“We may as well return to Palermo,” she said
briskly.
“Is that why you brought me here?” he asked.
“To entice me into kissing you?”
“I had hoped you would want to kiss me
without enticement on my part,” she told him, her sudden display of
youthful hauteur making him smile.
“
Has no
one ever warned you how dangerous it is for a maiden to lead a man
into a secluded spot an
d then offer such an invitation? Are
you so naive that you don’t know what a man might
do to you?”
“But you would not harm me,” she said with
perfect confidence. “You are my friend.”
“Yes, I am, and it’s our friendship I don’t
want to betray. Heed me, Yolande.” He meant to issue a stern
warning that she should never behave with any other man as she had
with him, but before he knew what he was about, he had pulled her
into his arms. Her hands slid around his waist and up his back
until they rested on his shoulders. A woman of more experience
would at once have lifted her face for his kiss, but Yolande
nestled her head beneath his chin. He held her gently, as if she
were some dark, exotic bird whom close confinement might damage. He
felt her sigh and stir against him, and press closer. With one hand
he brushed back the hair that had come loose from her braid. The
skin of her cheek was soft and perfectly smooth. He touched her
cheek again and let his fingers stray toward her lips. Now she did
raise her head from his chest to look into his eyes, and he knew
she hoped he would kiss her after all.
He almost
did. He was shaken to discover how much he wanted to put his mouth
on hers and take the sweetness she offered. He bent his head. What
stopped him was the reaction of his own body. He stood with one arm
around her, with his mouth just a breath away from hers and his
thumb gently caressing her lower lip
– until he felt himself harden in a surge of
desire and knew that if he kissed her he would not stop at kissing.
His ever-active, too-clever mind warned him that he could not
afford to despoil the niece of the man who had the power to condemn
him and his friends to severe punishment – or to guide them toward
a brilliant future. He could not be responsible for Alain’s
downfall, and certainly not for Ambrose’s. He had more to consider
than one innocent girl’s lovely body, or his own physical response
after months of abstinence.
“I’ll help you pack the dishes,” he said,
dropping his arms and moving away from her. Under his breath, he
added sarcastically, “You’ve just spoiled any chance you might have
had with her, old Sir Piers. Tonight you take Alain, and both of
you find women down by the docks.” But when he looked at Yolande,
on her knees, her head averted, stuffing the remains of their meal
into the basket, he knew with frightening certainty that even if he
went to another woman, it would be Yolande’s face he saw and
Yolande’s name he would whisper into the darkness.
*
* * * *
“What, is George’s niece not with you?”
teased Alain. “Not hiding behind a corner, waiting to tempt you
with some new dish prepared especially for you?”
“
For a
man who pretends to wor
k from dawn to dusk, you seem to
notice the most unimpor
tant
details about other men’s lives,” Piers responded, only half in
jest.
“
Yolande,
unimportant? I don’t think so.” Alain threw an arm across Pier’s
shoulders, and they stood for a while, looking out the window of
the chamber they shared, at the third day of drizzling rain. “She’s
the reason you wanted to find a brothel the other night, isn’t she?
But a whore is no substitute for the woman you really want. That’s
why I refused to go with you. It’s
also the
reason why you did not go either, in the
end.” Alain regarded him with a knowing look. “Of course, if you’re
feeling desperate, George could probably provide a nice, clean
woman for you. They have strange customs on this island. It must be
the Sar
acen influence.”
“Which is remarkably strong, yet not evil.”
Ambrose had come into the room in time to hear the last of Alain’s
remarks. “Unless, of course, the evil lies in my finding but few
faults in the hearts and minds of the non-Christian scholars I’ve
met. How are you, Alain? I’ve not seen you for several days.”
“George is driving me hard,” Alain said, “but
I enjoy every moment of my work. I have hope of witnessing a sea
battle before long.”
“Do not wish for such a thing.” Ambrose
crossed himself. “I remember warfare all too well.”
