ANNA WAS ACCUSTOMED TO milder climes than her future home and she wondered if she’d ever be warm again. It had been a wretched journey so far, the women exhausted by the punishing pace, Baldwin bleakly anticipating his continued confinement, and all of them made miserable by the frigid winter weather. Aenor suffered the most, and by the time they were approaching Salzburg, the little girl had developed a hacking cough and she looked so sickly, pale, and hollow-eyed that Anna thought she’d be a disappointment to her husband-to-be. Anna would be very glad to reach Salzburg, for Baldwin had assured them that they’d be staying at Archbishop Adalbert’s palace, which would be a vast improvement over some of their past lodgings, usually monastery guest halls and even a few inns. Anna had never been in an inn, so she’d enjoyed the novelty—until she’d awakened one night bitten by mites and fleas.
Sleet had begun to fall and Anna swore when a gust of wind blew back the hood of her mantle. “God’s legs!” she cried, borrowing one of Richard’s favorite oaths. “It is colder than a witch’s teat.” Thekla did not say anything, but her mouth pinched in such obvious disapproval that Anna rolled her eyes. The Cypriot widow had served her for several years, but in the past it had been easy enough to ignore her. Now she was subjected to Thekla’s earnest platitudes and tedious lectures on a daily basis. Anna had not yet forgiven her friend Alicia for balking at accompanying her to Austria, for the company on this unhappy journey left much to be desired. Thekla would have made a fine nun. Her other Cypriot maid, Eudokia, had been even unhappier than young Aenor at having to start life anew in Austria, for she fancied herself in love with one of Joanna’s knights back in Poitiers. Aenor’s childhood nurse, Rohesia, was as protective of her charge as a mother bear, and all three of Aenor’s attendants were downright elderly, at least in Anna’s eyes. Aenor herself was only ten, too young to be much fun even if she had not been crying herself to sleep every night.
Anna had tried to muster up some sympathy for the girl, without much success. Yes, she was going off to wed a stranger in an alien land, but that was only to be expected. Anna had not been happy, either, about her Austrian marriage, for she’d liked the life she led since her father’s overthrow and she’d become very attached to Joanna. But Anna was accustomed to upheaval. Her mother had died when she was just six and she and her brother had been held as hostages for two years, finally freed out of pity when the Prince of Antioch had realized their father was not going to pay the remainder of his ransom. After they joined Isaac in Cyprus, her brother soon died, and Anna had to adjust to living with a man she’d not really known, a man so feared and hated by the Cypriots that they’d cooperated with the English king to depose him. So Anna had learned very early to accept the world as it was, not as she wanted it to be, and she thought Aenor’s marriage would be much happier if she learned that lesson, too.
When Salzburg came into view, Anna sighed with relief—until she saw the huge fortress rising against the sky, hundreds of feet above the city, looking as if it were halfway to Heaven. “Lord Baldwin, please tell me we do not have to ride all the way up to that mountain citadel!”
“You need not fear, Lady Anna. Whilst Hohensalzburg Castle belongs to the Archbishop of Salzburg, he also has a residence in the town, close by the cathedral, and that is where we’ll be staying.”
She gave him a smile so charming that Baldwin found himself thinking that young Leo of Austria was a lucky lad. He was not worried about Anna, sure that she’d always land on her feet. But as he glanced over at Aenor, shivering so violently that her teeth were chattering, Baldwin felt as if he were watching a tame fawn being turned out to fend for herself in a forest rife with wolves.