A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

by Ariana Franklin

  “Still and all, what bastard would do that to a horse?”

  “What can be done for her?” Adelia begged. Inattentive as she was to the equine world generally, she and the mare had gone this far on the journey together and it was painful to see the animal in such distress. Allie would know what to do, she thought.

  Master Tom shrugged. “Nothing. Not with ragwort poison. Put her out of her misery. Nothin’ else to do.”

  Juno was led into woodland and her life ended by a quick and expert slash across the throat. The Bishop of Saint Albans immediately began an inquiry-as it turned out, an unsuccessful inquiry-to find out who was responsible for what must have been systematic poisoning of the horse in its nightly stable over the course of several days, something that inevitably pointed to a person belonging to the princess’s train.

  “The poor beast,” Lady Petronilla said loudly to Adelia across the dinner table that evening. “You must feel dreadful now that you were so cross with her when you tumbled off her the other day.”

  “I was cross with myself, not the horse.”

  It was no use pointing out, as Captain Bolt and Rowley did, that Mistress Adelia invariably handed over her horse to the grooms to stable when the cavalcade reached its destination for the night, and was thereby absolved from feeding it ragwort. The company was left with the impression that she had cursed her horse and that, alone among all the other horses, it had subsequently died.

  As SCARRY TELLS Wolf that night: “it begins.”

  ADELIA WAS FINALLY vouchsafed an explanation of the “Sir Nicholas and the shoes” mystery when there was another disturbance at night, this time at the Abbey of Saint-Sauveur de Redon on the approach to Aquitaine, the duchy that had once belonged to Queen Eleanor and had passed to Henry Plantagenet on their marriage.

  Again, she and the ladies-in-waiting, in their sleep, heard an alarmed feminine shout and male activity coming from somewhere beyond their room.

  On this occasion, however, they were roused by their door crashing open and Lady Petronilla’s maid, Marie, rushing through it, whimpering.

  “In the name of God, Marie,” said Lady Beatrix, querulously “What is it?” She glanced at the hours candle on the bedside table to see that only half its length had burned down. “It’s the middle of the blasted night.”

  “He done it to me this time, m’lady,” Marie sobbed. “Terrible frit he gave me. And look what he done.” She lifted her leg to display the fact that one of her feet was without its shoe.

  “Who did? And where have you been?” (The maids slept on palliasses in the same room as their mistresses.)

  “There was this noise in the passage outside, m‘lady, and I got up to open it, thinking as one of the dogs had got shut out, and there weren’t nothing there so I went down the passage a bit, and, oh m’lady, it weren’t a dog at all, it were Sir Nicholas.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Lady Petronilla. “Well, never mind. And you, mistress, stay here, it’s nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

  But Adelia had already wrapped herself in a cloak and gone outside to see what was to be seen, leaving Boggart, whom the Last Trump could not have disturbed, to sleep on.

  The Bishop of Saint Albans was outside the door, watching a strange procession wending its way toward a turret stair that led down to the men’s guest quarters.

  Two men-at-arms, one of them Captain Bolt, were supporting a staggering Sir Nicholas Baicer while, in front of them, the knight’s squire, Aubrey, was walking backward holding what looked like Marie’s shoe in front of his master’s nose as another man might tempt a dog into following him with a biscuit.

  Adelia shut the bedroom door quietly behind her so that the ladies-in-waiting should not hear and turned to her lover. “Well?”

  “It’s young Aubrey’s fault, he’s supposed to measure how much Nicholas drinks at our feasts.” Rowley was finding the occasion amusing.

  “What has he done?”

  It appeared that there was a fine line, only a cup or two of wine, to be drawn between a pleasantly tipsy Sir Nicholas and a Sir Nicholas who was overtaken by a lust that directed itself at feminine feet.

  “Any woman,” explained Rowley, still amused, “as long as she has such extremities on the end of her legs, is in danger of having a drink-sodden Sir Nicholas throwing himself at her boots and applying his tongue to their leather.”

  “And that’s what happened to Marie?”

