The Falcon of Palermo

by Maria R. Bordihn

  Sadness was written on Ibn Tulun’s face as he took the weakening pulse of a blue-eyed young giant whose blond hair was dark with sweat. The delirious man was muttering incoherently. They were infidels, to be sure, but they were still Allah’s creatures. He had dedicated his life to wresting men from death, but this time he was confronted by an enemy he could not vanquish. Most of them would not live. These muscular knights, who towered over the smaller, darker Sicilians, were even more vulnerable to this dreadful disease than the local population. Within hours of the first outbreak in their camp, the Aragonese had begun dropping like oaks felled by a woodcutter’s ax.

  Beside him a priest was administering the last sacrament to a dying knight, frantically gabbling through the rite. The man’s life was fading rapidly. Ibn Tulun, glancing up, caught sight of a woman in the doorway. The queen. He rushed down the row of pallets. “Your Grace,” he bowed, “I implore you, do not enter here. This is no sight for you and your ladies.”

  Constance’s eyes widened as they swept the hall. The stench of excrement and vomit was overpowering. He could see the fear in her eyes. She hesitated. Then she squared her shoulders. “I know, Ibn Tulun, but they’re my people. My ladies can stay behind.”

  Ibn Tulun looked at this petite Frankish queen with new respect. Her drawn features and the dark shadows under her eyes attested to her exhaustion. Yet she had come, leaving her brother’s bedside. “As my lady wishes.” He gestured for her to go ahead.

  Constance stepped into the hall, clutching her cloak. She approached the nearest pallet. The knight, who had recognized her, tried to raise his head from the bolster.

  Constance bent down. She took his hand.

  “Your Grace, at first I thought you were an angel. I …” His voice trailed off. He sank back.

  “Don’t tire yourself. The king and I are praying for you. Prayers are being said in all the churches. God will hear us.”

  The man’s face suddenly contorted in a grotesque grimace. He closed his eyes, convulsed by cramps, oblivious to all but the searing pain.

  Ibn Tulun touched her elbow, “You cannot help him now, my queen. Let us go on.”

  By the time she had finished making the rounds of those who were conscious, saying a few words of comfort, Constance was as white as chalk. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She clutched his sleeve. “You must give me something to steady me. I have to go back to my brother. I don’t want him to guess what’s happening here.”

  “I have just what you need.”

  He escorted her to a little recessed anteroom in which his instruments and medicines were kept and made her sit down on a stool. Picking up a vial of clear brown liquid, he measured some of it into a beaker and held it out to her. She took a deep gulp and nearly choked.

  “Drink it, it will make you feel better. It is rather raw, but very effective.”

  She swallowed some more. “It doesn’t taste as bad as most medicines. What is it?”

  “It’s called burned wine. The monks at the medical school in Salerno invented it by boiling wine and catching the vapors. They call it distillation. Too much will make you sick, but a little will raise your spirits. I also use it to wash wounds. They heal much better.”

  Constance got up. “I must go back to my brother. He was sleeping when I left.”

  “Sleep is a great healer. I shall come and see the count later. You must get some rest, too, my lady.”

  “We won’t forget what you are doing. As soon as he is better, my brother will see to it that you’re suitably rewarded.”

  Ibn Tulun salaamed. “My lady is most gracious.”

  He escorted her back to where her two attendants were huddled on a bench, waiting.

  ALFONSO WAS STILL sleeping when she returned. A stooped Jewish doctor was holding up a beaker of her brother’s urine, examining it. He and his Saracen colleague began whispering in Arabic, their heads held together like conspirators.

  “Go and hold your confabulation in the anteroom!”

  Before they had even completed their hasty retreat, Constance regretted her curtness. She was overwrought from fatigue and worry. Alfonso was going to recover. Ibn Tulun himself had said that he had only come down with a light case. She dipped a cloth in the vinegar and water in a basin beside the bed. As she bent over her brother, about to wipe the sweat from his forehead, she stopped, staring. The skin over his cheeks was taut and stretched like brittle parchment. His cracked lips had a bluish tinge. Like the dying knights … He’s going to die, she thought.

