Under my leadership! God help them!
"You are right welcome, Messires. When we stop for the night, see my clerk, Friar Amos, and have him add your names to our roll."
The young men dismounted, rushed to him, and kissed his hands.
Why did he not send them away, send all these knights away, tell them there would be no war in Italy? Because he was afraid of his own barons and knights, the men he was supposed to lead. Because he felt he had set something in motion that could not be stopped, like one of those horrendous avalanches in the Alps.
If they were to keep going, he must—without mishap—cover ten leagues a day to reach Rome by February. He must study again the maps Valery was carrying in his saddlebags, especially the one he had just received, along with a letter, from Count Charles—King Charles.
The infidel Manfred, Charles had written, had stirred up the Ghibellino cities of northern Italy. They were lying in wait for allies of Anjou, who might come down from France or the Holy Roman Empire. Simon must not waste troops fighting the Sienese or Florentine militia. So he should enter Italy by way of Provence and Liguria, then cut across eastward to Ravenna and thence down to Spoleto and Viterbo, and finally to Rome. The roundabout route would take longer, but Charles would expect Simon in Rome by the first of February. Charles intended to march against Manfred at the beginning of April.
Two months to reach Provence, march along the Ligurian coast, perhaps as far as Genoa, which was safely Guelfo, and then pick his way around the nests of northern Ghibellini to Rome. It could be done, but only if his army met with no unexpected obstacles—a Ghibellino army, for instance, or a bad winter storm.
And then, beyond Rome, what would they find?
Once they were there, at least he would not have to make the decisions that determined the fate of these men. The responsibility—and the blame if they failed—would be Charles's.
The greatest war since you were a child, Charles had promised.