  “So it seems. He must have outmaneuvered his squire. Last time it was one of the laundresses.” He caught sight of Adelia’s face. “No harm done. He’ll snuggle down in bed with the maid’s shoe and be off to sleep like a lamb. He won’t remember in the morning.”

  “No harm done? The girl was frightened.”

  “Nonsense. It’s one way of getting her boots clean. Now, then…” Rowley pulled Adelia toward him. “… since you’re here…”

  But if he intended an embrace, it was preempted by the Bishop of Winchester in his nightcap coming up the stairs to see what the fuss was about.

  Rowleybowed to Adelia, said a polite “God’s blessing on you, lady,” and took himself and his fellow bishop off to their beds.

  The male attitude toward Sir Nicholas’s lapses pertained even among the ladies-in-waiting. Adelia, returning to the bedroom, heard Lady Petronilla lecturing her maid. “You must remember that all wellborn men have their eccentricities, Marie. We have to overlook them.”

  There was sleepy agreement from Lady Beatrix. “And, after all, Sir Nicholas’s ancestors did fight alongside William the Conqueror in subduing the English.”

  Leaving a trail of well-liched feminine boots in their wake, no doubt. Adelia shook her head before laying it and the rest of herself alongside Lady Petronilla and going wonderingly back to sleep.

  The next morning, apparently unaware of the night before, Sir Nicholas was his usual jovial self, whilst Aubrey the squire attended on Marie the maid with an apology, her missing shoe, and a silver piece from a supply of monies with which he’d been entrusted for such eventualities.

  THE MONASTERIES AND PRIORIES they stayed at every night blended into one-the same welcome from the abbot/prior, the service, a feast, everybody taking care to show pleasure at entertaining their king’s daughter. All of them were rich, mostly very rich; providing for so many people during such a stay could cost nearly as much as a year’s income, though all of it would undoubtedly be passed on in extra tithes to their feudal underlings.

  At first, while in Upper Normandy, the marriage cavalcade had kept to a disciplined and carefully planned procession. Outriders at the front, the princess’s palanquin next, flanked by Sir Nicholas Baicer and Lord Ivo splendid in mail and helmets, alongside squires, bishops, and their chaplains plus a platoon of Captain Bolt’s men, followed by more soldiers around the treasure-carrying mules with their stout iron boxes, then the higher servants, then the sumpter wagons, and, finally, the pilgrims.

  But now, as day followed day without any untoward happenings, there was a relaxation. Pressing deeper into fine hunting country, more people, even some of the servants, gave way to the passion of the chase and followed either Lord Ivo or Sir Nicholas into the forests.

  Captain Bolt might frown and forbid his men to follow them, but a general complaisance had overtaken the rest which, since the Bishop of Winchester smiled at it, he was powerless to halt.

  Father Adalburt, a new convert, joined in the hunts on his rouncey but frequently got lost and, more than once, had to be searched for and kindly led back to the road.

  Time and again, while Adelia itched with impatience, the entire cavalcade stopped in order to watch Princess Joanna fly her hawk and applaud its kill.

  Inevitably, gradually, among the lesser servants, friendships were formed and enmities broke out, so that the procession thinned in some places and gained bulges in others, as if an otherwise smooth snake had swallowed, and was digesting, its lunch.

  There was always a crowd surrounding the musicians, while th
e cart containing the master blacksmith and his equipment was left to travel alone, he being surly to every living thing except horses.

  Bantering, flirting soldiers gathered around the laundresses’ and maids’ section. Even Captain Bolt permitted this as long as the patrols were kept up, the treasure carts guarded, and the rear protected. Most of his men were mercenaries, he said, and had to find feminine comfort where they could.

  The chief laundress, however, a large woman with warts and an evangelical approach to religion-she affected to shrink back in holy indignation and mutter her prayers if Mansur was in the offing-swiped the men away and made sure of her charges’ chastity by accompanying them into the woods during the stops for calls of nature.

  An Englishwoman by the name of Brune, she’d been doing Eleanor’s laundry for many years and had become a close friend of Joanna’s nurse-a length of service and royal connection that gave her a good opinion of herself. “My girls shall keep their virginity for the good Lord’s sake,” she was heard to say unctuously to an approving Father Guy. “Like I kept mine.”

