often she looked up to see the icon of the desert saint staring at her. She saw the same reproach in Simon Stylites's eyes that she had seen in Simon de Gobignon's.
Though the day was cold and damp, the sky an ugly, unwelcoming gray, Simon's first view of Rome brought tears to his eyes. He came out of a small grove of cypresses on the east bank of the Tiber to see gray walls, punctuated by square towers, spread wide before him. Beyond the walls, out of a haze of dust and wood smoke, above masses of peaked roofs, crenellated palace towers rose lordly, vying for ascendancy with the bell towers of churches. Marble buildings adorned with white columns crowned the hills.
The swift-moving brown river on his left bent around the walls and disappeared beyond them.
Even though he did not want to be part of Charles d'Anjou's invasion of Italy, the thrill of seeing Rome for the first time made up for his distress.
Rome was by no means as beautiful a sight as Orvieto, but it awed him to think that this city had ruled the world when Jesus walked the earth. What must it have been like to be a Roman legionary, returning to this place from a victory in some far-off land? This dirt track would have been a well-paved road then. Looking off to his right, he saw fragments of wall bounding the edge of a field, and a broken, fluted column rising among olive trees, quiet reminders that the city had once extended into these fields and beyond.
Simon was mounted on a borrowed war-horse, a mare whose shiny coat reminded him of Sophia's hair—a brown so dark it might be taken for black. After many hours of riding, the mare's rocking pace had chafed the insides of his mail-clad legs.
He rode a few yards behind Count Charles d'Anjou and the three knights Charles had appointed marshals of his army. When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw a column of mailed knights riding three abreast strung out along the Tiber for nearly half a mile, and beyond them, almost obscured by clouds of yellow dust, clinking files of men-at-arms, crossbows and spears over their shoulders.
Unimpressed by the sight of Rome, Anjou and his commanders carried on an argument.
"You are a hard taskmaster, Monseigneur," said Gautier du Mont, whose bronze hair was cropped in the shape of a bowl, slightly tilted so that the back was lower than the front. "To make your knights ride half a day in full armor when they have not seen a denier from your coffers since we sailed from Marseilles—you demand too much." The points of du Mont's mustache hung below his chin. Simon had heard he was little better than a routier, a highwayman, who had begun his knightly career by robbing travelers who passed his castle in the Pyrenees.
What Simon had seen thus far of Charles's army made the enterprise look decidedly unsavory. Before reaching Ostia, Simon had expected that the men Charles commanded would be vassals, men who had received land from him and were bound by ancient oaths. He quickly realized that all of these men were adventurers with little or no holdings of their own, in this enterprise with Charles for whatever they could gain. Charles could command them only as long as they could hope to grow rich in his service.
Simon supposed this was the best Charles could do, since King Louis had refused to help him raise knights and men and insisted that he hire them himself. Knights willing to go to war for hire could not be expected to be the better sort. Not only did Simon not want to make war on the Italians, he wanted even less to be associated with men like the ones Charles had recruited.
Unlike his three marshals, who were all bareheaded, Charles wore a helmet. A steel replica of his count's coronet ringed its pointed top. Beside him rode an equerry with his personal standard, the black silhouette of a lion rearing up on its hind legs against a flame-red background. Charles turned so that his big Capetian nose was outlined against the iron-gray sky.
"You complain, du Mont, because I ordered our knights to wear full armor?" said Charles. "I did it for their own protection. I expect to meet resistance."
Only eight hundred knights and two thousand men-at-arms, Simonthought.Hardly enough to take Rome, if the Romans do decide to fight. Nowhere near enough to beat Manfred.
He had been shocked when he arrived at Ostia last night and found out how small Charles's invasion force was. Being a part of this war was going to be downright dangerous.
"Time enough for us to don armor when the resistance appears," said Alistair FitzTrinian, a knight from England whose face was a mass of smallpox scars. Simon had so far been unable to look at the man without having to freeze the muscles of his face to keep from wincing.
Count Charles sighed, and held out his arm in the direction of Rome. "Look there, gentlemen," he said in a patient tone, as if instructing schoolchildren. "The Romans are not waiting for us to put on our armor."
Simon followed his pointing finger and saw a gray mass spreading out into the field near one of the city's gates, flowing around cottages and groves of trees. It appeared to be a great crowd of several thousand citizens. Fully alert now, Simon heard a dull roar, like the hum of a swarm of bees, that sounded decidedly hostile. He felt a twinge of fear.
"Get your helmets on, the three of you," Charles snapped. "Set an example for the rest, or may the devil carry you away!"
The three commanders slowly and sullenly pulled on their helmets, which had been hanging down their backs from straps under their chins. The manner of the three marshals toward Count Charles shocked Simon. If these were the leaders, what In God's name could the rank and file be like?
