The Falcon of Palermo

by Maria R. Bordihn

  Three pairs of huge eyes stared at him. He ruffled the boys’ hair. They were twins. One was slightly taller than the other. Both had golden hair. “How old are you?”

  “Six, Your Grace.”

  He picked up the smallest child, a little girl of three or four with unruly auburn curls and a freckled nose. He smiled at her. “Would you like to see where baby Jesus was born?” She nodded, sucking her finger.

  “Come, Lady Margaret, bring your sons.” He led the way down a spiral staircase into the hall, carrying the child.

  At one end of the hall, between two twisted columns of gray marble, stood a stable the size of a small shepherd’s hut. Inside, life-sized figures of Mary and Joseph flanked a straw-filled cradle with a swaddled baby. Three wise men held out jeweled caskets. An ox and an ass stood on either side of the entrance.

  The boys ran up and touched the roof, thatched with real straw. They went around the side and peered through the window at the back. The little girl stroked the ass’s scarlet saddle.

  “Saint Francis fashioned the first such Christmas nativity, so that people could imagine Christ’s birth,” Frederick said. “The humble chapel he and his brothers built in the field beside their huts had no frescoes or colored windows to tell stories, so Francis set a carved stable below the altar. Today, during the twelve days of Christmas, such scenes are found in many churches in the south.”

  Margaret smiled. “It’s so much more real than a mural. One feels transported to Bethlehem. You, I believe, knew the saint?”

  “Yes. I met him twice. It was shortly before he went blind. He contracted an eye disease in Egypt. … I have a nativity set up every year in his memory. It brings people closer to God than thundering sermons delivered by men in brocaded vestments.”

  Margaret’s eyes widened.

  She, too, has been fed tales about me, he thought sadly, from Henry, no doubt. He turned to the little girl, who was holding the donkey’s bridle. “Would you like to ride on him?”

  She clapped her hands, “Please, please!”

  He hoisted her up and adjusted the saddle strap. “What’s your name?”

  She fixed him with wide blue eyes. “Constance.”

  He pressed the child against him for a moment.

  THE HORSES’ HOOVES beat on the frozen path. They left the forest with its dark snow-burdened firs and emerged into an open landscape of glittering whiteness.

  Frederick swept the horizon with his arm. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Isabella looked at him and smiled. “It is indeed, my lord.”

  “But wait till you see Sicily. God would never have called Palestine the Promised Land if he had seen Sicily first!”

  Did he make such remarks only to shock people or because he half-believed them? She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking, unlike those stuffy prelates he enjoyed baiting. When he wasn’t being too serious, Frederick was great fun. To her surprise, she had discovered that she could quite easily divert him. She wanted him to be in a cheerful mood. She threw her head back. “Come, I’ll race you.”

  Galloping across the snow, horse and woman seemed one, so perfectly did they blend together. Frederick spurred his horse on. Catching up with her, he grabbed her reins and brought the gray mare to a shuddering halt. Isabella, flushed and out of breath, laughed. Her hair had become undone and cascaded down her sky-blue riding cloak.

  He leaned over to kiss her icy cheek. “I really am beginning to think that you’ve inherited your grandmother Eleanor’s wildness,” he said. “Next thing, you’ll want to go on crusade too!” He slid off his horse and draped his reins over the animal’s neck. “Let’s wait here for the others.” He stamped his feet, rubbing his gloved hands.

  Isabella took a deep breath. “Frederick,” she said, “I … I have something to tell you.”

  He raised his face, suddenly alert.

  She held his eyes. “I am with child.”

  He swung her out of the saddle and hugged her. “Oh, Issy, that’s the most wonderful news! You’ll give me a son, won’t you?”

  “I’ll try, Frederick,” she replied, taken aback. What if she disappointed him?

  “No more riding, my sweet. You now carry a burden more precious than all my crowns. You promise not to do anything foolish, such as racing your husband over fields full of hidden boulders?”

  The expression in his eyes overwhelmed her. She felt herself loved and cherished. She closed her eyes as he kissed her. Please, dear God, she thought, never let it end.

