Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,20

her husband, and for Sicily, the land she’d come to love.

WILLIAM’S DEATH had destroyed the sense of security that Alicia had gained in the months since the sinking of the San Niccolò. Suddenly Sicily had become an alien place again, a dangerous place. She grieved for the young king and for Joanna, who seemed like a lost soul, pallid and frail-looking in her stark black mourning gowns and veils. She was frightened by the outbreaks of street violence and she could tell that the palace’s Saracen servants were frightened, too. Almost overnight, everything had changed.

Alicia had seen little of Joanna in the weeks after William’s death, and when she did, the queen seemed distant and preoccupied. The royal household was in a state of turmoil. Two of Joanna’s ladies-in-waiting had already departed her service, for they were kin to the Countess Sybilla, the wife of Tancred of Lecce. But Alicia knew that several others were talking of leaving, too, hoping that Sybilla might take them on. A reigning queen was a far more attractive mistress than a widowed one.

After finding Alicia crying, Beatrix had reassured the girl that Joanna’s future was secure. She held the Honour of Monte St Angelo, with the revenues from all its cities and towns, Beatrix explained, thinking it best not to mention that Monte St Angelo was on the mainland, far from Palermo. Alicia took comfort from that, for her trust in Joanna was absolute and she felt sure that Joanna would take her along when she moved to her dower lands. But then they got word of the English king’s death and everything changed yet again.

After the Requiem Mass for her father, Joanna had withdrawn into her bedchamber, and Alicia sought out Emma d’Aleramici and Bethlem de Greci for answers. The news of the English king’s passing seemed to have alarmed everyone and she wanted to know why.

She found them in the process of packing their belongings, obviously planning to leave Joanna’s service. Last week she’d overheard them discussing their chances of entering Sybilla’s household once she was crowned, reluctantly concluding that she was not likely to accept them and it was better to remain with Joanna than to return to the tedium of their own homes. So what had changed their minds?

They were quite willing to tell her, always welcoming an opportunity to gossip. Joanna’s influence had died with William, they said bluntly. It would have been different if she’d given William a son, for then she’d have been regent until he came of age. She had still been more fortunate than most barren, widowed queens, though, for she was the daughter of a great and powerful king, a man known to be very protective of his children, at least the females in the family. All knew how he’d come to the aid of his daughter Matilda when her husband, the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, had been driven into exile by the Holy Roman Emperor, giving them refuge at his court whilst he maneuvered to get their banishment edict revoked.

But once he died, Joanna was vulnerable, fair game for those who might want to abduct her and force her into marriage. She was a valuable prize, they told the horrified Alicia, for she was beautiful and her dower lands were rich enough to tempt any man. So they were looking after their own interests whilst they still could.

“But . . . but Lady Joanna still has a royal protector,” Alicia stammered. “Her brother is the English king now. Surely he’d come to her aid if—” She broke off in bewilderment, for they’d begun to laugh at her.

“You are such a child, know nothing of the ways of the world. Brothers rarely show much concern for sisters sent off to distant lands. That is especially true when the needed alliance died with a sister’s foreign husband. If you want proof of that, consider the sad history of Agnes Capet, the French king’s little sister.”

Alicia sensed that she did not want to know Agnes’s story, but she made herself ask, not wanting to display timidity before these women she disliked. “What happened to her?”

Bethlem hesitated, suddenly realizing that Alicia was too young to hear of these horrors. Emma had no such qualms, however. “Agnes was betrothed to Alexius, the son of the Emperor of the Greeks, sent off to Constantinople at age eight and wed to the boy the following year when she was only nine. That was well below the canonical age for