Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,130

unable to choke back a muffled protest as he jumped from the boat into the water and began to wade through the shallows toward shore. All around her, men were yelling, cursing, laughing. Her courage finally failing her, she spun around and buried her face in Stephen’s shoulder, not even aware of what she did, knowing only that she could not bear to watch her brother die.

“You need not fear, my lady. They are following him. Look for yourself!”

Stephen had expected to see tears streaking her face. When she raised her head, though, her eyes were dry. But they were still filled with fear as she turned back toward the beach. “Blessed Mother Mary,” she breathed, for Stephen was right; dozens of knights had leapt from their skiffs, heedless of their armor, and were splashing after their king. Richard had already reached the shore. If he was aware of his vulnerability in that moment, he gave no indication of it, raising his shield to deflect arrows and then swinging around to confront the armed rider bearing down upon him. Joanna’s mouth was too dry for speech. She heard a woman’s scream behind her, and for an anguished moment, her eyes and Berengaria’s caught and held. When she dared to look again, a riderless horse was rearing up, a body lay crumpled at Richard’s feet, and the sand was rapidly turning red. By now his knights were scrambling onto the beach, and when Richard charged toward the barricades, they raced to catch up with him, flashes of light reflecting off raised swords and shields, shouting like madmen.

Stephen glanced at Berengaria, who was clinging to the rail as if her knees could no longer support her, and he blamed himself for not insisting that she retreat to the tent, for he thought she would have been more biddable than Joanna, more likely to have heeded him. Women were not meant to see bloodshed. As little as he liked to criticize his king, they ought not to be here at all. “The worst is over now,” he said calmly. “The king won his victory as soon as he set foot upon the beach.”

“How can you be so sure? They have much larger numbers. Even I can see that.”

He was surprised by the steadiness of Berengaria’s voice, but pleased, too, for he knew she’d have need in Outremer for all the strength she could muster. “It matters for naught if we’re outnumbered, my lady. We know more of war than they do.”

Stephen proved to be an accurate seer. The hand-to-hand combat on the beach was fierce but brief, and the emperor’s men were soon in flight, with Richard’s knights in close pursuit. The rest of his boats were landing now, some of the soldiers pausing to loot the bodies of the slain before climbing over the broken barricade and disappearing from sight. Several ships had already corralled the drifting Cypriot galleys, sailors nimbly leaping onto the bloodied decks and flinging anchors over the side. Joanna averted her gaze as they began to dump bodies overboard, and Berengaria shuddered.

“Will it be like this in the Holy Land?” she asked, and Joanna had no answer for her.

IN MIDAFTERNOON, Richard sent word to Stephen that he was to bring the women ashore. They discovered, though, that it was much more difficult to leave the ship than it had been to board it, for they’d been able to cross a gangplank from the dock to the deck in Messina and now they had to be lowered into a sagitta, which rode so low in the water that they were soon drenched with spray and Joanna had to fight off a recurrence of nausea in the pitching, rolling waves. They were not rowed toward the beach at Amathus, Stephen explaining that Limassol lay a few miles to the east, and it was there that they’d find shelter. Even though it meant a longer trip in that accursed small galley, the women were glad to be spared the sight of Amathus, where the fighting had occurred. They’d already seen more bodies in one day than they’d expected to see in their entire lifetimes.

Limassol was a small town of undistinguished appearance—houses of sundried brick, dusty, deserted streets, no signs of life. It looked forlorn, abandoned, and above all, vulnerable, for it lacked walls, although it did have a paltry, neglected citadel at the mouth of the River Garyllis. But Limassol also looked peaceful, and for that they were thankful. Isaac’s self-proclaimed