  VERONA, JUNE 1236

  In the summer of 1236 the imperial armies swept across the Brenner Pass down into Verona. Ezzelino da Romano, lord of the Trevisan March and ruler of Verona, welcomed Frederick outside the city.

  Frederick’s intimates, particularly Hermann, disapproved of his alliance with a man of such sinister reputation. He shrugged off their objections: “My gold has made him lord of Verona, which gives me access to the Brenner Pass. I don’t care if he’s Lucifer himself. He’s so hated by the Lombards that I needn’t fear his betrayal!”

  Upon meeting him for the first time, Frederick had actually found him much to his liking. The towering Ezzelino would have been darkly handsome had it not been for a livid scar that ran from his left cheek to his chin. Frederick confided to Hermann, “Maybe he’s a monster, but he’s amusing, and far more cultivated than most devout princes.”

  While the army camped outside the city, Ezzelino offered Frederick lodging in the fortress built by the barbarian king Theodoric centuries before. In view of the hostile mood of the populace, Ezzelino had decided that they would be safer behind its ramparts than in the city itself. Together they rode past the amphitheater turned-quarry, through the narrow streets of this city of ancient red brick. The people of Verona looked on in sullen silence as Frederick rode beside their new lord. Their faces were stony as they listened to the Saracen drums sounding the death knell to their dreams of independence.

  Frederick pressed his lips together. Twice, the Veronese had defied him by blockading the Brenner. Now they were paying for their daring. The cavalcade crossed the Adige over a graceful Roman bridge and made its way up the hill toward the castle.

  FROM ITS HILLTOP, Verona’s castle had a sweeping view over the city and the plains of Lombardy. Frederick stood on the loggia and watched the sun set over the haze-shrouded fields. The sun was dipping west, toward Brescia and Milan.

  Brescia, a bastion of the Lombard League, was the last major city before Milan. With the league’s dissolution, the Empire would stretch in an uninterrupted swathe from the Baltic to Palermo. The Lombards were the pope’s last allies. Their subjugation would put a final stop to the papacy’s territorial ambitions. The pope, confined to Rome, would become what God and the Church fathers had meant him to be: a shepherd of souls, not a ruler of men.

  In Rome, the nonagenarian Gregory was still ostensibly mediating with the Lombards on Frederick’s behalf, in an effort, so he said, to avoid the bloodshed of war. In reality, the pope was secretly supporting the Lombards.

  Frederick turned back to the room. “How long,” he asked Ezzelino, “will it take to capture Brescia?”

  Ezzelino put the yellow plum he had been about to eat back on the platter. “That, my lord, depends on whether we can lure them out of their city. The walls of Brescia are almost as stout as those of Milan.”

  “Sieges are a slow business, costly in men and provisions. Can we taunt them to come out and fight?”

  Ezzelino pursed his fleshy lips. “The Lombards are a dour race, Your Grace. They’re not easily inflamed. However, I think if we—” he broke off, interrupted by a knock at the door.

  A mud-splattered messenger stood in the doorway, hat in hand. Frederick recognized him as one of Isabella’s heralds. The man knelt. “I bring tidings from Haguenau, Your Grace.”

  Frederick broke into a wide grin. Isabella’s time had been drawing near. “I have a son?” he asked.

  The messenger lowered his eyes.
“A fortnight ago, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, the empress was delivered of a daughter. Both are in good health.”

  Frederick’s face fell.

  Ezzelino, about to voice his congratulations, closed his mouth.

  Frederick dismissed the herald. He remained on the spot, staring at the floor. At length, he sighed. “’Tis a chancy business, this breeding of heirs.”

  “Next year the empress will give you a son. Daughters also have their uses. The Count of Provence married one daughter to the king of England and another to the king of France. No mean feat for a count, wouldn’t you say?”

  “He has a brilliant chancellor. He’s promised to make each of his lord’s daughters a queen!”

  “Well, there you are. Your daughters, too, will provide great alliances for you, while your sons wear your crowns. Patience, my lord.”

  “You’re right, Ezzelino. I must write to the empress. It’s not her fault.”

  Ezzelino raised both brows.