Any one of my Venetian archers or the Tartars' Armenian guards would be worth a dozen of these.
As the army of Anjou, with Charles and Simon and the three marshals in the lead, advanced slowly, Simon noticed that six or so men, several hundred paces in front of the shouting citizens, were walking to meet them.
In a short time the small delegation stood before Count Charles, blocking his path.
Charles raised his arm, and the knights behind him shouted the order to halt down the line. How would Count Charles deal with the representatives of an unfriendly populace, Simon wondered. This should be interesting. He might learn something.
The count turned to Dietrich von Regensburg, his third commander. "I want a troop of the Burgundian pikemen up here now. Surround these fellows." Von Regensburg, a knight with hard blue eyes, a flattened nose, and a huge jaw, saluted and swung his dunhorse around to ride back to the long line of men-at-arms following Charles and his knights.
Anjou's order made Simon uneasy. Why try to frighten these Romans? Would it not be better if he could enter the city with their approval?
Then he beckoned Simon to bring his horse up beside him. "No doubt you speak Italian better than any of us. Translate for me." He glowered down his long nose at the Romans who had approached him. "I am Count Charles d'Anjou. I have come here as protector of the city of Rome, at the request of His Holiness, the pope."
Simon repeated this.
"Rome needs protection only from you!" one of the men shouted.
"There is no pope," another called out. "The old one is dead and the new one has not been crowned."
Simon could hardly believe his ears. He had heard that Roman citizens were unruly; that was why the pope had moved away from Rome. But the way these men addressed the Count of Anjou, the brother of the king of France—it was unthinkable. It was madness. The count might not understand their words, but the disrespectful tone was unmistakable.
Hesitantly, he translated. Charles stared at the six Romans, his swarthy face expressionless.
Charles's great black and white war-horse shifted his legs restlessly, and Charles stilled him with a jerk of the reins. Even the horse sensed the Romans' anger.
"Silencio!" ordered a Roman somewhat taller than the others, with a shock of iron-gray hair and an angular jaw. He wore a mantle of deep maroon velvet trimmed with white fur, and a longsword hung from his jeweled belt. He bowed courteously to Count Charles and Simon.
"Your Signory, I am Leone Pedulla, secretary of the Senate of Rome. We come, with all respect, to pray you to turn back. The city of Rome rules herself. We are most distressed to see a foreign army, a French army, approaching our walls. If you wish to visit us and confer with our leading citizens, leave this army behind. Come to us as a guest, bringing a few of your barons with you. We will then offer you our hospitality. We ask you to leave us in peace."
Simon wished himself far away as he translated for Anjou. These Romans did not know Count Charles.
As Simon was conveying Leone Pedulla's speech, a line of big, bearded foot soldiers carrying spears taller than a man, wearing leather cuirasses and wide-brimmed helmets of polished steel,marched forward, boots crunching on the stubble of the harvested field. At von Regensburg's command, the pikemen formed a ring around the Roman delegation. The Romans' eyes darted anxiously from side to side.
Charles said, "Simon, tell this impertinent fellow who calls himself secretary of the Senate just this: I order him to clear away that rabble blocking the city gates."
Simon repeated the count's command in Italian. His heart began to beat more rapidly as he sensed an evil moment coming closer and closer.
"The people standing before the walls are citizens of Rome, Your Signory, acting legally to protect the city from what seems to us a foreign invader," Pedulla answered. "I cannot tell them to go away."
Simon wished he could soften this when he translated it. Charles's mouth drew down in a harsh, inverted V.
"Very well." He turned to von Regensburg and pointed. "I would prefer to hang them, but it would take too long. Use your spears on them."
Dear, merciful God, do not let this happen!Simon prayed.
"No!" Pedulla cried, his voice shrill with horror as the German knight shouted a command and the Burgundians leveled their spears. It was the gray-haired Roman's last word. His hand had not quite reached the hilt of his sword when a bearlike foot soldier lunged at him, driving a spear through his embroidered tunic into his chest. The pikeman thrust the steel point in low enough to miss the breastbone but high enough to pierce the heart. Pedulla did not even have time enough to finish his scream.
"Clemenza, per favore!" cried another Roman who a moment ago had been shouting defiance. A spear point caught him in the throat.
Simon wished he could turn his eyes away, but he did not want Charles and his marshals to think him squeamish. His heart thundered and his stomach churned, and he feared that his body would betray him. The other pikemen moved in quickly, taking long steps as if performing spear drill, holding their pikes near the points for close work. A moment later they stepped back from a heap of sprawled, dead bodies.
God! How little time it takes to kill a man!
Now Simon did look away. The blood, the staring, dead faces, the twisted arms and legs, were too pitiful a sight to bear.