  Until now she had clung to the belief that death would bypass him. For three days and nights she had not moved from the sickroom. She had allowed herself only snatches of sleep on a pallet at the foot of his bed, as if by her presence she could keep death at bay. Now, as she looked at him, she felt her remaining strength ebb away. She hung her head, the cloth still in her hand. It was useless.

  “My lady, you must get some rest. Please let me keep watch for a while.” Her maid’s voice was pleading, insistent. Too weary to speak, Constance nodded.

  Juana took her by the arm and steered her towards a settle. “I’ll bring you some broth, and then you must sleep.”

  The girl was a peasant from the hills above Saragossa, yet she had proved more resourceful in adversity than her highborn ladies. Constance leaned her head on the wall and closed her eyes. She was tired, so tired that even her anguish had lost its sharpness, become blurred. Her whole body was numb with fatigue; all she wanted to do was sleep.

  Someone was shaking her by the shoulder. “Wake up!” Frederick shook her again, this time more urgently.

  She jumped to her feet. Alfonso’s bed was surrounded by people. With a start she recognized Berard, in his ecclesiastical robes, bending over her brother. Frederick put his arm around her. “Constance, he’s dying,”

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost …” Berard was anointing Alfonso’s eyes, mouth and hands. He invoked the archangels Michael and Gabriel. An acolyte swung a censer. Another held a crucifix aloft.

  “Alfonso!” Constance struggled in Frederick’s grip.

  Berard straightened up. He turned to face her. “Your Grace,” he said, “your brother is dead.”

  “No!” she screamed, “No!” She took a step forward and swayed. Berard caught her. He laid her across the bed, at her brother’s feet.

  THE CASTLE OF Catania towered above the sea walls and the harbour. To the east, toward Messina, Etna’s snow-capped cone dominated the horizon. Despite repeated volcanic eruptions, Catania was a thriving city. To the wheat that already grew here in Greek and Roman times, the Saracens had added sugarcane, dates, almonds, oranges, and lemons, all used in the sweetmeats for which Catania was famed.

  The two men walking on the ramparts in the light breeze couldn’t have been more dissimilar, yet they walked with the same brisk determination. Alaman cast a sidelong glance at his companion. What amazing sangfroid this young man had. His army had been decimated in the Palermo epidemic. His wife’s brother and most of the knights he had married her for were dead, his resources almost exhausted. Some of the barons had again risen against him, taking advantage of his weakness. Yet he was working at restoring Sicily’s prosperity with an energy that even Alaman found hard to match.

  All morning Frederick had negotiated with a Genoese delegation, persuading them to help expel the Pisans from the Sicilian ports where they held a trade monopoly, obtained during the years of anarchy. The crown was losing substantiality and desperately needed income from tolls and customs dues.

  “Frederick, if you want Genoa to help you oust Pisa, you’ll have to offer more than trading rights and the satisfaction of striking a blow at their rivals. It will require large bribes. Where will you find the money?” he asked.

  Frederick stopped. “From the greatest thieves in Sicily.”

  Alaman raised his bushy black brows: “How?”

  “You remember my edict that all landowners must submit their title deeds for ratification?
A great many of them were forged. In fact, large portions of land belonged to the royal demesne. The barons were in a quandary: if they didn’t comply with my order, they were guilty of treason. If they did, many would lose vast tracts of land. In the case of minor offenders I took back the crown lands, leaving them what had been theirs and punishing them with only a fine. After this, many of the big landholders complied as well. But not the greatest magnates.”

  Alaman nodded. “And how are you going to force those to submit?”

  “By arresting them for treason. The difficulty is laying hands on them. When they move from their impregnable mountain aeries, they do so escorted by small armies.”

  The older man shook his head, “Even if you succeed, you’ll have an uprising of barons.”

