A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

by Ariana Franklin

  “Blankets,” she said, “and plenty of them. My lord bishop, if you would ride after the baggage train and bring some back…”

  Rowley was off in an instant.

  “… and fires. Admiral, if you and Master Deniz could start collecting wood.” She bowed to the elder nun. “Sister, I speak for my Lord Mansur who is the doctor among us…” and expounded her needs.

  Within minutes, Sister Ermengarde had fetched what sheets and blankets she had and buckets of water were being lugged down from the well of the hidden convent higher up the hill.

  Captain Bolt caught at Adelia’s arm. “Me and my men have got to go with the princess and the treasure, mistress; they’re ill enough protected as it is…”

  “Of course you do, of course you do.”

  “… but I’m sore concerned at leaving you without a guard.”

  She smiled at him and pointed around her at a landscape in which nothing moved but hawks circling the sky. “Who’s going to hurt us?”

  “True enough. Nobody ain’t even likely to knowyou’re here. Still, I ain’t comfortable in my mind. This ain’t nice country; got something nasty in its bones, I reckon.”

  “We’ll be all right, Captain.”

  He nodded. “God bless you, and God deliver my Scotsman.” Rankin, too, was among the patients, one of the sickest.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He kissed her hand. “You allus do.”

  Rowley also, was agitated at leaving her, but with the Bishop of Winchester near a state of collapse at this latest manifestation of God’s displeasure, he was the only capable Church official left to the princess. “Somehow, I’ve got to find out where Richard is. And find out where we are. And send back to Poitiers in case it’s had any messages for us from King Henry.”

  “Go,” Adelia told him. “There’s nothing you can do here, in any case. I have enough men.”

  He looked, frowning, toward the O’Donnell, who had already got fires going. “That’s what worries me.”

  At the back of the shed, shivering male patients were washed down by Mansur and Sister Ermengarde-nuns being accepted as sexless-while in front of it a similar service was performed for the equally shivering women by Adelia and Sister Aelith, then the patients were put to regain warmth by the fires.

  “You keep away Boggart.” Adelia wasn’t having her maid and the baby subject to possible contagion.

  Inside, the O’Donnell, having sent Deniz to unpack their mule, had slung up a ship’s sail from the cowshed’s rafters to act as a partition and was collecting the timbers that had fallen from the ruined end in order to replace them.

  Catching Adelia’s look, he swept off his cap. “Lady I’m a sailor and an Irishman, I can do anything.”

  “Tormentil,” Adelia said, turning to Sister Ermengarde. “We’re going to need tormentil and lots of it.”

  Armed with trowels and baskets, the two of them, accompanied by Boggart and Ward, began digging like badgers in a nearby meadow for the rhizomes of a yellow-petaled herb which, when shredded, powdered, and mixed with water, would provide the only astringent likely to act against dysentery.

  “It is what I myself would have recommended,” Sister Ermengarde said. “And you have some opium for the worst cases? Splendid, splendid.”

  Opium. For a moment, Adelia stared at this Christian and then shook her warmly by the hand.

  THE FERRYMAN’S DESCRIPTION of Figères as a town had been an exaggeration. Or perhaps the man hadn’t traveled much. It had a tiny priory, a granary and a water mill, some crumbling, corkscrew streets, and an equally crumbling, empty château above the river, and these, since they lay on the southernmost tip of Aquitaine and therefore constituted part of the lands of the King of England, had now been commandeered in his name. The Bishop of Saint Albans and Captain Bolt were in agreement that they would not take Princess Joanna farther until they could make contact with Duke Richard and be apprised of his situation. Their party, due to the absence of the sick, now numbered less than ninety people, too few to venture into disputed territory.

  With this in mind, messengers were sent north, to Périgueux, to Poitiers, to civilization generally

  All that could be done now was wait. The princess and her retinue were installed, though uncomfortably, in the château with the treasure chests, while Captain Bolt’s men, in tents, made a ring of canvas and steel around them.

