e of Troy. But that was just a story.

Sophia--her face and form arose in his memory, and there was a strange
happiness mixed with the pain, as if he were glad of his suffering. He
had heard songs about the sweet pain of love, but he had never before
now understood them.

And even now he could not think of Sophia as an enemy. His heartbeat
quickened at the thought that there was a chance, very small but still a
chance, that Sophia might truly be someone he could love, and that he
could free her from whatever entanglement had dragged her into Manfred's
power.

By the end of the day the sound of hoofbeats around him was no longer a
drumming, but a thundering. And all around and above him was a
fluttering of banners. Each of the larger contingents that joined him
had brought the standard of its seigneur.

The road south was climbing into forested hills. At the crest of the
first hill Simon tugged on the reins to slow his palfrey, and turned to
look back. In the fading light of the overcast day, Chateau Gobignon was
a violet outcropping on the flat horizon, its towers indistinct. This
would be his last sight of it, perhaps for years. And tomorrow he would
cross the boundary of his domain. That was a point past which there was
no return. Once the host was assembled, once they had crossed the
Gobignon border, it would not matter what he told them. If he refused to
lead them, they would find another leader.

He saw two more banners rising above the crest of a bare ridge to the
west. Then the heads and shoulders of men, then the horses they rode.
They waved and halloed. More followed them. And still more.

Simon met the newcomers by a stream that trickled through a small valley
lined with birch trees. Seigneur Claudius de Marion, the leader of the
large new party, lifted his square chin as he reached over and clapped
Simon heartily on the shoulder.

"The valley widens out up ahead," he said. "I propose that we camp
there. The forest beyond is thick and not a good place to ride through
at night. And, Monseigneur, to be frank, I do not want to send my
daughter home after dark."

"I will be quite safe, Father, if Monseigneur the Count wishes to press
on for the night."

The young woman riding a tall gray and white stallion beside Claudius de
Marion had humorous blue eyes and a wide mouth. Her upper lip protruded
slightly, an irregularity Simon thought quite pretty in her. She had not
inherited her father's nose, which w