Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,17

bit her lip. “But he may still recover?”

“Inshallah,” he said softly, “Inshallah.”

Physicians were the same, no matter their religion. Joanna knew that when they said “God willing,” there was little hope. Leaning over the bed, she kissed her husband gently upon his forehead, his eyelids, and his mouth.

JOANNA PAUSED in the doorway of the palatine chapel, waiting until her eyes adjusted to the shadows. When a priest appeared, she waved him away. Approaching the altar, she sank to her knees on the marble floor, and began to pray to the Almighty and the Blessed Martyr, St Thomas of Canterbury, entreating Them to spare her husband’s life, not for her sake or even for William’s, but for his island kingdom and all who dwelled there in such peace. Never had she offered up prayers that were so heartfelt, so desperate, or so utterly without hope.

FEW MONARCHS were as mourned as William de Hauteville. His death was greeted with genuine and widespread sorrow by his subjects, for his reign had been a time of prosperity and security, in dramatic contrast to the troubled years when his father had ruled. For three days, they filled the streets of Palermo, lamenting in the Sicilian manner. Women wore black, dressed their servants in sackcloth, their hair unbound and disheveled, wailing to the beat of drums and tambours, their grieving magnified by their fear, for none knew what the future now held.

TAKING ADVANTAGE of her privileged position as Joanna’s childhood nurse, Dame Beatrix was reproaching Joanna for “not eating enough to keep a nightingale alive. I know you’ve no appetite, but you must force yourself lest you fall ill. Indeed, you are much too pale. Should I summon a doctor?”

“There is no need,” Joanna said hastily. “I am not ailing, Beatrix. I have not been sleeping well.”

Beatrix’s brisk, no-nonsense demeanor crumbled. “I know, my lamb, I know. . . .”

“None of it seems real,” Joanna confessed. “I cannot count how many times I have awakened in the morning, thinking I’d had a truly dreadful dream. It is almost like reliving that moment of William’s death, over and over again. When am I going to accept it? When am I going to be able to weep for him, Beatrix? I feel . . . feel as if there is ice enclosing my heart, freezing my tears . . .”

Beatrix sat beside Joanna on the bed, putting her arm around the younger woman. “I remember my late husband, may God assoil him, telling me about battlefield injuries. He said that sometimes when a man was severely wounded, he did not feel the pain straightaway. He thought it was the body’s way of protecting itself.”

Joanna leaned into the older woman’s embrace even as she said with a rueful smile, “So you are saying I should be patient? That the pain is lurking close at hand, waiting to pounce?”

Beatrix would have sacrificed ten years of her life if by doing so she could spare Joanna sorrow. But she had never lied to Joanna, not to the homesick little girl or the grieving young mother or the bewildered new widow. “Scriptures say for everything there is a season. Your tears will come, child. In time, this will seem all too real to you.”

Joanna did not reply and after a few moments she rose, crossing the chamber toward the window. The blue Sicilian sky was smudged with smoke to the west, and she thought reality was to be found out in the streets of Palermo. “The rioting continues,” she said bleakly, “with men taking advantage of William’s death to pillage the Saracen quarters. Barely a fortnight after his death and his people are already turning upon one another, putting the peace of the kingdom at risk. How he’d have hated that, Beatrix. He was always so proud that there had been no rebellions or plots after he came of age and that Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived in harmony under his rule . . .”

“Saracens make good scapegoats in times of trouble.” This new voice came from the doorway, and Joanna turned toward the speaker, nodding in unhappy agreement as Mariam entered the chamber. “The palace seneschal is waiting outside, Joanna. He says the Archbishop of Palermo is here, seeking to speak with you.”

Joanna’s mouth tightened. Her first impulse was to send him away. She was not sure she trusted herself to be civil to the man who’d defied William’s express wish to be buried at Monreale, ordering the royal sarcophagus to