Simon remembered de Verceuil's ordering the archers to shoot into the crowd at Orvieto. This was worse. These men had beendiscourteous, perhaps, but they were officials of the city, on an embassy. And Count Charles had ordered them killed as calmly as he might order his army to break camp.
This was the man whose wishes had governed Simon's life for over a year. Simon felt his bond to Charles as a terrible chain and he longed to be free.
This is a taste of what will happen to Sophia's people if Charles conquers Manfred. If only she will let me take her to Gobignon, so she will not have to see such things.
Count Charles raised a hand encased in a gleaming mail glove. "Forward."
"One moment, Monseigneur," said Gautier du Mont, his sharp voice cutting through the sounds of the army resuming its march.
Charles turned to him impatiently. "What now, du Mont?"
"Monseigneur, we have just killed the emissaries of the Romans. I fear we will now have to fight that mob. Look. They are coming at us."
Simon looked over toward the city. The mass that had emerged from the city, a long line of people stretching eastward from the Tiber to a distant forest, was moving through the fields and olive groves. To Simon's eye they appeared to vastly outnumber Charles's army. Simon could see swords gleaming and spears waving. They formed no ranks and files as a professional army would, but they came on inexorably like the waves of the sea, and their shouts were angry.
Simon felt cold fear sweep away the sick pity he had felt for the executed Roman delegation. That huge mob was a formidable sight.
"Of course we will fight them, du Mont," Charles answered, his voice rising. "One charge and we will scatter them to the winds."
True, thought Simon. Crowds of villeins or peasants were no match for disciplined fighting men. But just how disciplined was the force behind Charles?
"I think, Monseigneur," said du Mont, "that before we do any fighting, it is appropriate to discuss the terms of our payment."
Oh, by God's white beard!Simon swore to himself. They were about to be attacked by five or more times their number, and these bastards were arguing about money. They ought to be stripped of their knighthoods.
"I have told you my gold shipment was late getting from Marseilles to Ostia," said Charles in a placating tone. "You will be paid. Tonight, tomorrow, or the next day it will catch up to us."
"Then tonight, tomorrow, or the next day, Monseigneur," saidthe pock-marked FitzTrinian, "you can command us to charge that rabble."
The Roman mob was close enough now for Simon to make out what they were shouting.
"Muorire alla Francia!"Death to the French!
The cry sent a bolt of fear through Simon. They would have to do something at once.
Were Charles's lieutenants actually going to sit on their motionless horses and haggle with him until these infuriated Romans fell upon them? Not just Charles's venture was at stake, but their own lives. Could they be stupid—or greedy—enough to let themselves be overwhelmed while they argued about money?
Yes, they could be. That stupid and that greedy.
Simon's fear transmuted itself to anger. These men were a disgrace to chivalry. Worse, as marshals of an army commanded by King Louis's brother, they dishonored France. He almost wanted to draw his sword against them, his disgust was so great.
"You speak of dishonor when you are refusing to attack an enemy in the field at the order of your seigneur?" Charles shouted.
"We are not refusing, Monseigneur—" Alistair FitzTrinian began.
Simon had heard enough. If Charles's hired commanders would not command, he would.
"Follow me, Thierry." Simon swung his horse around to ride toward the rear of the column. His face was hot with anger.
Simon felt little sympathy for Charles; he had chosen these men. But Simon de Gobignon, at least, was not going to let himself be set upon and murdered by a crowd of commoners, even if those commoners had ample justification. Nor was he going to allow French arms—if these blackguards Charles d'Anjou had hired could be said to represent French arms—to be disgraced. He had learned somewhat about leading fighting men in the last year. He could do what was needful, since no one else seemed about to.
He galloped past the files of mounted knights who crowded the road beside the Tiber. Beyond them were the foot soldiers. If those Burgundians who executed the Roman delegation were any example, the men-at-arms might be more reliable than the knights. Simon searched the column for the sort of men he needed.
He saw, just past the end of the line of mounted men, two score or more of archers in blue tunics with longbows slung over their backs. He was not experienced with the use of the longbow in battle, but what he had heard about its long range suggested that it might be very useful just now.
"Suivez-moi!" he shouted. The archers stared at him and drew themselves up straighter, but looked puzzled. Of course, Simon thought. The longbow was a weapon favored by the English. He beckoned with his hand, and the Englishmen ran to him. Good.
"My lord, I speak un peu Français," said one of them, whose crested helmet marked him as a sergeant. "If you give your orders to me, very slowly—"
"Good," said Simon, pleased with the man's readiness to cooperate. He explained what he wanted.
"Suivez-moi," Simon called again to the longbowmen, and their sergeant repeated, "Follow me," in English. He trotted off, keeping the dark brown mare to a pace that would allow running men to follow him.
