So long ago. She had been a child. Instead of taking her place beside her husband, she had been consigned to this nursery, shelved in a jeweled box like a relic.
But Queen Joanna was a child no longer.
Summoning her mother’s tone of voice, she said, “Good day, Master Eugenius.”
With an unwilling bow and a sniff of disapproval, he took his leave.
When the door shut, she slumped back into her seat and listened to the footsteps fading, until all she could hear was the gurgling coming from the fountain next door. He was right, of course. She was distracted.
A soft rap on the door alerted her to Charisse’s return. Three taps and a pause, then three more before she had a chance to respond. None of the other maids knocked in quite the same way, polite but insistent.
“Lady?” Charisse opened the door and stepped inside, frowning. “Master Eugenius is gone? You didn’t call me.”
“No. I wanted a few minutes’ peace.”
Shaking her head, Charisse came closer. Pursed lips accentuated the fine lines around her mouth. “You shouldn’t dismiss him early. You know it irritates him.”
“I don’t care.”
“You know that’s not true.”
Joan dropped her head to her hands. Charisse was right. Master Eugenius was not so bad. After all, he kept her sane.
The first year in Palermo had been unbearable. Boredom had deadened her mind to every thought save longing for home. At last, Marguerite had noticed her listlessness and suggested the tutor. Joan didn’t mind Master Eugenius’s irascible condescension most days. He was the first person in Sicily who seemed to behave naturally. Her studies, more interesting than anything she had been taught in Fontevrault, provided a reason to wake in the morning. And as she began to learn Greek and Arabic, she could understand a little of what the servants whispered among themselves. Yet Master Eugenius’s lessons could not cure homesickness.
“Lady?” Charisse said, laying a hand upon Joan’s hair. “Do you feel well? I know it is strange, but if you feel sick or have pain—”
“I don’t feel anything. That is what I find strange. I had thought to feel different.” She sighed. “You…you haven’t told anyone?”
“Who would I tell? Master Eugenius?” Charisse laughed, a short chirrup that sounded sad. Joan knew she missed Eleanor’s entourage. If it had been Marguerite’s intention to isolate her daughter-in-law from court gossip, she could not have found a better arrangement. “But you know you cannot keep this a secret. You’re nearly fourteen. The queen mother—”
“I know she’s anxious, but I feel so ashamed.”
“There is no shame in becoming a woman. Come. It’s a beautiful day. Have your supper in the garden.”
Nodding acquiescence, Joan walked alongside her through the Fountain Room. The marble floors shone in the sunlight streaming through the windows. The fountain sprayed thousands of ephemeral rainbows into the air. They bypassed the broad staircase that led to her apartments, going instead to the small arched doorway to the garden, Joan’s favorite part of the Zisa. Lengthy pathways wound through flowerbeds and patches of crisp-scented herbs, past clusters of tangy orange and sweet fig trees. Scattered alcoves contained half-hidden benches; waterways fed by fountains crisscrossed the paths. In her secret thoughts, Joan referred to it as the Garden of Eden. The only thing missing was temptation.
The vast perimeter of the garden was enclosed with a high wall she suspected the eunuch guards patrolled. If there was a gate, she had never stumbled across it. But the grounds were extensive enough that she need not see the wall if she didn’t care to be reminded she was in a prison.
“I’ll go ask Sati to bring you something to eat,” Charisse said, after settling Joan on a stone bench close to the rosebushes.
A few shriveled blossoms clung to the stems. Warm breezes stirred the mulch, lifting a mixed scent of damp bark and old blossoms to her nose. Autumn in Palermo was nothing like Sarum. Here the seasons scarcely seemed to change.
Her stomach rumbled. What was taking Sati so long? William’s mother had given her the woman as a wedding present. This particular handmaiden—she didn’t like to think of them as slaves—had been set over the others because, in addition to her own native Arabic, she spoke the universal Norman French of the court, as well as enough Greek to communicate with the cook and kitchen maids. Joan relied upon her heavily, yet had not been able to forge a bond as her mother had done with her favorites. Whether Sati maintained her distance because she had been born an infidel or because she was a slave, Joan couldn’t guess, but it was another thing to dislike about Sicily. She could count only Charisse and Princess Constance as friends.