  The Bishop of Winchester and his chaplains and servants had to snuggle down in a priory whose prior and one monk eked out a living from the soil. Poor Prior James looked on as the royal sumpters examined its granary and barns, filled with the summer’s corn and hay and pronounced them able to feed the procession’s horseflesh for at least a fortnight.

  For the first time in weeks, the work of administering to the princess and her train could be pursued in one place, so that Joanna and her nobles might pleasure themselves at leisure. She and her ladies cast their hawks upward at the myriad migrating geese flying overhead, the men went hunting or fishing in the Lot’s rich currents.

  With all this to-ing and fro-ing it was possible for an individual to go missing for a day or more without comment…

  SCARRY? HE ALSO has sent a message, a secret message carried by a well-bribed servant. A wonderful calm has descended on him as he sees the map of events that his Master has unrolled at his feet.

  “Cathars,” he says. “O Great Being, thou hast provided Cathars for our purpose. They have been foretold, for who but You would have connived to put them in my way-and hers? It was Your hand that guided mine when I took her cross.”

  For Scarry, though he has not traveled this remote area, knows its flavor. He knows that the Cathar heresy has begun creeping through it like tendrils of flame ready to burn it up and that the Church is afraid of its scorching.

  He also knows, for they once met at a convocation at Canterbury, a Vatican-trained prelate who now, if Scarry’s memory is correct, serves the Bishopric ofAveyron, a diocese less than fifty miles away.

  Scarry is not acquainted with the Bishop of Aveyron but he knows that man’s flavor, too, and it tastes much to Scarry’s liking. He is sure-for has it not been prearranged?-that his message to Father Gerhardt and his bishop will be received and acted upon with the enthusiasm belonging to all frightened, cruel, and self-serving men.

  As for Excalibur, that lesser matter, it is as good as in Duke Richard’s hand already.

  UP THE HILL, in the kitchen of the nun’s convent-little more than a cottage of milky gold stone surrounded by a large vegetable garden-young Sister Aelith and Boggart pounded rhizomes until their fingers bled. The dog Ward, having waited to be given food, had to go hunting for his own.

  Down the hill ran a wooden gutter, constructed by the O’ Donnell and Deniz, bringing clean, cold water from a mountain stream.

  Inside, the cowshed hospital echoed with cries. Dust-moted beams of light coming through its ramshackle roof fell on thirty-four prostrate men and women squirming in agony Bunches of lavender, peppermint, thyme, and rue hung from every available nail, and others were tucked into the nurses’ robes. Reed fans were needed to cool the fevered patients, all of whom had to be kept clean as well as being given constant drinks of tormentil infusion.

  Filled chamber pots were hurried away washed, and brought back in an endless, exhausting chain.

  Nurses fought for their patients’ lives; patients fought for their own-some harder than others.

  The little laundress who had come across Brune’s body died quickly, as if the shock of that discovery had weakened her will. She was followed by the morose blacksmith who, of all the men-and men made up the majority of the sick-found the humiliation and powerlessness of his illness too much to bear.

  Ulf, whose physical and mental constitution had been strengthened by his upbringing in the food-rich, dogged-minded fenlands of Cambridgeshire, bared his teeth like a tiger at the grim reaper hovering over him.

  It was especially the older men with a background of pove
rty like the Scotsman Rankin before he’d become a mercenary under Captain Bolt, whose spirits wavered under the onslaught.

  “Canna,” he said as Adelia, with one arm under his neck and the other holding a beaker to his lips, tried to force him to drink.

  “Yes, you can.” She was learning to understand his speech. “And you’re going to. What will Captain Bolt do without you? What will I?”

  At first, the sight of Mansur’s head with its kaffiyeh bent over them caused some sufferers to panic, but eventually his imperturbable calm soothed them and they clung to him in their pain. The Irishman, on the other hand, told jokes to the sick as he tended them and, though they grated on Adelia’s ear, they seemed to enchant both patients and nuns to the good of both.

  It was a tug of war, and the strain for those pulling against Death on behalf of their patients tired them to the last fiber. Adelia and Sister Ermengarde rarely left the cowshed but took alternate rests on a hay bale when they dropped.

