CHAPTER 2
AUGUST 1189
Palermo, Sicily
Alicia had no memories of her mother, who’d died when she was three. It took no time at all for Joanna to fill that empty place in the girl’s heart, for no one had ever shown her such kindness. She was so completely under Joanna’s spell that she was even able to overcome her panic when Joanna revealed that they’d have to travel to Palermo by ship, explaining that it was only about one hundred and forty miles, but the roads were so bad that the journey could take up to four weeks by land. They’d stay within sight of the shoreline, she promised, and although it took more courage than Alicia thought she had, she followed the young Sicilian queen onto the royal galley, for drowning was no longer her greatest fear.
She felt at times as if she’d lost touch with reality, for there was a dream-like quality to the weeks after the sinking of the San Niccolò. She’d never met a man as charming as Joanna’s husband, had never seen a city as beautiful as Palermo, had never imagined that people could live in such comfort and luxury, and at first Sicily seemed truly like the biblical land of milk and honey.
On the voyage to Palermo, Joanna had enjoyed telling Alicia about the history of her island home. Sicily was a jewel set in a turquoise sea, she’d said poetically, but its beauty and riches had been both a blessing and a curse, for it had been captured in turn by the Carthaginians, the ancient Greeks, the Romans, Germanic tribes, the Greek empire of Constantinople, and then the Saracens. In God’s Year 1061, a Norman-French adventurer named Roger de Hauteville had been the one to launch an invasion from the mainland. It was so successful that in 1130, his son and namesake had himself crowned as Sicily’s first king, whose domains would soon encompass all of southern Italy, too.
“He was my lord husband’s grandfather,” Joanna said, smiling at Alicia’s wonderment. But it was not Sicily’s turbulent past that amazed the girl; it was that the Kingdom of Sicily was younger than her own father, who’d died the day after his sixty-fourth birthday. How could such a magical realm have been in existence for less than six decades?
She was captivated by Palermo, set in a fertile plain of olive groves and date palms, its size beyond her wildest imaginings; her brother had told her that Paris had fifty thousand citizens, but Joanna said Palermo’s population was more than twice that number. Alicia was impressed by the limestone houses that gleamed in the sun like white doves, by the number of public baths, the orchards of exotic fruit that she’d never tasted: oranges, lemons, limes, and pomegranates. But it was the royal palaces that utterly dazzled her, ringing the city like a necklace of opulent, shining pearls.
Joanna and William’s primary residence was set in a precinct known as the Galca, which held palaces, churches, chapels, gardens, fountains, a menagerie of exotic animals, and the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheater. The royal apartments were situated in a section of the main palace called the Joharia, flanked by two sturdy towers. A red marble staircase led to the first floor, with an entrance to the king’s chapel, where Alicia came often to pray for her brother’s soul and to marvel at its magnificence. The nave was covered with brilliant mosaic stones dramatizing scenes from the Old and New Testaments, the floor inlaid with circles of green serpentine and red porphyry encased in white marble, and the ceiling honeycombed; one of the walls even contained a water clock, a device quite unknown in France.
The palace itself was splendidly decorated with vivid mosaic depictions of hunters, leopards, lions, centaurs, and peacocks. Alicia’s father had once taken her to the Troyes residence of the Count of Champagne, and she’d come away convinced that no one in Christendom lived as well as Lord Henri. She now knew better. Joanna’s coffers were filled with the finest silks, her chambers lit by lamps of brass and crystal and scented by silver incense burners, her jewelry kept in ivory boxes as well crafted as the treasures they held. She bathed in a copper bathtub, read books whose covers were studded with gemstones, played with her dogs in gardens fragrant with late-blooming flowers, shaded by citrus trees, and adorned with elegant marble fountains. She even had a table of solid gold, set with silver plate and delicacies like sugar-coated almonds, dates, hazelnuts, melons, figs, pomegranates, oranges, shrimp, and marzipan tortes. Alicia could not envision a more luxurious world than the one Joanna had married into; nor could she imagine a woman more deserving of it than the Sicilian queen, her “angel with a crown.”
But if she embraced Joanna and her handsome husband wholeheartedly, some of her initial enthusiasm for their lush, green kingdom soon dimmed. While there was much to admire, there were aspects of Sicilian life that she found startling and others that profoundly shocked her. Palermo seemed like the biblical Babel, for not only were there three official languages—Latin, Greek, and Arabic—people also spoke Norman-French and the Italian dialect of Lombardy. Even the realm’s religious life was complex and confusing, for the Latin Catholic Church vied with the Greek Orthodox Church for supremacy, and Palermo was home, too, to mosques and synagogues.