  “No, I won’t, because the major barons will be in jail, and the small fry will have lost their courage.” Frederick smiled. “I’ve suggested a little ruse that might just work …”

  A man in a chain-mail hauberk was coming toward them. He bowed. “Your Grace, an urgent message from the governor of Messina.” The man beamed at Frederick. “Your orders have been carried out. The conspirators have been captured.”

  Frederick grabbed the parchment the man held out. A smile spread across his face as he read. “Two of them taken at Sunday mass. Anfuso of Roto ambushed in his mistress’s bed … The last one got away, but we’ve got his eight-year-old heir as a hostage …”

  Frederick slapped Alaman on the back. “Just as I thought. They became careless, thinking I was hiding in Catania, powerless without the Aragonese.” With a glint in his eyes, he added, “Maybe stealth will get me further than might.”

  He fished a gold coin from his pouch and handed it to the messenger. The man stammered his thanks at so generous a reward, bowed, and withdrew.

  Alaman squinted at Frederick in the sunlight. “Was that not a trifle large a gift in view of the treasury’s penury?”

  “Oh, you Genoese are incorrigibly mean, even worse than the Tuscans.” Frederick smiled. “The poorer you are the more generous you should be. No one follows an impecunious king!”

  He took Alaman by the shoulder and steered him to the courtyard. “Before rumor spreads, I’m going to draft letters to the Sicilian bishops, explaining the arrest of these traitors. They’ll be read from the pulpits of every church.”

  He added with a grin, “And after that, I’ll go and see if I can make my lady wife drink some of that miracle-working wine of yours! Maybe your wine and my news together will put a stop to her mourning. She might even grant me her favors again!”

  FREDERICK HELD OUT the cup, “Come on, Constance, have some of this. Alaman gave me a barrel. It’s a rare wine from Cyprus.”

  Constance took the goblet obediently and drank.

  Frederick looked at her. She was pale and drawn. Since they’d arrived in Catania two months ago, she’d sat day after day in this window seat, garbed in black, staring out at the sea. She barely ate, and when she wasn’t here, she spent hours in the chapel, praying for the souls of her brother and her dead countrymen. Curled up on her lap was the little white dog Alfonso had given her as a New Year’s gift.

  Frederick took the animal from her and put it down on the floor. He sat down and took her hand. “Listen, my precious, I’m calling a council session tomorrow and I would like you to be present. I want you to know about matters of state. You could just sit in on them every now and then, and afterward give me your impressions. You know I value your counsel. What do you say?” He gave her his most winning smile.

  She squeezed his hand. “You don’t have to do that to cheer me up. You’re trying so hard to lift my gloom. It’s not fair. Your loss has been as great as mine, yet you bear it so much better. I’ll make an effort, I promise. It’s just that I hurt so badly …” She smiled through her tears. “My beleaguered, golden boy, so in need of troops I can no longer bring you.” She ran her fingers through his hair.

  It was the first time in weeks that she had touched him. He drew her to him, his whole body aching with his need. He wanted her desperately, but didn’t want her to withdraw, to shut him out again. He kissed the salty tears off her face. Reaching for the wine cup, he took a sip himself before offering it to her. “Here, have some more wine.” She drank, then lifted her luminous gray eyes to him. A faint color had risen in her cheeks.

  Alaman knows what he’s talking about, no doubt from personal experience, Frederick thought. According to Alaman, nothing kindled the flame of passion in a reluctant woman as effectively as the wine of Cyprus, birthplace of Aphrodite.

  TO HER SURPRISE, Constance discovered that she enjoyed attending council sessions. The first time she arrived with Frederick, Walter of Palear had said, “Women have no business here.” Although his irritation annoyed her, she pretended not to notice.

  Constance’s mind wandered from the matter being discussed, her eyes sweeping the room. In Catania the council gathered in the castle’s great hall. Despite the black hangings, the hall was bright and airy. Sunshine fell on the mosaic flooring through the arched windows facing the sea. Two huge blue ceramic vases filled with almond blossoms stood on the floor. Here, as in Palermo, the floors were not covered with rushes. It pleased her. Floor rushes, no matter how many aromatic herbs one mixed with them, smelled, bred lice and fleas, and encouraged people to spit into them.