  Rowley and a servant came every day from Figères, to bring bread and clean linen and so that those desperate to unburden themselves of their sins could do so to a bishop in case they went to their God unshriven.

  Jacques the harness maker and Pepé, one of the cooks, died and were buried in graves that O’Donnell and Deniz hacked into the limestone of the hillside, but by the fifth day those who were going to survive were recovering including Rankin.

  TWO MEN ARE meetíng by night at a quiet crossroads halfway between Figeres and the town of Aveyron. Their horses are tethered to a fallen walnut tree while they walk and talk, heeping their voices low even here, where there are only owls and foxes to hear them.

  “All this can be delivered, ”Scarrysays, “for the Bishop of Saint Albans is Henry of England’s representative and he has been summoned to negotiate between all parties. What secret decisions are made amongst them I shall know of.”

  Scarry is selling power, for knowledge of what goes on at the innermost conferences of the great is above rubies to those with ambition. And Scarry’s price is cheap, as he makes clear but insists on-fifty gold coins and the mere ruination of one particular soul.

  “Unless that is done, your master can go whistle for news that will advantage him,” he says, pleasantly.

  Father Gerhardt is aware that his master does not like whistling, nor will pass up an opportunity that may well prove golden, as well as delivering an old enemy into his hands.

  “It shall be done,” Father Gerhardt tells Scarry. “And now, where is the bitch?”

  Scarry tells him. Father Gerhardt’s bitch is not Scarry’s bitch. But since a burning always makes good entertainment, he will attend that of them both.

  ROWLEY AND LOCUSTA brought visitors with them; Lady Petronilla and Mistress Blanche had come on behalf of Princess Joanna to inquire after the patients’ health.

  Adelia looked up from spooning vegetable broth into the groom Martin’s mouth, to see what looked like two ravishing butterflies settling their wings outside the cowshed door-well outside.

  Lady Petronilla stayed there, enumerating to the O’Donnell the gift of goodies the princess had sent. “Some girdle bread, fig and raisin custards-the Figères monks are masters of custards-oh, and some lavender oil to put on poorly heads.”

  Damn, Adelia thought, I was hoping for some meat.

  Blanche, however, ventured into the cowshed, a clove pomander held close to her elegant nose.

  “There’s no plague here,” Adelia told her sharply

  “It’s not a rose garden, either,” Blanche said equally sharply

  It wasn’t, but it was clean and tidy. The rows of palliasses were now on boards with legs that kept them off the ground; there were fresh straw pillows for the patients to rest their heads on. Mangers that erstwhile cows had fed from were now lined with grasses and filled with dried herbs.

  She resumed spooning broth into Martin’s mouth while the lady-in-waiting strolled along the beds, asking benign royal questions: “How long have you been a mule driver, my man. Really?” “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Hadwisa, of course. We’ll soon have you better, Hadwisa.”

  She lingered, watching Adelia. “How many of our people have you lost?”

  “We’ve saved thirty out of thirty-four, thank you very much.”

  But it appeared that Mistress Blanche had not meant to be critical. “When the flux attacked one of my father’s castles, half the sufferers died.”

  “Ah,” Adelia said, still put out. “I suppose he didn’t have a witch and a Saracen looking after them.”

  Surprisingly, Mistress Blanche smiled. “Perhaps it would have been better if he had.”

  Well, well, a compliment.

  Adelia said: “The true saints are the two nuns who took us in. I would introduce you, but they’re returning some of the chamber pots we borrowed.”

  “How tasteful. The princess shall be visiting you tomorrow, she can thank them then.”

  When the two women had gone, attended by Locusta, Adelia waited until the bishop and his flock had finished their prayers, then asked him to bring strong beef broth with him tomorrow: “We haven’t been able to give the patients meat since we came; the sisters are vegetarians.”

  Rowley nodded. “I was afraid they were.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Come for a walk.”

