Sharon Kay Penman
New York Times bestseller Sharon Kay Penman has been acclaimed by Publishers Weekly as “an historical novelist of the first water.” Her debut novel, The Sunne in Splendour, about Richard III, was a worldwide hit, and her acclaimed Welsh Princes trilogy—Here Be Dragons, Falls the Shadow, and The Reckoning—was similarly successful. Her other books include a sequence about Eleanor of Aquitaine—When Christ and His Saints Slept, Time and Chance, and Devil’s Brood—and the Justin de Quincy series of historical mysteries, which include The Queen’s Man, Cruel as the Grave, Dragon’s Lair, and Prince of Darkness. Her most recent book is a novel about Richard, Coeur de Lion, Lionheart. She lives in Mays Landing, New Jersey, and maintains a website at sharonkaypenman.com.
Here she takes us back to twelfth-century Sicily to show us that a queen in exile is still a queen—and a very dangerous woman indeed.
A QUEEN IN EXILE
DECEMBER 1189
HAGUENAU, GERMANY
Constance de Hauteville was shivering although she was standing as close to the hearth as she could get without scorching her skirts. Her fourth wedding anniversary was a month away, but she was still not acclimated to German winters. She did not often let herself dwell upon memories of her Sicilian homeland; why salt unhealed wounds? But on nights when sleet and ice-edged winds chilled her to the very marrow of her bones, she could not deny her yearning for the palm trees, olive groves, and sun-splashed warmth of Palermo, for the royal palaces that ringed the city like a necklace of gleaming pearls, with their marble floors, vivid mosaics, cascading fountains, lush gardens, and silver reflecting pools.
“My lady?” One of her women was holding out a cup of hot mulled wine and Constance accepted it with a smile. But her unruly mind insisted upon slipping back in time, calling up the lavish entertainments of Christmas courts past, presided over by her nephew, William, and Joanna, his young English queen. Royal marriages were not love matches, of course, but dictated by matters of state. If a couple were lucky, though, they might develop a genuine respect and fondness for each other. William and Joanna’s marriage had seemed an affectionate one to Constance, and when she’d been wed to Heinrich von Hohenstaufen, King of Germany and heir to the Holy Roman Empire, she’d hoped to find some contentment in their union. It was true that he’d already earned a reputation at twenty-one for ruthlessness and inflexibility. But he was also an accomplished poet, fluent in several languages, and she’d sought to convince herself that he had a softer side he showed only to family. Instead, she’d found a man as cold and unyielding as the lands he ruled, a man utterly lacking in the passion and exuberance and joie de vivre that made Sicily such an earthly paradise.
Finishing the wine, she turned reluctantly away from the fire. “I am ready for bed,” she said, shivering again when they unlaced her gown, exposing her skin to the cool chamber air. She sat on a stool, still in her chemise, a robe draped across her shoulders as they removed her wimple and veil and unpinned her hair. It reached to her waist, the moonlit pale gold so prized by troubadours. She’d been proud of it once, proud of her de Hauteville good looks and fair coloring. But as she gazed into an ivory hand mirror, the woman looking back at her was a wary stranger, too thin and too tired, showing every one of her thirty-five years.
After brushing out her hair, one of her women began to braid it into a night plait. It was then that the door slammed open and Constance’s husband strode into the chamber. As her ladies sank down in submissive curtseys, Constance rose hastily. She’d not been expecting him, for he’d paid a visit to her bedchamber just two nights ago, for what he referred to as the “marital debt,” one of his rare jests, for if he had a sense of humor, he’d kept it well hidden so far. When they were first married, she’d been touched that he always came to her, rather than summoning her to his bedchamber, thinking it showed an unexpected sensitivity. Now she knew better. If they lay together in her bed, he could then return to his own chamber afterward, as he always did; she could count on one hand the times they’d awakened in the same bed.
Heinrich did not even glance at her ladies. “Leave us,” he said, and they hastened to obey, so swiftly that their withdrawal seemed almost like flight.
“My lord husband,” Constance murmured as the door closed behind the last of her attendants. She could read nothing in his face; he’d long ago mastered the royal skill of concealing his inner thoughts behind an impassive court mask. As she studied him more closely, though, she saw subtle indicators of mood—the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth, his usual pallor warmed by a faint flush. He had the oddest eye color she’d ever seen, as grey and pale as a frigid winter sky, but they seemed to catch the candlelight now, shining with unusual brightness.
“There has been word from Sicily. Their king is dead.”