There had been Jews in Champagne, of course, but they were only allowed to earn their living as moneylenders. The Jewish community in Palermo was numerous, prosperous, and engaged in occupations forbidden to them in France; they were craftsmen, doctors, merchants, and dominated the textile industry. Alicia found it disconcerting to see them mingling so freely with the other citizens of the city, for her brother had told her that the French king, Philippe, had banished the Jews from Paris and he’d spoken of their exile with obvious approval.
She was uncomfortable in the city markets, for while they offered a vast variety of enticing goods, they offered slaves for sale, too. They were Saracens, not Christians, and Alicia took comfort in that. But she still found the sight of those manacled men and women to be unsettling, for slavery was not known in France.
There was so much in Sicily that was foreign to her. It was easy to appreciate the island’s beauty and affluence, the mild climate, the prosperity of its people. Although its diversity was like nothing she’d ever experienced, she did not feel threatened by it. But she did not think that she could ever accept the presence of Saracen infidels living so freely in a Christian country, even allowed to be judged by Islamic law.
Every time she saw a turbaned Arab sauntering the city streets, she shrank back in alarm. When she heard the cries of the muezzin summoning Muslims to their prayers, she hastily crossed herself, as if to ward off the evil eye. She was baffled that there should be Arabic phrases on the gold tari, the coinage of the realm. She did not understand why young Sicilian women adopted Saracen fashions, often wearing face veils in public and decorating their fingers with henna. She was stunned when she learned that Muslims served in King William’s army and navy, and some were actively involved in his government. They were known as the Palace Saracens, men of odd appearance, uncommonly tall, with high-pitched voices and smooth skin, lacking any facial hair. She’d heard them called eunuchs; when one of Joanna’s ladies had explained the meaning of that foreign word, she’d been horrified, and for the first time she wondered if she’d ever feel truly at home in this alien land.
Her brother had said Saracens were the enemies of God, telling her how they’d desecrated Christian churches after capturing Jerusalem, exposing the precious fragment of the True Cross to jeering crowds in the streets of Damascus. The abbess had assured her that Arnaud died a martyr to his faith. So how could King William find so much to admire in Saracen culture? Why was he fluent in the tongue of the infidels and a patron of Arab poets? How could he entrust his very life to unbelievers? For he not only had a personal bodyguard of black Muslim slaves, his palace cooks, his physicians, and his astrologers were all Saracens, too.
Bewildered and deeply troubled, Alicia yearned to confide her fears to Joanna. She dared not do so, though, because of the Lady Mariam, with slanting eyes, hair like polished jet, and the blood of Saracens running through her veins. She spoke French as well as Arabic, and accompanied Joanna to church. But she was one of them, a godless infidel. And yet it was painfully obvious to Alicia that Joanna loved her. Of Joanna’s ladies, only two were truly her intimates—Dame Beatrix, a tart-tongued Angevin in her middle years who’d been with Joanna since childhood, and the Lady Mariam. The Saracen.
As the weeks passed, Alicia found herself becoming obsessed with the Lady Mariam, a flesh-and-blood symbol of all that she could not understand about Sicilian society. She studied the young woman covertly, watching suspiciously as Mariam dutifully attended Mass and prayed to the God of the Christians. She thought her scrutiny was unobtrusive, until the day Mariam glanced over at her during the priest’s invocation and winked. Alicia was so flustered that she fled the church, feigning illness to explain her abrupt departure. But after that, she had to know Mariam’s secrets, had to know how she’d embedded herself in the very heart of a Christian queen’s household.
While Joanna continued to treat her with affection, her other ladies had paid Alicia little heed, either jealous of Joanna’s favor or considering her too young to be of any interest. Alicia had been observing them for weeks, though, so she knew which ones to approach: Emma d’Aleramici and Bethlem de Greci. They’d shown Alicia only the most grudging courtesy. But they loved to gossip and she hoped that would matter more to them than her relative insignificance.
She was right. Emma and Bethlem were more than willing to tell her of Mariam’s scandalous history. Mariam was King William’s half-sister, they confided gleefully, born to a slave girl in his late father’s harim. William’s widowed mother had shown little interest in her son’s young, homesick bride, and so he’d turned Joanna’s care over to his aunt Constance, who was only twenty-four years old herself. It was Constance who’d chosen Mariam as a companion for Joanna, Bethlem revealed. Apparently she’d thought the fact that they were the same age was more important than her dubious background and tainted blood, Emma added, and that was how Mariam had insinuated herself into the queen’s favor.
