A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

Joanna’s nurse’s reception was the most honest: “You naughty little widdershin, you. Why’n’t you take me along? What they been a-doing to you, so pale as you are. Still and all, my honeypot, you’re alive and that’s a mercy o’ God.”

Blanche’s greeting from her two fellow ladies-in-waiting was chilly; she had broken ranks, not consulted, preferred a Saracen and a witch to the orthodoxy of Queen Eleanor’s own choice of physician.

What they would say if and when they saw the scar on Joanna’s abdomen, Adelia didn’t like to think.

The Bishop of Winchester lectured Blanche and the O’Donnell for their temerity in kidnapping the princess. In view of Joanna’s good spirits, his chiding was unheated, but it was noticeable that he did not include the names of Mansur and Adelia in his prayers of thanksgiving for his charge’s safe return.

Father Guy took their reappearance hard and refused to speak to them.

Dr. Arnulf tried squirming his way back into royal favor. An unfortunate episode, but one he was prepared to overlook; however, had the dear princess stayed under his supervision, she would not be so pallid nor show that slight stiffness when she walked.

Joanna was having none of it. She owed her life to Adelia and knew it, though she upheld the fiction that it was to Lord Mansur to whom her recovery should be attributed. Both had to be treated with honor in her presence. Mistress Adelia was even promoted to sharing the royal cabin-and, yes, the dog with her. (Ward, like her new friend, Ulf, made Joanna laugh.)

The fact of the scar seemed to concern the princess not at all. Perhaps she thought it would never be seen; nudity was infra dig for noble-women; they usually wore a light shift even in the bath. Adelia was afraid that the girl didn’t realize she would have to strip naked in front of her husband, or even if she was fully aware of the sexual side of marriage.

And when would that be imposed on her? What sort of man was William of Sicily?

When the nurse Edeva, in a rare burst of confidence, confessed to Adelia that she had never seen “my lambkin so blithe as aboard this here ship,” Adelia hoped that this time spent on board the St. Patrick wouldn’t turn out to be the most carefree of Joanna’s life.

It was a cold voyage but one made under a clear sky. The O’Donnell took advantage of a bitter northerly wind and crammed on all sail, sending St. Patrick bowling along at a rate which was fast but which, now that Joanna and the others had gained their sea legs, upset nobody’s stomach. For Adelia, there was a reassuring sense of freedom that convinced her Scarry was not on board.

She spent what time she could on the quarterdeck with Mansur and Ulf, watching Italy go by and wondering whether the traffic on the coast roads that she could see in the distance included one particular rider heading for Sicily.

After two days, her captain took pity on her. “If it’s Saint Albans you’re looking for, he’ll be long farther south by now.”

“If he hasn’t been held up in Lombardy,” she said, adding uncomfortably”

“Ah, now, a little thing like international relations shouldn’t stop him from keeping an appointment with you in Palermo.” The Irishman’s mouth twisted. “It wouldn’t stop me.”

Adelia winced. She said quickly: “Will we catch up with Duke Richard?”

“Overtake him, at this rate. Nostre Dame’s not got the speed of Saint Patrick. The Dame’s a lumberer, and she needs to set in for forage and water from time to time, so I had to allocate Locusta to her captain for his advice on the friendliest ports.”

Somebody else was missing from St. Patrick’s complement. “It was an odd thing,” the O‘Donnell said, “but embarking at Saint Gilles, our good chaplain, Father Adalburt, who is not the idiot he looks, was taken by a sudden determination to sail on Nostre Dame with Duke Richard. Now why would the man desert his princess and bishop like that, d’ye think?”

Adelia shrugged. “I suppose Richard’s religious views accord more closely with his own.”

“‘F you ask me,” Ulf cut in, gloomily, “he reckons he’s got better prospects under the duke. He can go crusadin’ with him. He’ll probably end up Bishop of Jerusalem.”

“God help the Holy Places,” O’Donnell said, and Adelia laughed.

The Irishman had a thought and turned to Ulf. “A wooden cross, was it?” He used his hands. “So big by so big?”

“Yes.” Ulf had never left off bewailing the taking of his cross; not just because he was afraid to face Henry II and tell him he’d lost it-though he was-but because he was tortured by the thought of great Arthur’s Excalibur in dirty hands.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” O’Donnell said, “I’ve not remembered until now, but I saw a wooden cross being taken aboard Nostre Dame at Saint Gilles. I remarked it because it was so rough a thing, not at all like the jeweled crucifixes that went on with it.”

Ulf’s hands clenched. “Who was carrying it?”

The Irishman shrugged. “One of the crew, I think.”

Ulf looked at Adelia. “Scarry I told you, I told you, that was Scarry in the cowshed.”

“Dear God. I’m sorry, my dear, so sorry”

“What’re you sorry for? You said Richard’d want it and now he’s got it, that murdering bastard’s sold it to him.”

The St. Patrick yawed slightly and the O’Donnell went aft to shout at his tillerman to keep his eye on the wind.

“What’re we going to do?” Ulf demanded.

“I don’t know. Nothing we can do.” Except despair at the perfidy of men in their lust for power.

EVERYBODY WAS ON DECK to stare at Vesuvius on the evening that they sailed past the Bay of Naples. The volcano looked flat-topped and disappointingly undistinguished.

Father Guy took the opportunity for an extempore sermon, explaining that the eruption that Pliny the Younger described had been God’s punishment on Pompeii’s and Herculaneum’s citizens for their wickedness in not being Christians. “Just as our Lord destroyed the Cities of the Plains.”

Joanna interrupted him. “Mistress Adelia was found on the slopes of Vesuvius, weren’t you, ‘Delia?”

“I was.”

“How romantic,” Lady Petronilla said, acidly “Like baby Moses in his basket. Only drier.”

“So if we miss Sicily and sail into Egypt, we’ve got somebody to lead us out of it,” said Lady Beatrix.

It was getting chilly. Everybody except Adelia and the watchful Mansur deserted the quarterdeck for the warmth of the lower deck.

We’ll be passing Salerno soon. Past the two best people in the world. I don’t even know if they’re still alive. Dear Lord, let them be alive so that, perhaps, on the way back, I may see them again.

A hand touched her shoulder, making her jump.

It was Blanche. “We’re only days from Sicily. What are we going to do? Mother of God, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Adelia told her. “But I was just thinking about my foster father. Some years ago, he was called to Palermo to attend on King William. He’s a great doctor, you see.”

“William?”

“My foster father.”

“And he cured the king? What of?”

“I didn’t ask. He wouldn’t have told me, a patient’s complaint is confidential.”

Blanche was stuttering with hope. “Perhaps… perhaps he took a worm thing out of William as well. Do you think the king’s got a scar like Joanna’s?”

“I have no idea. Probably not.”

“Your father might have influence with the king, he could plead with him for Joanna’s sake.”

Adelia was irritated. “Why should anyone plead for her? William’s lucky-he’s getting a sweet-tempered bride instead of a dead one.”

But Blanche had seen a life raft in what she was certain would be the wreckage of Joanna’s marriage. Within minutes, she was begging the O’Donnell to put the St. Patrick into Salerno and haul Dr.