Simon, carrying the heaviest rock he could hold, walked in procession
directly behind Charles d'Anjou. They came to the low wooden platform
where the body of Manfred von Hohenstaufen lay, covered by his great
yellow banner with its black double-headed eagle. Charles set his foot,
in a handsome purple boot, on the banner, and leaned over the body with
a large stone.
"Requiescat in pace. May you rest in peace, Manfred von Hohenstaufen."
Carefully Charles set the rock down on the banner-draped figure and
stepped back with a small smile of satisfaction.
"Now you, Simon."
Simon stepped onto the platform. His arms, stiff and sore from
yesterday's fighting, ached as he lifted the stone to place it. He laid
it next to Charles's rock on the inert, hidden form and stepped back.
Gautier du Mont of the bowl-shaped haircut was next. He bowed to Charles
and Simon and put his rock beside theirs.
"Simon, come with me," said Charles. "We have had no chance to talk
since yesterday." He led Simon to a small nearby hill, where they could
watch the long line of Charles's army winding single file through the
gray valley of Benevento under an overcast sky. Each man, by Charles's
order, carried a stone to lay on Manfred's cairn.
"If not for you, Manfred would be burying me today, Simon," said
Charles, his large eyes solemn. "I am in your debt forever, for my
kingdom and my life."
_That should make this a bit easier for me._
"Thank you--Sire."
Du Mont and FitzTrinian, Fourre and de Marion, laid their stones as
Charles and Simon watched. The Burgundian, von Regensburg, had been
killed yesterday, impaled on a Saracen foot soldier's spear. Simon felt
little regret at his passing.
"We are burying Manfred as our pagan ancestors were buried," said
Charles, "but I hope this gesture of respect helps reconcile his former
subjects to me. I fear trouble with them. It has already started. Last
night, after the battle, several men died mysteriously."
"Oh?" said Simon.
"The death that shocked me most was de Verceuil's."
Simon was amazed. "The cardinal?" He could hardly believe it. He
remembered de Verceuil's departure just after the cardinal had killed
Manfred, as Simon and Daoud were beginning their final combat.
"Poisoned," said Charles. "I do not know if it was done by Manfred's
followers or by an enemy of his in our own ranks. You had not heard?"
"No."
Even though one expected to hear, after a battle, of untimely deaths,
Simon's blood ran cold with shock. De Verceuil did not seem the sort to
oblige his fellow men by dying unexpectedly.
A cold wind blew across Simon's neck and whipped the bright purple
woolen cloak Charles was wearing. Charles touched his hand to his gold
crown, larger than the count's coronet he had worn on state occasions in
the past, as if fearing that it might blow away.
"He went to the Tartars' tent looking for them before we learned they
had been killed," Charles said. "Saw a jar of wine on the table. He was
thirsty after the fighting, and took a long drink straight out of the
jar. Those who saw him said that in an instant his skin turned hot and
red. First he cried out that he was blind, then he raved about terrible
visions and began laying about wildly with his mace, so that his
attendants were forced to flee. Then he went into convulsions, and
within the hour he was dead."
Simon remembered Lorenzo saying something about having gone to the
Tartars' tent.
_He was going to make doubly sure he killed them this time. Instead, he
killed Manfred's killer._
"A tragedy," Simon said, sorry that, despite the duty of Christian
charity, he could feel no sorrow.
"Then there was Sordello, your captain of archers who guarded the
Tartars. Did you not hear about him?"
"He has not been under my command since I left the Tartars with you in
Rome," said Simon. He kept trying to think about de Verceuil and prayed
that his face would not give away his knowledge of how Sordello died.
"He and two of his men were found this morning in a building in town.
Sordello had a small puncture in his throat, and one of the others had
been stabbed in the chest with a very thin blade. One of my
priest-physicians looked at the bodies and believes both of them were
killed with poisoned implements. And it appeared the throat of the third
had been torn out by the fangs of some enormous beast."
"Perhaps a watchdog," said Simon. "After all, when troops are turned
loose on a town, one must expect that a few of the citizens will fight
back."
"I am sorry to lose Sordello," said Charles. "A despicable man, but
often useful."
The rocks covered Manfred's body completely now. Only the edges of the
yellow banner were still showing. Those who had placed their stones
stood around in groups to watch the cairn grow.