At last, Charisse returned, leading the handmaiden. Sati’s slippered feet glided along the stone path. As always, she looked beautiful, with her flawless olive skin and brown eyes that seemed at once scornful and sad. Balancing a silver tray on one arm, she avoided a mud puddle and reached Joan’s side.
“My lady,” she murmured, setting the tray on the bench.
Joan wrinkled her nose. The dish was swimming in sauce; she couldn’t recognize the meat. “What is it?”
“I did not inquire.”
Joan tore a piece of bread and dipped it into the sauce. It tasted of wine and salt. Perhaps it was fish.
“Why aren’t you eating?” Charisse asked, nudging the tray closer.
Joan made a face. “They cook all the flavor away and then add sauce so it tastes of something else. I want my meat to taste like meat and my fish to taste like fish.” Knowing she sounded petulant, she dipped her bread in the bowl for another bite. She sighed and looked at the ground. The padding between her legs was becoming sticky. She had no appetite, even though her stomach felt hollow. After a moment’s silence, she got to her feet.
“Pardon me for being out of sorts today. I suppose I simply fear change.”
JOAN SAT ON A GILDED BENCH, WATCHING WATER DROPLETS form patterns in the air before cascading into the collecting basin. How many hours of her life had been given over to this, the endless false rain of the Fountain Room? Unwilling to be idle, Charisse sat nearby hemming a gown. Two other handmaidens stood in a corner, their handiwork discarded on a chair. They had been discussing something very seriously for quite a while; perhaps they were arguing. Charisse sent them occasional disapproving glances, which they ignored.
Joan stifled a sigh. Would anyone notice if she transformed into a marble statue? She imagined Master Eugenius haranguing a statue and giggled in spite of her mood.
Sati poked her head through the arched doorway. “My lady, Queen Marguerite is here.”
Joan jumped to her feet. “Bring her in.”
How did Marguerite know?
She turned to glare at Charisse, but the maid’s eyes were wide with surprise. Hastening to the door, Joan curtsied en route as the gray-haired dowager entered with a loud rustling of silk and the scent of wood anemone.
“Lady mother. How good of you to come.”
“Joanna.” William’s mother enveloped her in a stiff-armed embrace. “I’ve heard glad tidings. William will be so pleased.”
Joan stole a glance at Sati, whose shadowed face gave nothing away. Though she had at times felt intimidated by the maid’s sulky efficiency, she had never imagined her disloyal before.
“You won’t tell him yet?” she ventured, blushing.
The queen mother patted her shoulder almost fondly. “It’s high time you took your place at court, or Constance will grow old pretending she is queen of Sicily.” A brittle smile appeared, then disappeared.
Queen Marguerite did not like the princess. Constance had a mercurial temper, but Joan made excuses for her for the sake of the times she was kind. At twenty-five, she was still unmarried and likely to remain so until Joan either bore a son or proved barren. As the last living child of William’s grandfather, King Roger the Great, Constance stood next in line for the throne. They could hardly choose a husband for her until her true worth was
known. If Joan did not provide Sicily’s next king, Constance would be its next queen. They did not want to accidentally seat the wrong man on the throne simply because he was Constance’s husband.
“Come, dear. I’ve brought my seamstress to see to your dresses. You’re a wisp. I think a few layers of lace underneath will help.” Smiling, the queen mother took Joan’s thin arm in her plump one and steered her toward the door. “We’ll make you ready to join Christmas court.”
JOAN HAD EXPECTED MORE FANFARE. THE KING WAS NOT EVEN present when she arrived at court in mid-November, four weeks after her fourteenth birthday. The queen mother, hovering about to boss the servants, told her he was in Monreale, conferring with the architects of his new cathedral. He was often in Monreale, she explained; the project consumed his attention.
