The Falcon of Palermo

by Maria R. Bordihn

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’re too clever for that.”

  “Bianca, I want to make peace with him. He’s my son, my heir, the next emperor of my blood. But I can’t tolerate open defiance!”

  “You’ve another son, little Conrad. You can depose Henry and have Conrad elected in his stead. The German princes won’t stand in your way; they dislike Henry as much as he dislikes them.”

  “I can’t do that. First of all, it would disgrace the Hohenstaufen name, and second, Conrad is heir to Sicily. While I live, the Empire and Sicily are one, united in my person, even if not in law. But after my death, they must be separate.”

  “Must they really?” Bianca held his eyes.

  It was uncanny. At times she read his innermost thoughts, thoughts that he himself only half acknowledged.

  Slowly, she added, “I don’t think Henry will be emperor, Frederick. I don’t know why. I had a disturbing dream about him a few nights ago. He was wearing shackles.”

  Frederick shivered. Did she have the gift of prophecy, too?

  Although it was a mild winter’s day, the ground was damp and cold. He bent down and pulled the furred hood of her cloak over her head. “There, my sweet. You mustn’t catch cold.” Although their third child was not due for another five or six months, he worried that she didn’t rest enough and still rode, even hunted. Bianca had given him two daughters in as many years and now she was once more with child. It was too soon. Although she was young and strong and her confinements had been easy, he was tormented by a secret dread that she would die in childbirth. He told himself that she was happy, happier than most queens wedded to unloved husbands, yet the fear of retribution never quite left him, no matter how much he scoffed at it. Her beauty had increased with maturity, acquired definition, dignity. Even on a broken column, she looked the queen she could never be.

  Norbert and Bartolomeo da Foggia, his talented new assistant, were coming toward them.

  “My lord, come quickly.” The Rhinelander’s lively brown eyes shone.

  At the excavation site they looked down in wonder. Lying in a grave of mud was a life-sized marble statue of a woman. The workmen had cleaned her with rags, leaving smudges of dirt. A lady of delicate features, her hair piled in a Grecian knot, her limbs and features perfectly proportioned, she looked up at them with a smile that seemed to mock the passing of the ages.

  Frederick, whose delight in ancient artifacts bewildered his courtiers, who had little use for the remains of antiquity other than to use them as building materials, couldn’t contain his excitement. Was she Greek or Roman? Perhaps it was Placidia herself. … “Raise her quickly,” he cried. “If it rains again, the shaft might cave in.”

  He had begun excavating a half-buried brick building beside the Church of San Vitale, said to be the tomb of Galla Placidia, a Roman empress of the fifth century. He was astounded by the fragmented statues, utensils, and even glass the workmen had turned up alongside the mausoleum.

  The statue was transported to the palace on a straw-covered litter. Frederick named her the Lady of Ravenna, and had her set on a plinth of pink marble carved for her by Norbert. She would always remind him of the Diet of Ravenna that never took place.

  FROM RAVENNA, FREDERICK decided to go on a progress along the Adriatic coast toward Ancona. From there he would take ship for Aquileia. On the way, he planned to halt in Venice. The Republic of Venice controlled access to the Friuli-Styria route over the Alps, the only alternative to the Brenner Pass. If he were to engage in a Lombard war, it was essential to strengthen the Empire’s tenuous bonds of friendship with the wily Venetians.

  They left Ravenna on a windy March morning. A few miles south of the city they reached a narrow stone bridge. Berard reined in his horse. He pointed. “That, Frederick, is the Rubicon.”

  Frederick stared at the brown, sluggish waters that flowed under the bridge. Once this insignificant-looking river had been the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Rome. For a general to cross it with his legions without the Senate’s permission was treason. Caesar, aware that his enemies in Rome were plotting his downfall, had to either ford the Rubicon or perish. Caesar took the greatest gamble of his life. He ordered his legions to advance on Rome. Within a few months, Caesar was lord of the Roman world.

  Frederick twisted his lips in a bitter smile. His enemies too, like Caesar’s, were biding their time in Rome. The struggle with the papacy wasn’t over, not yet. Only when the pope’s Lombard allies were cowed forever, their lands integrated into the Empire, and the papacy totally isolated, could there be real peace. That is, he thought, if my enemies don’t destroy me first, as they destroyed Caesar in the end.

