A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

PROGRESS SLOWED WHEN they joined the broad highway leading toward Aquitaine, for this was the main westerly route to the Pyrenees and the road was crowded with pilgrims on their way to, or coming back from, the great shrine of Saint James at Compostela.

Here was holy zeal a-plenty; the air thrummed with it as well as with a hundred different languages and the smell of unwashed bodies tinged by mugwort, a specific against weariness that most of the pilgrims had tucked into their hats or shoes. Those returning from Spain, limping from their long march, despite the mugwort, wore the apostle’s token of a cockleshell and a look of exaltation. Villagers came out from their houses to beg their blessing or kiss the hands that had touched the sacred tomb.

The ones still on their way to Compostela were mostly rowdier, yelling hallelujahs, praising the Lord that their sins would soon be forgiven, some scourging themselves, some dancing, some clearly demented, some barefoot.

One tatterdemalion group surrounded Joanna’s cart, shouting at her to come with them for the good of her soul. Captain Bolt’s men would have dispersed them with the flat of their swords, but the princess showed her mettle by standing up and throwing coins into the crowd.

“I have made the pilgrimage, good people, and been blessed accordingly Take these alms and may God speed you.”

It was the ones pushing handcarts containing their sick relatives in the expectation that Saint James would cure them who concerned Adelia, and she went among them with her medical bag to try to treat them. In most cases she was waved away: “Thank you kindly, but Saint James’ll mend us when we get to him.”

“Leave them,” Mansur advised. “There are too many of them.”

There were, but she couldn’t bear to abandon them, and he had to force her back on her horse or she would have been left behind.

AT THE NEXT MONASTERY, Scarry watches his victim from a high window.

“There she goes to the courtyard to subsume herself in the pilgrims’ gangrenous flesh. And her lustful bishop with her, ostensibly to give comfort and alms, but in truth to be by her side.

“Yes, I hear you, beloved. We approach Aquitaine. It is time for the killing to begin.”

TWO

Six

THE FIRST TWO KILLINGS appeared to be accidental- and one of them actually was.

The ladies of the party having retired to bed, the Abbot of Saint Benoit’s was sitting late at table with his male guests, and offering them the opportunity to go after boar in an hour or two’s time-boar hunting being best done at night when the male, most dangerous of quarries, leaves his sow and young ones in their lair to patrol the forest, snuffling his snout into the leaf mold and plowing the earth with his great tusks to sharpen them.

As Rowley explained to Adelia later, each man had feasted well but was not too drunk. Sir Nicholas had been watched carefully by his squire, who had seen to it that, when refilling his master’s wine cup, there’d been a good measure of water in it.

The abbot was talking of the grandfather of all boars that had been ruining his sown fields through the winter, not to mention killing two peasants. A worthy adversary at the height of his powers, God love him, the abbot had said. To prove it, he had his huntsman bring to the table such of the brute’s droppings as had been found so that the guests could assess them.

Also, the abbot went on, he owned a pack of boar hounds that were sans pareil and ready for the fray. He was sure the noble lords would wish to see them in action.

“You can imagine it, sweetheart,” Rowley told Adelia, “nearly all the noble lords, and some not so noble, were on their feet in an instant, calling for their horses to be saddled, especially Lord Ivo and Sir Nicholas and, of course, the ubiquitous O’Donnell.” Rowley’s mouth went into the thin line it was beginning to adopt every time the Irishman was mentioned.

He went on: “I tried to restrain Father Adalburt because boar hunting is not for amateurs, but the idiot was squeaking with excitement and couldn’t be persuaded. Locusta-poor lad, he doesn’t get much chance to hunt what with having to act as route master all the time-he wanted to go. Even Father Guy was enthused and said he’d join in, at least to watch.”

The Bishop of Winchester had declined on the grounds of being too old and tired. Rowley, reluctantly had decided to accompany the hunt, mainly he said, to keep his eye on the idiots.

IN THE LITTLE stone lodge in the grounds of the Abbot of Saint Benoit’s house, huntsmen are arming themselves. For this is where the good abbot keeps his spears, lances, crossbows, bolts, arrows and yew bows, his stabbing andgralloching knives.

The men are excited and, as ever when boar is the quarry, a little nervous. Not so the hounds in the kennels next door; they are clamoring to be let out and do what they’ve been bred for.

Somebody chaffs Scarry for picking too slender a spear. “That’ll never get through a tusher’s hide.”

Scarry gives a naive smile. “Won’t it?” But he hefts its weight and takes it all the same.

ADELIA WAS ATTENDING to sick pilgrims in the abbey courtyard as the hunt set off, its blare of trumpets and horns competing with the shouts of the whipper-in, the deep belling of the hounds and the rallying cries of riders.

She was in bed asleep when it returned but, like everyone else, was woken by the long note of a horn emerging from the forest sounding the mort, the salute to a dead quarry.

Except that this time it was not announcing the death of an animal…

It was raining. Monks, guests, and pilgrims gathered by the gates to watch the dripping hunt’s return. A weeping abbot walked beside a hastily assembled travois on which lay two bodies.

The corpse of Sir Nicholas Baicer was taken immediately to the Lady Chapel. Lord Ivo, bleeding horribly, was carried to the abbot’s room and laid on its bed.

The boar had indeed proved a worthy adversary; the dogs had found and bayed it; Lord Ivo and the abbot with their squires and huntsmen had dismounted ready for the kill.

But, though hounds were sinking their teeth into almost every part of it, the huge animal managed to charge and gore Lord Ivo in the groin, tossing him into the air, before the abbot’s sword went deep into its eye.

“Only then,” said the abbot, still crying, “didwe notice that Sir Nicholas was not with us, indeed had not been with us when we found the beast. Being moonless, the forest was so dark that I fear many of our following missed their way A search was instituted and at last we came upon Sir Nicholas, lifeless, being dragged by his horse, his poor foot still in its stirrup. Now God forgive me that this tragedy should come upon us… one fine knight injured unto death, another already gone to Paradise and my best boarhound with him. Surely we are accursed.”

With Mansur and Dr. Arnulf giving instruction, Adelia and the abbey’s herbalist did what they could for Lord Ivo.

By general agreement, sphagnum moss was applied to his injuries to cleanse them and stem the blood. But, as Adelia could see, the tusks had gone in too far, his lordship was undoubtedly bleeding internally and to stitch the wounds together would merely cause more agony without extending a life that was inevitably coming to its end.