"These Sicilians will not settle down until the remaining Hohenstaufens
are out of the way," said Charles. "Manfred has three sons and a
daughter. I have to find them and lock them up. Too bad I cannot have
them executed, but they are just children."
_Children!_
Simon prayed that Manfred's children escaped from Charles.
He stood facing Charles, knowing that he was as tall as the new king of
southern Italy and Sicily and that he no longer felt afraid of him.
Fighting in this battle, his near-death at Daoud's hands, the shock and
pain of what Sophia had told him--all together, these things had changed
him. He no longer doubted that he deserved to be the Count de Gobignon.
It did not matter who his real father was. What mattered was that there
was no one else in the world who could rule Gobignon as well as he. In
the past two years he had become the Count de Gobignon in truth as well
as in title. And now all he wanted was to go back to his domain.
To bring up the subject, Simon said, "Friar Mathieu is most grieved at
the deaths of the Tartar ambassadors, but it means you no longer need
him here. He has asked me to take him back to France with me. He has
permission from his order to go. He wants to tell King Louis in person
about his journey among the Tartars. And he wants to spend his remaining
years in France. As for me, I am eager to see my mother and stepfather
in Provence."
_Now that I can face them with a clear conscience._
Charles frowned, throwing his head back and staring down his long nose
at Simon. "You want to go back to France now? But our work here has only
begun."
"If you wish to offer any of my vassals fiefdoms or positions in your
new kingdom, they have my leave to accept. I promised them that when
they came with me."
"But you cannot leave before taking possession of your own dukedom."
"Thank you, Sire. But I have decided that for myself I want nothing."
He had rehearsed that sentence in his mind a hundred times. He was
delighted at the sound of it and even more delighted at the stupefied
expression on Charles's face. It was not often one surprised a man like
Charles d'Anjou.
"_Nothing?_ But that is preposterous. You have come all this way, won
this great victory--has your head been addled by chivalrous romances?
This is not the world of Arthur and Lancelot."
Simon recalled Manfred's last stand on the field yesterday and thought,
_Perhaps that world ended with him_.
Surely Charles, keeping himself well out of the battle and threatened
only when Daoud desperately tried to reach him, had been no figure out
of chivalric romance. This was a man he could not trust, could not
admire, and especially could not like.
"Too true, Sire. But it is a world in which people need decent rulers. I
do not need more land, and the land I already have needs me. If I divide
myself between a domain in northern France and another one here in
Italy, I cannot govern either well. And, frankly, I do not want to live
in the midst of a strange people as a foreign conqueror."
_Giving up this dukedom, too, gives me a better right to be Count de
Gobignon._
"You overestimate the difficulty of governing," said Charles.
_No, you underestimate it_, thought Simon. For Charles governing was a
simple matter of squeezing the people and their land for all they were
worth. And killing anyone who protested, as he had those citizens
outside Rome. If the people were strange to him, all the easier to
oppress them.
"Perhaps what comes easily to you is difficult for me, Sire," he said.
Charles shook his head, then quickly reached up to steady the heavy
crown. "I do not understand you. But that province is too valuable for
me to press it on someone who does not want it. I can use it to reward
others who have served me, not as well as you have, but well enough."
"I hoped you might see it that way."
"But think, since I asked you to guard the Tartars--it has been nearly
three years--you have taken part in great affairs and you have added to
your reputation and restored luster to your family name. You have led
your Gobignon vassals to a victory that has brought them glory and
riches. You have, I tell you again, won my lifelong gratitude. Why
separate yourself from all that now? By what you did yesterday you wiped
out the stain on your family name. Your father betrayed his king and his
crusader comrades, but now you have won a victory for a crusade and
saved the life of a king."
_Yes, but how different those crusades, and how different those kings._
He kept reminding himself that Manfred was an enemy of the pope and
Daoud an enemy of Christendom, but the thought haunted him that through
him great men and a noble kingdom had fallen. Again and again he tried
to push out of his mind the idea that he had been wrong to come here and
fight on the side of Anjou. But he knew it would remain with him,
troubling him, for the rest of his life.
"If you want to show gratitude to me, Sire, the one favor I ask is that
you not press me to stay."
Charles fumbled in a heavy purse at his belt and drew out a long silver
chain. He held it out to Simon.
"Here. I want you to have this, at least."