When they came to Charles and his three mutinous lieutenants, still arguing, the Roman mob had advanced close enough for Simon to be able to make out individuals. They were almost all men, as far as he could see, with a shouting, fist-shaking woman here and there, and mostly dressed in the plain browns and grays, whites and blacks, of common folk. Men with swords and spears made up the forefront. A few men on horseback with lances and banners rode on the flanks of the mob. Someone was carrying a red and white banner, a design of keys and towers.
For a moment Simon hesitated. He did not want to kill these people.
But there was no way of stopping the Romans, and no one else was able or willing to act. If he did nothing, Charles's army would be destroyed and Simon would probably be killed along with everyone else.
He remembered something Roland, his true father, had told him many years ago:No one who wants to live through a battle can afford to feel sorry for the men he is trying to kill. Make sure you kill them first, and then you can mourn for them afterward.
Putting his sympathy for the Romans out of his mind, Simon began to give orders to his archers. He deployed them in a line stretching from the Tiber to a thick grove of trees to the east. Through their sergeant he told them to shoot at the front and center of the oncoming Romans. He noticed that the voices of Count Charles and his antagonists had fallen silent.
They are watching me, he thought, and hoped no one would try to stop him.
When the Englishmen had their arrows nocked and their bows drawn and aimed, Simon shouted, "Tirez!"
They understood that well enough.
The arrows flew in flat curves across the narrowing distance between Count Charles's army and the Roman citizens. Simon saw men falling and others tripping over them.
"Encore!" Simon cried, but then looking back at his little troop of archers saw to his surprise that the Englishmen had already loaded and fired a second time. He had not known that the longbow could be fired again and again so quickly, much more quickly than the crossbow. Screams of panic and pain arose from the mob before him.
I am killing poor people who are trying to defend their city.
A pang of shame swept through him, and he hesitated before giving the next order. But he remembered Roland's advice. The longer it took to drive these Romans back inside their gates, the more blood would be shed, and the more likely that lives would be lost on his side.
"Fire into the midst of the crowd," he told the English sergeant.
The arrows arced high into the overcast sky and fell like dark streaks of rain. The Romans were milling about, some trying to help the wounded, some running away, some shouting orders or pleas, trying to control the confusion.
Simon rode out in front of the bowmen.
"Advance and keep firing," he called to the sergeant. "Keep it up, keep pushing them back."
He heard an arrow whistle past him. So the Romans also had some archers among them. He was too excited to feel any fear.
The longbowmen marched out into the field, stopping at intervals to load and fire, then advancing again. They hardly had to aim. Anywhere the arrows fell in the mob, packed closer together in retreat, they would wound or kill. Simon heard shouts and screams of terror from across the field. The Romans were falling over one another, trying to get away. None of the poor devils was wearing armor.
Where were the professional defenders of the city, Simon wondered.
The great crowd was falling back toward the city's gates. Like the debris left by a wave receding from shore, bodies, dark clumps, lay thick in the stubble of the harvested fields. Simon saw a man throw his arms around the trunk of an olive tree and slowly slide to the ground. He saw the red and white banner fall, then someone pick it up and run with it. Three men lay draped over low stone walls, arms and legs twitching.
The farmers' fields between Count Charles's army and the walls of Rome were littered with the dead, the dying, and the strugglingwounded. Simon wanted to call back the archers. He felt as if he had loosed a great rock from the top of a hill and it was rolling downward, unstoppable, destroying everything in its path.
The Romans were running desperately, and the pity he had forced himself not to feel while he was fighting them rose up to overwhelm him. His heart lodged in his throat like a rock, and tears crept out of the corners of his eyes.
In God's name, what have I done?
"Magnificent, Simon! You did admirably."
Charles d'Anjou had ridden up beside him and was grinning out at the carnage in the fields of stubble. His dark eyes were alight with pleasure. He struck Simon on his mailed back, one of those hard blows he was fond of.
"What presence of mind! What initiative!" He lowered his voice. "You could not have done better if we had planned it ahead of time. You saved me a fortune in gold."
He spurred his black and white charger closer to Simon's mare and leaned over to kiss him emphatically on the cheek, his stubble scratching Simon's face.
"I don't understand," said Simon.
Charles drew back and looked at him with narrowed eyes. "You don't? Well, you did the right thing. We'll talk about it later."
He turned and shouted at his three commanders. "You see, idiots! One French knight with his head on his shoulders can do what all of you and all your knights could not."
"We were not attempting to do anything," du Mont said sourly, pushing his helmet back off his bowl-shaped hair.
"Those were the bowmen I brought from Lincoln you used, Monseigneur de Gobignon," said FitzTrinian. "You did not have my permission."
In his present mood, Simon wished the pock-marked knight would make an issue of it.
"Do not make yourself more ridiculous than you already are, Sire Alistair," said Charles.
