A Reed in the Wind: Joanna Plantagenet, Queen of Sicily

by Rachel Bard

  She sniffled, blinked the tears out of her eyes and nodded.

  “Now, let's get practical. I suggest that besides your two ladies and that pretty little page who follows you about, you should take half a dozen servants. I'm sorry but Brother Jean-Pierre will have to stay here. I know he's your good friend, but I need all the holy men about me that I can find, to put the fear of God into my troops. And you must take your own cook so you don't have to depend on those abstemious monks for your meals. You'll want something more substantial than bread and water. My men went into the town while they were there and advised the merchants to lay in some supplies for you. I expect you'll have plenty of fresh meat. I've heard there are fine wild boar in those beech forests. I'll send a couple of knights; they'll be your huntsmen as well as your bodyguards.”

  “You've thought of everything, Richard.”

  So it was decided. They would sail away to their new home in two days. Joanna didn't look forward to telling Lady Marian and Mary and the others that they'd have to start packing again.

  A week later, Joanna and her entourage were settled in the guest quarters of the Bagnara monastery. They saw very little of the brown-robed monks except from a distance, as they walked sedately along in pairs, their faces hidden by their hoods. Lady Marian was the party's emissary to confer with the abbot when necessary.

  The general mood was not a happy one. The servants missed the relative spaciousness and comfort of their lodgings in Messina compared with cramped quarters and hard beds in the monastery sleeping rooms. The cook complained at having to work in such an ill-equipped kitchen, cheek by jowl with the monks’ cook. The latter would cast furtive, disapproving glances at the former’s unnecessarily rich concoctions when he himself was putting together a perfectly nutritious meal of barley soup and boiled turnips.

  Lady Marian, as was her nature, didn’t complain and kept busy. She made great progress on her embroidery. She had decided to give the monks a fine altar cloth for their chapel. When she told the abbot he demurred, saying the plain white ones they had were quite good enough. “We don't want anything bright and gaudy, like those in your big cathedrals.” She promised it would not be gaudy.

  “So,” she told Joanna, “I shall make it all one color, a pale blue, but I'll use my fanciest stitches to work a pattern of birds and flowers. The abbot is rather nearsighted and I doubt if he'll even notice.”

  Mary chafed at the exile most of all. Precisely as she'd dreamed, she’d met a gallant Crusader. But just as their acquaintance was ripening into romance she'd been torn away from him.

  “We might as well have stayed in Palermo,” she said crossly a few days after their arrival. She was mending the hem of Joanna's crimson robe. She jabbed the needle in so hard that she pricked her finger. “Ouch!” She popped the finger into her mouth.

  Lady Marian, sitting beside her with her embroidery, glanced at the drop of blood on the garment. “Good thing you weren't working on the white one.”

  Joanna walked to the narrow window in the stark stone wall and looked out at the forested slope running down to the sea.

  “Yes, it's too bad to be cooped up like this, when we'd barely gotten comfortable in Messina. But you'll have to admit the setting is lovely. Besides, we aren't prisoners as we were in Palermo. We're free to come and go as we please.”

  “Yes, my lady, if there were any place to go to,” Mary said, still grumpy. “We can take walks, and we can ride into the town, such as it is, and ride back again. We can walk around the cloister garden, but that takes only five minutes. And that's it.”

  “Never mind, Mary. Richard said it would be only a few weeks, and then we'll be back in Messina and you'll be reunited with your Stephen.”

  Only Joanna and Federico welcomed the experience. The two of them took frequent walks in the forest with one of the knights and with Mary when she could be persuaded. For Federico, it was a totally new world to explore. He'd never been outside of a city, much less in the company of so many trees, so tall he couldn't see their tops and so leafy that they barely let the sunlight through. He'd scamper about like a puppy, finding all kinds of marvels from deer tracks to fallen chestnuts. Then he'd remember that he was the queen's page and he’d march ahead of her, on the alert for wild beasts or brigands or branches in the path.

  As for Joanna, being here was a blessed respite from the sorrows and worries that had oppressed her for the past year. Not only was she physically far removed from her tormentors, Tancred and his partner in mischief Matthew of Ajello. She’d also left behind the pressure of virtual imprisonment in Palermo and the hopelessness of knowing there was no way she could escape. Now, with Richard’s arrival and his care for her safety and well-being, she felt secure, content to wait until he summoned them back and she could prepare to leave Sicily.

