Frederick looked for the first time properly at her. What a waste to feed such beauty to the fishes, he thought. Odo of Villefranche had excellent taste in women. His widow was a tall, willowy creature with milk-white skin and wavy hair the color of glowing copper, whose slender body was accentuated by the ropes that bound her. As she raised her eyes, wide with terror, in a mute plea, Frederick caught his breath. Her eyes were blue, a deep dark blue.
“Unbind the lady and take her on your horse,” he ordered one of the Saracen officers who had ridden up behind him. The man dismounted and swiftly cut through the ropes with his eating dagger.
“I’m taking the lady into my custody,” he said curtly to the new Count of Villafranca. “Present your case and your witnesses at my next assize in Melfi. Justice according to the law, and not your barbarous superstitions, will then be done. The offense of holding a trial by ordeal will also be dealt with by the assize.” With that he jerked his horse around.
Thomas’s eyebrows lifted. “What are you going to do with her?” he asked. Frederick frowned, chiding his foolish heart for beating too fast.
“We’ll take her back to Foggia and then we’ll see. She must have kin somewhere. If I leave her here that mob will kill her before we’re around the next bend. The new count may have good reason for getting rid of his brother’s widow. Odo was wealthy. She must have received a large portion of dower lands.”
THEY REACHED THE site of the new hunting lodge just after sunset. While Frederick went on a round of inspection with the chief mason, the stewards set up the tents, including the imperial pavilion of crimson silk.
As they walked back, Frederick threw his arm around Thomas’s shoulders. “Share a cup of wine with me, I feel like company. Even if my physicians say I should be more abstemious.”
The old count glanced at him, “Speaking of company, what are you going to do about that woman?” he asked, jerking his head towards the camp.
“To tell the truth, I had forgotten about her. There are no ladies here. We can’t leave her at the mercy of the soldiers. We could ask her to sup with us tonight.”
“She might be dangerous, my lord,” Thomas of Aquinas said.
“I’ll talk to her and see what she has to say for herself.” Mirth danced in Frederick’s eyes, “You’re right. I have to be careful. Think, my friend, what the world would say if to my many other sins I should add that of dining in the company of a woman who has murdered her babe! No doubt I would be accused of having roasted the bairn on a spit and shared it with her!”
THE GUARD ANNOUNCED the lady Sibyl. She stood framed in the tent entrance, waiting. Frederick, glancing up, felt a catch in his throat. Everything about her, from her height to her coloring, was different, except for her eyes. They were Bianca’s eyes. The streaks of soot across her face had vanished, the hair that cascaded down her back in a disheveled tangle had been braided into two thick glossy tresses wound around her head. Her gown of celadon wool, although stained and creased, fell to the floor in neat pleats. He noticed her small elegant hands. He had always found women with large hands unattractive.
He waved at her, “Come in.”
She sank into a deep curtsy. Reaching for his hand, she pressed it to her lips. “I thank you, Your Grace, with all my heart,” she said. “It was God himself who sent you.” She had a deep voice that caressed his senses.
Frederick twisted his lips. “You’ll still have to stand trial, you know.” He gestured to a folding chair. “Have a seat, my lady. Some wine?”
She nodded. As he handed her the cup, she raised her eyes to him. For the first time, she smiled, a lovely smile that showed unblemished teeth.
Frederick sat down and stretched his booted legs. After a moment, he asked, watching her from under lowered lids, “Did you kill your child?”
She looked at him, unblinking. “No, Your Grace,” she said. “How could a mother kill her own child? What would I have gained by doing so?”
Frederick cocked an eyebrow. “Perhaps,” he said, holding her gaze, “it wasn’t greed, but compassion, that motivated you? The child was deformed. Although the Church teaches us that all life is sacred, what kind of life would your child have led?”
She blinked. Her eyes filled with tears. Looking down at her lap, she smoothed the fabric of her gown. “That of a slavering monster, my lord, scorned by all.” She raised her head and stared at the central pole that supported the tent. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Frederick sat and watched her in silence.
At length she turned to him. There was defiance in her eyes. “I smothered it with a pillow. One day its little soul will come back to earth in a perfect, healthy body, born to some blessed woman other than I.”
