A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

The three rode together in silence for a while, the two mules occasionally having to be restrained from taking a bite out of Adelia’s palomino palfrey a little horse of gold-dusted hide with flaxen mane and tail, as if they resented its beauty Rowley had secretly bought it for her at Poitiers and, in memory of their time there in a dusty bed, had called it Sneeze.

The name had made Adelia laugh. Still did, despite herself. And it was a lovely day And Ulf, with his truculence, did so remind her of his grandmother, even to the slight, downy dark hair that had begun to show on his upper lip.

Cheered, she changed the subject. “I never told you how I found Excalibur, did I?”

“Ain’t seen you since.”

So she told him about the discovery of a little cave on Glastonbury Tor, the skeleton within it, and the unprepossessing weapon with its dull patina that her daughter had fished out of the cave’s pool. Of how she’d given it to Emma’s Roetger and how, when he’d cleaned it, they’d found the name Arturus set into its fuller. Of how Roetger, dear man, had given it back to her and, eventually she had given it to Henry the king.

But, inevitably under Ulf’s questioning, the story-she shouldn’t have started on it-led on to the darkness of a forest glade, and what had happened there.

“And all you and Mansur and Rowley are doing,” she finished, “is making me imagine vain things. The night before last I even thought I heard Scarry shouting out at a dice table, so you’ve got to stop…”

But Ulf had dug his heels into his mule’s side and was riding off toward the front of the column, the wooden cross bumping wildly on his saddle as he went.

Minutes later, two horses were beside hers, one bearing the Bishop of Saint Albans, the other Captain Bolt. Rowley was angry: “You heard Scarry’s voice and didn’t tell me?”

“I imagined a voice that sounded like Scarry’s,” Adelia told him. “Stop all this fuss.”

“And did you go to look, see if it was him?”

“Please, not that again. I don’t believe he was in Somerset and I certainly don’t believe he’s here. How could an outlaw insinuate himself into…”

Rowley turned to Bolt. “Did you hang all the cutthroats in that bloody forest, captain?”

“Thought as we did,” Bolt said. “Many as we could lay our hands on.”

“You see?” The bishop leaned over to take the reins of Adelia’s horse and halt it. “Will and Alf were probably right; Scarry could have escaped. What did he look like, this dice player?”

“I’ve no idea, I didn’t bother to go and see.”

“What did Scarry look like?”

“I don’t know that, either,” she shouted back. “He was… he and Wolf were out of a nightmare… dressed in leaves… it was dark… their faces were painted.”

“Think.”

She was reluctant. Shaking her head, she said: “Educated, I suppose, he spoke Latin.” The lament as the man had taken his dead lover in his arms rang in her brain once more: “Come back, my Lupus. Te amo! Te amo!”

Rowley nodded. “Educated. What else? What age? What height?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” The two men had been creatures emerging from a different age, as tall as trees. “This is silly Rowley he can’t be here. How could he be here?”

“Think, will you?”

She tried. “Well… oh yes, he was dark. I remember his arms, black hair… but that may just have been shadow.”

“Dark,” Rowley said bitterly. “Very helpful.” Nevertheless, he and Bolt and Ulf began listing the black-haired men in the company. Father Guy, Father Adalburt, knights, squires, servants who were swarthy Captain Bolt’s men, Bolt himself Rankin the Scot, young Locusta, the O’Donnell… it went on and on.

“And any one of them could have been at that dice game,” Rowley pointed out. “It’s an eclectic group.”

“Oh, go away,” Adelia told him. It was difficult enough believing that Scarry was the one who’d been after her in Somerset; impossible to think that a painted outlaw could have joined Joanna’s company and pursued her across the Channel, however good his Latin.

She refused to dwell on it.

FROM HALF A MILE down the column, it was possible to see that something was wrong, causing Adelia and Mansur to urge their horses into a canter that took them to its head, where Joanna and her principals were gathered about a figure that overtopped them all.

Duke Richard was in gleaming mail; under his arm he held a helmet encircled by a gold, ducal coronet. His face was set, exalted, and he was paying no attention to a distracted Captain Bolt and Bishop of Winchester.

Rowley detached himself from the group to approach Mansur and Adelia. “Richard’s leaving us,” he said bitterly, in Arabic.

“Where’s he going?”

“To war.”

“He can’t do that.”

“Actually, I think he has to. There’s a galloper just come with news. Angouleme is in revolt; the duke can’t allow that, though if you ask me it’s his fault the bloody place revolted in the first place.”

Angouleme. Angouleme. From what Adelia could remember of Locusta’s map, the county was due south of them. “We have to go back? Oh God, Rowley how long will a war hold us up?”

“We’re skirting round it. We can’t afford to lose more time, and the duke’s convinced he can defeat Vulgrin of Angouleme within days. He’s called for reinforcements.”

“And can he defeat him?”

“Oh, yes. He’s no favorite of mine, Richard, but he’s a superb general. If I were Count Vulgrin, I’d start running now.”

Adelia looked toward Joanna. “Poor love,” she said.

“Poor Locusta, he’s near tears. We’ll be departing from his precious route; he’ll have to arrange a new one, which, where we’re going, won’t be easy”

But Adelia’s sympathy was for a princess deserted by one brother and now another.

Joanna, however, appeared concerned but not alarmed.

She’s used to it, Adelia thought. The girl’s young life had been spent watching her parents put down rebellion somewhere or another in their empire; she had seen her mother and brothers rise up against her father. Her world was sown with Hydra’s teeth; for her, revolt and battle were the natural order of things. And so they are, except in England and Sicily.

The knights and their squires were leaving immediately An extempore service was held in a grove beneath the high, gaunt branches of a chestnut tree to bless and speed their war.

A troubled Bishop of Winchester stumbled in his office, but Duke Richard showed no sign of restlessness as his impatient father would have done; he drank in the prayers, praise, and blessings. God’s goodwill meant much to him.

As over two hundred throats said a last “Amen” that rumbled through the forest, he rose to his feet and strode over to Joanna, who was still kneeling. “I leave you in the care of the good Captain Bolt and the Lord’s keeping, royal sister. Our enemy shall be cast down, and you and I shall be reunited at Saint Gilles, if not before. May the saints look kindly down on us.”

He drew his sword and raised it high. “For Jesus.”

“For Jesus,” echoed his men.

He’s magnificent, Adelia thought, but his element is battle. God preserve us from him.

A knight in full mail rode up to her, his helmet with its nosepiece making his face unrecognizable from all the others around them. But the voice was familiar even though, for once, the lyrics it sang were ugly