  The few weeks stretched into six, seven, eight. October became November, then December. They were not as hardy as the monks and were only skimpily supplied with bedclothes or anything to temper the chill. Lady Marian decided enough was enough and sent a man into the town to see what he could find.

  “And Federico, you will go with him to help. Be sure you get enough blankets for all of us, and see if you can find some rugs for these cold stone floors.”

  Federico's pride in the assignment propelled him into his saddle in an instant. He sat as tall as he could, eager to be off, watching with impatience as the servant took his time in mounting.

  In three hours they were back, accompanied by a mule they'd hired to carry a mountain of furry and wooly coverings and rugs.

  “The best are the sheepskins,” the servant told Lady Marian, pulling a few off the pile and displaying them for her. “See how thick and soft they are, and they'll do for the beds and the floors too.”

  Federico picked up a small black lambskin. He brushed his hand over its tight curls and looked up at Lady Marian. “Do you think I could have this one?”

  “I don't know why not. It would go nicely with your hair.”

  He grinned, wrapped himself in it and pranced about like a gamboling lamb.

  “What about the packet, lad?” the servant muttered to him.

  “Oh yes!” He gulped. “I almost forgot. While were in the market a man rode up and asked if anybody knew how to get to the monastery where Queen Joanna was lodged because he had a message for her. So we told him we were going there shortly and he could come with us. And then he said in that case we could take the packet and he'd hurry back to the harbor so his boat could catch the evening tide.” He pulled from his pocket a small linen-wrapped parcel, bearing the bright red seal of the kings of England.

  “Take it to Queen Joanna at once,” said Lady Marian. “I believe she's in the cloister.”

  Joanna nervously broke the seal. Was it bad news? She found a single thick sheet in Richard's sprawling hand. Her worried frown disappeared as she read the first line. She looked up to see not only Lady Marian, Mary, Federico and her maid Emilia, but the cook and all the servants, everybody eager to hear what King Richard had to say.

  “We're to come back to Messina, all's well there now!”

  Something like a cheer broke out. The cook’s shout was the loudest. Mary’s smile was the broadest.

  “How soon does he say?” she asked.

  “He will send galleys the day after tomorrow.”

  “So at least we’ll be warm our last two nights,” said Mary, once more her cheerful self. “And maybe the monks will relax their rule of self-denial and will be glad to have all these rugs and robes.”

  Federico plucked up his courage and asked, “Lady Marian, do you think I could keep my black lambskin?”

  “Of course you may. Now we must all get busy. Come, Emilia, and I'll help you get started.”

  When everybody had dispersed, Joanna went back to the letter. There wasn't much more—only that he'd succeeded in subduing the rebellious Griffons and had taken possession of the town. And he was building a castle near the harbor.

  A castle? Wh
y a castle, she wondered. She read on. It was designed to be dismantled when they left and reassembled in Palestine as a siege engine. He'd named in Matagriffon—Kill the Greeks. “To remind them they'd better not start any more trouble.”

  She was about to refold the letter when she noticed writing on the back.

  “You will arrive in good time for the Christmas banquet I plan to hold in Matagriffon. You will be guest of honor. The other notable guests will be King Tancred and King Philip—assuming I remain on good terms with them, as I am at the moment.”

  She stared at the words as though wondering if she had read them correctly. She would share the festive table with the loathsome Tancred and the enigmatic Philip.

  Christmas in Messina promised to be most interesting.

  Chapter 44

  “That doesn’t look like much of a castle to me,” said Lady Marian. “More like a monstrous woodpile.”

  Joanna and her party, having been liberated from Bagnara, were riding up to the palace from the harbor at Messina. King Philip and Sir Alan had met them at the pier. It was a cold, windless day, with lowering gray clouds and a biting chill in the air. In his long, black fur cloak, Philip looked like a figure announcing doom. His dark-bearded face was as hard to read as ever. But his manners were as impeccable as ever. He bowed over Joanna’s hand and said, “I bear greetings from King Richard, Queen Joanna. He was unable to be here so I shall do my best to make you welcome and conduct you to the palace.” He’d then taken his place at the head of the procession.

