“Someone must lead Sicily’s crusaders if the king will not,” Joan jeered. Even if they considered her a harridan, as bad as her mother, she didn’t care. Their king was a coward. It needed to be said.
William ignored her. “There is another option. Emperor Barbarossa has taken the cross. He might well be the first to reach the Holy Land.” He faltered a moment, then declared, “Princess Constance wants Sicily’s soldiers to fight for the Holy Roman Empire.”
“No!” Joan’s protest was lost in the loud disapprobation of the others.
Richard Palmer made himself heard. “Combining our forces with Barbarossa’s would be conceding”—he paused only a moment before forging ahead—“conceding that we expect Sicily to become part of the empire.” He managed to avoid looking at Joan.
“It means nothing of the sort,” Archbishop Walter answered. “We have a truce. We’ll fight as allies.”
“Not allies if we subordinate our troops to Barbarossa’s command.” Now Palmer did look at Joan. “Lady, I know you and the princess were friends, but I beg you, think this through, for Sicily’s sake.”
Open-mouthed, she stared a moment, unable to reply. Did he think she was behind this absurd plot? She glanced at William; his face had paled to gray. She drew a steadying breath. “No friendship would come before duty to my lord’s kingdom. I would not have Barbarossa command Sicily’s army.”
“But not the count of Molise!” whined Caid Richard.
“No.” She had an idea to put Constance in her place. “Why not add Sicily’s strength to that of the duke of Aquitaine?”
“Duke Richard?” Palmer repeated, his voice soft, considering.
The archbishop frowned. “But to refuse Barbarossa?”
“Surely, the emperor cannot take offense if the king refuses in favor of his wife’s brother, the first man to take the oath.” Joan looked to William, lifting her eyebrows.
He said, “The queen’s suggestion has merit.”
The murmuring of the others died away. Even the archbishop seemed disinclined to argue further, but then he blurted out, “Will it offend the king of England if we offer aid to his son rather than to him?” He cast an apologetic glance at Joan.
“My father will not begrudge Richard an alliance with his brother-in-law if the enemy is Saladin.” Richard had fewer resources to draw from. Papa would approve, she hoped.
“I have one reservation,” William said. “What if he and King Philip cannot come to terms? How will your brother honor his vow?”
“He’ll find a way. Richard is a man of his word.”
William nodded, seeming satisfied. “We must send word to Duke Richard, offering Sicily’s support. And regrets to Emperor Barbarossa.”
Joan felt oddly ill at ease after her exercise of power. What if it was a mistake? Richard once prided himself on being a man who did not equivocate—Richard Yea-or-Nay, men had called him. Was he still the same man? Or would her brother make a liar of her?
IT WOULD BE A DISMAL CHRISTMAS COURT. JOAN WALKED THE outer courtyard for air and stooped to pluck the brown leaf tips from a cluster of rosebushes. Had there been a change in gardeners or had they forgotten how to prune?
An atmosphere of wilt pervaded the Royal Palace, all of Palermo—perhaps all of Christendom. Even William’s beauty had faded. His temples and cheeks were hollow, his skin sallow. He wore an air of permanent fatigue. His visits to her bed waned to once a month, and he had ceased frequenting the Cuba. The last time he had bedded her his weight upon her was feather-light, and there were excoriations on the patches of skin she accidentally glimpsed. He must be fasting and wearing sackcloth again. As if that would gain a coward favor with the Lord.
Close by her cheek, Charisse’s skirts rustled. “Lady, please stand up. Someone’s coming.”
She whirled about, rising from her crouch to see Bishop Palmer, Archbishop Walter, and Master Eugenius—an unlikely party. When they saw her, they slowed, almost visibly pushing Eugenius to the fore. Joan’s throat closed. What was wrong?
“Lady,” he said with a bow, “I beg your pardon for this intrusion. The king sent us to speak with you.”
“Richard is dead?” she asked, her voice so tight she doubted she’d be heard.