Joan found the apology effusive. Apparently, Marguerite also believed William should have been at home to greet his wife.
The Royal Palace was an immense structure of pale stone tinged with pink, with high, arched windows set in blocked towers. Surrounded by greenery and waterways, it did not resemble a Norman castle any more than the Zisa did. Queen Marguerite showed Joan to her new apartments, an interior suite of four rooms located on the second floor toward the rear of the compound. The chambers were larger than those at the Zisa but similarly arranged, with a bedchamber for Joan, one for the maids, a room for dressing and bathing, and an anteroom to serve as day chamber.
Joan noticed a door leading directly from her bedchamber to a balcony. Curious, she stepped outside and breathed in the rich scent of flowering carob. Stairs led from the balcony down to a pretty garden court. But her appreciation was marred by the sight of the surrounding high stone walls.
“Lovely,” she assured Marguerite, returning quickly inside.
“In the spring, there will be gorse and bird’s-foot, brought especially from England. William had his best gardener design it for you.”
Joan forced a smile. Somehow, she doubted William’s involvement.
Most of her belongings had preceded her, and two more cartloads would follow. While she settled in—handmaidens finding their places, arranging furniture in the day chamber, a familiar eunuch slapping Charisse’s low bed beside her own—Joan wondered if she’d merely exchanged jails. After all, she had only moved inside the city walls. Ensconced in a curtained litter between Charisse and Sati, she had not even been allowed to peer out at the scenery during the short journey. Another of Sicily’s absurd prohibitions—someone might catch an unauthorized glimpse of the queen.
The queen. She felt her heart flutter. At court, she would not be a prisoner. She would be William’s consort, his helpmeet, as Mama had been before—
The queen mother sighed loudly. “Joanna, dear, you look tired. Rest awhile. We’ve decided, for the time being, you will take supper here in your room.”
SINCE THE DAYS OF KING ARTHUR, CHRISTMAS COURTS HAD held a glamour of high expectations. Joan’s father had always filled his halls with vassals at Christmastime, using the occasion to fulfill old promises and make new ones, to promulgate laws he knew would be popular, to pay and extract payment of old debts. Sometimes there would be weddings before the feast days began, and celebrations would be doubly joyous. Joan had always loved Christmas court.
Palermo’s court, too, burgeoned in December, but she knew this only because she was permitted to attend morning prayers in the Palatine Chapel. There she sometimes caught sight of William, unless business had taken him from the Royal Palace early or kept him away overnight. Memory had not exaggerated his beauty. He wore floor-length, richly colored tunics and elaborately draped girdles that made him appear more a Greek emperor than a Norman king. But Joan had no opportunity to speak with her husband. He sat at one end of the balcony, surrounded by guards and pages, while her seat was at the opposite end between Constance and Marguerite.
From the balcony, she observed the worshippers gathered in the nave or gazed on mosaics that preached the Old Testament with a splendor the poor priest could never hope to match. Each day the chapel was crowded with new faces.
“Who is that, there—beneath Noah’s feet?” she whispered.
A squat man with a long pointed nose and a shiny bald head had carved out a space for his entourage on a bench close to the altar. The crest of William’s house, two lions eating camels, was emblazoned on a banner held by his page.
“Tancred of Lecce.” Constance sniffed. “My nephew.”
Joan almost giggled. The nephew was twice Constance’s age.
“The mother claimed Duke Roger fathered him,” Queen Marguerite explained, her lips tight. “Roger hadn’t the sense to deny it.”
Duke Roger would have been William’s eldest uncle, but he had died young—too young to ever claim the throne. And Tancred was his illegitimate son.
“What has he done?” Joan asked, impressed that the two women should both dislike him. Agreement between them was so rare.
“Rebelled against my husband any number of times. He spent as much time in prison as out when William was a boy,” the queen mother said in hushed tones. “But when William became king, he granted a general amnesty.”