  “I know it’s supposed to be the woman’s fault. But I’m not so sure. Eleanor of Aquitaine bore King Louis naught but daughters in many years of marriage and then gave Henry of England five sons!” He shook his head. “No, I shan’t scold poor Isabella. She’s a lovely girl. She had an unhappy childhood, you know. She was only two when King John died and her mother went back to Angoulême, leaving her children in the care of William the Marshall.” With a faraway look in his eyes, he added, “When Louis of France nearly ousted the Plantagenets from the English throne, the children often had to flee from one castle to another in the dead of night.”

  He raked his hand through his hair. “Let’s celebrate the birth of my daughter. We’ll hold a banquet tonight. Have wine and bread distributed in the city!”

  The lord of Verona was astounded: “You would use the army’s provisions to feed that traitorous scum?”

  “Let them see how sweet my yoke can be. They might like the taste of it. As for provisions, the fields and orchards of Lombardy are heavy with the harvest of summer.”

  A WEEK LATER, Manfred arrived in Verona at the head of six thousand Saracen troops from Lucera. Frederick strode into the great cobbled courtyard. He embraced him, while his eyes scanned the crowded bailey. Servants and men-at-arms staggered past with chests. Horses were led away by grooms.

  “Where’s Bianca?” he asked finally.

  Manfred held his gaze. “In Foggia.”

  “Gesùmmaria, she can’t still be angry!” He had been certain that she’d come, that within moments he’d see her, hold her in his arms. Bianca wouldn’t, couldn’t defy an order of his.

  “She’s not just angry, Frederick, you’ve broken her heart. She’s a woman. She was so furious when she received your letter that she actually told me she’d come to Verona only in chains.”

  Frederick swallowed. “If that’s her attitude, she can go and sup with the devil.”

  HAGUENAU, NOVEMBER 1236

  Isabella stared into the fire. She smoothed the blank parchment. The little dog at her feet whimpered in his sleep. Pursing her lips, she dipped the quill into the ink and began to write in an elegant flowing script:

  To her excellent and most dear brother Henry, King of England: Isabella, Holy Roman Empress, his devoted sister, greetings.

  Both we ourselves, our dear husband the emperor and our infant daughter are, thanks be to the Lord, in good health. We trust that by the grace of God and all the saints this letter will find you, too, dearest brother, in good health.

  Knowing how greatly you will rejoice at our good fortune, may you learn of the resounding victories which our dear husband and lord hath recently achieved over his Lombard enemies. Soon this rabble which threatens the peace of the world will be wiped out.

  Beloved brother, we give you thanks for your warm words of affection. We also thank you for your splendid gifts. We play daily upon the sackbut you sent us. It is an instrument of wondrous workmanship, whose sound delights our ear and our heart, knowing as we do that you, dearest brother, have chosen it for us. Our pets and our musical instruments provide much solace for us during these long days of autumn.

  We pray that our English retinue, and in particular our dear waiting-women, whose presence here our dear husband the emperor deemed unnecessary, have reached your court safely.

  Your little niece, Margaret, is a bonny child, joyous and healthy, suckling vigorously from her wet nurse. She will be five months old next week, and already she is smiling. Although he must have been greatly disappointed, our dear husband the Emperor wrote kindly to us upon her birth. I …

  Isabella replaced her quill in the inkhorn. Her hands were stiff with cold. She slipped them into the fur-lined sleeves of her gown and read the words she had just written. Had she said anything to which Frederick’s officials might object? She had long suspected that her letters to Henry were read in the chancery before being dispatched. Just as he had removed her English retinue, Frederick would make sure that no untoward information reached her royal brother in England.

  She hadn’t seen Frederick for months. She was to meet him in Vienna before Christmas. His letters were penned by a secretary. She imagined him, walking up and down, his hands slicing the air. She had often seen him dictate to several scribes at once. The only letter he had ever written personally had been after Margaret’s birth, a missive of charming platitudes that hadn’t masked his disappointment.

  She missed him. During the long winter nights she ached with yearning for him, for his hands, those hands that sent currents of delight through her. The memory of their togetherness made her as giddy as the sweet wine of Alsace.

