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 been discourteous,
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