  As if to rid himself of so grim a vision, Frederick spurred his horse over the bridge, across the Roman cobbles that still paved it. Beneath him, the Rubicon continued to flow toward the sea, unconcerned with the fate of men or empires.

  LIKE A FLOATING mirage of palaces, churches and squares, arching bridges, and latticework windows of terracotta-colored marble, Venice rose out of the waters that nurtured and protected her.

  The March breeze was crisp and bracing, whipping the surface of the water as the convoy of galleys made its way down the Grand Canal.

  Frederick, standing beside the doge under a fringed canopy of purple silk on the deck of the Bucintoro, the gilded state galley of Venice, breathed in the sea and marveled at a city built on water. A fitting setting for a republic that made her dominion of the sea the basis of her greatness … The Venetians’ achievement was a remarkable one. The usual result of democracy was internecine strife and chaos. In Venice, ruled by an oligarchy of patrician families, this had not occurred. How odd, he thought, that such a unique city should have been created by an accident of history. The marshy islands in the lagoon had first been settled by the inhabitants of the mainland fleeing from the invading hordes of Attila.

  “There, Your Grace, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the trading center and warehouse of the German merchants.” The doge pointed toward a huge square wooden building with double-tiered arcades on the left of the Grand Canal, its arches hung with imperial banners and crammed with cap-waving merchants from Germany.

  The doge, Francesco Dandolo, an elderly man with small black eyes and yellowish skin, his deep voice at odds with his slight build, wore the characteristic horn-shaped brocade headdress that was the sign of his office.

  On the piazzetta at the waterfront, dwarfed by the winged lion of Saint Mark and the statue of Saint Theodore on their antique columns, the doge’s council, the Signoria, and the noblest citizens awaited Frederick. Their doyen, Leonardo Tiepolo, bowed and spread his beringed hands. “Welcome, Your Grace, to our unworthy city. We are honored by your visit.” His mellifluous voice betrayed no uneasiness.

  Frederick’s presence, with a considerable armed escort, was a cause of concern for the Venetians. His spies had reported that members of the Signoria referred to him in private as “the Hohenstaufen tyrant.” Yet they could hardly have refused his request to pray at the shrine of Saint Mark on his way to Aquileia without giving offense. They knew the motive for his visit was to safeguard access to the Empire; as long as that was his only reason, he’d be welcome.

  Frederick smiled. “It is I who am pleased to feast my eyes on the beauty of your city, a marvel of the stonemason’s art. I am filled with impatience, too, to pray at the shrine of the holy apostle Mark.”

  He recalled with amusement how Venice had come by this treasure: the Venetians had purloined the remains of the apostle from his tomb in Alexandria, smuggling the relic out from under the nose of the sultan’s port officials by hiding it under a consignment of salt pork. Not, of course, that stealing saints was a Venetian prerogative. Hallowed relics had been plundered down the ages: entire bodies or parts thereof, fragments of the True Cross, bottled milk of the Virgin, holy teeth or hairs of venerable beards, had all fallen prey to pious theft.

  With a twinkle, he added, “I’ve also noticed that the women on the balconies
of your city are as beautiful as the palaces they grace.”

  This brought forth laughter and a round of applause from the patricians who filled the piazzetta.

  LATE AT NIGHT, as Bianca nestled against him, sleepy from their lovemaking, her mind drifted back to this astounding city.

  She and Manfred’s wife had that morning paid their respects to the doge’s wife. The dogaressa, a fat, overly rouged woman with a front tooth missing and kind eyes, had received them in the women’s wing of the palace, amid frolicking grandchildren, lapdogs, and a pet monkey. They all sat on huge round silk-covered cushions on the floor. When the time came to eat, a black eunuch cut up the dogaressa’s food into little pieces. Making use of a small golden implement shaped like a snake’s tongue with a handle, the doge’s wife impaled each morsel on it. She had explained that it came from Constantinople, where it was very fashionable, and that it was called a fork. The Venetians might be a nation of wily merchants, as Frederick called them, but they were fabulously rich.

