Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,15

But Archbishop Walter plunged ahead unheedingly and ran straight into a royal tempest.”

“Joanna heard?” Mariam said and winced when he nodded.

“I met her mother once . . . did I ever tell you, my dear? The incomparable Eleanor of Aquitaine. It was more than forty years ago, but the memory is still green. She and her husband—it was the French king then—were on their way home from the Holy Land when their ships were set upon by pirates in the pay of the Greek emperor. Fortunately, our King Roger’s fleet was in the area and came to the rescue. But the queen’s ship was blown off course and by the time it dropped anchor in Palermo’s harbor, she was quite ill. Once she’d recovered, I was given the honor of escorting her to Potenza, where her husband and King Roger were awaiting her. She was a remarkable woman, very beautiful, of course,” he said, with a nostalgic sigh. “But she did have a temper. I saw today that she passed it on to her daughter. Our bombastic archbishop wilted before the Lady Joanna’s fury, shed his dignity like a snake shedding its skin, and bolted, his robes flapping in the breeze.”

Mariam could not share his satisfaction, even though she did share his dislike of Archbishop Walter. What must it have been like for Joanna, keeping vigil by her husband’s sickbed and hearing the prelates squabble over where he was to be buried? Bidding the vice chancellor farewell, she continued on her way. When she glanced back, she saw Matthew was almost out of sight, moving with surprising speed for a man so crippled by gout. He would never be as inept as the archbishop, but he’d been bitterly opposed to Constance’s German marriage, and she was sure he was already plotting how best to thwart Heinrich should William die.

Mariam was no more eager than the vast majority of William’s subjects to see Sicily swallowed up by the Holy Roman Empire. She loved Constance as much as Joanna did, but she loved her Sicilian homeland, too, and had no doubts that the kingdom would suffer under Heinrich’s iron yoke. Damn William’s stubbornness for refusing to see what a great risk he was taking! This spurt of anger shamed her. How could she be wrathful with her brother when he could well be dying?

Two of William’s African bodyguards moved aside respectfully as she approached the door to his bedchamber. It was then that she saw the reddish-brown creature huddled on the floor. Recognizing Ahmer, her brother’s favorite Sicilian hound, she frowned. But her disapproval was directed at William’s Saracen doctors, not Ahmer. Muslims looked upon dogs as dirty animals, and she knew they were responsible for banishing Ahmer from his master’s bedside. The hound whimpered as she scratched his head, and she found herself smiling as a memory surfaced, one of William debating his chief physician, Jamal al-Dīn, about the status of dogs. Jamal had insisted that they were ritually unclean and were to be shunned by Believers, and William, whose Arabic was fluent enough to allow him to read their holy book, had pounced gleefully, pointing out that there was only one reference to dogs in the Qur’an and it was a positive one, citing the Companion in the Cave sura as proof. Her smile faded then, for she could not help wondering if they’d ever be able to engage in such good-natured arguments again. Each time she saw William, he seemed to be losing more ground.

Opening the door, she let Ahmer squeeze in ahead of her. She had a moment of concern, fretting that he’d jump onto the bed, but he seemed to sense the gravity of the situation and sat down sedately at Joanna’s feet, his almond-shaped eyes never straying from William’s motionless form. Joanna’s drawn face and slumping shoulders bespoke her utter exhaustion, but she mustered up a smile, saying, “Your sister is here, my love.”

Mariam sat in a chair by the bed, reaching for William’s hand as she tried to conceal her dismay at the deterioration in his appearance. Her handsome brother looked like an ashen, spectral version of himself, his eyes sunken and his cheeks gaunt. He’d lost an alarming amount of weight in so brief a time, and his skin felt cold and clammy to her touch. “Zahrah,” he said hoarsely, bringing tears to Mariam’s eyes with the use of this Arabic childhood endearment. He was obviously in great pain. He seemed pleased, though, when