But it was Joanna whom Anna had come to love: Joanna, who was beautiful and worldly and had a mind and will of her own. She knew how to savor life’s daily pleasures, too, and that was a lesson Anna had been eager to learn, for there had been little laughter at the Cypriot court, where her father had suspected mirth and stifled joy, fearful of losing his tenuous and illegal hold on power. So when her stepmother had chosen to stay in her native Sicily upon their arrival in Messina that past November, Anna had elected to remain with Joanna and Berengaria as they continued their journey on to the domains of the English king.
The game with Alicia forgotten, Anna found herself watching the other women in the hall. Berengaria was working on a delicate embroidery, as were most of the ladies-in-waiting, while Joanna read aloud to them from a book called The History of the Kings of Britain; Anna had heard Joanna say it had been written by an Augustinian canon named Geoffrey of Monmouth, but his name meant nothing to her. The book did not seem to be holding Joanna’s attention, for she would occasionally pause, staring off into space before rousing herself to resume reading. Anna could not remember the last time she’d heard anyone laugh. It was almost as if this had become a house of mourning.
Alicia waited patiently for her friend to turn back to the game board. When it did not happen, she said softly, “I pray every day for King Richard’s safe return.” She’d meant to comfort, knowing how worried Anna was, how worried they all were, but Anna took it amiss and scowled.
“Of course Malik Ric is safe! How can you even doubt it?”
Anna’s voice had carried and the adults in the hall glanced her way. None commented upon her passionate outcry, though, for the subject of the king’s safety was a very sensitive one and certainly not to be discussed in the hearing of Richard’s queen and sister. An uncomfortable silence fell, but they were accustomed to such fraught moments by now. The normal rhythms of a royal household had been utterly disrupted by the gradual, reluctant realization that the king was missing and could well be dead.
Berengaria smiled sadly as she watched Anna scold Alicia for her “lack of faith.” Beside her, Joanna had given up any pretense of reading, the book lying open on her lap. She knew the bleak path that her sister-in-law’s thoughts were following, for hers were keeping pace, both of them desperate for word of Richard’s whereabouts. They never spoke of their apprehension, though, for they’d entered into a conspiracy of silence, acting as if there were no cause for concern, as if they could vanquish their dread by refusing to acknowledge it. They had done this once before, when they’d been stranded off the coast of Cyprus after the royal fleet had been scattered in a storm and Isaac Comnenus was threatening to take them ashore by force. Not once during that ordeal had either woman voiced her fear that Richard’s galley might have gone down in that Good Friday storm, and their faith had been rewarded when Richard had arrived just hours before Isaac’s ultimatum was to expire. But that had been only a week, albeit an endless one. Now it was more than two months since there’d been any sightings reported of the English king.
Groping for a safe topic of conversation, one that would not inadvertently lure them into discussing her husband’s disappearance, Berengaria returned to their earlier discussion of the crime that was the talk of Rome—the shameful murder of the Bishop of Liege and the bloody footprints that seemed to lead right to Emperor Heinrich’s throne. “I wish I could say I do not believe Heinrich capable of such a godless act, but I cannot, Joanna. There was something about the man that I found chilling. I feel heartsick for his wife. What will she do when the Holy Father casts Heinrich into eternal darkness? All Christians are duty bound to shun an excommunicate. But how can Constance do that? Do you think the Church will make allowances for her plight?”
Joanna cared deeply for Constance de Hauteville, who’d done so much to comfort her as she struggled to adapt to her new life in Sicily, and she hated to think of the misery that Constance had found in her marriage to Heinrich von Hohenstaufen. “I’ve never thought about how the wife of an excommunicate would cope,” she admitted. “Fortunately, Constance will be spared that, for the Pope is not going to excommunicate Heinrich. My father was not excommunicated when Thomas Becket was slain, and the Church’s outrage was even greater over his killing than the Bishop of Liege’s murder.”
“Yes, but Pope Alexander believed your lord father when he swore he’d never meant for those knights to act upon his heedless, angry words. The Holy Father knew him to be a good man at heart, one who truly mourned the archbishop’s death. Can Pope Celestine say as much about Emperor Heinrich?”