“No,” Eugenius said gently, though he was not a gentle man.
“Please, just say it outright.”
“He is at war with your father.”
“How? Eugenius, how? They cannot fight the French if they are fighting among themselves!”
The tutor winced and turned to Bishop Palmer.
“Would you like to go inside?” Palmer asked, solicitously taking her arm.
“No!” Joan wrenched away. “What are you afraid to tell me?”
“The duke has allied with the French king,” the archbishop said.
No. She shut her eyes and tried to pray, but her thoughts were too scattered. How could God allow it? Did He want Saladin to win?
Bishop Palmer explained, “Last October, King Philip offered to return Chateauroux and Berry to King Henry if the Duke surrendered Quercy back to Count Raymond of Toulouse.”
“He meant to drive a wedge between my father and brother.” She could see it so clearly. How had Papa and Richard not? “Did my father agree?”
“He might have been inclined, but in the end, he was so offended by the French king’s demands he broke off negotiations.”
Good for Papa. “And then?”
“Duke Richard went to King Philip without your father’s knowledge. At least, that is what the best sources report. He wanted to put an end to the strife so the crusade could begin.”
Her own words came back to haunt her. Richard was a man of his word; he would find a way.
The archbishop took up the tale. “He insisted he would keep what he’d won in the Toulousain, but would recognize King Philip as his overlord for Toulouse as well as Aquitaine.”
“But that is little concession,” she protested weakly. “King Philip is overlord of those domains.”
Bishop Palmer said, “Lady, he was offering to change allegiance.”
She knew that, but could not accept it.
“A few weeks ago, Philip invited your father to Bonsmoulins for another attempt to negotiate. Your father arrived to find the duke already in the French king’s company. King Philip offered to return Berry and allow Richard to keep his gains in Toulouse, with two conditions. Duke Richard must wed Princess Alice—”
Joan sniffed.
“—and King Henry must recognize Duke Richard as heir to the kingdom of England. King Henry refused.”
“Refused! But surely he meant to make Richard his heir!” And surely her father was not so fond of Alice. Rather should Richard refuse.
“He said he would not agree to name Richard under compulsion.”
“It was pride ruling him, not sense.” She felt furious with them for falling into Philip’s trap. “Richard must have thought Papa intended to name John heir.” Richard, too, could be blinded by pride. But why would he be so foolish as to ally with Philip? It made it seem as though he thought the king of France had a right to choose England’s monarch.
“Yes, lady. Duke Richard said he was now forced to believe what he previously refused to see. In front of your father, he knelt before the French king and paid homage for not only Aquitaine, Poitou, and his conquests in Toulouse but also for all your father’s French lands—Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Berry.”
A declaration of war. It was as if Richard had sworn to take what his father refused to give. And he swore it publicly, to Papa’s face.
“God help them,” she said. But God would not. God had abandoned them as they had abandoned His Holy City.
“There is still hope, my lady,” Eugenius said. “They will not make war through Christmas. And they agreed to another conference in January.”
Another conference would settle nothing. Joan could not bear the pity on their faces. Trembling, she reached for Charisse’s arm. “Thank you. I will go in
side now.”
THE KING OF ENGLAND FELL ILL AND COULD NOT ATTEND THE peace conference in January. The truce expired. Word of scattered fighting reached Sicily. Sometimes England had the upper hand; other victories went to Duke Richard and the king of France.
Late in winter, Constance asked again for Sicily’s support, and again, William refused. Joan was surprised—this time he scarcely seemed to consider the request.
“I promised our support to your brother,” he said, sitting at the edge of her bed. “I won’t go back on my word.”
She certainly wouldn’t argue, though he had a ready excuse at hand if he wanted to oblige Constance. Richard was making war against his own father, and not for the first time. Should such a man lead a crusade?
“Well, then, thank you,” she said, grudgingly acknowledging his sacrifice. She slid sideways to make room for him to recline.