“Which is why you will appreciate the
strategy of George’s most recent battle.” Alain launched into a
detailed description. When he had finally left them, saying he
needed to ask George a question, Piers and Ambrose smiled at each
other.
“I knew,” Ambrose said with a satisfaction he
did not trouble to conceal, “that if Alain could only set his
thoughts on some subject other than the lady Joanna, he would begin
to recover from his devotion to his lost love.”
“I do not think he
has
recovered,” Piers said. “Nor will he ever
forget the lady. I know Alain too well to imagine that Joanna has
been completely banished from his thoughts.”
The
reports that George was receiving from Roger’s mainland domains
were soon proven correct. The ever-restive Norman nobles who held
lands in southern Italy in vassalage from Roger had once more risen
in revolt against their overlord. Worse, in an attempt to escalate
the strife and thus encourage the Holy Roman Emperor to take their
side in the current dispute, the insurgent nobles concluded a
treaty with the northern Italian city of Pisa, which was under the
emperor’s rule. Emboldened by this advantage, the Norman nobles
attacked Naples by land and, on the
twenty-first day of
April, the Pisan fleet appeared off Naples, blocking the sea
approach to
the
city.
The news roused Roger of Sicily from the
torpor of mourning into which he had been sunk since the death of
his queen in February. He called his most trusted advisers to the
royal palace, foremost among them George of Antioch. George took
advantage of the occasion to introduce his guests to the king.
Having grown used to the luxury of George’s
house, the three Englishmen were not as astounded as they might
otherwise have been by the oriental opulence in which the king of
Sicily lived. The royal palace was built on higher ground than the
city of Palermo, a mile and a half to the west, where it was cooler
and much quieter. The Norman rulers of the island had taken an old
Saracen fortress and enlarged and altered it, adding courtyards,
gardens, fountains, and even a tower topped by a copper-domed
observatory, from which the royal astronomers watched the sky each
night. On the outside still a strong fortress guarded by three
hundred specially chosen men, on the inside the palace had become,
during the reigns of Roger and his late father before him, a
treasure trove of silk hangings and gold-enhanced mosaics, of
carved woods and filigree and intricately patterned carpets, of
vases and delicate objects from far-distant lands, the whole made
even richer and more alien by the lavish use of perfumes and
incense, so the air was filled with the scents of sandalwood and
patchouli and with the fragrances of roses and lilies wafting in
from the gardens.
The chamber into which George and his guests
were ushered had a high, honeycombed ceiling, gilded and painted
with fanciful scenes of clouds and birds. A wide mosaic frieze in a
geometric pattern ran around the upper wall, and below it a series
of murals showing birds and palm trees and a garden crowded with
multicolored flowers. Against one wall a fountain splashed, its
water trickling into a marble-lined channel that ran down the
center of the room. Silken cushions padded the benches set in
niches around the room, and the whole was lit by indirect sunlight
that came from the garden court just outside, where yet another
fountain played and real flowers bloomed to match the painted ones
on the inner walls.
In the center of all this splendor, clad in a
glittering red-and-gold brocade robe cut in the Moslem style, stood
Roger II, King of Sicily, dark of hair and beard and gray-eyed, his
noble, handsome face still touched by the shadow of grief.
After
Yolande’s remarks about Roger receiving his ministers’ reports
every day in spite of his mourning seclusion, Piers was not at all
surprised to discover that Roger knew about the Englishmen who were
staying with George. After welcoming Ambrose in the warmest of
words and b
idding him to make use of all that his kingdom
held in the way of books or
fellow scholars, Roger turned to the two younger men.
“George says you are willing to take service
with me and help to fight my rebellious vassals,” Roger said.
“
I would
like
to accept George’s offer to con
tinue to work under him,” Alain announced. The
look Roger and George exchanged at his words convinced Piers that
Alain’s future assignment had been decided before ever he had
entered King Roger’s audience chamber.
“I have no objection to your decision,” Roger
told Alain. Turning to Piers, he said in a joking way, “What about
you, sir? Would you be a sailor, too?”