  “As if,” Captain Bolt said, “anybody’d try to take it off her.”

  At night, Mansur and Adelia joined Dr. Arnulf in the princess’s room to make the regular assessment of her health by checking the royal pulse and examining phials of the royal urine. By day, however, they rode farther down the line, away from the leading party, where Ward could trot along at their horses’ heels without both him and Adelia attracting taunts from the ladies-in-waiting, nor the Arab having to endure the viciousness of the Saracen-hating chaplain, Father Guy

  Their new position at least made them popular with such of the rank and file who felt unwell or had sustained minor injuries and found Dr. Arnulf too lofty to attend to them.

  “Cap’n Bolt said I was to come to the darkie doctor,” James the wheelwright told Adelia as she splinted his crushed finger. “That other’n, he don’t care for the poor. Bugger wanted a fee.”

  For Adelia the greatest happiness of being farther down the cavalcade was that, from time to time, Rowley could pause beside her as he rode up and down the line to see that all was well; precious, stolen moments for them both as he chatted ostensibly to Mansur in Arabic.

  When he could spare the time, Locusta rode with them, apparently preferring their company to that of any other, and talking about Sicily

  So did Ulf Other pilgrims were making friends among the royal servants and leaving the group to talk to them. Why shouldn’t he?

  So, too, when he wasn’t hunting, did Father Adalburt, which was a surprise-and a not-unalloyed pleasure. The man was a fool. Because he spoke Latin and English, the latter being his native tongue, and was rarely in the company of those who couldn’t, he showed astonishment when foreigners didn’t understand him. He insisted on speaking to Mansur in a slow shout and being bewildered when he received no reply

  Every new thing amazed him. On passing a plantation of cork trees and requesting to know what they were, he refuted the answer with: “But there are no corks,” as if expecting the branches to be laden with fully formed bottle tops.

  “Why does the donkey not keep alongside his bishop?” Mansur asked, irritated. “Why does he plague us?”

  Probably, Adelia thought, because the Bishop of Winchester was happy to get rid of him. Adalburt was amiable enough, his mouth always lolling in a smile, but how he had achieved his position was difficult to see.

  “Because he’s the bishop’s bloody cousin, or something,” Ulf, who’d done some research, said bitterly. “Been living as an anchorite for two years Scarfell Pike way, seemingly, and got a reputation for holiness. Told me he preached to the sheep. If he bored them as much as he does me, I’m sorry for’em.”

  LOCUSTA AND HIS uncle had carefully chosen only accommodations capable of providing the enormous stabling and grazing necessary for the company and its horseflesh, good food, beds a-plenty without fleas-even baths. Establishments that didn’t have the latter reckoned without Mesdames Beatrix, Petronilla, and Blanche…

  The Abbot of Redon, a somewhat smaller establishment than the retinue was used to, looked hopelessly into three beautiful, formidable faces. “But in this house, my daughters, we do not take baths except at Easter and Christmas, as advised by Saint Benedict-even then it is in the river.”

  The three looked for a withering moment toward the hapless Locusta. No baths?

  He wrung his hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, ladies. But to go on farther, or to have stopped earlier…”

  The ladies didn’t care about the difficulties of calculating a route.

  “The river, though,” Father Adalburt interposed brightly “Is it not an example of God’s bounty that He sent a river to flow past every great town that Man has built?”

  The ladies didn’t care about God’s bounty, either. They turned back to the abbot.

  “All very commendable, my lord,” Lady Petronilla said, “but our princess is not Saint Benedict. She is a lady of the blood royal.”

  “From Aquitaine,” Lady Beatrix pointed out. “And she has traveled through dust all day.” She forbore to mention that, as well as dust, sweat was ruinous to robes that took a phalanx of embroideresses a year to adorn.

  “Washing tubs will do,” compromised Mistress Blanche. “My lord, you surely have washing tubs in your laundry?”

  The poor man supposed that he had.

  “Good,” said Lady Petronilla. “Then please have all of them carried to our room. With lots of hot water.”

