out galleys to look for our lost sheep, and that took time,” he said with a quick smile. He’d also been stricken with a recurrence of the malarial fever that had plagued him for years, but he saw no reason to mention that since he preferred to deal with his illnesses by ignoring them if possible. “We finally sailed on last Wednesday and would have been here earlier had we not encountered a storm in the Gulf of Satalea. We were actually blown backward by the winds.”
Even as he was speaking, his gaze had shifted past the women to the barricaded beach and the stark evidence that ships had run aground. “Not all of my fleet is with me, but it looks as if I got here just in time. What is going on?”
He’d directed that last question toward Stephen de Turnham, but Stephen had taken Joanna’s measure by now and he deferred politely to her. “Three of our ships sank after being blown onto the rocks, and one of the men drowned was your vice chancellor,” Joanna said sadly, knowing that would grieve him. “That buss is Hugh de Neville’s. He and Stephen have been a godsend, Richard, doing all they could to keep us safe under very difficult circumstances.”
His eyes had narrowed. “Tell me about those ‘difficult circumstances.’”
They did, Joanna now the one to defer to Stephen when it came to describing the struggle to free their men. Richard listened in ominous silence, then summoned Roger de Harcourt to get a firsthand account of their imprisonment. He even called Petros over to question him about what he’d seen in Amathus. And then he moved over to the gunwale, stood for a time staring at the beach and those low-riding Greek galleys. When he turned back to the other men, there was a universal sense of relief that this lethal rage was not directed at any of them.
“It takes great courage to maltreat half-drowned shipwreck survivors and to threaten defenseless women. But now we will see how Isaac likes dealing with me.”
CHAPTER 16
MAY 1191
Akrotiri Bay, Cyprus
The women’s buss dared to venture closer to shore after the arrival of the royal fleet. Blessed with calmer waters and no longer fearful of the Cypriot emperor’s treacherous intentions, they enjoyed their first night’s peaceful sleep since the Good Friday storm. So they were still abed the next morning when Alicia darted into their tent, exclaiming that they must come out on deck straightaway. Making themselves presentable in record haste, they emerged into the white-gold sunlight, only to halt in shock, for the bay was afloat with small boats, all heading toward the barricaded beach.
Stephen de Turnham’s knights were lined up along the gunwale, watching and cheering as if they were spectators at a game of camp-ball. Stephen himself was in a far more somber mood. He turned at once, though, to greet Joanna and Berengaria with deference and, in response to their alarmed questions, he answered concisely and candidly.
“The king sent two of his knights and an armed escort ashore at dawn, along with a man fluent in Greek, for he’d prudently thought to ask Tancred for a translator. They carried a message to Isaac, seeking redress for the harm done to his shipwrecked men, who’d been robbed as well as imprisoned. They soon returned, reporting that they thought Isaac must be mad, for his response was an amazingly rash one to make to a justly aggrieved king with an army at his command. They said he blustered and ranted, insisting that a mere king had no right to make demands upon an emperor. When they asked if that was truly his reply, he spat out a one-word Greek oath. Tancred’s man was not sure how to translate it into French, but he said it was highly insulting. When this was told to our king, he showed that he could be just as terse as Isaac. His response: ‘To arms!’”
Joanna and Berengaria shared the same conflicted emotion, pride in Richard warring with concern for his safety. Joining Stephen at the gunwale, Joanna soon noticed his tension; he’d kept his eyes on the shore even while answering their questions, one hand clasping and unclasping the sword hilt at his hip, almost as if acting of its own volition. “It must be hard for you,” she said sympathetically, “having to stand guard over us instead of taking part in the invasion.”
He acknowledged her perception with a crooked smile. “I cannot deny, Madame, that if