Ariana Franklin - The Serpent’s Tale

His visits to Bertha, his constant proximity, the indefinable sense of menace that lurked in the cowshed when he was there. The scent that Bertha had recognized. A freedom to roam the abbey, unnoticed, that no one else possessed. In the end, he was the only one it could have been.

“The Christmas feast,” she said.

She’d known for sure then. In the capering, warty old woman of Noah’s ark, she’d recognized a grotesque of the crone that Bertha had seen in the forest.

“Ah,” he said. “I really should avoid dressing up, shouldn’t I? I have a weakness for it, I’m afraid.”

She asked, “When did Eynsham hire you to kill Rosamund?”

“Oh, ages ago,” he said. “I’d only recently come to England to pick up commissions. Well, I’ll tell you when it was; I’d just become the bishop’s messenger-in my line of work, it’s always useful to have a reason to travel the countryside. Incidentally, mistress, I hope I gave the bishop good service…” He was in earnest. “I like to think I’m an excellent servant, no matter what the work.”

Yes, excellent. When Rowley had crept into the abbey and alerted his men, it hadn’t occurred to him that his messenger should not be informed of the coming attack along with the rest-not the irritating, willing Jacques, one of his own people.

“In fact, I shall miss working for Saint Albans,” he was saying now, “but as soon as Walt told me the king was coming, I had to inform Eynsham. I couldn’t let Master Abbot be taken, could I? He owes me money.”

“Is that how it goes?” she asked. “The word is spread? Assassin for hire?”

“Virtually, yes. I haven’t lacked employment so far. The contractor never likes to reveal himself, of course, but do you know how I found out this one was our abbot?”

The joy of it raised his voice, launching an owl off its tree and making Schwyz, up ahead, turn and swear at him. “Do you know how I recognized him? Guess.”

She shook her head.

“His boots. Master Abbot wears exceptionally fine boots, as I do. Oh, yes, and he addressed his servant as ‘my son,’ and I said to myself,

By the saints, here is a churchman, a rich churchman. All I had to do was ask around Oxford’s best bootmakers. The problem, you see, is to get the other half of the fee, isn’t it?” He was sharing their occupational troubles. “So much as down payment, so much when the job’s done. They never like to pay the second installment, don’t you find that?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Well, I do. Getting the other half of the fee is why I’ve had to attach myself to my lord Eynsham like fish glue. Actually, in this instance, it isn’t his fault; circumstances have been against him: the retreat from Wormhold, the snow…but apparently we’re calling in at his abbey on the way north-that’s where he keeps the gold, in his abbey.”

“He’ll kill you,” she said. It was an observation to keep him talking; she didn’t mind one way or the other. “He’ll get Schwyz to cut your throat.”

“ Aren’t they an interesting couple? Doesn’t Schwyz adore him? They met in the Alps, apparently. I have wondered whether they were…well, you know…but I think not, don’t you? I’d welcome your medical opinion…”

One of the mercenaries in harness was slowing down, wheeling his arm for the messenger to take his place.

The voice in Adelia’s ear became a confidential whisper, changing from a gossip’s to an assassin’s. “Don’t worry for me, mistress. Our abbot has too many enemies that need to be silenced in silence. Schwyz leaves a butcher’s trail behind. I don’t. No, no, my services will always be in demand. Worry for yourself.”

He threw back the tarpaulin in order to get off the sledge.

“Will it be you who kills me, Jacques?” she asked.

“I do hope not, mistress,” he said politely. “That would be a shame.”

And he was gone, refusing to take his place in the harness. “My good fellow, I am not an ox.”

Not human, either , she thought, a lusus naturae , a tool, no more culpable for what it did than an artifact, as blameless as a weapon stuck on a wall and admired by the owner for its beautiful functionality.

The lingering trail of his perfume was obliterated by a smell of sweat and damp dirt from the next man who crawled under the tarpaulin to fall asleep and snore.

The abbot had taken position on the step behind her, but instead of helping to propel the sledge along, he became a passenger, his weight slowing the men pulling it to a stumping crawl that threatened their balance. They were complaining. At an order from Schwyz, they removed their skates and, to give them better purchase, continued in their boots.

Which, Adelia saw, were splashing. The sledge had begun to send up spray as it traveled. There were no stars now, and the vague moon had an even more vague penumbra. Schwyz had lit a torch and was holding it high as he skated.

It was thawing.

From over her head came a fruity boom: “I don’t wish to complain, my dear Schwyz, but any more of this and we’ll be marching on the river bottom. How much further?”

“Not far now.”

Not far to where? Having been asleep and not knowing for how long, she couldn’t estimate how far they’d come. The banks were still their featureless, untidy conglomeration of reed and snow.

It was even colder now; the chill of increasing damp had something to do with it, but so had fear. Eynsham would be reassured by their unpursued and uninterrupted passage up the river. Once he was in safe territory, he could rid himself of the burden he’d carried to it.

“Up ahead,” Schwyz called.

There was nothing up ahead except a dim twinkle in the eastern sky like a lone star bright enough to penetrate the mist that hid the others. A castle showing only one light? A turret?

Now they were approaching a landing stage, white edged and familiar.

Then she knew.

Rosamund had been waiting for her.

Adelia had remembered Wormhold as a place of jagged, shocking flashes of color where men and women walked and talked in madness.

Now, through the dawn mist, the tower returned to what it was-a mausoleum. Architectural innuendo had gone. And the maze, for those who dragged the sledge through slush into it, was merely a straight and dreary tunnel of gray bushes leading to a monument like a giant’s tombstone against a drearier sky.

The door above its steps stood open, sagging now. The unlit bonfire remained untouched in the hall where a mound of broken furniture, like the walls, shone with gathering damp in Schwyz’s torchlight.

As they went in, a scuttle from escaping rats accentuated the hall’s silence, as did the abbot’s attempt to raise the housekeeper. “Dakers. Where are you, little dear? ’Tis your old friend come to call. Robert of Eynsham.”

He turned to Schwyz as the echo faded. “She doesn’t know it was me as had her locked up, does she?”

Schwyz shook his head. “We fooled her, Rob.”

“Good, then I’m still her ally. Where is the old crow? We need our dinner. Dakers. ”

Schwyz said, “We can’t stay long, Rob. That bastard’ll be after us.”

“My dear, stop attributing the powers of Darkness to him, we’ve outmaneuvered the bugger.” He grimaced. “I suppose I’d better go up and search for my letters. If our Fair Rosamund kept one, she might have kept others. I told the fat bitch to burn them, but did she? Women are so unreliable.” He pointed at the bonfire. “Get that alight when the time comes. Some food first, I think, a nap, and then, when our amiable king arrives, we’ll be long gone, leaving a nice warm fire to greet him. Dakers. ”