Constance stared at him, suddenly doubting her command of German. Surely she could not have heard correctly? “William?” she whispered, her voice husky with disbelief.
Heinrich arched a brow. “Is there another King of Sicily that I do not know about? Of course I mean William.”
“What … what happened? How …?”
His shoulders twitched in a half shrug. “Some vile Sicilian pestilence, I suppose. God knows, the island is rife with enough fevers, plagues, and maladies to strike down half of Christendom. I know only that he died in November, a week after Martinmas, so his crown is ours for the taking.”
Constance’s knees threatened to give way and she stumbled toward the bed. How could William be dead? There was just a year between them; they’d been more like brother and sister than nephew and aunt. Theirs had been an idyllic childhood, and later she’d taken his little bride under her wing, a homesick eleven-year-old not yet old enough to be a wife. Now Joanna was a widow at twenty-four. What would happen to her? What would happen to Sicily without William?
Becoming aware of Heinrich’s presence, she looked up to find him standing by the bed, staring down at her. She drew a bracing breath and got to her feet; she was tall for a woman, as tall as Heinrich, and drew confidence from the fact that she could look directly into his eyes. His appearance was not regal. His blond hair was thin, his beard scanty, and his physique slight; in an unkind moment, she’d once decided he put her in mind of a mushroom that had never seen the light of day. He could not have been more unlike his charismatic, expansive, robust father, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who swaggered through the imperial court like a colossus. And yet it was Heinrich who inspired fear in their subjects, not Frederick; those ice-color eyes could impale men as surely as any sword thrust. Even Constance was not immune to their piercing power, although she’d have moved heaven and earth to keep him from finding that out.
“You do realize what this means, Constance? William’s queen was barren, so that makes you the legitimate and only heir to the Sicilian throne. Yet there you sit as if I’d brought you news of some calamity.”
Constance flinched, for she knew that was what people whispered of her behind her back. To Heinrich’s credit, he’d never called her “barren,” at least not yet. He must think it, though, for they’d been wed nigh on four years and she’d not conceived. So far she’d failed in a queen’s paramount duty. She wondered sometimes what Heinrich had thought of the marriage his father had arranged for him—a foreign wife eleven years his elder. Had he been as reluctant to make the match as she’d been? Or had he been willing to gamble that his flawed new wife might one day bring him Sicily, the richest kingdom in Christendom?
“Joanna was not barren,” she said tautly. “She gave birth to a son.”
“Who did not live. And she never got with child again. Why do you think William made his lords swear to recognize your right to the crown if he died without an heir of his body? He wanted to assure the succession.”
Constance knew better. William had never doubted that he and Joanna would one day have another child; they were young and he was an optimist by nature. And because he was so confident of this, he’d been unfazed by the uproar her marriage had stirred. What did it matter that his subjects were horrified at the prospect of a German ruling over them when it would never come to pass? But now he was dead at thirty-six and the fears of his people were suddenly very real, indeed.
“It may not be as easy as you think, Heinrich,” she said, choosing her words with care. “Our marriage was very unpopular. The Sicilians will not welcome a German king.”
He showed himself to be as indifferent to the wishes of the Sicilian people as William had been, saying coolly, “They do not have a choice.”
“I am not so sure of that. They might well turn to William’s cousin Tancred.” She was about to identify Tancred further, but there was no need. Heinrich never forgot anything that involved his self-interest.
“The Count of Lecce? He is baseborn!”
She opened her mouth, shut it again. It would not do to argue that the Sicilians would even prefer a man born out of wedlock to Heinrich. She knew it was true, though. They’d embrace her bastard cousin before they’d accept her German husband.
Heinrich was regarding her thoughtfully. “You do want the crown, Constance?” he said at last. She felt a flare of indignation that it had not even occurred to him she might mourn William, the last of her family, and she merely nodded. But he seemed satisfied by that muted response. “I’ll send your women back in,” he said. “Sleep well, for you’ll soon have another crown to add to your collection.”
As soon as the door closed, Constance sank down on the bed, and after a moment she kicked off her shoes and burrowed under the covers. She was shivering again. Cherishing this rare moment of privacy before her attendants returned, she closed her eyes and said a prayer for William’s immortal soul. She would have Masses said for him on the morrow, she decided, and that gave her a small measure of comfort. She would pray for Joanna, too, in her time of need. Propping herself up with feather-filled pillows, then, she sought to make sense of the conflicting, confused emotions unleashed by William’s untimely death.
