She was all the more furious with him because he was right. She was afraid to confront her feelings for him. Now that she knew she’d not be committing adultery, she feared that he might tempt her into a less serious sin, but one that she knew she’d regret afterward. For a queen, too much was at stake. So she did her best to keep her indignation burning at full flame, reminding herself repeatedly that he’d treated his wife rather shabbily, most likely putting her aside because she’d failed to give him a male heir, after just one daughter in fifteen years of marriage.
She also did her best to limit their interactions, although that meant spending more time with Cardinal Melior and his clerics. Raimond took note of her new strategy, looking at her with mock sympathy when he saw her choosing to sit beside the cardinal at meals or ride beside him on the road. The papal legate seemed pleased that she was once more treating Raimond coldly and regaled her with stories of the impiety that hung over Toulouse like a storm cloud. There was not even a separate quarter for the Jews, he said; they dwelt wherever they pleased! The people of these benighted southern lands chased after pleasure the way a dog pursued rabbits, and since they allowed their women so much freedom, they were no better than they ought to be. Count Raimond encouraged their frivolous pursuits and wanton behavior and he probably tried to ensnare them in Cathar nets, too.
Joanna listened dutifully to these lectures, knowing she’d brought them upon herself by her defense of Sicilian tolerance. She did not dare to tell the cardinal that, like Raimond, she believed the Almighty would not have created a world of such surpassing beauty without wanting them to glory in it and in all of its earthly pleasures.
IT WAS MID-OCTOBER and the nights were noticeably cooler. From Blaye, they spent a night in a castle at Mirambeau, and then stopped at the Abbaye aux Dames de Saintes. Eleanor had been a generous patron of the convent in the years before and after her captivity, so the nuns welcomed this opportunity to receive her daughter and her son’s queen. Saintes had once been a Roman town, and they marveled at the remarkable Arch of Germanicus, towering above an ancient Roman bridge, still in use so many centuries after the empire’s fall. But few were curious enough to visit the ruins of a Roman amphitheater, for their enthusiasm for sightseeing had waned and their only interest now was in reaching Poitiers, eighty-five miles to the north.
Their next stop was at Niort, whose castle had been begun by Joanna’s father and completed by Richard. They’d just settled in when a stir was created by the arrival of Joanna’s cousin, André de Chauvigny. They’d not seen him since their departure from Acre a year ago and they had an emotional reunion. André had a surprise for them. They’d dispatched letters to Germany before they left Rome, letting Richard know of their plans, instructing the courier to meet them at Poitiers, and he’d arrived that past week, André said, bearing letters from Richard; he even had one for Mariam from Morgan. These were the first letters that Richard’s wife or sister had received from him, and they snatched them up eagerly. Berengaria took hers up to the privacy of her bedchamber, while Joanna retreated with hers to a window-seat in the great hall.
After she’d read it, she leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes, not opening them until she sensed she was no longer alone. When she realized she was now sharing the window-seat with Raimond, she scowled. Before she could rise, though, he said, “Your news is not good?”
Because he seemed genuinely concerned, she did not flounce away, although she responded with a wary “Why do you say that?”
He reached out, touching her cheek with his finger, as lightly as a feather. “Because of this,” he said, and only then did she realize a few tears had seeped through her lashes. “I can only imagine how difficult these past months have been for your brother,” he said, sounding quite serious for once. “You probably have a better idea than most do, for you, too, were held against your will.”
Joanna nodded somberly. “It is nothing he wrote,” she said. “It is rather what he did not write. . . .” She said no more, for she would have felt disloyal to Richard had she discussed her fears with anyone else, and certainly not with Raimond, for she could not ever forget that he was the Count of Toulouse’s son. He nodded, too, and seemed content to sit beside her in a companionable silence. Joanna found his presence surprisingly comforting, and she began to wonder if there was a way to apologize for her rudeness without encouraging him to make overtures again. She would never know if she’d have proffered an olive branch, for it was then that she saw André coming toward them.