A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

Above, a flat ceiling glowed with Bible scenes painted by a master; below, the morning robe of the man at the table was no less inspired with autumn color and the skill of embroideresses.

The Bishop of Aveyron, a plump man with clever eyes, took one more honeyed fig, wiped his fingers on the linen napkin tucked into his neck, and looked up. “So the information was exact?”

“In every detail, my lord. I doubt we’d have found her hideout without it. Unfortunately, she managed to delay the men’s entry long enough for the daughter to escape. I’ve ordered a hunt for her.”

His bishop waved a hand in dismissal. “Do we care about the daughter? Ermengarde is the one we wanted.”

“And now we have her.”

For a moment these two very different men shared the same, searing memory-a black-clad woman standing in the town square making fools of them both: “Leave me alone, old men. Abandon either your luxury or your preaching.”

The townspeople had laughed at them. Them.

“Also,” said Father Gerhardt, “we have written proof against her. Our men searched the hovel before setting fire to it. There was a gospel written in the langue d’oc.”

The bishop shook his head sadly: “Gerhardt, Gerhardt, is there no end to Cathar evil? Where should we poor Latinate clergy be if the common herd were able to listen to the holy word in their own language?” He stretched out his hand to take one of the soft, white rolls nestling in a basket that his steward had just put in front of him. “You and I would have to go begging our bread.”

Gerhardt was put out; he never knew when his bishop was joking.

“A joke,” the bishop explained, seeing him puzzled. That was the trouble with priests who brought their zeal straight from the Vatican, no humor.

“Yes, my lord. And the foreigners captured with Ermengarde? Our bargain with the informant was to ensure that they suffer the same punishment, but I have to tell you”-Gerhardt said this with reluctance-“they persist in their story that they are all servants of Henry Plantagenet.”

“And they are? Tell me again.”

Father Gerhardt consulted his list. “A youth purporting to be a pilgrim-the cross he carried was of interest to our informant, if you remember, and as it was of no account our men let him have it. A female servant who is pregnant…”

The bishop stopped using his butter knife in order to wave it. “Pregnancy does not absolve her. Root and branch, Gerhardt, root and branch. Remember that.”

“Yes, my lord. Then there is a mercenary speaking a language nobody can understand. Also a Saracen, and a woman who interprets for him.” Gerhardt looked up. “She is the woman our informant is eager to have destroyed- if the others die with her, so be it. Surely no Christian king would inflict wharf rats like that on his daughter?”

The bishop shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past this one from what I’ve heard, not Henry Yes, I have no doubt they are who they say they are.”

Father Gerhardt was taken aback, not so much by fact, but that his bishop was making no bones about it. “Yet do we need to worry about his opinion?” he asked. “A priest killer?”

“Ah, but a priest killer who’s done penance for Becket and been accepted back into the fold.” The bishop poured himself another glass of wine while he considered. “I wonder. Can we afford to offend the King of England?”

“If we don’t, we lose a spy who can take us into the center of the king’s web. Moreover”-a flash of Father Gerhardt’s canines showed his happiness at imparting a nugget he’d been hugging-“my lord, I can tell you that the Bishop of Winchester and others in the princess’s party complain that the Saracen and his woman are witches. They say the two have brought bad luck on them. They would not be unhappy to lose them.”

“Witches, eh?” The bishop liked that.

“Yes, my lord. Apparently, the Saracen’s woman has fed a love potion to the other bishop, Rowley of Saint Albans, so that he lusts after her and will hear no word against her.”

“I thought she was supposed to be plain.”

“She is, my lord, which only emphasizes the strength of her magic.”

“A Jezebel,” mused the bishop. “‘And Jezebel was cast down, and the dogs did eat her, and no more of her was found than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands.’ A gratifying image, I’ve always found. So wholesale, don’t you think?”

“Indeed, my lord.” Gerhardt refused to be diverted. “Nor does this harlot wear a cross. Both she and the maid are dressed as Cathars. In any case, they’ve spent time with Ermengarde and so will have been infected.”

The bishop smiled. He was fond of the principle of post hoc ergo propter hoc. So useful.

Father Gerhardt raised flailing arms in appeal to Heaven. “When, O Lord, when wilt thou grant us full crusade against this cancer?”

Whenindeed, the bishop thought. Increasingly severe anti-Cathar edicts had been issued by the Vatican for over thirty years without, so far, calling for a crusade against the heretics. Yet crusade was the only option, as the bishop knew; the infection was becoming a plague.

A new order was needed. A man to raise the Holy Cross against the Cathars in the teeth of the Pope, begin God’s righteous slaughter.

Lying in his bed at night, the Bishop of Aveyron sweated into his silk sheets. If it was successful it would take him high, perhaps to the throne of Rome itself. Failure…?

Tapping his teeth, the bishop looked up at the depiction of the Garden of Eden on his ceiling. He was particularly fond of it; the artist had let himself go as far as Eve’s naked body was concerned. “This informant, we’re certain of him, are we?” he asked.

“A valuable man, my lord. As I said, he is privy to what passes between the English bishops and their king; he will be in Sicily when Saint Albans arrives after negotiating with Barbarossa and the Lombards. What are a witch and a ragbag of nonentities to set against that?”

But the Bishop of Aveyron’s careful mind had made itself up; he hadn’t got where he was today by being rash.

“Nevertheless, we must be sure. The Plantagenet is soft toward heretics, yet his arm is long and on the end of it there is a hammer. There is no need to anger him at this stage. Feelers, Gerhardt, we shall put out feelers; nothing too definite on either side. All we need to know from the princess’s officials is: If we have found some heretics wandering in the hills and consequently disposed of them, shall they be missed? Will that fit the situation?”

“From what I gather, the answer will be no, my lord.”

“I gather that, too. But hold off until we get it. As for our ‘perfect,’ you may proceed as planned.” He smiled again; this time his priest knew he wasn’t joking. “Bring the town in to witness it.”

“Where do you want the prisoners lodged, my lord? The dungeons?”

The bishop tapped his teeth. “No, let them have a view of what they may expect. Clear out the tower room and put them up there for now. Set trustworthy guards, mind. Sometimes I think the contagion has infected my own palace.”

When Gerhardt had gone, his lord poured himself another glass of the vintage from his vineyard near Carcassonne and sipped it while he engineered a new vision of Ermengarde, his black-clad tauntress, this time tied to a stake with faggots laid around her feet.

He saw himself thrusting a torch into the wood like a penis into her parts and sighed because, alas, that pleasure must be left to the executioner. One day, though, yes, yes, one day, the flames he’d light would consume them all… men, women, and children.

This really was most excellent wine.

AND SCARRY? He’s been very busy.

As he promised, he led the heretic hunters to the cowshed. He saw Mansur, Rankin, and Ulf go down fighting. He watched the capture of the women up the hill. Then he began looking for something. He found it-lying in one of the mangers where Ulf had left it. A rough, wooden cross.