She’d not expected this, had thought William would have a long, prosperous reign and would indeed have a son to succeed him. They’d been arrogant, she and William, assuming they knew the Will of the Almighty. They ought to have remembered their Scriptures: A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. But Heinrich was right. She was the lawful heir to the Sicilian throne. Not Tancred. And she did want it. It was her birthright. Sicily was hers by blood, the land she loved. So why did she feel such ambivalence? As she shifted against the pillows, her gaze fell upon the only jewelry she wore, a band of beaten gold encrusted with emeralds—her wedding ring. As much as she wanted Sicily, she did not want to turn it over to Heinrich. She did not want to be the one to let the snake loose in Eden.
Constance’s forebodings about Tancred of Lecce would prove to be justified. The Sicilians rallied around him and he was crowned King of Sicily in January of 1190. Constance dutifully echoed Heinrich’s outrage, although she’d seen this coming. She was not even surprised to learn that Tancred had seized Joanna’s dower lands, for they had strategic importance, and Tancred well knew that a German army would be contesting his claim to the crown. But she was utterly taken aback when Tancred took Joanna prisoner, holding her captive in Palermo, apparently fearing Joanna would use her personal popularity on Constance’s behalf. Heinrich wanted to strike hard and fast at the man who’d usurped his wife’s throne. Vengeance would have to wait, though, for his father had taken the cross and was planning to join the crusade to free Jerusalem from the Sultan of Egypt, the Saracen Salah al-Din, known to the crusaders as Saladin, and he needed Heinrich to govern Germany in his absence.
Frederick Barbarossa departed for the Holy Land that spring. The German force dispatched by Heinrich was routed by Tancred, who continued to consolidate his power and had some success at the papal court, for the Pope considered the Holy Roman Empire to be a greater threat than Tancred’s illegitimacy. In September, Joanna’s captivity was ended by the arrival in Sicily of the new English king, her brother Richard, known to friends and foes alike as Lionheart. Like Frederick, he was on his way to the Holy Land, and was accompanied by a large army. He was enraged to learn of his sister’s plight and demanded she be set free at once, her dower lands restored. Tancred wisely agreed, for Richard knew war the way a priest knew his Paternoster. For Constance, that was the only flare of light in a dark, drear year. And then in December they learned that Heinrich’s father was dead. Never reaching the Holy Land, Frederick had drowned fording a river in Armenia. Heinrich wasted no time. Daring a January crossing of the Alps, he and Constance led an army into Italy. They halted in Rome to be crowned by the Pope, and then rode south. The war for the Sicilian crown had begun.
Salerno sweltered in the August sun. Usually sea breezes made the heat tolerable, but this has been one of the hottest, driest summers in recent memory. The sky was barren of clouds, a faded, bleached blue that seemed bone white by midday. Courtyards and gardens offered little shade and the normal city noise was muted, the streets all but deserted. Standing on the balcony of the royal palace, Constance wished she could believe that the citizens had been driven indoors by the heat. But she knew a more potent force was at work—fear.
The Kingdom of Sicily encompassed the mainland south of Rome as well as the island itself, and as the German army swept down the peninsula, town after town opened their gates to Heinrich. The citizens of Salerno even sought him out. Although their archbishop was firmly in Tancred’s camp, the Salernitans pledged their loyalty to Heinrich and invited Constance to stay in their city while he laid siege to Naples.
At first Constance had enjoyed her sojourn in Salerno. It was wonderful to be back on her native soil. She was delighted with her luxurious residence—the royal palace that had been built by her father, the great King Roger. She savored the delicious meals that graced her table, delicacies rarely available beyond the Alps—melons, pomegranates, oranges, sugar-coated almonds, rice, shrimp, oysters, fish that were swimming in the blue Mediterranean that morning and sizzling in the palace kitchen pans that afternoon. Best of all, she was able to consult with some of the best doctors in Christendom about her failure to conceive. She could never have discussed so intimate a matter with a male physician. But women were allowed to attend Salerno’s famed medical school and licensed to practice medicine. She’d soon found Dame Martina, whose consultation was a revelation.
Constance had taken all the blame upon herself for her barren marriage; common wisdom held that it was always the woman’s fault. That was not so, Martina said briskly. Just as a woman may have a defect of her womb, so might a man have a defect in his seed. Moreover, there were ways to find out which one had the problem. A small pot should be filled with the woman’s urine and another with her husband’s. Wheat bran was then added to both pots, which were to be left alone for nine days. If worms appeared in the urine of the man, he was the one at fault, and the same was true for the woman.