Frederick caught his breath. By the beard of the Prophet, he thought, she’s confessed to murder and she believes in the transmigration of souls! In Cathay, people believed that a soul was reborn many times. In Christendom, those who dared speculate openly about such ideas were burned as witches.
“You’re a brave woman, Sibyl of Villafranca.” Frederick raised his cup, “I salute you.” He drained his wine and got up.
The blood left her face. Stunned by his reaction, she stared at him as she, too, rose. “What will you do with me, my lord?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.
“I’ll see to it that you’re reinstated in your rights. No one will ever know what you have told me.”
Her eyes were wide and dark. “I had heard from my lord husband that you are a most unusual man, and a very just one. You, who do not know me, have looked into my heart with more insight than my own family.”
Frederick undid his cloak and held it out to her. “Here, you can’t go about the camp without a cover. Once we return to Foggia you’ll be provided with waiting-women. Meanwhile, I shall have a tent set up for you.”
He draped the cloak around her shoulders. As he did so, his hand brushed her cheek. “You’re very beautiful, my lady Sybil. Did your lord husband also tell you that I still appreciate lovely women?”
She smiled, a sad little smile. “Yes, he did.” With perfect naturalness, she raised herself up on her toes, offering him her lips.
Frederick felt a rush of desire. Her lips were full and inviting, the nearness of her body heady. He swallowed and took a step back. “Although I value beauty, I do not exact payment of this sort.” He took her hand and kissed it. “You are, after all, my liegewoman. Will you sup with me tonight?”
The eyes looked at him levelly, with the same composure as those other eyes that would haunt him forever. She inclined her head. “It will be an honor, Your Grace.”
Frederick watched her until she disappeared beyond the tent flap. He would give her time. … He went over to the trestle table and poured himself another cup of wine. He raised the goblet to an invisible presence. “You do understand, don’t you, my swallow? I must go on living. Perhaps I’ll find a shadow of yourself, and some of the peace that has been denied me since you went away.” He drained the goblet and put it down abruptly.
CASTEL DEL MONTE, APULIA, DECEMBER 1250
The castle rose like a crown of golden limestone upon the barren Murge plateau, commanding the coastal plain of Apulia.
Neither castle nor hunting lodge, but a combination of both, it had eight octagonal towers joined to each other, with a classical portal of red breccia and gray marble. A balcony ran along the inner courtyard, overlooking a sunken marble fountain. Frederick had designed it himself, inspired by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It was his favorite castle.
One of the towers was a falcon mews, with a door onto the roof from where falcons could be trained. The rooftop was warm despite the season, bathed in the afternoon sun. Frederick picked up a piece of cheese from a bowl on the parapet. The falcon, a golden peregrine, snapped up the cheese with her razor-sharp beak. “Good girl,” Frederick stroked her plumage. “They’re just like women. Lavish affection on them and you can do anything you want with them.”
He turned to Berard
. “You don’t know what you’ve missed. Life without women is terribly dull. Talking about women, I think I should like to marry again.” To tease him, he added, “The Duke of Saxony’s heiress. I hear she’s comely.”
Berard stared at him. “Frederick! At your age? You’re nearly fifty-six.”
“Well, my Saracen girls still enjoy my attentions. I don’t see why my new wife shouldn’t do likewise. It’s true,” he added, “that I can no longer accomplish what I used to, but even so, it’s not too bad.”
Berard smiled, revealing his gums. Most of his teeth had finally succumbed to old age. He shook his head. “I cannot say, having never experienced the joys of the flesh. But why the Duke of Saxony’s heiress?”
“Because, dear Berard, I lust after her lands.”
Berard laughed. “You’re incorrigible. Why do you want more land? Soon, you’ll be able to add Lombardy to the domains you leave your children. That is,” he added, “if you don’t go hunting again.”
Frederick laughed. No one but Berard would have dared to remind him of the debacle of Victoria. He looked fondly at the octogenarian archbishop. “I’ve waited a long time for the final onslaught against the Lombards. I’ve learned from my mistakes. This time I’ll wipe them out.”