  He heard Lady Marian’s words and reined in his horse to look where she was pointing. Joanna let down her hood and looked too. She saw a tall, square, ungainly structure that dwarfed the surrounding one-story houses and shops that crowded the hillside. So this was Richard’s Matagriffon. It seemed to have four walls but no roof. Though they could hear and see workmen busy with hammers and saws, it had not yet assumed any resemblance to any castle she had ever seen.

  “You’re right, of course, Lady Marian,” said Philip. “I believe he calls it a castle in jest. But remember that it’s not a permanent structure. Richard must take it all apart when he leaves so he can rebuild it in Palestine. It will help us to besiege the cities we’ll need to take.”

  While they surveyed the scene, a head of red-gold hair caught Joanna’s eye. Richard, towering above the workmen, was apparently discussing the placement of a huge timber that three men bore on their shoulders.

  Sir Alan said, “He’s there every day, morning to night, urging them on and lending a hand. He’s set on finishing it in time for his Christmas banquet. Would you like to ride over for a closer look?”

  She shivered and clutched her cloak about her. “Not now, thank you. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Very wise,” said Philip. “I believe it’s beginning to rain and I’m sure you’ve had a long hard day.”

  She sent him a look of gratitude for his understanding, raised her hood and rode on. It had indeed been a long hard day. During the trip across the strait, their galley had been buffeted by winds that came now from one direction, now from another, so they bounced about like a puppet on a string. All Joanna wanted now was to get inside, get warm and lie down.

  She didn’t inspect Matagriffon the next day or the next week, being confined to her bed with a fever, a cough and a feeling of general misery. Richard came to see her, but after he was assured that she wasn’t at death’s door and only needed time to recover, he pressed her hand affectionately, told her she must get well by Christmas (only five days away) and went back to his labors.

  Philip didn’t appear but he sent an enormous basket filled with exotic temptations: golden globes of oranges, blushing apricots, figs almost bursting with plumpness, bunches of rosy grapes still clinging to the vine, shiny brown dates with seeds removed and stuffed with walnuts. His message: “My physicians tell me that fruit is an excellent antidote to the ill humor you are suffering. I hope these will prove of some benefit.”

  Whether it was fruit or simply the passage of time, Joanna felt much better by Christmas morning. She was quite hungry, but she knew the banquet would be long and lavish, so she had only a bowl of milk and a chunk of bread for breakfast. Then she called for Mary and Emilia. It was none too soon to begin the serious task of dressing. This involved far more than choosing a gown and jewels. First came the bath. She’d not had a proper bath all the time she was in Bagnara. The monks were as abstemious in their bathing as their eating and saw no reason to provide their guests with towels, sponges and facilities for heating multiple basins of water, much less tubs to accommodate the water and the bather.

  Emilia had never assisted a lady to bathe. Mary instructed her carefully. First a large wooden tub would be borne into Joanna’s chamber. Then servants would bring basins of hot water and pour them in until it was at least half full. Emilia was to test it with her elbow to make sure it was not too hot, not too cold, and sprinkle into it a few drops of lavender oil. When all the servants had left, she was to help Joanna get undressed (keeping only her cap on) and assist her onto a stool and thence into the tub, where a cushion for her head was to be placed. She would sponge her lady head to toe, or if Joanna preferred to wash herself, Emilia would only offer to do her back. Finally, she would help her out of the tub and into a robe that had been warming by the fire.

  “Now, do you have all that in mind? Can you assist the queen just as I’ve instructed?”

  “Oh yes, Lady Mary, I’m sure I can!”

  Mary still felt a little start of pleasure and surprise at being addressed as “Lady.” With new authority, she spoke to the puffing servant who had just emptied a large ewer into the tub. “Are you almost finished, Arnold?”

  “One more trip should do it.” He hurried out.

  One more trip did it.

  Presently, thoroughly cleansed and still tingling from Emilia’s brisk ministrations, Joanna leaned back to rest her head on the cushion. Lazily, she stretched, flexed her muscles, wiggled her fingers and toes, letting her whole body relax and respond to the blessed warmth.