“I doubt that my lord husband would agree to such a test,” Constance had said wryly, imagining Heinrich’s incredulous, outraged reaction should she even hint that the fault might be his. But she took the test herself, and when her urine was found to be worm-free on the ninth day, her spirits had soared. Even if no one else knew it, she knew now that she did not have a defective womb; she was not doomed to be that saddest of all creatures, a barren queen.
Martina offered hope, too, explaining that sometimes neither husband nor wife was at fault and yet his seed would not take root in her womb. But this could be remedied, she assured Constance. She must dry the male parts of a boar and then make a powder of them, which she was then to drink with a good wine. And to assure the birth of a male child, Constance and Heinrich must dry and powder the womb of a hare, then drink it in wine. Constance grimaced at that, glad she’d be spared such an unappetizing concoction until she and Heinrich were reunited. How would she get him to cooperate, though? She’d have to find a way to mix the powder into his wine undetected on one of his nocturnal visits to her bedchamber. She was so grateful to Martina that she offered the older woman a vast sum to become her personal physician, and Martina gladly accepted, tempted as much by the prestige of serving an empress as by the material benefits.
But then reports began to reach Salerno from the siege of Naples. For the first time, Heinrich was encountering fierce resistance, led by Tancred’s brother-in-law, the Count of Acerra, and Salerno’s own archbishop. Heinrich had hired ships from Pisa, but they were not numerous enough to blockade the harbor, and so he would be unable to starve the Neapolitans into surrender. Tancred had chosen to make his stand on the island of Sicily knowing that his most dangerous weapon was the hot, humid, Italian summer. Heinrich’s German troops were unaccustomed to such stifling heat and they soon began to sicken. Army camps were particularly vulnerable to deadly contagions like the bloody flux; Constance had been told that more crusaders died from disease than from Saracen swords in the Holy Land.
She’d hoped that the Salernitans would remain in ignorance of the setbacks Heinrich was experiencing, but that was an unrealistic hope, for Naples was less than thirty miles to the north of Salerno. She could tell as soon as word began to trickle into the city, for the people she encountered in the piazza were subdued or sullen, and the palace servants could not hide their dismay. Even Martina had anxiously asked her if she was sure Heinrich would prevail and did not seem completely convinced by Constance’s assurances. Salerno had assumed that Tancred would be no match for the large German army and self-preservation had won out over loyalty to the Sicilian king. Now they began to fear that they’d wagered on the wrong horse.
When almost a fortnight passed without any word from Heinrich, Constance dispatched Sir Baldwin, the head of her household knights, to Naples to find out how bad things really were. Standing now on the palace balcony, she shaded her eyes against the glare of the noonday sun and wondered if this would be the day Baldwin would return. She would never admit it aloud, but she wanted him to stay away as long as possible, so sure was she that he would be bringing bad news.
“Madame?” Hildegund was standing by the door. Most of Constance’s attendants were Sicilians, including Dame Adela, who’d been with her since childhood, and Michael, the Saracen eunuch who attracted so much attention at Heinrich’s court; the Germans were shocked that Saracens were allowed to live freely in a Christian country and horrified that William had relied upon the men called “the palace eunuchs” in the governance of his kingdom. Constance had taken care not to reveal that William had spoken Arabic or that it was one of the official languages of Sicily, and she’d insisted that Michael had embraced the True Faith, even though she knew that many eunuchs’ conversion to Christianity was often pretense. How could she ever make Heinrich or his subjects understand the complex mosaic that was Sicilian society? Hildegund was one of her few German ladies-in-waiting, a self-possessed, sedate widow who’d been a great asset in Constance’s struggles to learn German, and Constance gave her a fond smile, nodding when the other woman reminded her it was time for the day’s main meal.
Dinners were very different now than they’d been at the outset of her stay in Salerno. Then the local lords and their ladies had competed eagerly for an invitation from the empress, and the great hall had usually been crowded with finely garbed guests showing off their silks and jewels as they sought to curry favor with Constance. For over a week, though, her invitations to dine had been declined with transparent excuses, and on this Sunday noon, the only ones sharing her table were the members of her own household.
The palace cooks had prepared a variety of tasty dishes, but Constance merely picked at the roast capon on her trencher. Glancing around, she saw that few of the others had much appetite, either. Reminding herself that she should be setting an example for her household, she began an animated conversation with Martina and her chaplain just as shouting drifted through the open windows. Riders were coming in. Constance set her wine cup down and got slowly to her feet as Baldwin was admitted to the hall. One look at his face told her all she needed or wanted to know, but she made herself reach out and take the proffered letter as he knelt before her.