Berard nodded. The host that Frederick had been assembling over the last two years would be the largest army ever hurled at the Lombard city-states. This time, Frederick would prevail. Berard stared pensively into the distance, toward Andria and the sea.
Frederick fed the falcon another piece of cheese. “Did you know that ewe’s cheese doesn’t dull their keenness for the hunt? By the way, I’ve invited a famed troubadour, Raymond of Toulouse, just arrived back from Palestine. Will you join us tonight?’
Berard glanced up, surprised. After Bianca’s death, Frederick banned music. He’d become almost a recluse, eating mostly alone in his apartments with a few intimates or his son Manfred. He passed his evenings in writing or drawing, in astronomical studies, or in discussion. Recently, however, his spirits had revived. He had fallen in love again, with the widow of one of his vassals, Sybil of Villafranca, whom many whispered to be a murderess. Frederick, he was sure, knew the truth, but didn’t say.
Berard inclined his head. “I’ll be happy to.” He gave a dry cough. “However, if I am not to embarrass you by dozing off, I had best go now and rest awhile. I’m very old, you know.”
Frederick smiled. “Nonsense. You’re like an oak. You’ve outlived everybody. You’ll outlive me, too.”
Holding on to his nephew Richard, who acted as his page, Berard made his way carefully down the steep stairs. He was glad to see Frederick so cheerful. It was pleasant to stay in this isolated castle, far from the cares of state.
THE SOUND OF cantering hooves filled the morning air. The ground was carpeted with fallen leaves, still damp from the night’s downpour. Frederick, accompanied only by a small escort of Saracens, inhaled the fertile odor of moist earth.
The frugal breakfasts of watered wine and frumenty he had been eating on his physician’s advice seemed to have improved his stomach. A smile flickered across his lips. Well, he thought, I, too, must show some signs of age. He shrugged his shoulders. So what. He was alive. His eyes swept the expanse of moorland into which they had emerged, its harsh beauty reaching to the horizon. Sicily, he thought, you are the Promised Land.
He glanced at the low winter sun. It was nearly midmorning. Before vespers he’d be in Lucera. He felt a flush of pleasurable anticipation at the thought of spending a few days with Sibyl. She’d be waiting for him in the apartments of the great keep amid the mosques and markets of the Muslim town he had created. The deported island Saracens lived there in peace, following their crafts, cultivating the land, and serving the master against whom they had once rebelled.
For reasons he himself didn’t fully understand, he was conducting this liaison with far more circumspection than any other. Why was he so reluctant for the world to know that he had a new mistress? Was it the fear of seeing disappointment in his son Manfred’s eyes rather than that of being associated with a woman who lived in the shadow of a terrible accusation? He found much solace in her arms, solace and a companionship both satisfying and undemanding.
They halted at noon. His servants erected a small pavilion of striped green and crimson silk. Frederick ate his favourite dish, escabeche, an Apulian stew of spiced vegetables, garlic, and onions in a sweet and sour sauce. He wiped his lips with a napkin and leaned back in his folding chair. Behind him, Giovanni, his steward, was packing the dishes back into panniers. Through the open tent flaps he could see that the men outside had already finished the bread, cheese, and onions that constituted their traveling rations. Frederick emptied the remains of the one cup of unwatered wine he now allowed himself a day. As he leaned forward to replace the cup, he groaned. A fierce, knifelike spasm contracted his insides. He clenched his teeth in an effort not to scream and slumped forward on the table.
They laid him on the Eastern rug that covered the turf. Abdul, the commander of his bodyguard, placed his own rolled-up cloak under Frederick’s head. He stared at him, his dark eyes wide with anguish. Abdul cast a sharp glance at the back of the steward Giovanni, who was spreading another cloak over his shivering body.
Frederick, his insides churning with unbearable agony, caught the look. He shook his head. “It’s just my stomach again, Abdul,” he said with a grimace of pain. “Take me back …” Vomit spewed from his mouth. His head fell to one side. He had lost consciousness.
IN A TORRENTIAL winter downpour, late at night, a messenger hammered on the gates of Berard’s country manor outside Foggia.