  Isabella took another sip of wine from the silver goblet by her side. Its stem was as icy as her hands. She glanced at the hour candle. It was already past noon. Outside the closed shutters, she could hear the wind howling. Soon, there’d be snow.

  If only she were already in Vienna. If only she could escape the monotony of life in Haguenau. There were no hunts or dances, no amusing gossip. And as for those dreadful black men with high-pitched voices Frederick had appointed to serve her, they, too, were depressing. Margaret, her only real companion, had whispered to her that they were eunuchs. Oriental potentates, she said, used them to guard their harems. The thought of Frederick worrying about her chastity was so absurd it amused her.

  Isabella smiled to herself. She felt better. The wine was beginning to take effect. Did he really think that she, a Plantagenet princess, could … She dipped her quill into the ink again. She had better finish her letter.

  THAT YEAR, Frederick held his Christmas court in Graz, in the company of Isabella and his son Conrad. At the beginning of the new year the court moved to Vienna. There, at a Diet of imperial princes, the nine-year-old Conrad was elected king of Germany. Two weeks of feasts and tournaments followed, during which Frederick declared Vienna an imperial city. He also appropriated the dukedoms of Austria and Styria, erstwhile fiefs of his son’s father-by-marriage, Frederick of Austria.

  With the problem of the succession solved, and the German princes firmly behind him, he left Isabella behind at the beginning of September and crossed the Brenner again to continue the Lombard war.

  On a hill outside Innsbruck their cavalcade was overtaken by a courier who handed him a letter. Frederick broke the seal. Isabella was with child again. He smiled to himself. This time she would give him a son.

  LOMBARDY, OCTOBER 1237

  Frederick stepped out from his tent and let out an obscenity. A soft drizzle fell. Swathes of mist rose from the marshes, drifting over the bare autumn fields. This abominable weather was all he needed. For the past four weeks his army and the Milanese forces had been circling each other like two weary antagonists at a dogfight. They had been facing the enemy for two days here at Pontevico, separated only by a small tributary of the Oglio. The Milanese, on the other side, refused to be drawn from the swamps that protected them.

  “Enzio!”

  “Yes, father?” His son came out of the tent, p
ulling up his hood.

  “Fetch Ezzelino, the landgrave, and Manfred.” Enzio had just passed his twenty-second birthday. He had distinguished himself at the recent siege of Vicenza.

  Enzio returned with the three men. The landgrave Conrad of Thuringia, Frederick’s kinsman, was the son of that other landgrave who had perished in Brindisi many years earlier during the crusade. Frederick scowled. “I’ve had my fill of playing hide-and-seek with the Milanese. We’ll raise camp and march to Cremona.”

  The landgrave stared at him. “Retreat, Your Grace?”

  Ezzelino, whose courage in battle was eclipsed only by his cunning, nodded in comprehension.

  “Will they swallow it?” Manfred asked.

  “If we bait the hook properly, they may,” Frederick said. “Spread the word among the camp followers that I’m disgusted with the Milanese and the weather and wish to sleep in a real bed till spring. We’ll march off. Before Cremona, we’ll divide our forces. Part of the army will go on to Cremona, an obvious choice for winter quarters. We, with a striking force of knights and the Saracen archers, will creep after the Milanese. Once they break camp, we attack.”

  THE MILANESE WAITED for the middle of the night before emerging from the swamps. In the small hours, Frederick was awoken by Manfred with the news that they were marching north, toward Milan.

  Frederick, who had been sleeping soundly, swung his legs over the edge of the camp bed. “Give the order to mount.”

  Mahmoud slipped the chain mail hauberk over Frederick’s head and secured it with leather thongs. He and a page laced up his mail gauntlets. A padded arming cap designed to ward off blows and absorb the weight of the steel helmet was tied under his chin. Over this he wore a coif of chain mail. His helmet, of a new design that covered the entire face, with slits for the eyes, would be carried by his squire until it was needed in battle. His legs were encased in chain mail chausses, with circular plates of solid steel to protect his knees. Finally, they girded him with his sword.