Gesturing for him to rise, she broke her husband’s seal and quickly scanned the contents. It was not written in Heinrich’s hand, of course; he always dictated his letters to a scribe, for he never sent her a message that was not meant for other eyes. A low murmur swept the hall as those watching saw her color fade, leaving her skin so pale it seemed almost translucent. When she glanced up, though, her voice was even, revealing none of her inner distress. “I will not mislead you,” she said. “The news is not good. Many have died of the bloody flux and the emperor himself has been stricken with this vile malady. He has decided that it would be best to end the siege and yesterday his army began a retreat from Naples.”
There were gasps, smothered cries, a few muttered obscenities from some of her knights. “What of us, my lady?” a young girl blurted out. “What will become of us?”
“The emperor wants us to remain in Salerno. He says that my presence here will be proof that he intends to return and the war is not over.”
There was an appalled silence. Taking advantage of it, she beckoned to Baldwin and led the way out into the courtyard. The sun was blinding, and when she sank down on the edge of the marble fountain, she could feel the heat through the silk of her gown. “How ill is he, Baldwin?” she asked, so softly that she felt the need to repeat herself, swallowing until she had enough saliva for speech.
He knelt beside her, gazing up intently into her face. “Very ill, my lady. His doctors said he was sure to die if he stayed. I fear that his wits have been addled by his fever, for he did not seem to realize the danger you are in now that he is gone.”
Constance did not think it was the fever, but rather Heinrich’s supreme self-confidence. He did not understand that the Salernitans’ fear of him was dependent upon his presence. When word got out that his army was retreating, the people would see it as a defeat, and they’d begin to fear Tancred more than Heinrich, for they’d betrayed him by inviting her into their city. She could feel a headache coming on, and rubbed her temples in a vain attempt to head it off. The wrath of a king was indeed to be feared. Heinrich’s father had razed Milan to the ground as punishment for past treachery, and her brother, William’s father, had destroyed the town of Bari as a brutal warning to would-be rebels. Was Tancred capable of such ruthless vengeance? She did not think so, but how were the frightened citizens of Salerno to know that?
“My lady … I think we ought to leave this place today. A healthy army travels less than ten miles a day and this army is battered and bleeding. If we make haste, we can overtake them.”
Constance bit her lip. She agreed with Baldwin; she was not safe here, not now. But her pride rebelled at the thought of fleeing like a thief in the night. How would the Sicilians consider her worthy to rule over them if she gave in to her fears like a foolish, timid woman? Her father would not have run away. And Heinrich would never forgive her if she disobeyed him and fled Salerno, for his letter had clearly stated that her presence was important as a pledge to his supporters, a warning to his enemies—proof that he would be back. She’d not wanted Heinrich as her husband; still less did she want him as her enemy. How could she live with a man who hated her … and he would, for her flight would make it impossible for him to pretend he’d not suffered a humiliating defeat.
“I cannot, Baldwin,” she said. “It is my husband’s wish that I await him here in Salerno. Even if the worst happens and Tancred comes to lay siege to the city, Heinrich will send troops to defend it … and us.”
“Of course, madame,” Baldwin said, mustering up all the certainty he could. “All will be well.” But he did not believe it and he doubted that Constance did, either.
It took only two days for word to reach Salerno of the German army’s retreat. The streets were soon crowded with frantic men and women trying to convince themselves that they’d not made a fatal mistake. Constance sent out public criers to assure them that Heinrich would soon return. But as dusk descended, a new and terrifying rumor swept the city—that the German emperor had died of the bloody flux. And that was the spark thrown into a hayrick, setting off a conflagration.
Constance and her household had just finished their evening meal when they heard a strange noise, almost like the roaring of the sea, a distant, dull rumble that grew ever louder. She sent several of her knights to investigate and they soon returned with alarming news. A huge mob was gathering outside the gates of the palace, many of them drunk, all of them scared witless by what they’d brought upon themselves.