"We still have not settled this question of pay," said Dietrich of Regensburg.
"Go pick the purses of those dead men out there," said Charles with a scornful laugh.
Again Simon was sickened by Charles's manner. He had expected that the count would punish his rebellious commanders. Hanging would be an excellent idea. Flog them out of the army, at least. Instead, he continued to argue with them, even banter withthem, as if they were all a pack of merchants in a money changer's shop.
To get away from the wretched business, Simon kicked his dark brown mare into motion and, followed by Thierry, rode out toward the city. He wished desperately that he were back in Perugia with Sophia.
He had seen enough killing in Orvieto, especially the night of the attack on the Palazzo Monaldeschi, to harden him. Still, it made his heart feel heavy as stone in his chest to see so many lives cut short. And by his command.
What pain it must be to die. To have your life stopped, forever.
He recalled the arrow that had whizzed past him. He could easily have been killed.
He rode toward the walls of Rome until they towered over him. The crowd of citizens who had come out to stop Count Charles was gone—those able to flee. There were only the dead and dying scattered in the stubble field around him. Simon tried to avoid looking at the wounded. If it had been one or two men, as it had been that day at Orvieto when de Verceuil ordered the crossbowmen to fire into the crowd, he would have tried to help them. But there were too many here.
His contingent of English archers marched past him on their way back to the main army, their work done. They gave him a cheer, and he, in spite of his heavy heart, did as a good leader should and smiled and waved.
"Good work, my friends! Well done."
He looked ahead again, and saw that the nearest gate, the one through which most of the retreating citizens had run, hung open. He pulled his horse to a stop.
I am not going to be the first of these invaders to enter Rome. I have no right to be here.
Five horsemen appeared suddenly in the gateway. More resistance?
These men were richly dressed, their scarlet capes billowing as they rode toward him. Their hands were empty of weapons.
The rider in the lead was a man with a glossy black beard and a sharply hooked nose. He reminded Simon a little of the Contessa di Monaldeschi.
"I am Duke Gaetano Orsini," said the bearded man. "These gentlemen represent the families of Colonna, Frangipani, Papareschi, and Caetani. We have come to greet Count Charles, and to welcome him to Rome." These men, Simon thought, must comefrom some of the families whose fortified towers loomed over the city.
Their sudden appearance made Simon angry. It was all happening backward. They should have come out first and made peace with Count Charles, and then there would have been no need for all this butchery.
Simon identified himself. "I will take you to Count Charles." The Roman nobles doffed their velvet caps to Simon, and he touched the brim of his helmet.
As their horses trotted across the field, Simon observed Orsini's gaze traveling coldly over the bodies of the fallen Romans. Some of them, still alive, called out to him pleadingly. He ignored them.
Simon could not resist saying, "If you had come out to welcome Count Charles before these others did, much bloodshed might have been prevented."
Orsini shrugged. "Necessary bloodshed. The mob that threatened Count Charles was incited by the Ghibellino faction in Rome. They tried to get the city militia to join them, but we held the professionals back. Indeed, we have heard you killed one of the leaders of the popolo minuto, the lower orders, Leone Pedulla. That was well done. His loss will be a blessing to this city, as will the loss of these other troublemakers."
Simon felt as disgusted with this man as he had with Charles's marshals. Unable to keep order in their own city, the nobility of Rome approved the slaughter of their people by foreign invaders. It was despicable. Count Charles would have to deal with them, but he himself would speak no more to these poltroons who called themselves gentlemen.
They rode in silence toward the advancing Angevin army of Count Charles. The count's black and red lion banner fluttered over his steel coronet. He was riding toward Rome again with his commanders behind him as if all their differences were settled.
Charles and his leaders reined up before the new delegation from Rome. The Count of Anjou greeted these representatives of the great families of Rome with courtesy, dismounting and embracing Gaetano Orsini. He assured each Roman nobleman, Simon interpreting, how happy he was to see him.
"I believe it would be best if my men and I were to camp outside the city walls for tonight," he said, looking down his large nose at Orsini.
"I was just about to suggest that," said Orsini. "The city is quite crowded."
"Perhaps less crowded now." Charles laughed, with a nod atthe fields where wailing men and women were walking, trying to find their dead and bear them away for burial. "At any rate, I will enter the city tomorrow."
"All will be prepared for Your Signory. The loyal supporters of the Parte Guelfo are eager to greet you. You will be made an honorary patrician. There will be banners, cheering crowds, music. The militia will parade for you. It will be a true Roman triumph." Orsini was all smiles and flourishes.
Charles smiled. "A triumph. Yes, and I assume that a triumph will include tribute?"
Orsini's smile faded. "Tribute?"