  Not a bad body for a woman of twenty-six, she mused, taking stock. Skin white and smooth, not a sign of a wrinkle. Stomach still flat, no fat around the waist, breasts as nicely pointed and upstanding as ever—though I do wish they were just a little bigger. I think I’ll wear the green velvet gown tonight, the one with the snug fit and the low neckline. I wonder if Philip will notice. It’s hard to know with Philip. He never seems to permit his eyes to stray below my face. But William would have noticed. He would have stood behind me, let his hands glide up from my waist to close over my breasts with gentle pressure, like this. He would have leaned over my shoulder to kiss me just where the vee of the gown reveals a hint of cleavage. She closed her eyes, remembering.

  William! She sat up, realizing that she hadn’t thought of William for days. Should she feel guilty? She leaned back again and gazed at the ceiling, considering. No, she decided. William wouldn’t have wanted her to grieve forever. He’d want her to be happy. She wondered if Philip was the one who could make her happy. Anyway, she was still young and the world was full of men. She knew from the way they looked at her that they still found her desirable. Maybe the future needn’t be as bleak as she’d feared.

  But her immediate future had deteriorated seriously. The bath water was cool, almost cold. She shivered and stood up, wrapping her arms around her.

  “Emilia!” she called. The girl hastened to help Joanna out of the tub and into the warm robe and felt slippers.

  “Thank you, Emilia. I feel so much better.” Joanna snuggled in the robe and sank into a chair by the hearth while the servants drained and removed the tub. She took off her cap and shook out her hair, curly from the damp.

  Lady Marian had been bustling about, laying out undergarments and chemises, urging the servants to hurry, telling Emilia to find a hairbrush and a mirror, consulting with Mary about jewels and hair arrangements. There was polite but impassioned discussion about the merits of t
he green velvet versus the blue satin. The green velvet won. When she’d slipped it on and all the fastenings had been secured and the jeweled girdle encircled her waist, Mary placed the emerald necklace around her neck and fastened the clasp. Joanna stretched out her arms and pirouetted.

  “How do I look?”

  “Absolutely beautiful, my lady Queen!” breathed Emilia.

  “Perhaps I could add a bit of lace at the decolletage for modesty’s sake?” said Lady Marian.

  She was outvoted.

  Next came the subject of her hair. Since her period of official mourning was over, she’d forsaken her white wimples. Could she dare to wear her hair unbound? Lady Marian thought not; she recommended pulling it up into a knot on the top of her head. “But that will make the tiara unsteady,” said Joanna. Mary nodded. Emilia, who had been listening enthralled to the give-and-take, chimed in, “Yes, you wouldn’t want it to fall off in the middle of the banquet.” The majority won. The tiara sat securely atop the cascade of honey-brown hair, unbound.

  Meantime, a frenzy of activity was in progress to transform Matagriffon into a suitable banquet hall. It now had a roof of sorts. Tapestries were still being hung on the walls to conceal the raw wood and to keep out the drafts. Carpets covered the splintery floor. Servants arranged a crimson cloth on a long table that would seat twenty-four, all the room could hold. Others scurried about, bearing trays laden with silver goblets, plates, bowls of nuts and sweetmeats, and baskets of fine white loaves. Candelabra were ablaze, all along the table and in the corners of the room. From an adjoining hastily assembled kitchen, created by combining the two houses nearest to Matagriffon, came the roar of the cook: “More wood on the fire there! Stir that soup kettle! Take that bird out of the oven before it turns to cinders! Do I have to do everything?”

  Chaos had subsided into a semblance of order by the time Joanna arrived. A page standing at the entrance pulled aside the red velvet curtain that served as a door and she walked in, paused and looked around. Her cheeks were rosy from excitement and her eyes shone with anticipation. It was the first time in many, many months, not since before William’s death, that she had attended a grand state banquet. Almost all the guests were unknown to her, nor was she known to them. She supposed most were local dignitaries, and a few of the military-looking types must be officers from Richard’s army. She saw one churchman, a dumpy little man with a glum face. His magnificent scarlet cloak was embroidered neck to hem with gold scrollwork. Undoubtedly this was the archbishop of Messina. She didn’t see Philip.