The man, wet and shaking with cold, was brought before Berard, who was already attired in a night cap and chamber robe, about to retire for the night.
“I beg your pardon for disturbing Your Grace at this hour. Orders of the emperor. You are to come to Fiorentino immediately.”
“To Fiorentino?” Berard stared at him. What was Frederick doing in the village of Fiorentino? A dreadful presentiment filled him. “What’s the matter?”
As the kneeling man raised his head, Berard saw his eyes cloud. “My lord, I bring evil tidings …” The man swallowed, blinking. “The emperor was taken ill at noon yesterday, on his way to Lucera. We carried him to the nearest castle, that of Fiorentino, and sent for his doctor from Lucera. He’s very ill. He has summoned the great officers of the realm.”
Berard stared at the man. He shook his head. His heart couldn’t believe it.
YET AS HE stood by Frederick’s bedside at dawn, having traveled through the night, Berard knew that it was true. Even in the dim light of the chamber, filled with people, he could see that the ashen grayness of death underlay Frederick’s skin. The physicians thought it might be a slow-acting poison, administered over weeks. The pope or the Lombards, or both. They’d felled him just before he could finally defeat them …
Frederick’s sunken features brightened as he saw him. “Thank you for coming so quickly. My time has come to say farewell to the temptations of this world.” A smile, tinged with its former mischief, flickered across the cracked lips: “I enjoyed them greatly.… Will you administer the last rites so that they can’t say I died a heretic?”
Berard kissed his forehead; it was clammy. His eyes fell on Frederick’s sleeve. He was garbed in the white habit of a Cistercian monk.
Frederick caught his look. “A simple garment in which to depart. I’ve always admired the Cistercians. It’ll also read well in the chronicles …”
Was this the last act in a life rich with calculated settings, or was it the final public expression of a private faith? Berard turned to his chaplain and the two acolytes behind him. They had brought a small traveling altar. With trembling hands, Berard administered the last rites.
“… ego te absolvo …” Berard pronounced the words of absolution. He traced the cross upon Frederick’s feet, forehead, eyes, and lips in chrism, completing the sacrament of the ex
treme unction. As he raised the host he saw a strange look in Frederick’s eyes. Was it mockery or hope? The miracle of the transubstantiation, often denied by Frederick, was this time being invoked for his own benefit.
Confessed, absolved, and anointed, Frederick received communion. His soul would now be able to rise to heaven, escaping the talons of the invisible devils clustering about the deathbed to carry the unprotected soul off to their infernal abode.
A sob rose from the other side of the bed, where the two Manfreds, uncle and nephew, stood side by side. Frederick’s son flung himself on the bed, ignoring his uncle’s restraining hand.
“Father,” he cried, “Father, you must live, live for those who love and need you! Without you, the Empire will die!”
Frederick touched his wet cheek. “Manfred,” he said in a voice straining with effort, “even I must obey God’s summons. I leave Sicily and the Empire in his hands. He will guide you and your brothers. Don’t fret, my son,” he tried to smile, “I’m going to see your mother. Kiss me for a last time and then leave. Deathbeds aren’t for the young. Berard will stay with me.”
Manfred swallowed hard. He stood up and straightened his shoulders. Bending down, he kissed his father’s forehead. His uncle did likewise, squeezing Frederick’s hand before turning away, his eyes, too, filled with tears. One by one the great officers of state knelt by the bed and took their leave before filing out into the antechamber.
When all had left and the chamber was in silence, Frederick said, “Sit by me, Berard, till it pleases Death to fetch me. He won’t be long now. I can hear him sharpening his scythe.”
Berard sat on the coverlet. He took Frederick’s hand.
The sea-green eyes looked at him, still clear and lucid. “I’ve failed, haven’t I? The new Rome has come to naught.”
Berard shook his head. “I don’t think so, Frederick. Nothing’s ever for naught in God’s world. You’re right, it was too late or too early, I don’t know which, to revive the golden age of Rome. But you gave men a vision of enlightenment, justice, and tolerance. You gave them hope.”
The Falcon of Palermo Page 49