The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [63]
Once again I thought of Louis’s folly in not teaching Manuel a lesson when he had been in a position to do so. I wondered what he and his familiar, Galeran, were thinking now.
What would have been our fate I have no idea but, as we were preparing to obey orders, several ships of the Sicilian navy came on the scene. Learning what had happened, they fought off the Greeks and soon Manuel’s ships were in retreat. The Sicilian sailors behaved most courteously toward us and eventually we were able to continue our journey.
It had been an alarming experience. I wondered what would have become of me if I had been taken to Manuel Comnenus.
Now there was the sea to face.
We sailed on, never losing sight of the other ship and just as I was beginning to believe that we were nearing our destination and would soon be on the last lap home, we ran into a heavy mist. It lasted for a day and a night and when it lifted there was no sign of the ship in which Louis was sailing.
The mist was followed by a storm which drove our ship along the coast of North Africa. We were forced to land and were given some hospitality by Berber chiefs and were able to stay while the ship was repaired and stores were loaded. Then we set sail again.
I was beginning to feel that this ordeal would never end. We were becalmed for several days and I lost count of them. Food was running low and there was little water; and there we were motionless on a sea without a ripple to disturb its glassy surface. I began to think that this was the end.
Then one day I was aware of movement. The blessed wind had come at last to relieve us. I heard the sailors shouting. We were indeed moving.
Days passed. I was too ill, too tired, too listless to move, and still we sailed on. At last we were in sight of land, and that day we came to Palermo.
It was fortunate that we had landed on friendly territory. King Roger, whose navy had saved us on the high seas, was now our host, and when he heard that my ship had put in at Palermo he sent word that I was to be royally entertained.
What bliss to lie in a bed, to eat delicately presented food, to know the comfort of waking on land! I never wanted to be in a ship again.
There I learned that Louis’s ship was missing and that in France it was believed that we had both been lost at sea.
For two weeks I lived quietly in the lodgings which King Roger had ordered should be put at my disposal. Most of my ladies were too ill to attend me, and there was nothing we wanted to do during those weeks but lie in the shade and watch the brilliant sunlight dancing on the water, which was now as benign as it had been malevolent when we were at its mercy.
There was news. Louis’s ship had arrived in a port near Brindisi in Italy. I heard that he had been very anxious, fearing what might have happened to me, and that when he was told of my safe arrival at Palermo he was overjoyed.
I must come to him, he said. The Bishop of Langres was very ill and he dared not move him.
I was relieved to hear that he was safe. My feelings for Louis were so mixed that although I wanted to be rid of him, I would have been very sad to hear that he was dead. I knew he was a good man and that his motives were of the best, but he had failed me in all that I looked for in a husband and, having experienced love with Raymond, I could not live the rest of my life with such a travesty of a man as Louis.
In due course I joined him in Calabria. He was delighted to see me and reiterated that his greatest concern had been for my safety, telling of his almost unbearable anxiety when the mist had lifted and he found that our ships were separated.
I said I too had suffered anxieties on his account.
He looked at me pleadingly and I knew