  Her attention returned to the session. Many of the routine items were dull. Others, however, she found fascinating. Walter of Palear was saying, “The new German emperor took an oath before his coronation that he’d restore to the papacy land in Italy claimed as the patrimony of Saint Peter. He also took an oath that he would respect the inviolability of the papal fief of Sicily.”

  Garbed in a gown of dark crimson velvet, as austere and patrician as his narrow face, the skin yellow and creased like old vellum, the black eyes sharp and observant, the chancellor was still, despite his age, a formidable figure. Even Frederick had told her he was indispensable. The chancellor, in turn, had begun to treat Frederick with less condescension.

  Walter folded his hands on the table. “What worries me is that there are signs that he may not keep his promises. The question is, which one will he break?”

  Berard shook his head. “Why would the new emperor worry himself with Sicily? He’ll want to consolidate his position first.”

  Constance had always found the imperial election system confusing. The Empire wasn’t hereditary but elective. Although the emperor was chosen by German princes-electors, it was only after he had been crowned by the pope in Rome that his status was formally recognized. This strange custom went back to Charlemagne. The Empire was in essence German, but conquest and marriage had broadened it to include Austria, Burgundy, and northern Italy.

  Constance watched Frederick. Was he thinking about his father? Or the civil war that had raged in Germany for years, pitting Saxon Guelfs and Swabian Ghibellines against each other? At last, the war-weary German princes unanimously accepted Otto of Brunswick as emperor. Pope Innocent had crowned him in Rome, approving their choice. There was peace. Germany and the Christian world rejoiced.

  He’s probably not thinking about any of it, she thought. Frederick’s lack of interest in German affairs puzzled her. He was, after all, half German himself.

  “What gives you the impression that the emperor is about to break his oaths?” Frederick asked.

  Walter pursed his lips: “The Pope is worried. Otto is gathering a large army south of the Brenner. Why would he want an army in northern Italy, if not to use it against the Papal States?”

  “That’s a very good question,” Alaman da Costa said.

  “Nonsense. He’d never dare defy the pope,” Frederick said. “As Berard has pointed out, his first priority must be to consolidate his position. If he were to break his assurances to Innocent, he’d be excommunicated. Germany would erupt in civil war again. He can’t be that stupid.”

  “I agree,” Berard said, “but there is still the question of
the army he’s supposedly gathering in Italy. How reliable is your information, Walter?”

  The chancellor smiled thinly. “My dear Berard, I never worry about information that is not reliable. Otto is giving out that he’s calling a Diet of princes in northern Italy and needs troops for their protection against the untrustworthy Lombards. That is patent nonsense. You don’t need an army for—”

  “I’ll tell you what he’s doing,” Frederick interjected. “He’s going to teach the Lombards a lesson. They’ve always resisted imperial rule. That’s the explanation for this massing of troops.”

  They all stared at him. Walter nodded slowly. “You may be right. I hope you are.”

  “Well, I need some fresh air.” Frederick rose.

  He extended a hand to Constance. “Will you come for a ride? I want to fly that new falcon your royal brother sent me.”

  “I’d love to.” Mention of her other brother always brought back thoughts of Alfonso. However, riding with Frederick was a rare treat these days. He was so involved with affairs of state that she rarely had a chance to be alone with him.

  Frederick intercepted Alaman da Costa. “What about you, Alaman? Since you’ve been on my council you’ve not been getting enough exercise. Come with us.” Frederick punched him in his bulging middle. “If you’re not careful, you’ll run to fat in my service.”

  “That, my lord, is the mixed blessing of those who serve the great.” He glanced at Frederick’s trim waistline. “Unlike the great themselves. I’ll join you in a little venery with pleasure.”

  Constance watched Frederick slap him on the back. “Come on, you old pirate, let’s escape these walls.” Frederick enjoyed the admiral’s company, despite his questionable antecedents. It was rumored that in his youth he had been a corsair, before acquiring respectability as an admiral of the Genoese fleet.