A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

to see England again?”

Boggart’s response was immediate. “He won’t get me again, will he?”

Who? Oh, poor child, the rapist. “No, he damn well won’t. If nothing else, we’re under the protection of the king now. If that man so much as looks in your direction, which he won’t, Henry will cut off his whatsits and fry them with parsley.”

“ ‘At’s good,” Boggart said in relief. “Been a rare thing, though, ain’t it, traveling with royalty an’ seeing all these wonders? Still, it’ll be nice to meet up with your Allie.”

“Yes, yes it will.”

From up here it was possible to see a faded violet flush behind the western mountains still left by the sun’s departure, but it was cold and she was glad of her cloak

Ermengarde joined her on the bench. “That was a friend of ours come to warn us. Aelith and I must leave this place tomorrow. The word is that the Church is hunting for us. Splendid. It means we’ve frightened the devils. Of course, you and yours are welcome to stay on here as long as you like.”

“I know we are.” Adelia put out her hand to touch Ermengarde’s. “But we’re ready to go now. I’m leaving for England myself tomorrow. I’m sorry you have trouble.”

It was as if the two women knew each other well, but, actually, it was almost the first time they’d been able to sit together and converse about something other than their patients.

From behind them in the cottage came the sibilant, feminine sounds of sweeping and scurrying as Aelith, now free from the hours of nursing, got ready to leave it.

Like the stars, the full scent of the late autumn night was emerging. Ward, with his head on Adelia’s foot, and a nearby tethered goat added their own flavor to it.

“We expect nothing but trouble from a world created by Satan, nor from that Roman Church of wolves,” Ermengarde said.

The large voice of the little woman boomed its heresy into a dusk speckled with flittering bats.

Adelia flinched. If they should hear her. There was nobody to hear; yet the feeling persisted that somewhere out there, in the mountains, the vast monolith of the Church was listening. “This ain’t nice country,” Captain Bolt had said, “got something nasty in its bones.”

“Where will you go?” she asked.

“North. We’ve done well here. Adelia, you should see us in dispute with priests in the town squares-it is splendid; their blasphemy and corruption are shown up for what they are. Now we must go north to tell the people of the true faith, of the divine spark that is trapped in their mortal bodies until it should be reunited with Heaven.”

The true faith, thought Adelia. They all claimed it: Christian, Roman, Greek Orthodox, Jew, Moslem, Cathar, every one of them assured that the right way to worship God belonged only to them.

Now it was Ermengarde’s hand that reached out to Adelia’s. “The flame burns strongly in you, my child. I see it. How splendid it would be if you joined us, to become a parfait.”

Adelia coughed. Rowley had said that to become a “perfect,” she would not only have to abandon meat and live a life of poverty, she would have to become chaste.

“Too difficult?” asked Sister Ermengarde.

If this woman had seen her and Rowley saying good-bye to each other under the fig tree, she wouldn’t ask. “I’m afraid I love a man.”

“More than God?”

“Yes.”

Ermengarde sighed in pity “Once Aelith was born, my husband and I found that our love had turned to the spiritual. He, too, is a parfait now.” She became brisk again. “Well, you must just make sure you starve yourself of the sins of the flesh on your deathbed. We call it the endura. Without it you will be condemned to be born again in another human body, or even as an animal, until your soul is pure enough to enter Heaven. That is why we abstain from meat in our meals-you never know who you’ll be eating.”

Adelia laughed. “I’m going to miss you, Ermengarde.”

“And I you… Doctor.”

“Oh, dear. Has it been that obvious?”

“It is in everything you do. ‘Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel.’ So the Sermon on the Mount instructs us. Jesus used the word men in the sense of all humanity, of course, for men and women are equal in the sight of God.” Sister Ermengarde harrumphed. “Catch the Pope in Rome agreeing to that.”

Ward growled. He’d stood up, his fur raised in a ridge along his back. His snout was pointing down the hill to where the flames of the fire outside the cowshed seemed to have multiplied and were streaming back and forth, occasionally disappearing and appearing, as if from a rush of activity. A lot of shouting started up down there.

“What is it?”

Adelia got to her feet and squinted down the hill. Against the light of the fires, she could just make out the shapes of men wearing helmets. Oh, God, Richard’s war has spread to here.

Whoever the men were, they were coming up the hill. Now she could hear what they were shouting: “Heretics,” they yelled. And, “Burn.”

For a second, Ermengarde was still. “They’ve come for us.” Then she whipped around, shouting. “Aelith. Out the back. Run, I’ll hold them off.”

She gave Adelia a push before grabbing at Boggart’s hand in an effort to raise her up. “Run, both of you. Run.”

Unwieldy from pregnancy, Boggart was struggling to rise. As Adelia went to help her, the men closed in; she was enveloped in a smell of sweat and iron. Even in her terror, she knew it was the Cathars they’d come for, not her, and that Aelith, at least, must get away.

Ermengarde had slammed the cottage door shut and was shrieking and struggling to keep it closed. Adelia joined her where she clung onto the latch. “Leave her alone, leave her alone.”

She felt her collarbone break as one of the men tried to wrench her away, but she still held on.

The two women gave Aelith just enough time to clamber out of the back window and escape into the woods. But they couldn’t save themselves-or Boggart.

Nine

BOTH COWSHED AND COTTAGE were put to the flame. “Like you fucking Cathars when we get where we’re going,” the leader of their captors assured them.

“We are not Cathars,” Adelia told him, struggling for calm, aware that she and Boggart had their hair bound up like any Cathar women and were wearing the black robes Aelith had lent them.

If she was distancing herself from Ermengarde, she was sorry, but so be it; she was only telling the truth, and there were the others to think of.

She said: “We are the servants of King Henry Plantagenet, and he’ll be mightily displeased if we’re harmed.”

“You’re fucking Cathars, that’s what you are,” he’d said, and spat. “And where we’re going ain’t Plantagenet land.”

At that point there’d been no sign of Mansur nor Ulf nor Rankin, and she was in terror in case they’d been killed. Then some more men came up the hill, and from their midst she heard the multilingual oaths of Mansur’s Arabic, Rankin’s Gaelic, and the good fenland English of Ulf-the latter cursing his captors and demanding in God’s name that his wooden cross be returned to him.

The captives’ hands were bound with ropes, each of which was tied to a saddle of a captor’s mule.

It was difficult to tell how many soldiers there had been during the assault because their leader immediately