how to pay and feed them and keep them
under discipline? I will have to make do with my knights, the Venetians,
the Armenians, and the Monaldeschi retainers._

And he felt the weight of responsibility pressing on his back like a
boulder. He had studied siege warfare under veterans. But how good, he
asked himself, would he be in real combat?

His entire experience of battle consisted of one siege that ended as
soon as the rebellious vassal saw the size of Simon's army, one
encounter in his private forest with poachers who ran away when he drew
his sword, and one tournament, two years ago, in Toulouse.

And yet, if the Monaldeschi palace were attacked, he would be expected
to assume command. The thought made his stomach knot with anxiety.

He scrutinized the palace itself. He saw no windows at all on the ground
floor, but there were cross-shaped slots for archers. The second story
had narrow windows covered with heavy iron bars. On the highest level
the windows were wider and the grills that protected them of a more
delicate construction. On that floor were the apartments of the
Monaldeschi and their more distinguished guests. The darkness and
cramped quarters one had to endure in the palace because it was so
well-fortified were a measure of the fierceness of the street fighting
that had been going on in Orvieto, as in most of the cities of northern
and central Italy, for generations.

_We French are better off doing most of our fighting in the countryside.
City fighting is a dirty business._

There were only two ways into the palace. On the west side a postern
gate for horses and carts was protected by a gatehouse with two
portcullises and doors reinforced with iron. In front, facing the
piazza, a two-story gatehouse with a peaked roof and arrow slots jutted
out from the center of the building. The doorway was in the side of the
gatehouse on the second floor, and to reach it one climbed a flight of
narrow stairs.

_Why plan for a siege that probably will never take place?_ Simon asked
himself.

_Because I have tried to go beyond my duty this day and accomplished
nothing. I had better be sure I can do what I am expected to do._

The door swung open as Simon reached the top step.

"Oh, you look too serious, ragazzo caro. Don't frown so--it will put
wrinkles in your smooth brow. Surely your life is not so melancholy as
all that?" Fingernails stroked his forehead and then his cheek.

Simon recognized the voice,