He looked up at the stars. It was a beautiful night, warm and velvety like a woman’s skin. Perhaps she, too, was looking at the night sky at this very moment, peering up from the barred window of her spartan cell. It might not be all that spartan. The Benedictine nuns of Caserta, mostly widows or unmarried daughters of noble families, were canonesses. They took the vows of chastity and obedience but not of poverty. They were allowed personal possessions. Books, hangings, pets, even servants. They could have visitors. In the hope of receiving a sign from her, even if only a few words of thanks, he sent her a pectoral cross in gold and ivory, set with topazes. She hadn’t acknowledged it. She’d probably given it to the convent’s treasury.
The breeze caressed him like a hand. If only you were here, he thought, looking up at the starry outline of the Great Bear. He had once stood on this same tower, his arm about her shoulders, teaching her the language of the stars. He felt a pain in his chest, the gnawing pain of emptiness. He put the goblet down on the stone parapet. What was pride, after all, but a profitless emotion?
CASERTA, A LOFTY hill town surrounded by steep vineyards, rose above a broad plain shimmering in the heat. A dusty road wound up to it from the ancient Via Appia that crossed the plain.
The Benedictine convent was a rambling complex of buildings clustered behind high whitewashed walls. Centenary cypresses stood in its well-tended gardens, like admonitory fingers of God against the blue sky. The convent had a marble-pillared Norman cloister. The church was Norman, too.
Inside the church, Frederick stared at the mosaic floor. His left foot rested on the head of Saint Catherine, being martyred on her wheel. He moved the foot slightly, to the fronds of a nearby palm tree. Raising his eyes, he thought how serene Bianca’s beauty was beneath the white headdress that covered her hair. Her brows were no longer fashionably plucked, her cheeks untouched by rouge, and yet she seemed lovelier than ever. On her breast she wore the jeweled cross he had sent her.
He longed to touch her, but the austerity of her habit kept his hand at bay. “I didn’t betray you,” he said, his voice flat. “I did my duty. I needed an alliance with England; I needed an heir, and I needed Isabella’s dowry.”
“After what I’ve heard about your wife, that duty can’t have been too onerous,” Bianca said.
“Yes, she’s winsome and a pleasant bedmate,” he said brutally, his voice rising, “but I don’t love her, can’t you understand that?” He took her by the shoulders and shook her. “I love you, and I’ll love you till the day I die, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now, begging, would I, I who have never begged anything from anyone?”
Bianca stared at him, her eyes dark and angry. “I will never,” she said slowly, “be yours again. Enjoy your English princess and may she give you many more sons.”
Just as she was about to turn, he lunged and took hold of her habit. With a sweep of his arm he gathered her to him and kissed her. For an instant, she struggled. Then all resistance left her. Her arms reached up and wrapped themselves around his neck, her body pressed itself against his with a yearning that took his breath away.
For a long moment they stood thus entwined in the dim side chapel before the altar of Our Lady. Then she disentangled herself gently from his grip. “I love you, Frederick,” she said softly, “but our lives can never be joined again. I was wrong, you were never mine. You always belonged to the Empire, never to me. I shall pray for you.” She raised her right hand in a gesture that was half farewell and half benediction. “May God be with you,” she said, and was gone in a rustle of her black habit.
Frederick stared after her, his mouth dry, his heart still racing. Tears stung his eyes as he followed her starched white wimple along the pews and watched it disappear into a side door beside the choir.
AFTER SHE REACHED the vestry and turned the key in the rusty lock, Bianca sank to her knees beside a row of vestments hanging on pegs. She buried her face in her hands and cried, tears of pain and regret, of rage and love and longing, until she felt that she could cry no more. For a long time she remained kneeling. The vestry was cool and silent. She leaned her head against a chasuble. A faint musty odor of age and incense emanated from the faded silk. It was a smell both familiar and comforting, a smell of service to God, of holy rites, of peace. She dried her face and adjusted her wimple. Taking a deep breath, she left the vestry through the door that connected the church to the convent.
From the chapel on the other side of the pillared cloister she could hear the nuns singing vespers. This is my home, this is where I belong, she thought as she walked toward the soaring voices praising God.
