ing me like this." His usually pale face was suddenly scarlet
with rage.

His anger dried up her tears.

_I know how I can put an end to this._

"I will, Simon. But I am not ready to speak of it today."

"Then _when_?"

"Go now and meet your Count Charles at Ostia. By the time you come back
to the papal court we will probably have moved to Viterbo. And when I
see you again, I will tell you why I cannot marry you."

The shadow cleared from his face. "Do you promise with all your heart?
And if I can persuade you that your reason is not good enough, then will
you marry me?"

For a moment she hesitated. Even though her life depended on deceiving
him, she could not bear to make such a promise. But then she saw that
she could honestly agree to what he asked.

"If you still want me to marry you--yes."

_I can say that because if you ever come to know my true reason for not
marrying you, you will hate me more than you have ever hated anyone in
your life._

He left her soon afterward. She went back to her room and cried for most
of the afternoon. Every so often she looked up to see the icon of the
desert saint staring at her. She saw the same reproach in Simon
Stylites's eyes that she had seen in Simon de Gobignon's.

LXI

Though the day was cold and damp, the sky an ugly, unwelcoming gray,
Simon's first view of Rome brought tears to his eyes. He came out of a
small grove of cypresses on the east bank of the Tiber to see gray
walls, punctuated by square towers, spread wide before him. Beyond the
walls, out of a haze of dust and wood smoke, above masses of peaked
roofs, crenellated palace towers rose lordly, vying for ascendancy with
the bell towers of churches. Marble buildings adorned with white columns
crowned the hills.

The swift-moving brown river on his left bent around the walls and
disappeared beyond them.

Even though he did not want to be part of Charles d'Anjou's invasion of
Italy, the thrill of seeing Rome for the first time made up for his
distress.

Rome was by no means as beautiful a sight as Orvieto, but it awed him to
think that this city had ruled the world when Jesus walked the earth.
What must it have been like to be a Roman legionary, returning to this
place from a victory in some far-off land? This dirt track would have
been a well-paved road then. Looking off to his right, he saw fragments
of wall bounding the edge of a field, and a broken, fluted column rising
among olive tree