  His voice interrupted her thoughts. “Bianca?”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “I’ve been thinking. Why don’t you return to Foggia with the bishop of Caserta? He leaves next week. The Diet at Aquileia could last for weeks, if not months. By that time you’ll be too far gone. The return journey might be hard on you and the babe …”

  Suddenly she was wide awake. “You mean you don’t want to be embarrassed by my presence.”

  “Bianca, you know that’s not it. The whole of Christendom knows about you, and is envious of you.”

  It was true, Bianca thought. He had heaped jewels and lands on her. In the guise of the Marquis Lancia’s sister, he allowed her to meet lords and princes, ambassadors and scholars. She had a court of her own, with waiting-women, dwarves and falcons, a chaplain, and a chamberlain.

  Yet his devotion to her hadn’t precluded him from keeping the troupe of Egyptian dancers he had brought back from the East. Like the exotic animals and the celebrated elephant, they were a gift of Al-Kamil. They lived in secluded quarters, guarded by towering black eunuchs and, together with the elephant, followed every imperial progress. At night they danced for Frederick and his friends. He maintained that they were only entertainers.

  She often joined him in a progress. Why had he now decided it would be too dangerous? It was true that travel over bad roads in an advanced stage of pregnancy could be dangerous. Frederick himself had been born in a tent because his mother had been overtaken by the onset of childbirth while traveling. And yet …

  The stillness was interrupted now and then by the crackling of a log in the fireplace. At length she said, “It’s Henry, isn’t it? He’s the reason you don’t want me there.”

  Frederick sighed. “Yes, my sweet. I don’t know how to say this, but …”

  She laid a hand on his bare chest. “I understand,” she said. “I’ll wait for you in Foggia, if you’ll promise to send me news of the Diet, and above all, of Henry. I would have liked to meet him, but no matter, you’ll tell me everything about him later.” She closed her eyes to hide her tears.

  FREDERICK SPENT TWO weeks in Venice, holding meetings with the doge and the Signoria. As expected, the Venetians demanded further trading concessions in Sicily and Palestine in return for their neutrality in the Lombard war. After a show of reluctance, Frederick agreed and the pact was sealed. On the day of his departure, he prayed at the shrine of Saint Mark, offering gifts of gold and silver to the basilica. The city presented him with an enamel reliquary pendant containing a splinter of the True Cross. Frederick allowed the doge to slip it over his head, thanking him gravely.

  THE IMPERIAL CAVALCADE arrived in Aquileia at dusk to find the town and its immediate surroundings overflowing with the retinues of the German delegates. The patriarch of Aquileia, accompanied by the officers of his household, greeted Frederick outside the gates and escorted him to the patriarchal palace.

  Many of the delegates had arrived a week or two earlier. They lodged in palaces, monasteries, and merchant’s houses, while some of their more extravagant suites were obliged to stay in tents outside the walls. The duke of Carinthia, the patriarch told Frederick, arrived with a suite of more than three hundred, while the archbishop of Cologne’s retinue numbered more than two hundred servants, chaplains, and secretaries. The only modest one among them was the archbishop of Salzburg, with a retinue of just twenty. This was without counting the mounted men-at-arms that accompanied each lord. Unfortunately, the patriarch said, there was no word yet of King Henry.

  Frederick forced a smile. The Diet wasn’t scheduled to begin for another week. This time Henry would come, must come. “He’ll be here in good time,” he said brightly, waving to the cheering crowds.

  That evening, Frederick took Hermann von Salza aside and handed him the Venetian reliquary. “This’ll sit much better on your chest than on mine.”

  The grand master stared at him. “But Frederick, it is of great spiritual and material value.”

  Frederick shook his head. “It’ll look splendid on your white robe. Keep it.”

  THE MESSENGER FROM King Henry had barely left Frederick’s presence before a page was sent to call an immediate meeting in his privy chambers.

  When Piero, Berard, Manfred, Henry of Brabant, and the patriarch arrived, they found Frederick in a towering rage. Henry, he informed them, assumed that he would lodge in the same palace as his father. He had sent his chamberlain ahead with his household to prepare his quarters in the patriarchal palace.

