THE DISINTEGRATION OF SICILY. The glory of enlightenment that was the Kingdom of Sicily lasted only sixty-four years. The marriage of William II and Joanna was apparently happy, but also tragic in that it was childless. William himself was not statesman enough to preserve what his country had been, nor to pass it on to good hands. He died at the age of thirty-six and his kingdom descended into violence and medieval bigotry. For a while Joanna was virtually imprisoned by her husband’s illegitimate successor, Tancred, and had to be rescued by Richard the Lionheart. In 1196 she was married off again, this time to the Count of Toulouse, to whom she bore three children, dying in childbirth with the third, aged thirty-four, outlived by the indomitable Eleanor of Aquitaine, her mother.
EXCALIBUR. Nobody knows what happened to it. In the upheaval that followed William’s death, King Arthur’s sword disappeared-like the great kingdom to which it had been given.
Acknowledgments
MY GRATITUDE, as always, to my editor, Rachel Kahan, for her excellent and painstaking judgment. And to my agent, Helen Heller, who, like Rachel, knows how a plot should be shaped. I rely on them both. And I would like to thank the whole team at Putnam for the work that makes my books look as well as they do. Also, the staff and stacks of the wonderful London Library provide me with everything I need for the immense amount of research that goes into every novel. Thanks, too, to my daughter, Emma, for taking so much secretarial work off my shoulders, and to my husband, Barry, the rock to which I cling.
Ariana Franklin
ARIANA FRANKLIN, a former journalist, is a biographer and author of the novels City of Shadows, Mistress of the Art of Death, and The Serpent’s Tale. She is married with two daughters and lives in England.
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A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin Page 32
