Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,127

expect to be safe from molestation; damaged goods were worthless in trade. But who would protect Mariam and Beatrix and Hélène and Alicia?

The sun was slowly sliding into the sea when Berengaria found Joanna standing at the rail, watching as the waves took on delicate tints of rose and lavender. For a time they stood in silence. “When we were in Bagnara,” Joanna said at last, “my mother told me something my father had once said to her, that kings play chess with the lives of other men. So do queens, Berengaria, so do queens. . . .”

“I have faith that all will be well for us, Joanna.” Berengaria was not sure if she still believed that, for this terrible sea voyage had not been what she’d expected when her father promised her to the English king. So much had gone wrong. It was almost as if the Almighty had turned His Face away from them. But true faith did not waver when tested. If she yielded to despair, she’d be failing her God, herself, and the man she’d pledged to wed. “I am sure of that,” she said, with all the conviction at her command, and Joanna managed a shadowy smile, thankful that her brother had chosen a woman of courage for his wife.

A sudden shout turned all eyes toward the rigging, where a sailor had been perched all day. Straddling the mizzenmast, he leaned over so far that he seemed in danger of losing his balance. “I see a sail to the west!”

It seemed to take forever before those on deck could see it, too, a large ship skimming the waves, its sails billowing out like canvas clouds. When the lookout yelled that there were two ships, excitement swept the buss, for with these reinforcements, surely they could fend off Isaac’s galleys? Men were laughing and slapping one another on the back, sailors scrambling up into the rigging to get a better view, and Joanna’s dogs began to bark, hoarsely, as if they’d forgotten how. “You see,” Berengaria said, with a beatific smile. “God does hear our prayers.”

“Yes, He does,” Joanna agreed, for it would have been churlish to quibble with salvation. But she could not banish the question from her mind as she could from her lips. Where was the fleet? Where was Richard?

It happened with such suddenness that men were not sure at first if they could trust their senses. There was nothing to the west but sea and sky and those two ships tacking against the wind. And then the horizon was filled with sails, stretching as far as the eye could see. A moment of stunned disbelief gave way almost at once to pandemonium, and for the rest of their lives, there would be men who vowed they’d never experienced an emotion as overwhelming as the joy of deliverance on a May Sunday off the coast of Cyprus.

The sharp-eyed sailors spotted it first. “The Sea-Cleaver! The king’s galley!” But Richard’s women needed to see it for themselves, scarcely breathing until it came into focus, looking like a Norse long-ship, its hull as red as the sunset, its sails catching the wind, and streaming from its masthead the banner emblazoned with the royal lion of England.

Berengaria found it hard to tear her gaze away from the sight of that blessed galley. “It is like a miracle, Joanna,” she said in awe, “that he should reach us in our hour of greatest need.”

Joanna gave a shaken laugh. “Richard has always had a talent for making a dramatic entrance, but he has outdone himself with this one!”

AS SOON AS RICHARD swung himself up onto the deck, Joanna took a backward step to make sure the first one he greeted was Berengaria. She needn’t have worried, though. For once, the younger woman’s Spanish reserve was forgotten and she flung herself into Richard’s arms. He embraced Joanna next, and then Berengaria again, this time bending her backward in a kiss that seared like a brand and left her flushed and breathless. But when he really looked at Joanna, his own breath hissed through his teeth and his hand clamped onto her arm hard enough to hurt. “Jesu, Joanna!”

“I do not feel as wretched as I look,” she assured him hastily. “Truly I am on the mend. But where were you, Richard? We were half out of our minds with worry!”

“We ended up having to spend ten days in Rhodes, waiting for the missing ships to straggle in. I sent