  Frederick’s voice cut through the silence. “Henry and his retinue will have their quarters in Cividale across the marsh. He is not to set foot in Aquileia.”

  “But Frederick, he’s your son, you can’t—” Manfred objected.

  “I can, and I will. He’s a rebellious subject and I won’t allow him into my presence until he takes a public oath that he will refrain from further insubordination. You,” he pointed to the patriarch, “the archbishops of Salzburg and Magdeburg, and the dukes of Meran, Saxony, and Carinthia, will be the guarantors of his good behavior, on the understanding that should he break his oath, you are to take up arms against him. Furthermore, he is to write to the pope stating that if he relapses into rebellion, he’ll accept his own excommunication. Those are my conditions, and unless he agrees to them, I shall have him imprisoned for treason. You, Piero, see to it that he’s separated from his troops and kept under guard.”

  They stared at him. This was harsh medicine indeed. The patriarch, who obviously didn’t relish this unpleasant duty, pressed his lips together.

  Only Henry of Brabant nodded. “You’re right, except you’re being too lenient,” the duke said with his old outspokeness. “That boy has inherited the Hohenstaufen frivolity without any of their greatness. He’s a foolish, headstrong fop. You should replace him before he does more damage.”

  Frederick lowered his eyes. The duke, alas, was right.

  Berard took a deep breath. “Frederick,” he said, “I think you’re being too harsh. You will only incite him to further mischief if you trample his pride thus.”

  “If such is his mettle, let him show it, the sooner the better.” Frederick said. “He’ll be watched closely from now on. I can’t allow my feelings as a father to intrude upon my duties as emperor. Henry will be punished, and if he isn’t man enough to accept it and see the error of his ways, then so be it.”

  “Who,” Manfred asked, “is to bring Henry your conditions?”

  Frederick jerked his chin towards Henry of Brabant. “You,” he said.

  The duke raised his brows. “But he dislikes me intensely. Why me?”

  “For precisely that reason. You, Henry, are not likely to pity him, as some of my other friends here might.” He shot a pointed glance at Berard and rose.

  “Leave me, all of you. I wish to be alone.”

  He turned to the mullioned window and looked out across the battlements, over the rooftops to the sea. Aquileia was the largest ecclesiastical princ
ipate in the Empire, and its patriarch, the second most powerful bishop after the bishop of Rome, a loyal vassal of his. Wedged in a narrow strip between the Eastern Alps and the Adriatic, the patriarchate was the back door to the Empire, crucial in the coming war with the Lombards and his confrontation with Henry.

  Frederick passed his hand across his eyes. All anger had gone out of him, leaving only sadness, and a tiny glimmer of hope. Perhaps he’d still change his ways. Perhaps Berard was right. Berard, who always saw the other side of every argument … Oh, Henry, my son, what is to become of you? What manner of man are you, whom everybody criticizes so harshly?

  He turned away from the window. It was useless to allow his feelings to weaken his resolve. He would soon be able to judge Henry with his own eyes. Then he would take appropriate action.

  A HUSH FELL over the hall. The minstrels stopped playing. The crowd parted. Princes, prelates, and officials tried not to stare as King Henry, announced by three fanfare blasts, entered the hall.

  Tall and well formed, with Constance of Aragon’s golden hair, Henry of Hohenstaufen was an extraordinarily good-looking man. His head held high, he walked slowly past the throng of courtiers, eyes fixed on the figure of his father enthroned on the dais. From Henry’s shoulders trailed a superb mantle in deep blue velvet lined with miniver. Jewel-studded armlets encircled his wrists. His young wife, Margaret of Austria, was a slight, brown-haired girl with good skin, a plucked forehead under a cloth-of-gold wimple. She had nervous brown eyes and despite being sumptuously dressed, she appeared dowdy in comparison with her dazzling husband to whose arm she clung.

  As Henry halted before the dais, the tension was palpable. Would Frederick rise to embrace his son, or just acknowledge him from his throne?

  For a long moment they stared at each other in silence. Henry’s knees gave way under his father’s implacable stare. Slowly, he knelt down and bowed his head. Only then did Frederick rise.