“No, my lord.” Piers spoke up promptly and
firmly. “I prefer to stay on land. If you will allow it, I would
fight ashore by your side or wherever you wish me to be. I am a
fair swordsman, my lord.”
“
I know
many men who can fight well,” Roger said, “first among them my
recalcitrant vassals in South Italy. What I value most is what
those vassals sorely lack
– loyalty. Can you give me that, Sir Piers? Can you pledge
your oath to me and keep it?”
“I can, my lord,” Piers said, and meant it,
for he had liked Roger on sight.
“I also pledge myself to you,” said Alain,
going down on one knee and putting out his clasped hands in the old
Norman way.
Roger took Alain’s hands between his own
while Alain swore fealty to him. Afterward, Roger did the same with
Piers.
“Welcome to my kingdom,” Roger said,
embracing each of them. “For my part, I swear to use you hard and
reward you well.”
*
* * * *
The rebel lords captured Naples, but they
were soon trapped within its walls. When Roger’s army appeared
outside the walls and his fleet chased the Pisan ships homeward and
then, on the fifth of June, barricaded the Neapolitan harbor, the
rebels settled down for a long siege. Alain had thoroughly enjoyed
the excitement of chasing the enemy ships northward, but he found
the blockade tedious and boring. He yearned for action.
Ashore with Roger, Piers was anything but
bored. After years of contention with his too-powerful vassals,
Roger’s patience was exhausted. From late summer to early winter he
swept through his South Italian fiefs, ousting the current
governments from every city and town and installing his own sons as
rulers in the most important fiefs of Apulia, Bari, and Capua.
“I am done with those rebel wretches for good
and all,” he said to Piers, who had become a trusted, if still
junior, lieutenant to the king.
“They won’t give up easily, because they
believe they will soon have help,” Piers noted. “The latest reports
from your spies say Emperor Lothair is planning to leave Germany
and cross the Alps to come against us next summer.”
“Us?” Roger grinned at him, clapping one hand
on his shoulder. “George was right about you. You are one of us
now.”
“So I am, my lord,” Piers said, thinking that
Yolande, too, had been right. Roger of Sicily was a fine military
commander, always hiding well his distaste for the violence of war,
and from what Piers had seen of him, Roger was also a remarkably
able ruler. Piers had no second thoughts about having pledged
himself to the man.
By mid-January both land and sea forces were
weary and, at George’s suggestion, Piers was given leave to return
to Palermo with himself and Alain. Once more, even on the smoothest
of seas, Piers was violently ill.
“I swear to you,” Piers said to his
companions, once they had rounded the breakwater into Palermo
harbor and he had recovered enough to speak, “I swear I will not
leave Sicily again until Roger builds a bridge over the strait at
Messina.”
“
What a
marvelous idea.” George burst into laughter. “Only tell him how it
can be done an
d he’ll see to it, I’m sure. And your fortune
will be made. You will feel better, Piers, once you are
back in your old room and have enjoyed a
bath and put on fresh clothing.”
Soon Piers did feel better, and was delighted
to see Ambrose again. But throughout the relaxed afternoon of
catching up with each others’ news, Piers knew he was only waiting,
passing the hours until evening came and George and his guests
would gather on the terrace. There he would see Yolande again.
In fact,
they gathered in the long narrow room next to the terrace, for the
wind off the sea was cold and an icy rain was falling. Piers
realized with a rueful inward laugh that he had been expecting this
evening to be like all those earlier nights, when the air had been
warm with advancing spring. But the season had changed, and he had
changed, too, had grown older and harder. Having seen the horrors
of war, he did not laugh so much now, and he bore two scars. The
one along the left side of his jaw was barely a nick, the result of
not deflecting an enemy’s blow until almost too late. But he had
deflected it, and the wound had healed, and now he seldom thought
about it. The second scar was on his right hip, a shallow puncture
wound that miraculously had not festered. Other men had
suff
ered far worse.
He
was lucky.