Simon bowed gravely and held out his hand. Attached to the chain was a
five-pointed star with a large, round ruby in its center.
"Beautiful. Thank you very much, Sire."
"It was Manfred's. He prized it highly, I am told. Called it his 'star
of destiny.' You earned it, I think, by giving me victory yesterday. I
hope it brings you a better destiny than it did him."
Uneasily, feeling that the star was property stolen from a dead man,
Simon took it. He unbuckled the purse at his belt to drop it in.
"Put it on," Charles urged.
Reluctantly, Simon hung the star around his neck.
"I will treasure it," he said tonelessly.
"It is little enough. If you will only consider staying with me, you
will share in spoils that will make that look like a trinket. City by
city I am going to take over not just this kingdom but northern Italy
too. I will unite all of Italy. The Papacy will be solidly under French
control. And then Constantinople. I bought the title of Emperor of
Constantinople from Baldwin II when he fled to Paris after Michael
Paleologos deposed him."
The name of Michael Paleologos was like a blow to Simon's stomach.
Probably it was no more than a name to Charles, but Simon could hear
Sophia saying she had been that same Michael's concubine for a time. He
suffered again as he had last night when he stood with her on the
balcony of that house and she told him at last the truth about herself.
He had felt then as if he were drowning in a lake of fire. And added to
his own anguish had been the realization that her pain, the pain of the
woman he had loved and still loved, had been worse than the worst of
what he felt.
Charles was still going on about his accursed ambitions.
"I mean to make that title a reality. Not since Rome will so many lands
around the Middle Sea have been united in one--empire."
The vision moved Simon, but not as Charles evidently hoped. It sickened
him, and he felt himself in the presence of a monster. Had Charles
forgotten already the heaps of corpses strewn on this battlefield at
dawn, that only now were being hauled away by the wagonload?
Simon remembered the long list of the Gobignon dead that Thierry had
handed him this morning on his return to camp. He thought of the
horribly wounded knights and men he had visited, men who, if God was
kind to them, would be dead in a day or two. His eyes still burned from
all the weeping he had done this barely begun day.
And this man, who had made the rescue of the Holy Land, the defeat of
Islam, and the alliance of Christians and Tartars seem all-important to
him, now spoke of sacrificing thousands and thousands more lives
entrusted to him so that he could realize his dream of being another
Caesar.
_God grant that he does not get what he wants._
The wind from the north blew steadily down the length of the valley. The
pile of rocks over Manfred's body had grown so high the men now had to
throw their stones to reach the top.
"What of our plans to liberate the Holy Land, Sire? What about the
alliance of Tartars and Christians? That is what I gave the last three
years of my life to. Surely that is not dead because John and Philip had
the ill luck to get killed on this battlefield."
Charles pulled his purple cloak tighter around him against the wind.
"The timing is wrong for an attempt to retake the Holy Land. I have no
intention of taking part in a crusade against the Egyptians, with or
without the Tartars."
There it was. Charles had confirmed what Simon suspected about him. He
felt indignation boiling within him, but he tried not to let it sound in
his voice.
"Sire, why did you let the Tartars go into the battle yesterday and lose
their lives?"
Charles's eyes narrowed. "I know what grief you must feel, having
guarded them so carefully for so long. But they insisted. They had
fought against Christians. So now they wanted to see how a battle looks
from our side. They knew the risks. They had been warriors all their
lives. They were my guests, and I had to let them do what they wanted."
Simon looked out at the valley. The line of men carrying rocks to
Manfred's cairn stretched far into the distance, disappearing finally
beyond the crests of rolling fields. The line still looked as long as
ever. It wound past a long, narrow mound of freshly turned brown
earth--the mass grave dug at dawn by prisoners for the dead of Manfred's
army. The man called Daoud--Simon still thought of him as David--who for
more than two years had fought Simon relentlessly, lay somewhere under
that mound of earth. The man Sophia had loved.
Near at hand the soldiers who had added their rocks to the pile were
dismantling Manfred's camp. Tents collapsed in flurries of colored
cloth.
_All these fighting men. And King Louis could have added twice as many
to these. What could they not have accomplished if they had invaded
Palestine at the same time a Tartar army struck at the Saracens from the
east?_
He decided to probe further. "Now there can be no planning for a
crusade--until the next ambassadors come from Tartary. Is that your
wish?"