Charles nodded slowly. "To be exact, I will require three thousand florins to be delivered to me tomorrow morning before I enter the city, to compensate my men, whose pay is in arrears. I will have further requirements, but I will not press you for all at once. Three thousand florins will be enough for tomorrow."
Simon saw von Regensburg and FitzTrinian grinning at each other.
Orsini's mouth worked several times after Simon translated Charles's demand for three thousand florins. "But, Your Signory, we welcome you as our protector, not as one who comes to—to take from us."
Charles laughed and threw his arms wide. "Protectors cost money, my dear Orsini. I am sure the great city of Rome can scrape together three thousand florins by tomorrow. It will not be necessary for me to send my army into the city to help you find the money, will it?"
"Not at all necessary, Your Signory," said Orsini, bowing, his face flushed to the roots of his black beard.
These Guelfo nobles apparently had thought that the count of Anjou had come to Rome purely out of some high-minded desire to serve the pope and the Church, Simon thought. They were starting to learn what Simon himself had gradually come to realize: that Count Charles did nothing that did not first and foremost benefit himself.
As for himself, Simon's deepest wish was to get away from all this slaughter and pillage and dishonor, and the sooner the better.
"Rome is an old whore who lies down for every strong man who comes along," said Count Charles. "All we needed was to show our resolution when that mob came at us, and Rome fell over backward."
The two men sat across from each other at a small camp table inCharles's tent, sharing wine and succulent roast pork killed and cooked by Anjou's equerries. Simon stared into the flames of a six-branched candlestick standing on Charles's armor chest at the side of the tent, and thought that he would far rather be exploring the wonders of Rome he had heard so much about—the Colosseum, the Lateran Palace, the Forum, the catacombs.
Simon remembered his mother's warning of years ago:Charles d'Anjou uses people.How often, with Charles, had he suspected, feared, that she was right? But those boyhood years in Charles's household, Simon's weapons training under Charles, his feeling that King Louis was a sort of father to him and Count Charles a sort of uncle, all made him want to trust Charles. But it was becoming impossible to do that, especially since Avignon, when Charles asked him to betray the king's confidence. Even now, though he wished they could get back on their old footing, he found himself wondering whether that old footing had been an illusion. Perhaps all along Charles had been kind to him only the better to use him.
He was terribly afraid that he knew what Charles wanted to talk to him about tonight. He had seen the sorry quality of Charles's army, and he had been impelled, almost against his will, to take the lead when the Roman mob was attacking. If Simon were in Charles's position, he knew what he would want.
"You did just the right thing today, Simon," Charles said. "Those three cutthroats would never have let themselves be overrun, nor would I. But I hadn't paid them in a while, no fault of mine, and they saw that as an excuse to try to extract a promise from me of an additional monthly five florins per knight and increases for the common soldiers as well. They thought the sight of that mob would force me to yield to them."
So their refusal to act was a pretense, Simon thought. But he began to feel disgusted with himself. Of all of them, he was the only one who had been duped.
Charles went on. "They were testing my courage. They did not know me well. They know me better now. I would have stood my ground until they were forced to turn and defend themselves. But you settled things by taking those archers out into the field and driving the rabble off. And a good thing you did, because the situationwasrisky. They might have waited too long to attack, and we might have lost lives unnecessarily. It was a dangerous game they were playing."
And a dangerous game you were playing, Simon thought. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. Charles had usedhim, just as Mother had warned, and he felt angry enough to speak frankly.
"It was mutiny. In my opinion you should have hanged those men. They are little better than routiers. But all you did was haggle with them."
Sipping from his goblet, Charles lounged back on his cot and laughed. "Ah, Simon, I forget sometimes that you have never been in a war. This is the way it always is. Especially at the beginning. These men—du Mont, FitzTrinian, von Regensburg, and their followers—are hirelings, and when one goes shopping for an army, one buys, not the best there is, but only the best that is on the market."
Simon wanted to lean back as Charles had done, but there was no back to the stool he sat on. Charles's furnishings were as meager as everything else about his army.
"I fear for you, uncle, I really do. Not only are your knights undisciplined, but you are so few in number." He instantly regretted saying that. It would give Charles an opening to ask him for help.
Charles smiled complacently. "And you think Manfred von Hohenstaufen, with his host of Saracens and Sicilians, will march up here and chew me up, is that it?"
"Well—perhaps."
Charles swirled his wine cup and drank from it. "A bigger army would have cost me far more to ship and far more to pay, feed, and quarter while I am here. I needed this much of an army to establish myself in Rome. I do not need more until I actually make war on Manfred, and that may be as much as a year from now. Tomorrow I will enter Rome in triumph, and I will have myself declared chief senator of Rome. Eventually Guy le Gros—Pope Clement, he is calling himself—will crown me king of southern Italy and Sicily. As my renown spreads, fighting men will come flocking from all over to join my cause. And they will have to come in on my terms. Then I will be ready to march south."
