Ariana Franklin - The Serpent’s Tale

“Good.”

The thaw was proceeding quickly. Untidy plates of ice floating downriver and bumping into the landing stage became smaller and smaller. She watched them; each one carried its own little cloud of thicker fog through the mist.

It was still very cold.

“Come up to the tower,” Rowley said. “Get warm.”

“No.”

He put his cloak around her, still without touching her. “Eleanor got away,” he said. “They’re hunting the woods for her.”

Adelia nodded. It didn’t matter one way or the other.

He shifted. “I’d better go to him. He’ll need me to bless the dead.”

“Yes,” she said.

He walked away, heading for the tower and his king.

Another coffin was carried to the landing stage, assembled from pieces of the bonfire. Dakers would be accompanying her mistress to the grave.

The rest of the dead were left piled in the courtyard until the ground should be soft enough to dig a common grave.

Henry came, urging on the loading, shouting to the oarsmen that if they didn’t row their hearts out, he’d have their bollocks; he was in a hurry to get to Godstow and then on to Oxford. He ushered Adelia aboard. The Bishop of Saint Albans, he told her, was staying behind to see to the burials.

The fog was too thick to allow a last glimpse of Wormhold Tower, even if Adelia had looked back, which she didn’t.

The Plantagenet wouldn’t go inside the cabin, being too concerned with piloting the rowers away from shoals, occasionally jotting notes on his slate book and studying the weather. “There’ll be a breeze soon,” he said.

He didn’t let Adelia go inside, either; he said she needed air and sat her down on a thwart in the stern. After a while, he joined her. “Better now?”

“I’m going back to Salerno,” she told him.

He sighed. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

They had, after the last time he’d used her to investigate deaths. “I am not your subject, Henry, I’m Sicily’s.”

“Yes, but this is England, and I say who comes and goes.”

She was silent, and he began wheedling. “I need you. And you wouldn’t like Salerno now, not after England; it’s too hot, you’d dry up like a prune.”

She compressed her lips and turned her head away. Damn him, don’t laugh.

“Eh?” he said. “Wouldn’t you? Eh?”

She had to ask. “Did you know Dakers would set the mantrap for Eynsham?”

He was astonished, hurt. If he hadn’t been trying to woo her, he’d have been angry. “How could I see what in hell the woman was dragging? It was too damn foggy.”

She’d never know. For the rest of her life, she’d be questioned by the image of the two of them, him and Dakers, sitting together in the garderobe, planning. “He’ll die, but not by my hand,” he had said. He’d been so certain.

“Nasty things, mantraps,” he said. “Never use ’em.” And paused. “Except for deer poachers.” And paused. “Who deserve ’em.” He paused again. “And then only ones that take the leg.”

She’d never know.

“I am returning to Salerno,” she said, very clear.

“It’d break Rowley’s heart, oath or not.”

It would probably break hers, but she was going anyway.

“You’ll stay.” The nearest oarsmen turned round at the shout. “I’ve had enough of rebellion.”

He was the king. The route to Salerno passed through vast tracts of land where nobody traveled without his permission.

“It’s his oath, isn’t it?” he said, wheedling again. “I wouldn’t have made it myself, but then, I’m not bound to chastity, thank the saints. We’ll have to see what we can do about that-I yield to nobody in my admiration for God, but He’s no good in bed.”

It was a quick journey; the thaw was putting the Thames into full spate, carrying the barge at speed. Henry spent the rest of the time making notes in his slate book. Adelia sat and stared into nothingness, which was all there was to see.

But the king was right, a light breeze had come up by the time they approached Godstow, and from some way off, the bridge became just visible. It appeared to be busy; the middle span was empty, but at each end people were milling around a single still figure.

As the barge passed the village, the activity among the group on this side of the bridge became clearer.

It was a hanging party. Taller than anybody else, Wolvercote stood in the middle of it with a noose around his neck while a man attached the other end of the rope to a stanchion. Beside him, the much smaller figure of Father Egbert muttered in prayer.

A young woman was watching the scene from the abbey end. The crowd of people behind her was keeping back, but one of them-Adelia recognized the matronly shape of Mistress Bloat-tugged at her daughter’s hand as if she were pleading. Emma paid no attention. Her eyes never left the scene on the other side of the bridge.

Seeing the barge, a young man leaned over the bridge’s parapet. His voice came clear and jolly. “Greetings, my lord, and my thanks to God for keeping you safe.” He grinned. “I knew He would.”

The oarsmen reversed their rowing stroke so that the boat could keep its position against the flow of the water and allow the exchange between king and son. Above them, Wolvercote kept his gaze on the sky. The sun was beginning to come out. A heron rose out of the rushes and flapped its gawky way farther downriver.

Henry put aside his slate book. “Well done, Geoffrey. Is everything secured?”

“All secure, my lord. And, my lord, the pursuers I put after the queen have sent word. She is caught and being brought back.”

Henry nodded. Pointing up at Wolvercote, he said, “Has he made confession for his sins?”

“For everything except his treachery to you, my lord. He refuses to be absolved for rebellion.”

“I wouldn’t absolve the swine anyway,” Henry said to Adelia. “Even the Lord’ll have to think twice.” He called back, “Tip him over, then, Geoffrey, and God have mercy on his soul.” He gestured to his oarsmen to row on.

As the boat passed by, two of the men lifted Wolvercote up and steadied him so that he stood balanced on the parapet.

Father Egbert raised his voice to begin the absolution: “Dominusnoster Jesus Christus…”

Adelia turned away. She was near enough now to see Emma’s face; it was completely expressionless.

“…Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nominee Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

There was a thump of suddenly tightened rope. Jeers and cheering went up from both ends of the bridge.

Adelia couldn’t watch, but she knew when Wolvercote had stopped struggling because it wasn’t until then that Emma turned and walked away.

A crowd of soldiers, nuns, and serving people, nearly everybody in the abbey had gathered on the meadow below the convent to cheer King Henry in.

For Adelia there were only three, a tall Arab, an elderly woman, and a child whose small hand was being flapped up and down in welcome.

She bowed her head in gratitude at the sight of them.

After all, I have no need for any but these.

Allie seemed to have learned another word, because Gyltha was trying to make her say it, first encouraging the baby and then pointing toward Adelia, who couldn’t hear it through the cheering.

There was a shout from the opposite bank that cut through the noise. “My lord, my lord. We have recovered the queen, my lord.”

At an order from Henry, the barge veered across the river toward a group of horsemen arriving through the trees. A man with the insignia of a captain of the Plantagenet guard was dismounting, while one of his soldiers helped the queen down from his horse where she’d been riding pillion.