FREDERICK SWUNG HIMSELF into the saddle. The sun glared off the convent’s whitewashed walls. The gatekeeper, a wizened old monk with a frayed straw hat, opened the creaking iron-banded gates. He stared after the emperor and his small Saracen escort as they disappeared in a cloud of dust.
As he rode the seven miles of abysmal road that separated Caserta from Capua, Frederick’s heart felt as heavy as the great boulders of granite that lay along the roadside. He hadn’t really been surprised. Deep within himself he had known how she would react. He admired her strength, a strength he didn’t have. Yet, seeing her, holding her, somehow had healed a wound. Berard was right. Unlike him, Bianca had found her peace.
What, he asked himself, guiding his horse around the potholes that pitted the road, is my life but an endless row of worries and battles, frustrations, intrigues, and rebellions? Did those whom he ruled feel any gratitude? Did the common people, mired in a perpetual cycle of apathy, poverty, and superstition, ultimately care whether their laws were just or not, their landlords and bailiffs corrupt or fair, their priests grasping and illiterate or virtuous and educated, their roads safe or infested with bandits? Did they understand the importance of storing grain, of repairing bridges, of paying taxes so that their homes and their livestock could be protected from brigands and invaders?
Did the nobles realize that every lordling couldn’t rule for himself, that the resultant anarchy would be more detrimental to them than the freedom they craved, destroying the foundation of society? And these pig-headed Lombards, would not even they be happier if between them and their foes stood the might of the Empire, rather than just a few ells of breachable walls? And yet each man, from the highest to the humblest, thought that he could do it better if given half a chance.
He twisted his lips. Perhaps, he, too, should forsake the world. Then he and Bianca could sit together in a shady cloister, like Abelard and Heloise, those thwarted lovers, and compare the lives of Saint Jerome and Saint Catherine.
As tempting as it at times almost seemed, a leisurely life of chastity and contemplation was not for him. His friend Elias of Cortona, vicar of the Franciscan order, had painted its delights only last night at supper. But Elias was old and fat, steeped in erudition and the memory of Saint Francis, to whose work he had dedicated his life, carrying on the saint’s work after his death.
We are all, Frederick thought wearily, born to a destiny. Francis was destined for sainthood, and Bianca obviously for a life of prayer. My fate is to shoulder the burdens of kingship.
The crenellated walls of Capua came into view above the loop of the river. It must have been a handsome town in Roman times. Capua had once been as pleasure-loving as Sybaris. An entire street was devoted to perfume vendors. Her women, then as now, were famed for their beauty. Only once did the shrewd Capuans miscalculate: when, thinking that Hannibal would conquer Rome, they allowed the Carthaginian army to winter in their seductive city. After Hannibal’s defeat, Rome’s vengeance had been swift and terrible.
Frederick was transforming the city, which had become a vast builder’s yard. Her walls had been entirely rebuilt, mansions and palaces were rising, there were new fountains, hospitals, almshouses, and a covered market. Norbert and Bartolomeo da Foggia, aided by Cistercian master masons, had provided the castle with flushing privies, fireplaces with chimneys, glazed windows, and mosaic floors. They were now work
ing on the town gate, a triumphal arch of white marble, the first Roman gateway to be erected in Italy since the fall of the Caesars.
He had designed the gate himself. When he couldn’t sleep, which happened with increasing frequency, he would work at night in his bedchamber, drawing statues, lintels, corbels, or entire floor plans. At the moment he was designing a classical portal for an octagonal hunting lodge he had begun in the forests above Andria. Its shape was inspired by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
Well, he thought wryly, as he rode through the gate, monumental even in its half-finished, scaffolded state, if posterity remembers me for nothing else, they’ll remember me for the Capuan gate.
FOGGIA, DECEMBER 1241
The conclave Matteo Orsini had forced on the cardinals produced the inevitable result: after holding out for nearly two weeks in the heat and stench of their prison, during which time one English cardinal died and several others fell ill, the cardinals elected Orsini’s candidate, Godfrey of Sabina, who took the name of Celestine IV. Orsini’s brutality, however, defeated his ends: within seventeen days, Pope Celestine died from dysentery contracted in the Septizonium. This time the cardinals took no chances. Within hours of his death, the entire college had fled to Anagni. From there they begged Frederick to release the two cardinals he still held, so that they could proceed with a new conclave. A round of negotiations now began between Frederick and the cardinals, which promised to drag on for months.