Emma and Bethlem’s spitefulness awakened in Alicia an unexpected emotion, a flicker of sympathy for Mariam. She was impressed, too, to find out that Mariam had royal blood. But what was a harim? They were happy to enlighten her, explaining that all of the Sicilian kings had adopted the shameful custom of the Arab emirs, keeping Saracen slave girls for their pleasure. Mariam’s mother was one of these debased women, and Mariam the fruit of the first King William’s lust. And when Alicia cried out that surely Queen Joanna’s lord husband did not keep a harim, too, they laughed at her naïveté. Of course he did, they told her, and why not? What man would not want a bedmate who was subject to his every whim? A bedmate who could never say no, whose very existence depended upon pleasing him, upon fulfilling all of his secret desires, no matter how depraved.
Alicia did not know what they meant. What a man and woman did in bed was a mystery to her, something that happened once they were married. She knew that not all men were faithful to their wives, had heard her eldest brother Odo’s servants gossiping about his roving eye. But her brother’s wife was skeletal thin and sharp-tongued and Alicia could not remember ever hearing her laugh. Whereas Joanna was beautiful and lively and loving. How could William want any woman but the one he’d wed?
AS IT HAPPENED, Joanna was pondering that very question on a mild November night, lying awake and restless beside her sleeping husband. She had no basis for comparison, but she wondered sometimes if their love-making was lacking something. It was pleasant enough, but never fully satisfying; she was always left wanting more, even if she was not sure what that was. She did not let herself dwell upon these thoughts, though, choosing to laugh at herself instead. What did she expect? That flesh-and-blood men and women burned with the grand passion of the lovers in troubadour songs?
But on this particular night, she had more on her mind than the carnal pleasures which the Church said were sinful if not undertaken for the purpose of procreation. She was resentful that William had not come to her bed last week, when she’d been at her most fertile. It was every wife’s duty to provide her husband with heirs, a duty all the more urgent when a kingdom was at stake. Joanna’s yearning for a baby was much more than a marital obligation, though. It was an ache that never went away, hers the pained hunger of a mother who’d buried a child.
She still grieved for the beautiful little boy whose life had been measured in days, and did not understand why she’d not conceived again in the eight years since Bohemund’s death. She’d been worried enough to consult the female doctors at the famed medical school in Salerno, and had been told that a woman’s womb was most receptive to her husband’s seed immediately after her monthly flux ended. Joanna had relayed that information to William, but he did not always come to her at these critical times, and when that happened, she could only fret and fume in silence, angry and frustrated.
It seemed unfair that he should have complete control over conduct that mattered so much to them both. But she could not come to him unbidden. The few times that she’d done so, he’d obviously been displeased by her boldness. Although this passive role did not come easily to her, she’d done her best to play by his rules, for it would have been humiliating to go to his private chamber and find him in bed with one of his Saracen concubines. The Church might preach that husbands and wives owed a “marital debt” to each other, but how was a wife to collect it when her husband had a harim of seductive slaves at his beck and call?
She still remembered how shocked she’d been to learn of his harim, a year or so after her arrival in Sicily. As young as she was, she already knew that fidelity was thought to be a mandate for women, not men; her father’s affair with Rosamund Clifford had been an open secret for years. But this was different. How could a Christian king embrace such a debauched, infidel practice? Why would he want to live like an Arab emir?
When she’d confronted William with her newfound knowledge, he’d been amused by her forthrightness, explaining nonchalantly that he was merely following in the ways of his father and grandfather. Sicily had its own customs, its own traditions, and his harim had nothing to do with her or their marriage, which he was sure she’d understand once she was older. Even at age twelve, Joanna had known she was being patronized. She’d consoled herself that surely he’d put these women aside after she was old enough to share his bed.
But he hadn’t. They’d consummated their marriage once she turned fourteen, yet nothing changed. By then Joanna fancied herself in love with him, and that had been a painful time for her. Looking back now, she felt a wry sympathy for that young girl, so innocent and starry-eyed. How could she not have been bedazzled by William, who’d seemed like one of the heroes in those troubadour tales she so enjoyed? He was tall and graceful, with long fair hair, compelling dark eyes, and an easy, engaging smile; he was also courteous, good-natured, and well educated. She’d felt herself so blessed, so fortunate that it seemed churlish to object to a few snakes in her Eden, even if they were alluring, dusky-skinned temptresses who were sleeping with her husband.