The priest began speaking, and Joan could ask no more questions. She watched Tancred throughout the service, pleased by the design of the balcony that allowed her such a view while ensuring a measure of privacy for the royal party. Those gathered below could only spy on her by twisting their heads away from the altar and craning their necks.
Tancred was a fidgety man, crossing and uncrossing his legs, scratching his pate, rolling his shoulders as if he had a pain. The woman beside him, her face hidden under a veil, sat still as a stone. Joan wondered if William had noticed this new arrival. What did he think of his cousin?
Carefully, trying not to draw attention to herself, she shifted sideways to glance at William. Her eyes met his. She started and blushed, then turned her face quickly forward. He’d been watching her. Her palms dampened, and she wiped them against her skirt. She passed the remainder of the service in agony, moving her lips but neglecting her prayers. Was he still watching? She held her shoulders straight and tried to make her neck long.
At last, as the priest recited the closing prayer, the temptation to peek again grew too strong to ignore. She looked back, expecting to catch his eye. William had already gone.
EACH DAY AT DUSK, WHILE THE REST OF THE COURT SUPPED IN the dining hall, Sati and two eunuchs escorted Joan from her apartments to the library to meet with Master Eugenius. By order of the king, no one else was allowed to be present during the hours she spent there. She loved the untidy room with its wall of shelves reaching from ceiling to floor, holding nests of old papyrus scrolls alongside stacks of parchment and rows of codices. It had a faintly musty smell and numerous dusty niches. Scattered around sturdy tables were mismatched chairs and worn benches.
“Tell me about Tancred of Lecce,” Joan demanded that evening, pushing aside Stephanites and Ichnelates, a Greek translation of fables from the East.
“Tancred?” wheezed Master Eugenius, perched atop a ladder to reshelve scrolls left on the table by some careless scholar. He often raged against King William’s policy of allowing open access to his library. At Christmas season, it was worse. “Why?”
She heard distaste in his voice, but it meant nothing. The tutor disapproved of everyone.
“Queen Marguerite says he was a rebel.”
“And you have a natural interest in such men.”
Joan frowned, considering the comment a veiled criticism of her brothers. “I am curious about Sicily. I want to know about the old king’s reign.”
Master Eugenius lumbered down the ladder. Dust and flakes of parchment stuck to the oil in his hair. He came closer, squinting. “That is a time everyone else would prefer to forget. Besides, Tancred has made his peace with King William.”
“But not with the queen mother or Princess Constance.”
“Queen Joanna, the grudges people nurse are their own busines
s, not yours.”
“My mother says a queen must be aware of all the undercurrents at court.”
The tutor’s eyes opened wide, but he quickly huffed and squinted again. “Why would you think Tancred capable of stirring any currents in Sicily, let alone ‘undercurrents’?”
He sounded vaguely amused, which angered her.
“I suppose, here in Sicily, women are not allowed to think?”
“Women should never think. It causes any number of problems.”
Now she was sure he was mocking her. She glared at him, looking for a weakness, and realized by the fine lines around his mouth and eyes that the blackness of his hair must be due to walnut husk dye. He was Tancred’s age, if not older.
“Whom did you support, the old king or the rebels?”
To her surprise, Master Eugenius laughed, his large belly shaking. “Had I supported one or the other, I’d be long dead.”
Her nose wrinkled at the odor of cowardice. “But in your heart, surely—”
“In my heart? I despised them both.”
Joan rolled her eyes. “Is there anyone you don’t despise?”
“Currently?” His smile was thin, but appeared near conspiratorial rather than sneering.
“Don’t trouble yourself to answer. I suppose if our lord king were deposed tomorrow, you’d be at liberty to despise even him.”
“Of course not,” he protested without fervor.
Joan sat quiet a moment, thinking through what he had said and did not say. She tapped her fingers idly against the worn table, knowing the sound irritated him. There were factions at every court. Here, with the conflicting interests of the Greeks, the Muslims, and the Latins—Norman French and Lombard Italian—division must be rife.
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