Joanna Courtney So Far From Home

Arlette found Italy utterly stifling and her thoughts once again returned to cool and calm Normandy…

- Joanna Courtney 

Southern Italy,1062

Arlette stared in horror at the woman – if woman it was – striding into the open walled palace at Mileto.She’d thought it was unbearably hot in this damned country before, but suddenly it seemed doubly so. Oh, she so wanted to go back to nice, quiet, calm Normandy and escape all this Italian chaos.

She’d been in Mileto with Lady Judith and her new husband, conqueror of this steaming southern land, for two months but felt no more at home here than on the first day they’d arrived.

It was pretty enough, if you liked endless scorched hills and buildings made of funny little man-made stones set in fancy patterns, but it wasn’t a patch on the soft meadows, rolling hills and sturdy fortresses of home. And it was so hot. Sometimes Arlette felt as if she was actually living inside a hearth fire.

Then there was the language. She’d never heard anything like this crazy Italian. The words slipped and slid across each other in an uncomfortably sensual tumble and seemed to always be accompanied with extravagant gestures.

It was such a performance. Lady Judith had assured Arlette that the language would be close to the Latin they’d learned together at home but Arlette had never heard a priest speak with such a wanton lack of dignity.

She took a few steps back into the crowd. A smell of rapidly-souring sweat assailed her but it was less unpleasant than staying in the gaze of the new arrival. They’d been told a local noblewoman was coming to talk terms with the conquering Normans but this was surely no true woman?

“Princess Sichelgaita!” Lord Roger announced loudly, though Arlette thought she caught a quiver in even his voice and no wonder.