Louis sighed, a deep, tremulous expulsion of breath. "He asks that the might of France should be diverted into a squabble among petty princes in Italy, when Jerusalem is at stake!" _It seems more than a squabble when you are in the thick of it_, thought Simon, remembering the night the Filippeschi had attacked the Monaldeschi palace. "I cannot wait any longer to begin preparing for a crusade," Louis said. "I want to return to Outremer in six years, in 1270. That may seem to you a long time away, but for such a great undertaking as this it is barely enough. It took me four years to get ready for the last crusade, to gather the men and supplies, and it will be harder this time." "Why 1270, Sire?" said Simon. Louis's head drooped and his eyes fell. "To win my freedom I promised Baibars, the Mameluke leader who is now Sultan of Cairo, that I would not wage war on Islam for twenty years." "An oath to an unbeliever--" said Simon. "My royal word!" said Louis fiercely. "And besides that, France needed twenty years to recover from the loss of thousands of men, men _I_ lost, to raise up a new generation of knights like yourself to take the cross again." Many times during his boyhood years of living with the royal family, Simon had observed that the queen, or the king's brothers or his sons would burst out in exasperation over Louis's insistence on adherence to some principle, regardless of inconvenience or discomfort. In Simon's eyes this had always meant that the king was a better Christian than the other members of his family. Now, seeing all his work and his hopes possibly ruined by the king's refusal to come to the pope's aid against the Ghibellini, Simon was disturbed to feel a similar anger at Louis arise within him. Simon stared at the man he loved so well, and saw that even though the king was talking of war, his thin, pale face was raised to heaven in an exalted, almost angelic look. "But only the pope can proclaim a crusade," Louis said. "Unless he does so, I cannot raise an army. And if we attack the Saracens in Egypt while the Tartars strike through Syria, we will be invincible. But without the pope's permission I cannot make a pact with the Tartars. In this letter he gives that permission, but he makes it conditional on my involving France in his struggle with Manfred von Hohenstaufen." Simon was in despair. Louis would refuse, and the alliance would go a-glimmering. Louis put a hand on Simon's shoulder. "Be patient awhile, Simon. My queen and my brother, Count Charles, will join us at breakfast. We will talk together of all this." The weight of Louis's hand sent a warmth all through him. But how could the king expect him to be patient when he had so much to lose? "Count Charles meets with you this morning?" Simon asked. He had known that Charles d'Anjou was in Avignon, but thought it his duty to carry the pope's letter straight to the king, without first taking the time to seek out his mentor, the king's brother.