A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

heard a thousand times in comfortable kitchens where fire cooked meat on a spit. Her remorseless anatomist’s brain followed the sequence of burning feet, calves, thighs, hands, torso, and no death, no death until the conflagration reached the breath of the mouth and extinguished it.

Nor did God take the pain upon Himself. Long before the end, Ermengarde was screaming.

Ten

PERHAPS, HAVING SHOWN his five prisoners the end that awaited them, the Bishop of Aveyron was now concerned in case they dislodged the mullions on their turret windows and threw themselves out. Perhaps he felt the morality of a bishop demanded that he should not keep men and women confined together. Whatever the reason, a few hours after Ermengarde’s ashes were chucked onto a midden, Adelia, Boggart, Rankin, Mansur, and Ulf were transferred from the palace’s highest point to its lowest and then separated, male from female.

With their feet free but hands still tied, they were led down the circular stairs of the turret, across the great hall and the stares of its people, to where another staircase skewered itself deep into the earth, past an underground guardroom and down again, to a blind tunnel of a dungeon and the row of cells lining its walls.

Every push, every jerk on Adelia’s arms stabbed at her damaged shoulder-the cord she’d made into a sling had been tossed away by the guard who’d tied her hands. She hardly noticed it; the pain was inconsequential compared to the agony she’d witnessed.

Their hands finally released, she and Boggart were pushed into one cell, Rankin, Ulf, and Mansur into that next door, and the keys turned on them.

If they’d wanted to, they could have conversed by putting their faces to the small barred apertures in the doors and shouting to one another, but they didn’t. None of them had spoken since they’d been taken from the square.

Slumped on the stone floor, holding tightly to Boggart’s hand, Adelia knew that she should break the silence, say something to put heart into them all, but was incapable of doing it. She was unraveled; the only thread holding to sanity was the thought that Rowley would come for them. But even when he did, none of them would ever be free of a scar that flames and screams had branded on their memory-we have seen a human being burned alive. Like the others, she was past anger, past prayer; she was reduced to an enervating astonishment at the hideousness Man was capable of-and even that flickered only occasionally in a stupor ending in helpless sleep.

Rowley didn’t come for them that day Nor the next.

FATHER GERHARDT RODE to Figeres, taking with him greetings, perfume, wine, foie gras wrapped in fig leaves, and cheeses of the region from the Bishop of Aveyron to the King of England’s illustrious daughter.

Since the hour was too late to disturb the princess up at the chateau, the Bishop of Winchester, Father Guy, Father Adalburt, and Dr. Arnulf received him-with embarrassment-in the priory’s little refectory, where they had been sitting late at supper. (The prior had gone to bed; he had weeds to hoe in the morning.)

“I fear you find us benighted, Father,” the bishop told him. “As you see, we have been dogged by misfortune on this leg of our journey. I am ashamed that we cannot receive you with better state.”

“Not at all, not at all.” Father Gerhardt pretended not to notice the spade somebody had left standing in a corner, nor the remains of a plain, bucolic meal still on the table, nor that the man standing behind the Bishop of Winchester’s chair was the only servant in a room lit not by good beeswax candles but tapers made of rushes.

Nevertheless, notice them he did; Scarry’s information was proving exact so far.

Accepting a glass of wine, Father Gerhardt studied faces.

He looked briefly into the eyes of Father Adalburt, who smiled foolishly back at him; he saw that Winchester’s bishop was a tired old man; and that the two who would be his allies were Father Guy and Dr. Arnulf Yes, just as he’d been told.

“My lord, I bring a letter from my lord of Aveyron.” He bowed and handed it over. “And now, with your permission, I would be grateful for a night’s bed-it has been a long ride.”

(“Give them the letter, then leave them alone to read it,” his bishop had told him. “They will betray more easily if they are not watched by an outsider.”)

That set the cat among the pigeons. A bed? Oh, Lord, a bed. The good bishop was already doubling up in his with the prior, while the two chaplains and Dr. Arnulf were sharing the only other.

“Perhaps Captain Bolt can provide one,” Father Guy suggested. He addressed the servant sharply: “Peter, escort the good Father up to the chateau. And then come back and clear this table of its detritus, it is a disgrace.”

When the door had closed, he picked up the letter. “Shall I read this to you, my lord?”

“Read away My old eyes fail me in this light.”

“From the Bishop of Aveyron to his brother in the Lord, Bishop of Winchester, a heartfelt and respectful welcome. This poor region is honored by the presence of a noble princess and her religious advisers whose reputation for holiness and wisdom has come before them…”

“How kind,” said the Bishop of Winchester, wiping his eyes, “Isn’t that kind of Aveyron.”

More than half the scroll was taken up with compliments, an invitation to grace Aveyron palace, more compliments.

The Bishop of Winchester’s head began to nod. Father Adalburt started chalking notes for a sermon on his slate.

Not until the end did the letter reach its nub…

“My lord, you will know, in your wisdom, that the foul heresy of Catharism has been spreading throughout this country, and that some of us fight its contagion that it may not infect all Christendom. Accordingly, I must bring to your lordship’s attention that, in this great struggle, the Lord has allowed to fall into my hand five such heretics found wandering the hills…”

Father Guy’s voice paused for a moment, then he read on.

“Normally, it would be the work of a moment to mete the punishment inflicted on all who preach false doctrine on these wretches-two women in Cathar dress and three men-were it not that they make some claim to be connected with Princess Joanna’s court. I assume this to be the impudence expected of those who spread evil falsehood, yet I feel obliged to bring the matter to your lordship’s attention. Should you, my dear brother, as I expect, refute this claim, I shall act as I act against all who threaten blessed Mother Church. I await your word to be returned by the hand of my good and faithful chaplain, Father Gerhardt.

“In the meantime, that God pour His blessing on you is the dearest wish of your servant, Philippe of Aveyron.”

(“They will know, as I know, that these are their people,” Aveyron had said. “But if I am to satisfy our informant, while at the same time avoid bringing the Plantagenet’s wrath on my head, it is they who, like Pontius Pilate, must wash their hands and permit the execution. And I want it in writing.”)

Father Guy’s hands took care in rolling up the scroll, his eyes avoiding those of Dr. Arnulf sitting very upright in his chair

Something, some thing, a fetid eagerness, came into the little room, deepening its shadows; it hung in the dusty rafters out of sight, watchful, timorous, obscene.

THE CELLS STANK and were dark, containing only a bucket. There were no windows; the faintest gleam touched the tunnel outside where it filtered thinly round the circular stair from the torches in the guardroom above.

They were beetles in blackness; they crouched beneath the weight of the palace’s mountainous boot in case it descended and crushed them. What if there was a fire^? Who would care if insects locked in at the bottom of the pile couldn’t get out?

The only thing that stopped Adelia becoming a whirling, screaming ball of panic was Boggart, who, she knew, had to be in the same state yet was fighting it because she was. They were like two playing cards propping each