  Lady Beatrix patted the abbot’s hand kindly: “We provide our own soap and towels.”

  In a steam-filled upper room-the abbot’s was the only one large enough-Adelia watched the indistinct forms of maids come and go like ghostly water sprites as she rested her body in warm suds. It had been an unusually long journey of forty miles from their last stop to this.

  From the dining room below rose the sound of tipsy men still at table singing a rousing chorus of the immemorial drinking song “Gaudeamus igitur.” She could hear Rowleys voice among them. This was Calvados country; the abbey made it from its own apples and served it in place of ale, despite what the ascetic Saint Benedict would have said.

  “Oh, dear,” said Lady Beatrix through the scented vapor. “Sir Nicholas… Isn’t Calvados very alcoholic?”

  “Very,” Blanche said. “We can only hope…”

  Everybody in the room hoped with her.

  From her tub in the middle of the mist, a wet princess changed the subject. “Are you sure God will not condemn us for too much bathing?” (The abbot had taken his revenge during his homily at supper by stressing the sin of vanity among women.)

  “Definitely not, my lady,” came Lady Petronilla’s answer, stoutly “Cleanliness is a godly attribute.”

  “So Mama says. But in his holiness Saint Thomas never bathed at all once he became Archbishop of Canterbury. They say he was crawling with lice when they undressed his dear body.”

  “That’s saints,” said Petronilla firmly “It does not apply to ladies of gentle birth.”

  “But when we visited the shrine of the Blessed Sylvia, we were told that the only part of her she ever washed were her fingers.”

  “I’m sure she had her reasons, dear.” This was Beatrix. “But the good Lord likes his queens to be clean.” There was a soapy pause. “Along with their ladies-in-waiting.”

  Seated in her tub at the end of the row, Adelia grinned. These were acerbic women and no friends to her, but at this moment, with the ache of her limbs being soothed away, she blessed them. She had begun to see that, in their way, they were admirable, clustering protectively round their princess, jealous for her comfort-and their own, of course-entertaining her on the long, long marches with songs-each played a musical instrument-riddles and stories, always exquisitely turned out, their hair perfectly braided under circlets and floating veils, skin like silk on their slim figures, bodices low-cut to show alabaster cleavage.

  Men who saw them floundered, late
r remembering a dream of beauty that would not come again.

  It was, she supposed, what Rowley wanted for Allie. But what sort of existence was it? Was veneer enough? Only Petronilla could read, an exercise she confined to books of manners; all three were ignorant of history, except that of their ancestry, and none of them had any conception of life outside court. They talked dreamily of what noble husbands they could expect to be gifted to, as if their marriages were to be a lottery, which, presumably, they would be.

  Adelia would have welcomed a peace pact in which to get to know each of them better, but, regarding her as an intruder, they banded together so that their circle formed a fence against her in which their individuality was more or less lost.

  Sighing, Adelia called through the scented steam for Boggart to bring her a towel, then winced as a crash indicated that an unguent bottle had been dislodged from the tub’s edge-the girl was trying, bless her, but trying. “You can get into the water now, Boggart.”

  “Oh, yes, mistress. I’m getting used to that. And Ward’s got powerful dirty today, I was wondering if I should take un in with me.”

  From among the vapors came a concerted chorus of “Please.”

  Dried and wrapped in one of Emma’s cloaks, Adelia went out onto the landing, pausing in order to pick up her necklet with its cross from a table where the ladies had left their jewelry so that it should not get tarnished.

  She couldn’t find it.

  Taking a flambeau from its holder on the wall, she held it over the table so that she could see better and searched again among the pile of glittering rings, brooches, and earrings belonging to the other women.

  “Damn them,” she said. “Damn them.” The necklet was her only ornament, worn in remembrance of her childhood nurse, Margaret, who’d given her the original-a simple thing with a plain silver cross that she’d loved, but had put in the coffin of a murdered girl who’d greatly admired it, though, as soon as she could, she’d paid for another to be made exactly like the first.

  To make sure, Adelia waited until a dripping Boggart and Ward emerged from the room of baths. “You didn’t pick up my cross for any reason, did you, Boggart?”