Baldwin and her knights assured Constance and the women that the mob would not be able to force an entry into the palace grounds, and departed then to join the men guarding the walls. But soon afterward, they came running back into the great hall. “We’ve been betrayed,” Baldwin gasped. “Those cowardly whoresons opened the gates to them!” Bolting the thick oaken doors, they hastened to latch the shutters as Baldwin dispatched men to make sure all of the other entrances to the palace were secure. Constance’s women gathered around her, in the way she’d seen chicks flock to the mother hen when a hawk’s shadow darkened the sun. The awareness that they were all looking to her for answers stiffened her spine, giving her the courage she needed to face this unexpected crisis. She’d feared that Salerno would soon be under siege by the army Tancred had sent to defend Naples. She’d not realized that the greatest danger would come from within.
She reassured them as best she could, insisting that the townspeople would disperse once they realized that they could not gain entry to the palace itself. Her words rang hollow even to herself, for the fury of the mob showed no signs of abating. Theirs had been a spontaneous act of panic, and they’d been ill prepared for an assault. But now those in the hall could hear cries for axes, for a battering ram. When Constance heard men also shouting for kindling and torches, she knew they dared not wait for cooler heads to prevail or for the craven city officials to intervene.
Calling to Baldwin, she drew him toward the dais. “I must talk to them,” she said softly. “Mayhap I can make them see reason.”
He was horrified. “My lady, they are mad with fear. There is no reasoning with them.”
She suspected that he was right, but what else could she do? “Nevertheless, I have to try,” she said, with a steadfastness she was far from feeling. “Come with me to the solar above the hall. I can speak to them from the balcony.”
He continued to argue halfheartedly, for he did not know what else to do, either, and when she turned toward the stairwell, he trailed at her heels. The solar was dark, for no oil lamps had been lit, and the heat was suffocating. Constance waited while Baldwin unlatched the door leading out onto the small balcony; she could feel perspiration trickling along her ribs and her heart was beating so rapidly that she felt light-headed.
The scene below her was an eerie one. The darkness was stabbed with flaring torches, illuminating faces contorted with anger and fear. She saw women in the surging throng and, incredibly, even a few children darting about on the edges of the crowd as if this were a holy day festival. Some were passing wineskins back and forth, but most drew their courage from their desperation. They were still calling for firewood, urging those closest to the street to find anything that would burn. It took a few moments for them to notice the woman standing motionless above them, gripping the balcony railing as if it were her only lifeline.
“Good people of Salerno!” Constance swallowed with difficulty, worried that they’d not hear her. Before she could continue, they began to point and shout. She heard her name, heard cries of “Bitch!” and “Sorceress!” and then “German slut!”
“I am not German!” There was no worry of being heard now; her voice resonated across the courtyard, infused with anger. “I am Sicilian born and bred, as you all are. I am the daughter of King Roger of blessed memory. This is my homeland as much as it is yours.”
She wasn’t sure if it was the mention of her revered father’s name, but the crowd quieted for the moment. “I know you are confused and fearful. But you’ve heeded false rumors. The Emperor Heinrich is not dead! Indeed, he is already on the mend. I had a letter from him just this morn, saying he expects to return very soon.”
She paused for breath. “You know my lord husband. He remembers those who do him a good service. When he leads his army back to Salerno, he will be grateful to you for keeping his wife safe. You will be rewarded for your loyalty.” Another pause, this one deliberate. “But this you must know, too. The Emperor Heinrich never forgets a wrong done him. If you betray his faith, if you do harm to me or mine, he will not forgive. He will leave a smoldering ruin where your city once stood. Dare any of you deny it? You know in your hearts that I speak true. You have far more to fear from the emperor if you bring his wrath down upon you than ever you do from that usurper in Palermo.”
She thought she had them, could see some heads nodding, see men lowering clubs and bows as she spoke. But her mention of Tancred was a tactical error, reminding them that his supporters were just thirty miles away at Naples, while Heinrich’s army was decimated by the bloody flux, fleeing with their tales tucked between their legs. The spell broken, the crowd began to mutter among themselves, and then one well-dressed youth with a sword at his hip shouted out, “She lies! That German swine breathed his last the day after he fled the siege camp! Send her to join him in Hell!”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than one of his allies brought up his bow, aimed, and sent an arrow winging through the dark toward the balcony. His aim was true, but Baldwin had been watching those with weapons, and as soon as the bowman moved, he dove from the shadows, shoving Constance to the ground. There was a shocked silence and then a woman cried, “Holy Mother Mary, you killed her!” Someone else retorted that they had nothing left to lose then and more arrows were loosed. Crawling on their hands and knees, Constance and Baldwin scrambled back into the solar and she sat on the floor, gasping for breath as he fumbled with the door. Several thuds told them that arrows had found their mark.