  Followed by Ward, they strolled down the hill together, Adelia glancing anxiously back in case one of her patients suffered a mishap in her absence. The sun was chilly. They sat down under the bare branches of a lonely fig tree.

  Rowley took her hand. “Sweetheart, at last we’re in touch with the outside world. Our messenger met up with King Henry at Périgord. I’m being sent away I’ve got to go ahead. The trouble with Angouleme has stirred up the southern lords…”

  He was leaving her. That was all she heard before the old, old misery took her in its jaws. He was going. Even such snatched moments as they’d had together were to be taken away

  He went on talking, explaining the region’s constantly shifting and bloody history “We’re approaching the southernmost boundary of Henry’s empire,” he told her. “From here on we’ll be in dragon country.”

  He spoke of the dragon lords who took any opportunity to ride to war and invade their neighbor, of alliances kept and broken, of counts, viscounts, princes, Alfonso of Aragon, Roger of Carcassonne, Raymond of Toulouse, D’Albi… the names drifted up into the branches above her, translating themselves into rapine and corpses.

  “So there it is,” he said. “I have to make sure Joanna has safe conduct through to Saint Gilles. There’s to be an attempt at a peace conference at Carcassonne…”

  “When are you going?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow And…” His fists clenched. “I won’t be coming back.”

  “Not coming back?”

  He reached into his robe and brought out a parchment from which dangled a heavy red seal. “Read this.”

  She began reading: “To our best beloved Rowley, Bishop of Saint Albans, greetings in the Lord from Henry, King of the English, Lord of Normandy and Aquitaine…” She skimmed through the titles; they could take forever. “Know that we have need of your esteemed service in Lombardy…”

  She handed it back. “Just tell me.”

  It was politics. It was to do with Emperor Barbarossa and the Lombardians, with popes, anti-popes, staying on good terms with some, undermining others.”

  She stopped listening. Henry The king. Always his king. Above God, above everything: Henry Plantagenet.

  “You do see, sweetheart,” he said desperately, “Henry can’t afford trouble in Northern Italy Diplomacy and guile are necessary” He looked at her and became angry. “Peace, mistress. Stopping people dying. I’ve got to go.”

  “I know.”

  In silence, they watched a robin hopping incautiously near their feet in a search for worms.

  “Will we meet in Sicily?” she asked eventually

  “No
. I’ll be there for the wedding, I hope, but tomorrow you’re going straight back to England, you and Mansur. I’ve arranged with Captain Bolt…”

  She sat up, making the robin flutter away “I am not. You know I want to go, but Henry entrusted Joanna’s health to me…”

  “Yes, you bloody well are. There’s somebody in her household means you harm, and I’m not just talking about Father Guy You go tomorrow”

  He could answer the call of his duty, but hers was of no account. By God, she’d been right not to marry him; he’d have stifled her.

  He said: “And the sooner you get away from those women back there, the better.”

  “I’ll have you know, those two nuns are better Christians than…”

  “They’re not nuns,” he said. “They’re Cathars.”

  Cathars.

  She stopped shouting at him. Cathars. Another word that carried disturbance with it. A name hardly heard in England, nor in Sicily for that matter, but it brought a response of unease from somewhere in her memory. “Cathars? Aren’t they heretics?”

  “Yes, they damn well are. I’d no idea their heresy had spread so far north. Of course they don’t eat meat; it’s forbidden them. Didn’t you notice neither of those women wears a cross? Which reminds me, I meant to replace yours-this is dangerous territory to be without one. There’s bishops around here would as soon put a Cathar on the fire as kindling.” He leaned back and regarded her without enthusiasm. “They’d throw you, if they saw you now. What the hell are you wearing?”

  “Aelith lent Boggart and me some of their robes. One felt the cowshed was not the place for Emma’s satins. Rowley, we’ve been trying to save lives. Ermengarde, Aelith, they’re good women; they’ve worked like mules. If Christianity isn’t about tending the sick, what is it about?”

  “It’s not about Cathars calling us the Church of Satan, and refusing to pay their bloody tithes because they say we’re all corrupted by riches.”