Charles smiled. "Oh, eventually we will want to make war on the
Saracens. After Italy is united, after the Byzantine Empire is ours once
more. Toward that day, we want to maintain the bonds of friendship with
the Tartars. If they send us more ambassadors, we will treat them
royally and shower them with fair words."
"And send them home with nothing," Simon added.
"For now," Charles agreed. "For now, instead of planning war with Egypt,
I believe it is more in my interest to do as the Hohenstaufens did when
they ruled Sicily--cultivate friendly relations with the Sultan of
Cairo."
Simon was silent for a moment, amazed that Anjou could be so open about
his lack of principle. He felt his face grow hot and his voice quiver as
his anger forced its way to the surface.
"Everything you have done and said has been for one purpose only, to
make yourself king of Sicily. I guessed as much, and now I know. And
that is why I do not want a dukedom in your kingdom. Because I do not
want to be used by you anymore."
Charles drew himself up and fixed Simon with an angry stare. "Curb your
tongue, Messire! You may be the Count de Gobignon, but you owe me the
respect due a king."
"You are not my king, thank God," Simon retorted. "My king, your
brother, King Louis, taught me that each and every man and woman on
earth is precious to God. That a king's duty is to care for his people,
not use them as if they were cattle."
"A good philosophy for the next world," said Charles scornfully.
"It is the philosophy by which your brother rules in this world," said
Simon fiercely. "And that is why everyone loves him. Not just his own
French subjects, but all Christians."
Charles's olive skin darkened to a purple shade. "Consider this,
Messire--when Louis last went to war he led a whole army to destruction
in Egypt. When I go to war, I lead my army to victory and the spoils of
a fair and prosperous kingdom. Louis was born a king. I made myself a
king. Now. Which of us is the better ruler? Answer me that."
Simon stared at Charles's engorged face and felt dizzy with triumph. Not
only had he lost all fear of Charles d'Anjou, but he had broken through
Charles's mask of regal authority and had provoked him to reveal his
naked envy of his brother.
He answered quietly, "You might conquer this whole world, and my
sovereign seigneur, King Louis, would still be a better king than you
are. And a better man."
Charles stared at Simon, his eyes huge and thick veins standing out in
his temples. Simon stared back, keeping himself outwardly calm, but
inwardly exulting in his new freedom.
_There is nothing I need prove to this man or to anyone else. I am
myself._
The last bond of loyalty between himself and Charles d'Anjou was broken.
The silence stretched on, until it seemed to Simon that this was the
longest moment of his life.
Charles blinked and let out several long breaths. "Ah, well. As God is
my witness, you and my brother are two of a kind. You deserve each
other." He shook his arms, which he had been holding rigid at his sides,
and reached up and tapped the crown down more firmly on his head.
_He lumps me with King Louis. He does not know the great honor he does
me._
Charles said, "I hope, for the sake of what we have been to each other,
that you will be discreet about what I have said to you. If you visit my
brother when you go back to France, you must not cause ill will between
him and me."
"I doubt that even if I wished to I could cause bad feeling between
you," Simon said. "He has known you all your life, and if he has not
broken with you by now, it must be because he loves you too much."
He turned abruptly and left Charles standing alone on his little hill.
The star swung at his neck, and he thought of going back and throwing it
at Charles's feet. But, no, he decided he would keep it, and honor
Manfred's memory.
The grief of these two days still darkened his world, but there was one
small brightness. He might not have accomplished anything to liberate
the Holy Land, but he had freed himself from Charles d'Anjou.
* * * * *
It hurt Simon to see Sophia's face. Her eyelids were red and puffed. Her
cheeks were hollow and her lips pale. She was still beautiful, but it
was a sorrowful beauty, like that of a grieving Madonna.
"I see you are wearing Manfred's star," Sophia said.
"Forgive me." He felt a flash of hatred for himself. How stupid of him!
She must think he was wearing it like a captured trophy.
He said, "Charles gave it to me. I swear to you, I mean no disrespect to
Manfred. Just the opposite. It must hurt you to see it. How thoughtless
of me! Anjou insisted on my putting it around my neck just now. I am
only going to keep it safe in memory of Manfred, not wear it. Let me
take it off."
_You are babbling_, he told himself. _Be still._
"No," she said, touching his hand lightly, briefly. "No one has a better
right to wear it than you."