Dangerous Women (48 page)

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.