Joanna was not sure when she’d fallen out of love with William, assuming it had been love and not youthful infatuation. It may have begun after they’d lost their son, for they were both devastated by his death and yet they grieved alone. She’d turned to him for comfort, but he’d withdrawn into his own sorrow, and instead of coming closer together, they’d drifted further apart.
But a good marriage did not need love to flourish, and people did not enter into matrimony with expectations of finding their romantic soul mates. Joanna had many reasons to be thankful that she was William’s wife, and she knew she was much luckier than the vast majority of women, including those secluded slave girls in her husband’s harim.
It was true that as she matured, she began to have misgivings about William’s prudence and his political judgments. He pursued a very aggressive foreign policy, one motivated as much by revenge as ambition, for he bore a bitter grudge against the emperor of the Greek Empire, who’d betrothed his daughter to William and then changed his mind, leaving William waiting in vain for her arrival at Taranto. William never forgot that public humiliation, and never forgave. He’d bided his time and saw his chance midst the chaos that followed the emperor’s sudden death. He dispatched the Sicilian fleet and a large army to capture Constantinople, but the result was a costly, embarrassing defeat.
Joanna had been troubled by his determination to conquer the Greek Empire, for it did not seem likely to succeed. In that, she was her father’s daughter, a pragmatist at heart. She was even more troubled by the marriage that William made to pave the way for his war. There had long been great enmity between the Kingdom of Sicily and the Holy Roman Empire, but when Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had unexpectedly offered a marital alliance, William accepted, for that would free him to devote all his efforts to the conquest of the Greek Empire. And so he’d wed his aunt Constance to Heinrich von Hohenstaufen, the King of Germany and the emperor’s eldest son and heir. The marriage created an uproar in Sicily, for it raised a frightening specter. If William were to die without a son or daughter to succeed him, Constance would be the heiress to the Sicilian throne, and the Sicilians would rather have the Devil himself rule over them than Constance’s hated German husband.
Joanna had shared the public distaste for this alliance, for the Holy Roman Emperor had long been a foe of her family’s House. Moreover, she hated to see Constance, whom she’d grown to love, sent off to exile in Germany, a cold, harsh land to a woman accustomed to the sun-splashed warmth of Palermo. Heinrich was only twenty at the time of the marriage, eleven years younger than Constance, but he’d already earned a reputation for brutality, and Joanna doubted whether even an empress’s crown would compensate Constance for the life she’d lead with Heinrich. William had brushed aside her misgivings, though, just as he ignored the impassioned, panicky objections of his subjects. He was young and healthy, after all, and Joanna had proven herself capable of bearing a son, so he was confident that Heinrich would never be able to claim Sicily on Constance’s behalf, and it irked him that others remained so adamantly opposed to their union.
Joanna had kept her qualms to herself after Constance’s marriage, for what was done was done. Nor did she blame William for not heeding her advice. Unlike her mother, who’d ruled Aquitaine in her own right, she was merely William’s consort and the power was his, not hers. She’d done her best to comfort him after his army’s devastating defeat by the Greeks, for that was a wife’s duty, but to her dismay, he vowed to continue the war at a later date. She was greatly relieved when he had to put his Greek ambitions aside, even if the cause was the disastrous news out of Outremer. The King of Jerusalem’s army had been destroyed by the forces of Salah al-Dīn, and before the year was out, he’d taken the Holy City itself. William was horrified, and he’d immediately dispatched the Sicilian fleet to the aid of Tyre, the last bastion of Christian control, while offering his harbors, riches, and armed forces to the kings who’d taken the cross and sworn to recapture Jerusalem from the Saracens.
Joanna felt some guilt that the catastrophic loss of Jerusalem should be the cause of joy, but the crusade would mean that she’d get to see her father and her brother Richard, for they’d both taken the cross. It had been thirteen years since she’d left her home and family, and she was elated at the prospect of their reunion. When word trickled across the Alps and into Italy of fresh discord between Henry and Richard, she’d refused to let it discourage her. Her father and Richard were often at odds, for they were both stubborn, strong-willed men and Richard remained embittered by the continuing confinement of their mother. She had no trouble convincing herself that they’d patch up this latest squabble, too, as they’d done in the past, and she continued to lay plans for their arrival, for she wanted their welcome to be truly spectacular. She wanted to show them that they’d made the right decision in wedding her to William.