Meanwhile, the German princes had inflicted a crushing defeat on the Mongols, driving them back beyond the confines of the duchy of Austria, although the price had been a fearful loss of Christian lives.
Frederick established his court for the winter at Foggia. Isabella’s time was approaching. He began to find solace again in her company. Most men fled their pregnant wives, but Frederick found the serenity of a woman far gone with child restful. To keep her amused as she became heavier, he ordered exotic trinkets and mechanical toys for her.
HE WOUND UP the bird. “Watch, Issy.” The bird, studded with pearls, began to open and close its beak and flap its silver wings.
Isabella smiled up at him from the daybed on which she spent much of her time. “It’s a marvel. Thank you. But you don’t have to come and amuse me. Of course I like you to, but I know it is a duty for you.” She looked down, adjusting her shawl.
He sat on the divan and took her hand. “In my own way, I do love you, Issy. No other princess could have pleased me as much.”
She raised her luminous eyes. “That may be so, my lord, but it wasn’t a princess your heart wanted.”
ON A GRAY morning in December, as dark clouds hung over the city, Isabella’s pains began. By the sixth hour of the afternoon, she lay dying. The bells of Foggia began to toll just as they had tolled years earlier for Yolanda, a somber, hopeless tolling that announced the approach of death.
Frederick, sitting beside her bed, his eyes dull with pain and disbelief, caressed Isabella’s clammy forehead. Her face is already the color of death, he thought as he looked down at her. In her hands she clasped a rosary of pearls and amber beads. They had brushed her golden hair and spread it out upon the pillow. Her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping, the network of blue veins under her lashes showing through the translucent skin. Her eyes opened. Her bloodless lips formed a word he couldn’t hear. He bent down.
“Frederick,” she whispered, “don’t fret. It is God’s will.”
“I shall always remember you with fondness in my heart, Isabella.” It was true. Without realizing it, he had grown genuinely fond of his beautiful English wife. Now he bitterly regretted that he had left her alone too often with her music, her pets, and her wine.
“Henry … tell him that I have loved him well. Tell him that I yearn for England, for her cool green hills. … The children, love them, I know you will …” her voice trailed off and broke. A shudder went through her body, then it lay still.
John of Procida withdrew a little polished silver mirror from a pocket of his furred robe and held it to her lips. The mirror remained unclouded. The physician nodded gravely. Frederick closed Isabella’s eyes.
A shrill keening went up in the chamber. Isabella’s ladies and serving women began to tear their hair, swaying to and fro in their grief. In a corner beside the bed, the bishop of Trani, who had earlier shriven her, began to intone the prayer for the dead.
It was the terrible loss of blood that had killed her. The midwives had vainly attempted to stanch the flow of blood. Only when Frederick, bursting into the chamber, had bellowed in a rage to call his own physician, had the women consented to a male examining the empress. By then even John of Procida, whose renown extended throughout Europe, had been unable to halt the hemorrhage.
The lying-in chamber was oppressive. The smell of blood, sweat, and incense all mingled in a nauseating odor of death. Frederick felt his stomach heave. He made his way quickly to the door. In the open gallery outside he took a deep breath of clean cold air. His head, which had been spinning moments earlier, cleared. Following an impulse, he pushed open the door to Isabella’s chapel.
In the dim chapel, a tall golden crucifix glowed in a halo of light upon a small altar covered in a cloth Isabella had spent years embroidering in Opus Anglicanum, that marvelous English embroidery of gilt silver threads and colorful silks.
Frederick sank to his knees. He closed his eyes, grateful for the silence. Only when he opened his eyes again did he behold a little black-draped bier at the foot of the altar. On it lay the tiny swaddled body of his stillborn son.
