at war consisted
more of waiting than of fighting. Simon found the combination of boredom
and fear well nigh unbearable.

De Puys sat with his back against the battlements and dozed like a large
cat. De Verceuil also sat, his helmet on the tower floor beside him,
reading from a small leather-bound book, whispering the Latin words.
Simon supposed it must be his office, the prayers every priest was
required to say every day. The cardinal would have to get today's office
read quickly; the light was fading fast.

Capitano Teodoro preferred to be busy. He kept shuttling back and forth
between the tower and rooftop two stories below, where his men were
deployed. Teodoro would make a circuit of the tower battlements,
frowning down at his company of archers. Then he would go down and order
six or so men to change position. He would inspect everyone's weapons.
He inspected the bows of even the eight Armenians, in their bright red
surcoats, who would fight beside the Venetians. The friction between the
Armenians and the Venetians, Simon had noticed, had lessened
considerably after he promoted Teodoro. He was a good leader. At the
contessa's request Teodoro inspected the Monaldeschi men-at-arms, who
were mostly stationed at the two gates and in the hallways and apartment
windows.

After each inspection tour, Teodoro would come back up, study the
situation, then go down and rearrange the men, likely as not returning
them to their earlier positions.

But staying busy made sense. It kept everyone alert.

Simon left the tower once to visit his four knights on the rooftop, each
one stationed, with six men-at-arms, by a stone caster at a corner of
the roof. So that their missiles would clear the screening he had built
over the battlements, the long-armed machines were set well back from
the edge of the roof. The knights did not like supervising the stone
casters. They wanted, they told him, a chance to charge the enemy during
the attack. Simon tried to be good-humored about insisting that they
remain within the palace, but it was hard giving orders to men who were
older than himself and combat veterans. He missed Alain, realizing only
now how much he had relied on his young friend as a go-between for
himself and the other knights.

Returning to the tower roof, Simon kept pacing from one corner to the
other. He fingered the jeweled hilt of his scimitar. He tried to divert
himself by thinking of Sophia, by imagining how he would ph