She’d even entertained the notion of accompanying them to the Holy Land. Her mother had done so while wed to the French king Louis, had risked her life and reputation by taking part in a crusade that was an abysmal failure, one that eventually led to the end of her marriage to Louis and remarriage to Joanna’s father. Joanna would gladly have followed in her mother’s footsteps, for it would be the experience of a lifetime. But she could not be sure that William meant to join the crusaders. He’d been very generous in the help he offered. Would he actually leave Sicily, though? He never had done so in the past. He’d launched military expeditions to Egypt, North Africa, Greece, and Spain, but not once had he taken a personal role in one of his campaigns. And this was Joanna’s secret fear, one she could not even acknowledge to herself, that William would again stay safely at home while he sent men out to die in his name.
His harim and faulty political judgment were minor matters compared to this dark shadow. Theirs was a world in which a king was expected to lead his men into war. Her father had done so since the age of sixteen. So had all her brothers and her mother’s male relatives. Even Philippe Capet, the French king, who had a known distaste for war, still commanded his own armies. So had William’s grandfather and his father. Joanna could think of no other ruler in Christendom who’d never bloodied his sword in combat. Only William.
Joanna had not allowed herself to venture any farther along this dangerous road. She was by nature both an optimist and a realist, believed in making the best of what she had rather than yearning for what might have been. She could be happy with William even if she did not love him. But she did not think she could find contentment in marriage to a man she did not respect, and so she kept that door tightly shut and barred. Of course William would accompany her father and brother to the Holy Land. He’d been deeply grieved by Jerusalem’s fall, had withdrawn for days to mourn its loss, even donning sackcloth. It was true he’d not yet taken the cross himself, but surely he would do so when the time came. She firmly believed that. She had to believe that.
She finally fell asleep, but her rest was not a peaceful one, for she was awakened several times by her husband’s tossing and turning. They both slept later than usual in consequence, and when Joanna opened her eyes, the chamber was filled with light. William was stirring, too. His hair had tumbled onto his forehead, giving him a youthful, disheveled look that she found very appealing. He still retained his summer tan, his skin bronzed wherever it had been exposed to the hot Sicilian sun, and as he started to sit up, she found herself watching the play of muscles across his chest. She could feel her body warming to desire, thinking that she was indeed lucky compared to those countless wives who shared their beds with men potbellied, balding, and foul-smelling. William had an eastern appreciation for bathing and she enjoyed breathing in the clean, seductive smell of male sweat.
“God’s Blessings upon you, O Musta’z,” she murmured throatily, playfully using one of his Arabic titles, which they’d turned into a private joke, for it meant “The Glorious One.” Sliding over, she nestled against his body, trailing her hand across his stomach to let him know her intentions were erotic, not merely affectionate.
His response stunned her. “Do not do that!” he snapped, pushing her hand away. Sitting up, he grimaced and then glanced over, saw the stricken look on her face. “Ah, Joanna . . . I am sorry, darling,” he said quickly. “I did not mean to growl at you like that. But that ache in my belly has gotten much worse since yesterday and even your light touch caused pain.”
Joanna had never known anyone as concerned with his health as her husband. He insisted that his physicians live in the palace and when he heard of the new arrival of a doctor of renown, he would make it worth the man’s while to remain in Sicily and enter his service. Because he rarely seemed sick, Joanna had learned to view his preoccupation as an endearing quirk. She remembered now that he had been complaining last night of soreness in his abdomen, and when he revealed that he’d slept poorly and the pain had moved down into the lower right side of his belly, she showed the proper wifely sympathy, feeling his forehead for fever and asking if he wanted her to summon one of his physicians straightaway.
“No . . . I think not,” he decided. “I’ll see Jamal al-Dīn later if I do not feel better.” He offered amends then for his earlier rudeness with a lingering kiss and, peace made between them, they rose to begin their day.
JOANNA HAD PROMISED to take Alicia to see Zisa, their nearby summer palace in the vast park called the Genoard, and after making sure that her husband had consulted his chief physician, Jamal al-Dīn, she saw no reason not to keep her promise. Accompanied by several of her younger attendants and household knights, they made a leisurely progress down the Via Marmorea, acknowledging the cheers of the market crowds and throwing handfuls of copper follari to the shrieking children who sprinted alongside their horses.
Joanna’s obvious popularity with her subjects was a source of great pleasure to Alicia. She was already in high spirits, for Joanna’s favorite Sicilian hound had whelped and she’d been promised one of the puppies for her own. She’d spent the morning with a tutor, for Joanna was determined that she learn to read and write, and feeling like a bird freed from its cage, she was talking nonstop, pointing out sights that caught her eye and blushing happily when the queen complimented her riding style, for that was another of her lessons.
