Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,8

porphyry encased in white marble, and the ceiling honeycombed; one of the walls even contained a water clock, a device quite unknown in France.

The palace itself was splendidly decorated with vivid mosaic depictions of hunters, leopards, lions, centaurs, and peacocks. Alicia’s father had once taken her to the Troyes residence of the Count of Champagne, and she’d come away convinced that no one in Christendom lived as well as Lord Henri. She now knew better. Joanna’s coffers were filled with the finest silks, her chambers lit by lamps of brass and crystal and scented by silver incense burners, her jewelry kept in ivory boxes as well crafted as the treasures they held. She bathed in a copper bathtub, read books whose covers were studded with gemstones, played with her dogs in gardens fragrant with late-blooming flowers, shaded by citrus trees, and adorned with elegant marble fountains. She even had a table of solid gold, set with silver plate and delicacies like sugar-coated almonds, dates, hazelnuts, melons, figs, pomegranates, oranges, shrimp, and marzipan tortes. Alicia could not envision a more luxurious world than the one Joanna had married into; nor could she imagine a woman more deserving of it than the Sicilian queen, her “angel with a crown.”

But if she embraced Joanna and her handsome husband wholeheartedly, some of her initial enthusiasm for their lush, green kingdom soon dimmed. While there was much to admire, there were aspects of Sicilian life that she found startling and others that profoundly shocked her. Palermo seemed like the biblical Babel, for not only were there three official languages—Latin, Greek, and Arabic—people also spoke Norman-French and the Italian dialect of Lombardy. Even the realm’s religious life was complex and confusing, for the Latin Catholic Church vied with the Greek Orthodox Church for supremacy, and Palermo was home, too, to mosques and synagogues.

There had been Jews in Champagne, of course, but they were only allowed to earn their living as moneylenders. The Jewish community in Palermo was numerous, prosperous, and engaged in occupations forbidden to them in France; they were craftsmen, doctors, merchants, and dominated the textile industry. Alicia found it disconcerting to see them mingling so freely with the other citizens of the city, for her brother had told her that the French king, Philippe, had banished the Jews from Paris and he’d spoken of their exile with obvious approval.

She was uncomfortable in the city markets, for while they offered a vast variety of enticing goods, they offered slaves for sale, too. They were Saracens, not Christians, and Alicia took comfort in that. But she still found the sight of those manacled men and women to be unsettling, for slavery was not known in France.

There was so much in Sicily that was foreign to her. It was easy to appreciate the island’s beauty and affluence, the mild climate, the prosperity of its people. Although its diversity was like nothing she’d ever experienced, she did not feel threatened by it. But she did not think that she could ever accept the presence of Saracen infidels living so freely in a Christian country, even allowed to be judged by Islamic law.

Every time she saw a turbaned Arab sauntering the city streets, she shrank back in alarm. When she heard the cries of the muezzin summoning Muslims to their prayers, she hastily crossed herself, as if to ward off the evil eye. She was baffled that there should be Arabic phrases on the gold tari, the coinage of the realm. She did not understand why young Sicilian women adopted Saracen fashions, often wearing face veils in public and decorating their fingers with henna. She was stunned when she learned that Muslims served in King William’s army and navy, and some were actively involved in his government. They were known as the Palace Saracens, men of odd appearance, uncommonly tall, with high-pitched voices and smooth skin, lacking any facial hair. She’d heard them called eunuchs; when one of Joanna’s ladies had explained the meaning of that foreign word, she’d been horrified, and for the first time she wondered if she’d ever feel truly at home in this alien land.

Her brother had said Saracens were the enemies of God, telling her how they’d desecrated Christian churches after capturing Jerusalem, exposing the precious fragment of the True Cross to jeering crowds in the streets of Damascus. The abbess had assured her that Arnaud died a martyr to his faith. So how could King William find so much to admire in Saracen