e narrowing distance between
Count Charles's army and the Roman citizens. Simon saw men falling and
others tripping over them.

"Encore!" Simon cried, but then looking back at his little troop of
archers saw to his surprise that the Englishmen had already loaded and
fired a second time. He had not known that the longbow could be fired
again and again so quickly, much more quickly than the crossbow. Screams
of panic and pain arose from the mob before him.

_I am killing poor people who are trying to defend their city._

A pang of shame swept through him, and he hesitated before giving the
next order. But he remembered Roland's advice. The longer it took to
drive these Romans back inside their gates, the more blood would be
shed, and the more likely that lives would be lost on his side.

"Fire into the midst of the crowd," he told the English sergeant.

The arrows arced high into the overcast sky and fell like dark streaks
of rain. The Romans were milling about, some trying to help the wounded,
some running away, some shouting orders or pleas, trying to control the
confusion.

Simon rode out in front of the bowmen.

"Advance and keep firing," he called to the sergeant. "Keep it up, keep
pushing them back."

He heard an arrow whistle past him. So the Romans also had some archers
among them. He was too excited to feel any fear.

The longbowmen marched out into the field, stopping at intervals to load
and fire, then advancing again. They hardly had to aim. Anywhere the
arrows fell in the mob, packed closer together in retreat, they would
wound or kill. Simon heard shouts and screams of terror from across the
field. The Romans were falling over one another, trying to get away.
None of the poor devils was wearing armor.

Where were the professional defenders of the city, Simon wondered.

The great crowd was falling back toward the city's gates. Like the
debris left by a wave receding from shore, bodies, dark clumps, lay
thick in the stubble of the harvested fields. Simon saw a man throw his
arms around the trunk of an olive tree and slowly slide to the ground.
He saw the red and white banner fall, then someone pick it up and run
with it. Three men lay draped over low stone walls, arms and legs
twitching.

The farmers' fields between Count Charles's army and the walls of Rome
were littered with the dead, the dying, and the struggling wounded.
Simon wanted to call back the archers. He felt as if he had loosed a
gr