Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,3

to maintain order, to keep the panicked passengers from mobbing the boat. Grasping Alicia by her shoulders, he pulled her to her feet, holding her tightly as they headed for the stern.

Alicia could never clearly recall her final moments upon the San Niccolò. She had only snatches of memory—the men kept at bay by the drawn swords of the Templars, the most important of the passengers scrambling into the longboat, the eerie calm of the ship’s master and the ashen-faced sailors. Once the affluent merchants, the women, an archdeacon, and several priests had climbed aboard, the master gestured for the Templars to join them. They were men who’d tested their courage against Saracen steel, and they did not hesitate now, sheathing their swords and clambering into the longboat. Alicia was too frozen with fear to move. Arnaud picked her up as if she were a feather, telling her to close her eyes as the longboat was lowered into the heaving sea.

Her memory went blank at that point, and the next thing she remembered, the current had thrust their little craft onto the Sicilian shoreline. The oarsmen leaped out into the water and began to drag the boat up onto the beach, and soon the passengers were jumping to safety, falling to their knees and thanking the Almighty for their deliverance. People seemed to have appeared from nowhere, helping the shipwreck survivors away from the crashing waves. An elderly man speaking a tongue that was utterly incomprehensible to Alicia jerked off his own mantle and wrapped her in it. She tried to thank him, but her teeth were chattering too much for speech. Someone else was offering a wineskin and she obeyed unthinkingly, gasping as the liquid burned its way down her throat. But where was Arnaud?

When she saw her brother standing by the beached longboat, she stumbled toward him, crying out in horror as she realized what was happening. Several of the sailors had balked, but the others were going back for the doomed passengers and their shipmates, and the Templars were going with them.

Arnaud turned as she screamed his name. He was saying that they were needed to help man the oars, saying there were Christian pilgrims still on the ship and it was his duty to rescue them, that it would shame him to stay on shore whilst the sailors braved the sea again. Alicia didn’t understand, didn’t even hear his words. Sobbing, she clung to him with all her feeble strength, begging him not to go, and he finally had to tear himself away, kissing her upon the forehead before he shoved her back onto the sand. “God will protect me,” he insisted, with a grimace that he meant as a smile, and then scrambled into the longboat as they launched it out onto the churning waves.

By the time Alicia got to her feet, her brother was gone. Others had joined her at the water’s edge, watching as the longboat fought the storm. It had almost reached the trapped ship when it was slammed by a monster wave. Alicia began to scream even before the longboat disappeared into its roiling depths. Hands were gripping her now, pulling her away, but she paid them no heed. Her eyes frantically searching the raging sea, she continued to scream for her brother.

THE MALE SURVIVORS of the San Niccolò wreck were given shelter at the monastery of San Salvatore dei Greci overlooking the harbor, and the injured women had been taken to the convent of Santa Maria della Valle, just west of Messina. Having strangers in their midst was always disruptive for the nuns, but it was the arrival of William de Hauteville and his entourage that created the real excitement, especially among the novices, for not even nuns were immune to his potent appeal of beauty, high birth, and gallant good manners.

“We were expecting a visit from you, my lord,” the mother abbess said with a fond smile, for she’d known William for most of his thirty-six years. “You’ve always been very generous to those poor souls shipwrecked in your domains, and I was sure you’d be no less openhanded with the survivors of the San Niccolò.”

“I do but follow the teachings of Our Lord Christ,” William said, with becoming modesty and a dazzling smile. “‘Be ye therefore merciful, as Your Father also is merciful.’” They were walking in the gardens, lush with summer blooms, for Sicily had been blessed with a mild climate. William paused to pluck a fragrant