Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,335

be dangerously vulnerable to the violent storms that roiled the Greek Sea at this time of year—and to a host of enemies, some earned, some not, all eager to see him brought low.

He sought to hide his concern, forcing himself to smile as Richard kissed Isabella and then gave him a quick, casual embrace, as if he were merely sailing down the coast to Jaffa. Henri’s studied nonchalance did not deceive his wife. Isabella had been dreading this day, knowing how hard it would be for him, knowing how deep-rooted was his ambivalence about his new life in Outremer. He gamely sought to make her believe that he was content, but the fact that in five months he’d done nothing to arrange a coronation spoke volumes to her. It had not escaped her, either, that Henri continued to call himself the Count of Champagne, and she spent a great amount of time trying to find ways to make him feel less of an exile in a foreign land. She’d blessed Richard for promising to return, and it had occurred to her that once Thibault came of age, there was no reason why Henri’s mother should not come to visit. She was known to be devout, and for Christians, a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was what the hajj to Mecca was to Muslims. Giving Henri a searching look as he watched Richard’s lighter row out toward the waiting ship, she vowed that she’d make him happy in this new life that had been forced upon him.

“Henri . . . I want us to be honest with each other, to share the deepest secrets of our hearts. You can tell me anything, can tell me when you yearn for home—”

He tightened his arm around her, stopping her words with a gentle finger against her lips. “I am home, my love.”

THEY’D CHOSEN to depart at dusk so they could sail by the stars. Earlier that day, it had been overcast, but brisk winds had scattered the clouds. As the buss raised anchor and headed out of the harbor, most of the men on deck were looking toward the horizon, where the sky was streaking with the dying rays of the setting sun. But Richard kept his eyes upon Acre, slowly disappearing into the distance. “Outremer,” he said softly, “I commend you to God. May He grant me the time I need to come back to your aid.” He stayed where he was, not moving until darkness swallowed up the shore and all he could see was the endless, rolling sea and the glittering stars, brilliant and cold and eternal.

Click here for more books by this author

AFTERWORD

I am not going to include the star players here; the fates of the Angevins are already well-known to us and will be covered in my usual obsessive-compulsive detail in A King’s Ransom. So I am focusing upon the historical figures who are not as familiar, some of whom might not even surface if Googled.

Philippe Capet will have a major role in A King’s Ransom. His sad sister, Alys, was finally returned to France in 1195, and Philippe immediately married her to the teenage Count of Ponthieu. Alys was then thirty-five, but she was able to conceive, giving birth to a daughter. Philippe’s youngest sister, Agnes, known as Anna after her marriage to the Byzantine Emperor’s son, lived for the rest of her life in Constantinople, taking Theodore Branas, a Byzantine general, as her lover and then her husband. She had a daughter, but after that, she disappears from the written record.

The Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich von Hohenstaufen, his consort, Constance de Hauteville, and Leopold von Babenberg, the Duke of Austria, will be appearing again in A King’s Ransom.

Tancred reigned as King of Sicily for only four years. He struggled valiantly to stave off the threat posed by the Holy Roman Emperor, Heinrich, but his fledgling dynasty was doomed after the sudden death of his eldest son, Roger, in December of 1193. Tancred himself died in February of 1194, leaving as his heir a four-year-old son. His widow, Sybilla, was forced to yield to Heinrich, who was crowned as King of Sicily at Christmas. Soon thereafter, he conveniently claimed to have discovered a conspiracy and brutally executed a number of Sicilian lords. Sybilla and her children were sent to Germany, where she and her daughters were confined to a convent for years; they eventually managed to escape to France. Her little son was taken to a German