Joanna was gratified to see the difference that the past few months had made; this cheerful chatterbox could not have been more unlike that mute, terrified child she’d first encountered in the abbey infirmary. Upon their arrival at Zisa, she enjoyed taking Alicia on a tour of the palace’s remarkable hall, where a marble fountain cascaded water into a channel that flowed across the hall and then outside into a small reflecting pool. Alicia was awestruck, kneeling to study the mosaic fish that seemed to be swimming in the ripples generated by a hidden pump, and giggling in polite disbelief when Joanna told her that during special feasts, tiny amphorae of wine were borne along by the water to the waiting guests.
As fascinated as Alicia was with the indoor fountain, she was even more interested in the royal menagerie, home to lions, leopards, peacocks, a giraffe, and elegant cheetahs which Joanna swore could be trained to walk on leashes. Afterward, they took advantage of the warm spell known as St Martin’s summer and had a light meal by the large artificial lake, sitting on blankets and rooting in the wicker baskets packed by palace cooks with savory wafers, cheese, sugar plums, and oranges. Joanna would later look back upon this sunlit November afternoon as a final gift from the Almighty, one last treasured memory of the privileged life that had been hers in the island kingdom of Sicily. But at the time, it seemed only a pleasant interlude, a favor to an orphaned child in need of days like this.
Joanna’s knights were flirting with her ladies, her dogs chasing unseen prey in the orchards behind them. Finding herself briefly alone with the queen, Alicia seized her chance and bravely broached the subject that had been haunting her for weeks. “May I ask you a question, Madame? The Lady Mariam . . .” She hesitated and then asked bluntly, “Is she truly a Christian?”
“Yes, she is, Alicia. Her mother died when Mariam was very young, just as your mother did. Mariam was brought up in the palace and naturally she was raised in the Truth Faith, for it would have been cruel indeed to deny her salvation.” Joanna finished peeling an orange before saying, “I know why you are confused. You’ve heard the talk, the gossip that the Saracens who’ve converted are not true Christians, that they continue to practice their infidel faith in secret . . . have you not?”
When Alicia nodded shyly, Joanna handed a section of fruit to the girl. “That is most likely true,” she admitted composedly. “The Palace Saracens take Christian names and attend Mass, but I am sure many of them do cling to the old ways. My husband and his father and grandfather before him believed that this is a matter between a man and his God. People ought not to be converted by force, for that renders their conversion meaningless. I’ve heard men accuse us of turning a blind eye, and I suppose we do, but it is for the best. Judge the results for yourself, child. Where else in Christendom do members of differing faiths live in relative peace?”
“But . . . but my brother said that nothing was more important than recovering the Holy City from the infidels,” Alicia whispered, relieved when Joanna nodded vigorously.
“Your brother was right. The Saracens in Outremer are our enemies. But that does not mean the Saracens in Sicily must be our enemies, too. Think of old Hamid, who tends to the royal kennels. Remember how patiently he talks to you about the dogs, promising to help you teach your puppy. Do you think of him as an enemy?”
“No,” Alicia said slowly, after a long pause. “I suppose I do not. . . .”
“Exactly,” Joanna said, pleased that Alicia was such a quick study. “Let me tell you a story, lass, one that was told to me by my husband. Twenty years ago, a dreadful earthquake struck our island. Thousands died at Catania, but Palermo was luckier and the damage was less here. The people were still very fearful and William heard nothing but cries and prayers to Allah and His Prophet from those who had supposedly embraced the Christian faith. He did not rebuke them, though, instead told them that each one should invoke the God he worships, for those who have faith would be comforted.”
Alicia was still bewildered, but if Joanna and William did not believe all Saracens were the spawn of the Devil, she would try to believe it, too, she decided. “And Lady Mariam . . . she is a true Christian, not a pretend one?”
Joanna laughed, assured her that Mariam was indeed a “worshipper of the Cross,” as the Muslims called those of the Christian faith, and then rose to her feet, brushing off her skirts, for she saw one of the palace servants hastening up the pathway toward them.
“Madame.” He prostrated himself at her feet in the eastern fashion, waiting for her permission to rise. When he did, she caught her breath, for his eyes were filled with fear. “You must return to the palace, my lady. It is most urgent. Your lord husband the king has been stricken with great pain and is asking for you.”
“Of course. Alicia, fetch the others.” Joanna studied the man’s face intently. “What do his doctors say, Pietro?”
He looked down, veiling his eyes. “They say that you must hurry, my lady.”