"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," said the
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 struggling wounded.
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 with them, 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 come from 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 at the 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?"