The whole reason Charles had first sent Simon to Italy—to engineer the conquest of the Saracens by Christians and Tartars—was that no longer important to him? Charles had said nothing about the Tartars since Simon arrived in Ostia last night.
"The new Holy Father has already proclaimed his approval of the Tartar alliance," Simon ventured.
"Excellent," said Charles, nodding. He stood up and poured more wine for himself and Simon.
Sitting down again on his camp bed, he went on. "Your guardianshipof the Tartars, too, has been superb, Simon. You proved that I judged wisely in picking you for that task. I am delighted."
Feeling pleased with himself, Simon took a long drink of the heavy red Roman wine. "Then, since the pope has publicly given his approval, shall I escort the Tartars to your brother the king, so they can plan the crusade?"
"The crusade?" Charles lay back on his cot, propped up on one elbow, and stared into his wine cup and said nothing further.
"Would it not be safest to conduct them to the king at once?" Simon pressed him. "Our enemies may still try to kill them, even though the alliance is proclaimed."
Charles shook his head. "The last attempt to kill them was many months ago."
True, Simon thought. The stalker in black seemed to have given up or disappeared.
"Yes, but that Sienese attack on Orvieto—"
Charles interrupted. "De Verceuil got the Tartars out of Orvieto safely. And that attack was aimed at the pope, not the Tartars. After all, who has been trying to kill the Tartars, and why? Manfred's agents, because they knew that if the pope approved the Tartar alliance, my brother would then give me permission to march against Manfred."
Simon remembered King Louis saying he wanted to be ready to launch his crusade by 1270, now only five years away.
"But preparations for a crusade take many years," Simon said. "Should not the Tartars go to the king now, so they can begin to plan?"
"I do not think they should visit my brother just yet," said Charles. "His mind so easily fills up with dreams of recapturing Jerusalem." Simon caught a faint note of mockery in Charles's voice. "The presence of the Tartars at his court might distract him from his more immediate responsibilities."
"Then what will we do with the Tartars?" Simon asked, nettled.
"Let them remain with le Gros's court in Viterbo. It honors the pope to have those strange men from the unknown East at his coronation. Then, when he comes here to present me with the crown, let them come, too, as my guests. Indeed, they can stay with me after that. They will be safer with me than they would be anywhere else in Italy. And it might interest them to see how Christians make war."
They would be safer still in France.
He could have taken Sophia and the Tartars to France together, leaving the Tartars safe and well guarded with King Louis, and thengoing on with Sophia to Gobignon. And getting away from Charles and his war.
"How many more months will I have to stay in Viterbo guarding the Tartars?" he said with some irritation.
Charles put down his wine goblet suddenly and stood up. He seemed to fill the tent. The candles on the chest lit his face from below, casting ghastly shadows over his olive complexion.
"Simon, I feel I can speak more frankly to you than I ever have. It is nearly two years since I asked you to undertake the guarding of the Tartars. The way you acted today showed me that you've learned a great deal in that time. You have seen the world. You have seen combat. You have learned to lead."
He praises me because I was so quick to mow down a hundred or so commoners, thought Simon.
"Thank you, uncle," he said tonelessly.
"I did not summon you from Viterbo just so you could accompany me from Ostia to Rome, Simon. You saw what my routiers—as you called them—are like. And when I am inside the city I will be in much greater danger from that Roman canaille than I was in the field today. I need a good leader with me whom I can trust. I want you to stay here in Rome with me."
Simon's chest ached as if chains were wrapped around it.
"How long?"
"At least two months. By then Sire Adam Fourre, my chief vassal from Anjou, will be here with seventy knights and three hundred men. A small force, but one I can depend on. I will feel more in control of these brigands then."
"But who will guard the Tartars while I am here?" he asked, desperately trying to think of an excuse that would get him back to Sophia.
Charles shrugged. "De Verceuil can look after them."
For over a year now he had been guarding the Tartars with his life, at Charles's request. Now Charles hardly seemed concerned about them. It was bewildering.
And when will I see Sophia again?he cried inwardly.
He could simply refuse to stay in Italy a moment longer. He could just get up right now and leave, go to Viterbo and find Sophia.
No, he could not do that. He had come to Italy toredeemthe name of the house of Gobignon, not besmirch it further. What a scandal if the king's brother were to charge that Simon de Gobignon turned his back on him when he was in peril. What would the king and the nobles say of him then in France? He must see this through, at least until Charles was securely established in Rome.
But pray God Charles did not ask him to stay with him beyond that.
"You do not need to go back to the Tartars at all," Charles said. "It seems to me that phase of things is settled. I think it would be more important for you to go home, this summer, to Gobignon."
Simon's heart leapt with amazement and joy as the words sank in. "Yes! Yes—I want to—very much," he blurted out. "I want that more than anything else."
