to the tower, his legs ached as he pushed his
mailed weight upward, and his neck felt strained under his mail hood and
steel helmet. It had been weeks since he had worn his mail, days since
he had practiced his sword drill. He swore at himself.

He emerged through a trapdoor onto a square platform paved with
flagstone. Three helmeted heads turned to him: De Puys, his head covered
with tight-laced mail leaving only a circle for his eyes, nose, and
mustached mouth; Teodoro, capitano of Simon's Venetian crossbowmen,
wearing a bowl-shaped helmet; and de Verceuil, whose tall helmet was
painted bright red and shaped like a cardinal's mitre covering his
entire face with the stem of a gold cross running up the center and the
arms of the cross spread over the eyeholes.

Dressed for war, de Verceuil looked more like a cardinal than he usually
did, Simon thought ironically.

Of the four men on the tower platform, de Verceuil wore the most
elaborate armor with steel plates over his mail at his shoulders, knees,
and shins. Hanging from a broad belt at his side was a mace, an iron
ball on the end of a steel handle a foot long. This was, Simon knew, the
proper weapon for a clergyman, who was not supposed to shed blood.

Over his mail shirt de Verceuil wore a long crimson surcoat sewn with
cloth-of-gold Maltese crosses. De Puys, like Simon, wore a purple
surcoat on which the three gold crowns of Gobignon were embroidered over
and over again. Teodoro's simple breastplate of hardened leather was
reinforced with steel plates.

Leaning into a crenel between two square merlons, Simon took a deep
breath of the mild spring air. It would be a pleasant evening, did he
not know that many men were going to die.

He watched the last wagons bringing in casks of water and wine, loads of
hay and sacks of grain and beans--supplies in case the fighting dragged
on--over the drawbridge through the rear gate. Water, especially, was in
short supply in the city on the rock. The palace had its own spring, but
it did not produce enough water to supply the whole establishment. Simon
remembered Sophia drinking from his hands in the garden.

He stopped short at the thought of her to whisper a little prayer for
her safety. But she was in no danger. No one was threatening Cardinal
Ugolini.

Simon had ordered that every cask of water available in Orvieto be
bought and every vessel filled. The attackers would surely use fire as a
weapon. He had also sent fo