He did but sat up abruptly, coughing, one hand covering his mouth. His face reddened with the effort. Afterward, while he leaned close to the edge of the bed to catch his breath, she noticed him wiping his hand against his tunic, which was draped across the closest chair. A smear of blood appeared on the hem.
“William!”
He turned to her, looking aged and miserable.
“William, what is wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing that can be helped. Genuold gives me possets.”
“Do they work?”
“Sometimes. They used to.” He sighed and scratched at a roughened spot of skin on his thigh. It wasn’t fasting and hair shirts. Her husband was ill.
“The nosebleeds, do you still have those?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you cough blood. What else?”
“I’d rather not talk about it, Joanna.”
She clamped her mouth shut. Of course not. He had never invited her into his private world. For good reason. But would he recover? Was he dying? He couldn’t die without an heir. “Can you…are you able to lie with me?”
“Sometimes,” he said, turning his head away, his eyes so dull it hurt her. “I thought tonight…I felt stronger.”
So, he came to her chamber on days he felt strong enough. And those days had grown farther and farther apart. Stupidly, she had been grateful for the reprieve.
“Oh, William,” she sighed, tears of helplessness burning her eyes. “What are we to do?”
Emperor Barbarossa would have Sicily. Constance would return to find her old rival a childless widow.
“We do what we can, Joanna. And put our faith in God’s plan.”
God’s plan. “Is this why you would not take the cross?”
He blinked at her. “I would have been a poor crusader. But yes, I might otherwise have taken the vow, though to the sure detriment of my soldiers and the other Christian kings. So, perhaps my illness is the Lord’s blessing.”
“God’s feet, William, that sounds almost blasphemous. Most men I know would only speak like that in jest.”
He swung his feet to the floor. “I cannot afford to blaspheme. And I am not one of most men you know.”
“Are you angry with me?” she asked, startled.
“No.” He shook his head and stood, using both hands to push himself up. “I am tired. And angry with myself. I had hoped to keep this from you as long as possible. You have worries enough.”
She scrambled to her knees on the bed. “Surely you know me better than that. You mustn’t keep things from me. William, what does Genuold say?”
A small smile came to his face, accompanied by a faint light in his eyes. “You do that when you are eager,” he said, gesturing to her posture. “I used to wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
“What it would be like if you were to welcome me some evening, perched like that, like a bird poised for flight.” He shook his head, his sallow cheeks turning a pale pink. “You only do it when you want me to tell you something.”
Feeling the heat of her own blush, Joan wished she could change position, but any movement would call too much attention to itself. Why on earth would he say such a thing now?
“My mother taught me to be curious,” she murmured, knowing it wasn’t an adequate response.
He nodded and said very quietly, “And mine taught me to be wary of saying too much. Good night, Joanna.”
THEY HELD ANOTHER CONFERENCE AT WHITSUNTIDE. KING Philip raised his conditions of peace to three: Alice must wed Richard, Richard must be heir to England, and Prince John must take the cross. King Henry stormed from the meeting swearing to avenge himself on his son. But it was not to be.
Richard won La Ferté-Bernard, Montfort, Maletable, and Beaumont. He would have captured his father in Le Mans but for King Henry’s quick flight and strong rearguard in Sir William Marshal. Marshal had once been Richard’s fencing master, and the tale echoing throughout Christendom was that the two met face to face. Richard was not wearing armor and cried out that it would be dishonorable of Marshal to kill him. Marshal cursed him to the devil and killed his horse instead.
Joan didn’t know which was worse, war or sickness. Now that she knew of William’s disease, it seemed impossible she had not seen it before. At the same time, she wondered how many at court were aware.
He hid it well. In his heavy long tunics, no one could observe his wasting or the marks on his skin where incessant itching led him to scratch until he bled. If he no longer went to the Cuba, it was because events in the Holy Land drove him to repentance. If he stared distractedly at the walls during supper and entertainments—well, distraction had always been his way. Over Joan’s solitary heart hung a doomed sense of waiting: waiting for him to die, waiting for her father and brothers to kill each other.