If I can take Sophia with me.
Charles came around the table and laid a heavy hand on Simon's shoulder. Simon, still seated, had to twist his neck to look up at him.
"Do you remember when we first spoke of your guarding the Tartars I promised even greater opportunities for glory? I said that you would ride in triumph through fallen cities."
"Yes," said Simon after hesitating a moment. He knew where Charles was leading this, and felt a hollow of dread growing in his stomach.
Charles bent down, bringing his face close to Simon's, his hand still pressing on Simon's shoulder. The Count of Anjou's eyes glowed green in the candlelight, and Simon felt paralyzed by his gaze, as if Charles were a basilisk.
"Simon de Gobignon," Charles said solemnly. "I invite you to join me in the conquest of Sicily, and to share with me in the spoils. I ask you to bring the army of Gobignon to this war."
God's blood, protect me!
"I cannot make my vassals come here," Simon ventured. His voice sounded weak in his ears.
Charles's face came closer still.
"Makethem come? They will beg you toletthem come. This will be the greatest war since you were a child."
Simon gathered his thoughts. "Their obligations to me are limited. Many owe me only thirty days' service. Some are not required to serve outside Gobignon boundaries, need only fight if we are invaded."
"Your father brought four hundred knights and two thousand men-at-arms with him on the crusade my brother and I led into Egypt."
Yes, and lost them all.
"But that was a crusade, and the ordinary obligations did not apply," Simon said.
"This will be a crusade. The pope is going to declare Manfred an infidel, an enemy of the Church, and proclaim a crusade against him. But this will not be like crusading in Outremer, where there isnothing to be gained but sand and palm trees and—spiritual benefits." Again Simon heard that hint of mockery in Charles's voice. "Southern Italy and Sicily are the wealthiest lands in Europe. Riches for everybody! Just go back and tell your seigneurs and knights about that. They will plead with you to lead them hither." He smiled sarcastically. "I know what a dedicated farmer you are. So get the harvest in—and then bring your army south for the real harvest. The prospect of wintering in Italy instead of in the north should delight them."
In all his life, Simon thought, he had never wanted anything less than to lead the knights and men of Gobignon to Charles's war. He thought of Gobignon, so far away in the northeast corner of France. What business did his people have in Italy? Inevitably, many Gobignon men would die, and how would Simon face their families?
But, sadly, he realized Charles was right in his prediction. Simon could think of dozens of young barons and knights in the Gobignon domain who would ride singing to a war waged for glory and riches.
He chose his words carefully, not wanting to offend Charles. "This question of the crown of Sicily—it does not touch Gobignon in any way that I can see. It would not be right for me to lead my people to war over it."
Surprisingly, Charles smiled. "I understand, Simon." He patted Simon's back. He straightened up and strode back to the other side of the table and sat again.
"You do see my point, uncle?" Simon said nervously.
Charles nodded, still smiling. "Why, indeed, should the Count de Gobignon come to the aid of the Count d'Anjou? I am glad to see a bit of shrewdness in you. It means you are growing up. But I will answer you in one word. Apulia."
Simon hunched forward. "Apulia?"
"The southeast of Italy. The richest of Manfred's provinces. Where he has always chosen to live, and his father Frederic before him. Simon, Count de Gobignon, Duke of Apulia. How does that sound? In one short war you would double your land holdings and triple your wealth. Now do you see how this war touches you?"
What Simon realized, with a clarity that chilled him, as if he had suddenly seen in Uncle Charles the mark of some dread disease, was that he and Charles d'Anjou were utterly different kinds of men. As Count of Anjou and Seigneur of Arles, Charles already ruled a domain bigger than Gobignon, and he thought it the most natural thing in the world to want more.
Why do I not want more? Should I? Is something wrong with me?
It was all too much for Simon to think through now, while Charleswas pressing so. He had to get away from him. It occurred to him that he could agree now to join forces with Charles, then go back to Gobignon and renege on his promise. Charles would be far too busy fighting in Italy to try to force him to bring troops from Gobignon.
No, that probably would not work. It would be stupid to think he could outwit a man as experienced in statecraft as the Count of Anjou. Once Simon promised, Charles would no doubt find a way to force him to make good.
"Uncle Charles, I cannot decide in one evening the future of thousands of people whose lives and souls I am responsible for."
Charles shook his head. His face was darkening; he was getting angry.
"You sound like my brother, talking about the difficulty of making royal decisions. God's bowels, boy! Deciding what's best for our subjects is what we were born to do. Where is the Gobignon in you? Your father, Count Amalric, for all he went wrong at the end of his life, would have known how to seize a moment like this. How do you think that splendid domain you've inherited was built up? Empires must grow, or they wither and die. It is a law of life."