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diversity was like nothing she’d ever experienced, she did not feel threatened by it. But she did not think that she could ever accept the presence of Saracen infidels living so freely in a Christian country, even allowed to be judged by Islamic law.
    Every time she saw a turbaned Arab sauntering the city streets, she shrank back in alarm. When she heard the cries of the muezzin summoning Muslims to their prayers, she hastily crossed herself, as if to ward off the evil eye. She was baffled that there should be Arabic phrases on the gold tari , the coinage of the realm. She did not understand why young Sicilian women adopted Saracen fashions, often wearing face veils in public and decorating their fingers with henna. She was stunned when she learned that Muslims served in King William’s army and navy, and some were actively involved in his government. They were known as the Palace Saracens, men of odd appearance, uncommonly tall, with high-pitched voices and smooth skin, lacking any facial hair. She’d heard them called eunuchs; when one of Joanna’s ladies had explained the meaning of that foreign word, she’d been horrified, and for the first time she wondered if she’d ever feel truly at home in this alien land.
    Her brother had said Saracens were the enemies of God, telling her how they’d desecrated Christian churches after capturing Jerusalem, exposing the precious fragment of the True Cross to jeering crowds in the streets of Damascus. The abbess had assured her that Arnaud died a martyr to his faith. So how could King William find so much to admire in Saracen culture? Why was he fluent in the tongue of the infidels and a patron of Arab poets? How could he entrust his very life to unbelievers? For he not only had a personal bodyguard of black Muslim slaves, his palace cooks, his physicians, and his astrologers were all Saracens, too.
    Bewildered and deeply troubled, Alicia yearned to confide her fears to Joanna. She dared not do so, though, because of the Lady Mariam, with slanting eyes, hair like polished jet, and the blood of Saracens running through her veins. She spoke French as well as Arabic, and accompanied Joanna to church. But she was one of them, a godless infidel. And yet it was painfully obvious to Alicia that Joanna loved her. Of Joanna’s ladies, only two were truly her intimates—Dame Beatrix, a tart-tongued Angevin in her middle years who’d been with Joanna since childhood, and the Lady Mariam. The Saracen.
    As the weeks passed, Alicia found herself becoming obsessed with the Lady Mariam, a flesh-and-blood symbol of all that she could not understand about Sicilian society. She studied the young woman covertly, watching suspiciously as Mariam dutifully attended Mass and prayed to the God of the Christians. She thought her scrutiny was unobtrusive, until the day Mariam glanced over at her during the priest’s invocation and winked. Alicia was so flustered that she fled the church, feigning illness to explain her abrupt departure. But after that, she had to know Mariam’s secrets, had to know how she’d embedded herself in the very heart of a Christian queen’s household.
    While Joanna continued to treat her with affection, her other ladies had paid Alicia little heed, either jealous of Joanna’s favor or considering her too young to be of any interest. Alicia had been observing them for weeks, though, so she knew which ones to approach: Emma d’Aleramici and Bethlem de Greci. They’d shown Alicia only the most grudging courtesy. But they loved to gossip and she hoped that would matter more to them than her relative insignificance.
    She was right. Emma and Bethlem were more than willing to tell her of Mariam’s scandalous history. Mariam was King William’s half-sister, they confided gleefully, born to a slave girl in his late father’s harim . William’s widowed mother had shown little interest in her son’s young, homesick bride, and so he’d turned Joanna’s care over to his