Ariana Franklin - A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

Later, she was to recall the sound of laughter coming from the guesthouse windows, but she knew then, and afterward, that this wasn’t ridiculous; something terrible was happening.

She threw herself on the man and reached round his face for his eyes, digging her fingers into them. Even then, he shook his head like a bull so that her nails merely scraped the skin of his cheeks. But somebody was lifting her and Ward to one side while somebody else with more strength than she had was dragging the great bulk away from Boggart’s feet and throwing it onto its back on the grass.

She had a glimpse of the knight’s face, unrecognizably loose and vacant, before his squire and another man hefted him to his feet and carried him away

Rowley was trying to comfort Boggart. “There, there, my dear. No need to be frightened; he has these turns, they don’t mean anything. No harm done.” She flinched away from him as he tried to touch her.

“Ask her if there’s harm done,” Adelia spat at him. She picked up the shivering Ward and put him in Boggart’s arms. Then, with her hand on the girl’s shoulder, she urged her toward a stone bench in the shadow of an arbor.

Rowley followed, at a loss. “Can I do anything?”

“No,” Adelia told him. “We’re going to sit here quietly for a while.”

He sat with them, next to Adelia, while on the other side Boggart gasped at something they couldn’t see. The girl was holding Ward so tightly that the tremors wracking her body were making him shake with her.

On the far side of the lawn, most of the shutters of the guesthouse were closing; entertainment over.

“Well, at least he left both her shoes this time,” Rowley said, trying for lightness.

Adelia looked down at Boggart’s shoes. She’d bought them for her in Caen, with another pair and some riding boots, to replace the hulking, hobnailed clogs-a man’s, and far too big for her-that she’d been wearing in Southampton. The girl had clutched the new shoes as she was clutching Ward now, and for along time couldn’t be persuaded to wear them in case they were sullied. Eventually, Adelia had taken the clogs and thrown them away

These were sullied now; the little ribbons that laced the sides had been mouthed so that they trailed limp and wet.

“Why does he do it?” Adelia asked. “What possible… why ?”

“I don’t know.” Rowley paused. “She’s been attacked before, hasn’t she?”

“I think so.”

“I’m sorry.” He patted Adelia’s hand and stood up. “She won’t want me around, then.”

“No.”

For a moment, watching him walk reluctantly away, Adelia was overcome by her fortune in being loved by him. He was a man with failings, as all men had failings-as she was an imperfect woman-but his humanity concealed no clefts in which lay hidden monsters like that of Sir Nicholas; it went clean to the core.

We must both do better by Allie, she thought, she needs the two of us. We must do it together.

Boggart, staring straight ahead, began talking. “My fault,” she was saying. “This un…” She clutched Ward harder. “His poor little belly were upset by summat so I reckoned to walk him… My silly fault. I thought as he was a kindly gent’man. I smiled at him. Silly to make a fuss, no harm done, my fault…”

“Boggart,” Adelia said. She put out a hand to the girl’s face, to turn it toward hers. “You listen to me. This was not your fault. It’s happened to others. Sir Nicholas is one of those men that has a demon caged inside him. Drink lets it loose. He attacked you, but it could have been anybody, any woman at all. It could have been me. You’re no more at fault than… than a tree hit by lightning.”

“Ain’t I?”

“No.”

“Tha’s good, then.” She sounded doubtful.

“Boggart. Something happened to you. Before this, I mean. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m all right, mistress. Really I am.”

“No, you’re not. It might help if you told me.”

If Boggart was going to, the moment went. Somebody was approaching them from across the garden; Mistress Blanche was walking carefully, so as not to spill a mug in her hand.

She said: “I thought the child might need a pick-me-up. The kitchener gave me some milk. I’ve put some brandy in it.”

Adelia had to untwine Boggart’s hands from Ward’s fur and, even then, hold the mug to her lips.

In her perfect enunciation, the lady-in-waiting said: “It’s never nice, this sort of thing, but men are strange cattle. After all, he did her no harm. One just has to get over it.”

Adelia looked up sharply, but the woman had taken thought and trouble for Boggart. There was humanity here, too; even fellow feeling.

“She’s blaming herself I suppose,” Mistress Blanche said.

“Yes.”

“One always does. Tell her not to.”

It was an admission so unexpected and revealing, such an unbending, that Adelia instinctively put out her hand.

Mistress Blanche didn’t take it; there were to be no all-women-together confessions. “I was concerned for the girl,” she said. “And so should you be. She’s getting cold.”

Together, they got Boggart to her feet and took her back to the guesthouse.

FROM A WINDOW Scarry has been watching them, laughing a little.

He has been holding a silver necklet with a cross in his hand. Now he drops it carefully down a crack between two uneven floorboards.

WHEN ADELIA TOLD ROWLEY about the loss of her necklet, he was concerned. “I don’t like you not to be wearing a cross.”

“Why?”

“Every other woman has one; it singles you out.”

Adelia shrugged. “I’m singled out already.”

For a moment he looked into her eyes. “You are for me,” he said.

When Ulf heard of the theft, he, too, became thoughtful.

“Funny that,” he said. “Lord Ivo’s squire told me as how somebody’s been rummagin’ in the luggage packs. Nothing taken, though.”

“Why, do you think?”

“Lookin’ for this, p’raps.” Ulf patted the wooden cross poking out from his mule’s saddlebag.

“That cannot be,” Mansur said. “If a thief is after the sword, he would search for it in the treasure chests, not luggage.”

“Would he, though, would he? Iffen he’s clever, he’d reckon as how the king’d know them chests’d be the first to be raided in an attack and he’d reckon old Henry would’ve hidden you-know-what somewhere else.”

Ulf’s childhood had introduced him to the criminal mind, but this was too subtle for Adelia: “If it’s the same thief and if he took my necklace instead of the ladies’ diamonds, he’s not as clever as all that.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Admiral O’Donnell coming up on his magnificent bay, accompanied by Deniz on a donkey. When those two men weren’t taking the rare opportunity, for seamen, of joining Sir Nicholas and Lord Ivo in a hunt, they spent a good deal of the time riding alongside Mansur.

Deniz said never a word, but his master persisted in asking the Arab about his native customs, telling stories of Ireland and seafaring to Adelia, and questioning Ulf about the Cambridgeshire fenlands. In fact, Ulf particularly seemed to intrigue him.

“Now isn’t that the interesting young man,” said O’Donnell, watching Ulf ride away to join his group. “A friend of yours?”

“As are all the pilgrims, I hope,” Adelia returned.

“Not your usual pilgrim, though, wouldn’t you say?”

“Is he not?” Adelia said, feigning boredom. “What’s different about him?”

“Ah, well, I can’t put me finger on it exactly… a certain lack of holy zeal, maybe. I’d say he lacks the sense of mysterium tremendum that most of them have, would you not agree?”