Friar Mathieu sighed.
De Verceuil pointed a finger at Simon. "Count, you have no right to risk the ambassadors' lives just for your own glory."
Simon looked around the table. He was the youngest person here, and they were treating him like a child. He remembered the Doge Zeno's threat to have him thrown into the water of Venice's San Marco Canal. He remembered the many times de Verceuil had been overbearing with him. To think that man would accuse anyone else of being too concerned with his own glory.
He was about to shout defiance when he thought of royal councils he had attended as a page to King Louis. Those close to the king often disagreed with him, but they usually ended up doing what he wanted. Louis was perhaps the strongest man, in his gentle way, Simon had ever met, but he had never heard him raise his voice.
Instead of defying de Verceuil and the others, he tried to speak with dignity, even humility, as King Louis himself might.
"His Majesty's brother, Count Charles, entrusted this task to me. Shall I give it up at the first threat? Shall I turn over the ambassadors' protection to men unknown to me, some of whom may be moved by the same hatred of us French that moves the Filippeschi? I have a duty not to let the ambassadors go beyond the walls I guard."
When he finished there was silence.
Friar Mathieu said, "Count Simon makes an excellent point. John and Philip may well be safer guarded by our men, even under attack."
Now that they had agreed, Simon's heart sank. If the Tartars were killed in the coming battle because he had insisted on keeping them in the palace, he would bear the guilt. Instead of restoring his name, he would end by plunging it deeper into the mire.
De Puys looked from Simon to the cardinal and said, "Perhaps our knights and crossbowmen could go with the Tartars to the Pope's palace."