Early in August, amidst the bloom-filled beauty of her garden, Joan spent a morning scattering bread crumbs to the multicolored fish in her fountain. She liked to watch them bob to the surface and pop open their mouths.
From the balcony, Charisse called out, “Lady, the king is here. He wishes to see you.”
“I’m near the fountain. Will he come down?” Joan called back. He had never visited her in the garden before, but it didn’t surprise her. More often now, he sought her company during the daytime.
“I will,” William answered. A minute later, he stood by her side, wide-eyed, gray-faced. “Joanna, something terrible…I thought I should be the one to tell you.” His voice cracked. “Your father is dead.”
“Papa?” She swallowed rapidly, her legs turned to water, and she sat down. “How?”
“He lost the war. Several weeks ago, Duke Richard took the castle of Tours.”
“Tours,” she echoed.
“Your father met with King Philip and Duke Richard the next day and agreed to all of their terms. He was ill, very ill, or he never would have done so. His men carried him back to Chinon in a litter. He died two days later.”
“Who was with him at the end? John?”
“No. William Marshal. Robert of Chenowith. A few others.”
“Not even John.” And she had not kissed him before leaving England. “My poor father.”
She felt too desolate to cry. Hadn’t she known it would come to this?
William sat beside her. “The duke’s first decree was to have your mother freed from prison.” He said it as a question, as if knowing it would please her, hoping it would be enough.
“Yes.” She tried to smile, though her heart felt no less heavy. “Will there be any trouble with the succession, do you think?”
“It seems not—his coronation is set for next month at Westminster Abbey. The Normans and Angevins have already sworn oaths of fealty, even those most loyal to your father. Richard was lenient with them. He also sought absolution from the archbishops of Rouen and Canterbury for the unnatural war.”
“He is thorough, isn’t he?” she murmured, her voice catching. Richard must be wild with despair. He had loved Papa, but they had been too much alike.
“They say he wants to begin his crusade.”
Joan could not respond; there was nothing more to say. Suddenly she felt glad she and William did not love each other. Distance set a limit to the pain they could cause one another. If only Mama had warned her not to love her brothers, either, or her father.
A sob wrenched her chest, like a great hiccup, and she could not hold back her tears. William’s arms settled around her shoulders. Back and forth, he rocked her while she wept.
IN AUTUMN, CHRISTENDOM LEARNED THAT SALADIN HAD released King Guy of Jerusalem. In defiance of the oath he’d sworn to his captor, Guy made fast for Tyre to join and—he must have assumed—take command of the Holy Land’s remaining Christian knights. But Conrad of Montferrat, who held Tyre, refused to submit to him. Joan could not bring herself to fault Conrad. King Guy had shown such poor sense before the battle of Hattin.
But perhaps he had been shamed into better behavior. When thwarted in Tyre, he assembled an army from the few small contingents of crusaders who had made their way to the Holy Land in advance of the great kings, and laid siege to Acre.
William threw himself into a flurry of activity. Sicily’s ships must be made ready; the army must be raised. Joan thought he seemed stronger. He bedded her twice in the month of October and even mentioned the possibility of another trip to Messina.
But the flush in his cheeks was fever, not health. His frenzy was a desperate one.
One morning he suffered paroxysms of coughing during morning prayers and had to be helped from the chapel by Genuold and two pages. When the service ended, Joan went to his apartments to find him asleep. Behind the door of his bedchamber she noted a chamber pot a quarter full of rust-red urine. Genuold must have seen her alarm, because he pulled her away from the door and bed toward a window.
“Was that his water?” she asked, feeling nauseated.
Genuold nodded. “I’m afraid, my lady, he hasn’t much time.”
She sat by his bedside for three days, leaving only when Charisse or Sati dragged her away to rest. Then Bishop Palmer cornered her on her way back and asked what was wrong.
“He is dying,” she answered tiredly. There was no reason to hide it. They would all know soon enough.
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