A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

Gershom aboard.

Impatient though he was with any further delay, the Irishman agreed, mainly because of Adelia’s joy at the thought of seeing her parents so soon.

It was not to be. As the St. Patrick rounded Punta Campanella, the wind of a typical Mediterranean storm veered them helplessly westward. By the time it released its grip and returned to its former direction, St. Patrick’s position was due north of Sicily and the ship could only make a straight run to the port of Cefalu.

It was there that Princess Joanna asked for the assurance that Adelia would put off the return to England long enough to see her married. “Promise me. Promise.”

“I promise.”

IN THE DARK hold of the Nostre Dame, an exchange is made between Scarry and Duke Richard’s secretary; a rough wooden cross for a purse of gold.

But the duke is not as pleased as he should be and summons Scarry to him. “They say you are ill.”

“No, my lord. It is merely that being at sea does not agree with me. I am well enough.” And indeed Scarry does feel better than he did, though every now and then, when he is alone, he unscrews his head in order to relieve it.

“They say you talk to yourself.”

“Not to myself, my lord, I pray to my God.”

For, truly, he does pray to Satan. And, to Wolf, he has to give constant reassurance: “she will be in Sicily. There she was ordered, and there she shall die.”

Sometimes Wolf believes him and sometimes he doesn’t, which is when their arguments attract attention.

“It is good to talk to the Almighty,” the duke said. “But see to yourself, you are covered in grime. I have no use for the deranged.”

Scarry, who has moments of wonderful clarity, knows in that moment that Richard has forgotten the service that he, Scarry, who is now expendable, has rendered him. Scarry knows that the duke believes the sword has been willed miraculously to him, as if God’s arm has pierced the clouds with it and put it into his hand to be used for God’s almighty purpose.

“who does that bastard talk to?” Wolf wants to know as the duke walks away.

“The wrong deity,” Scarry tells him.

Thirteen

ADELIA, MANSUR, ULF, and Boggart, carrying her baby, stood hidden amongst the crowd on the road to Palermo’s gates to see Joanna ride up to the capital of her new kingdom to be received by her bridegroom and rank upon rank of Sicilian ambassadors and clergy in peacock robes.

She was accompanied by Richard, whose height made her look even smaller than she was. Ulf peered for Excalibur, but whatever sword was in Richard’s bejeweled scabbard, it wasn’t King Arthur’s.

For once, everybody’s eye was on the princess, not her brother. The ladies-in-waiting had dressed her in pearl-encrusted gold, a diadem encircled the long fair hair, her head was held high on its little neck, and she was smiling.

Watching her go past, Adelia could have cried; so brave, so tiny. As Ulf said-with tears in his own eyes-“These bastards better be good to her.”

It looked as if they would be; the people standing twelve deep along Joanna’s route shouted huzzahs and blessings to their new queen, scattering bay leaves for her white palfrey’s gilded hooves to tread on.

Ahead of her went the trumpeters, all shining, flag-bedecked silver. Behind rode Petronilla and Beatrix, pretty and laughing, and Blanche, also pretty, but with the strain showing; then the Bishop of Winchester and the chaplains.

Then the O’Donnell in Arabic robe and face-enfolding white headdress, the traditional garb for an admiral of Sicily, an honor that had been given him for his services to the country.

Then gleaming knights with spears, their horses with scalloped scarlet reins and saddles, and behind them Captain Bolt, his men in Plantagenet uniform with the brass-bound treasure chests.

England was doing its princess proud.

Then they’d gone. A curve in the road to the gates, and the press of people, denied Adelia the view of Sicily’s king and whether the reception committee contained the Bishop of Saint Albans.

If Rowley had arrived on the island, the O’Donnell had promised to contact him to say that she had, too, and was well. Which was good of the Irishman, though he took no pleasure in it.

“Where will you be staying? Out of sight, I hope.”

“My foster father has a house he keeps for his visits to Palermo. In the Jewish Quarter by the Harat al-Yahud.” It was a joy to say it. “We’ll stay there until the wedding.”

“Make sure you do.”

He’d arranged for Adelia, Boggart, Mansur, and Ulf to disembark from the St. Patrick, with Deniz accompanying them to act as go-between, before anyone else. “And see you’re veiled if you venture out.”

As they gained the teeming streets of Palermo, their ears were deafened by the noise of four different languages-all of them ofncial-being screamed at once; their eyeballs were assaulted by clashes of violent color; their nostrils shriveled under an onslaught of every kind of stink mixing with every kind of perfume; they had to dodge peddlers trying to sell them sugared almonds and ribbons, and prostitutes of both sexes wanting to sell something else. They had to get out of the way of trains of mules and donkeys carrying spices from the East or building materials from the North, resist the call of traders from their shops in the arched walkways, make sure that the purses the O’Donnell had provided them with weren’t cut from their belts…

For Adelia, it was magical. “Look, look. See that ruined temple? It’s Greek. My father said that Archimedes taught there when he wasn’t in Syracuse… And that building’s the Exchange, and down there’s the Street of the Scent-makers-just sniff… And the mill over there, can you see it? That’s where they make paper… Stop a minute, I must buy some cassata, you’ll love it, Boggart. It’s an Arab cake; Mansur calls it Qas’at… And sciarbat-Lord, I hope old Abdalla still sells it-he makes it from fruit chilled by mountain snow…”

She was a child again, on a visit with her parents to a sanctuary of marvels. She’d thought then that every capital city must be like this one; now she knew that Palermo was the most brilliant, prosperous metropolis in the world, unique.

Even so, she was entering the past through a different gate; she was Odysseus succumbing to the song of the Sirens, not returning to Ithaca. This could truly be home only if Allie and Gyltha were to join her and Mansur in it.

The Arab, like a man long parched of water, disappeared to say his prayers in the first mosque vouchsafed to him since he and Adelia had set off for England.

As they waited for him, Boggart, clutching Donnell, saw her first camel train: “What-a mercy is them things? Lord bless me that I should see hillocks on the move.”

But, marvel though they did, it was the sheer heterogeneity of the city that soothed the souls of the four former prisoners of Aveyron, who’d seen what intolerance could do.

Sometimes, savoring the moment, they stopped to watch those who would be mortal enemies elsewhere walking together in reasoned argument; they saw a fellow with a cross on his tunic-thus showing that he was on his way to the Levant to kill Saracens-bemusedly asking for directions from an Arab; a skullcapped Jew chatting with a tonsured monk; the high hat of a Greek Orthodox priest wobbling at a joke told him by a Norman knight.

“It hasn’t changed,” Adelia said happily.