FREDERICK RECLINED IN the sunken basin of dark green marble. He closed his eyes. A scent of rosemary rose from the steamy water. Death. Death everywhere. What would his own death be like? Would it be swift, or long and drawn-out, by sickness, in battle, or by an assassin’s hand? Strange, he thought, that men preferred a slow demise to a quick merciful one, just so that they could be shriven. Surely God couldn’t deny a soul entry into paradise only because there hadn’t been opportunity for absolution?
So many were dead. Constance, Yolanda, Al-Kamil, Mahmoud, Michael Scot, Hermann, Isabella … Time was inexorably drawing in her net, pulling it tighter with each passing year. Even Berard was approaching the venerable age of seventy. His flesh hung loosely now on his great frame, his jowls sagged, and there were pouches under his eyes. Only his smile remained the same. The archbishop’s superb teeth had so far escaped the ravages of time that left most men toothless long before his age. Mahmoud, too, had died a few months earlier, felled as he was laying out his cloak for him in this very chamber. With his last breath, his old childhood friend, clutching his hand, had commended him to Allah’s protection. And dear Hermann. On his way back from the Holy Land, the grand master had breathed his last in Salerno on the same Palm Sunday on which Gregory had pronounced his sentence of excommunication against Frederick. Mercifully, he had died unaware that all his striving for peace had come to naught.
Six months had passed since Isabella’s death. Although the official period of mourning had ended and the black hangings been removed, the halls of Melfi seemed empty without her.
The throne of Saint Peter remained vacant. Although he had released the two cardinals and other prelates he had detained, the wrangling between the cardinals and him over a suitable candidate still dragged on in Anagni. Pressure was mounting on the cardinals to elect a pope who would be acceptable to him. In England, prayers were said for the resolution of the crisis. King Louis of France himself had written to the Sacred College, exhorting them to lay aside their political differences with the emperor and elect a new pontiff.
In Lombardy, the Milanese and their allies were lying low, watched over by Frederick’s son Enzio, who commanded the army in northern Italy. As soon as the problem of the papal interregnum was solved, Frederick planned to go north again for another campaign against the Lombards.
Perhaps it was the narrowing circle of death, but his thoughts frequently turned to his firstborn son Henry. A pr
isoner for more than seven years now, Henry had first been held in Heidelberg. Then he had been brought to Sicily and imprisoned in Calabria. Although Henry was allowed every comfort, his existence must be dreary beyond belief. Had he ever repented of his treachery? If so, he had never addressed a word to him. Would he relent if Henry were now to beg his pardon?
He felt a yearning to see Constance’s son. He couldn’t set him free yet—perhaps he never could. But he could bring him to Apulia, see him, talk to him. Perhaps it was only Henry’s pride, that obstinate Hohenstaufen pride, that kept him from begging for forgiveness. He is flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. Maybe, if I take the first step …
He stood up abruptly in the octagonal basin, splashing water on the floor tiles. Two servant girls rushed forward with open towels, enveloping him in linen as he stepped out of the bath.
“Hurry up, you lazy daughters of Islam,” he exhorted the girls in Arabic while they massaged his prone body with scented oils. He was impatient to be dressed. For the first time in months he felt cheerful. He’d send a messenger immediately to Nicastro, with orders that Henry was to be brought to Melfi.
HENRY STARED AT the count. “I have been summoned by my father?”
The count of Nicastro nodded. “Yes, my lord. The emperor’s orders are for you to repair to Melfi immediately.”
Henry frowned, suspicious. “Why?”
“I don’t know, my lord. The emperor’s message didn’t say. It stated only that I was to convey you there myself.”
Hope flashed in Henry’s blue eyes. He smiled, a wistful smile, and turned away toward the hearth. For an instant, his smile reminded the count of the emperor. It was the first time he’d ever seen a resemblance to him in the man who had been his prisoner for five years. Henry hadn’t given his jailer any trouble. He passed his time practicing archery in the castle’s tiltyard, or playing drafts with the officers of the watch. Recently, he’d developed a liking for woodcarving. Fond of animals, his captivity was shared by a mastiff and two salukis. The shaggy beasts were stretched out contentedly before the fire. Outside, dusk was beginning to fall. The lowceilinged, wooden-beamed chamber was darkening.
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