Ariana Franklin: A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

“Not with that bloody Tuke boy, I won’t. He poked me in the eye.”

“Allie.”

“Well…”

The door to their house was open-it usually was-but the creak of a floorboard inside brought back unpleasant memories and Adelia clutched her daughter’s shoulder to stop her from going in.

“It’s all right, Mama,” Allie said. “It’s Alf, I can smell him.”

So it was. Beating off Eustace’s enthusiastic welcome, the man said: “You ought to keep this old door o’ yours locked, missus. I saw a fox getting in.”

Considering that it was dark and that Alf had been in the barn a hundred yards away, Adelia marveled at his eyesight. “Is it still there?”

“Chased it out.” With that, Alf lurched off into the night.

Lighting a candle to escort her daughter upstairs to bed, Adelia asked: “Can you smell fox, Allie?”

There was a sniff. “No.”

“Hmm.” Allie’s nose was unerring; her father had remarked on it, saying that she could teach his hounds a thing or two. So, sitting beside her daughter, stroking her to sleep, Adelia wondered why Alf, most honest of men, had chosen to tell her a lie…

IN EMMA’S ROSE GARDEN, the Bishop of Saint Albans held the arrow Will had given to him so tightly that it snapped. “Who is it?”

“We ain’t rightly sure,” Will said. “Never got a glimpse of the bastard, but we reckon as maybe Scarry’s come back.”

“Scarry?”

Will shuffled awkwardly “Don’t know as if she ever told you, but her and us was all in the forest a year or two back when we was attacked. Fella called Wolf, nasty bit of work he were, he come at her and Alf. He‘d’ve done ’em both but, see, she had this sword and… well, she done him first.”

“She told me,” Rowley said, shortly. Jesus, how often he’d had to hold her shaking body to fend off the nightmares.

“Well, see, Scarry was there, he was Wolf’s lieutenant, like. Him and Wolf they was…”

“Lovers. She told me that, too.”

Will shifted again. “Yes, well, Scarry wouldn’t’ve taken kindly to her a-killin’ Wolf.”

“That was two years ago, man. If he were going to take his revenge, why leave it for two years?”

“Had to fly the county, maybe. The king, he weren’t best pleased at having outlaws in his forest. Cleaned it out proper, he did. Had‘em in bits hangin’ off the trees. We hoped as Scarry was one of ’em, but now we ain’t so sure acause if it ain’t Scarry, who is it? She’s well liked round here, our missus.”

“And he’s trying to kill her?”

“Don’t know so much about that. He’d a‘be wanting to frighten her to death first, that was more Scarry’s style. Me and Alf, we been watchin’ out for her, and we found an animal pit somebody dug along a path she takes often. Covered it was, but us filled un in. An’ then Godwyn, him as owns the Pilgrim and takes her out regular to Lazarus Island to tend the lepers, well, last week, his punt began to sink when they was halfway there and the both of ’em had to make their way back on foot across the marshes, the which is always chancy acause of the quicksand. Alf and me, we poled out later and raised that punt to look at her and found a neat hole in her bottom, like someone’d taken a gimlet to her. We reckon as whoever it was’d filled the hole with wax, like. And then there was…”

But the Bishop of Saint Albans had left him and was striding toward Adelia’s house.

Alf met him at the door. “’S all right, master, I checked the rooms afore she came. Ain’t nobody in there.”

“Thank you, Alf. I’ll take over now.” And he would, Christ’s blood he would. How many times did he have to rescue the wench before she saw reason?

The fear Rowley felt when Adelia was in danger always translated itself into fury against the woman herself. Why did she have to be what she was? (The fact that he might not have loved her if she hadn’t been was invariably set aside.)

Why, when they’d been free to marry, had she refused him? Her fault… a babble about her independence… an insistence that she would fail as wife to an ambitious man… her damned fault.

No, she’d had it her own way and Henry II had immediately pounced on him, insisting that he become a bishop-well, the king had needed one churchman to be on his side after the murder of Archbishop Becket-and he, in his resentment and agony, had acceded. He still blamed her for it.

They’d been thrown together on investigations since and found that neither could live without the other-too late for marriage, though, celibate as he was supposed to be, so they’d finished up in this illicit relationship which gave him no rights over either her or the child.

But this was the end of it. No more investigations for her, no more touching the sick, no more lepers- lepers , God Almighty. She must finish with it. And for the first time he had the means to see that she did.

Raging though he was, Rowley had enough sense to consider how he would break it to her and stopped in the doorway to consider.

The two Glastonbury lads were right; she should not be told that there was an assassin after her-but they were right for the wrong reason. Rowley knew his woman; an assassin wouldn’t scare her away from this country hole she’d dug herself into; she’d refuse to go. She’d spout her bloody duty to her bloody patients.

No, though he had an iron fist, he’d put a velvet glove on it, give her King Henry’s orders as if they were inducements…

But he was still very angry and he didn’t do it well. Going into her bedroom, he said: “Start packing. We’re leaving for Sarum in the morning.”

Adelia had prepared herself for something else. She was awaiting him in bed and, apart from a strip of lace over her dark blond hair, she was naked, bathed, and scented. Her lover was able to visit her so rarely that their encounters in bed were still rapturous. In fact, she’d been surprised to see him arrive on a Saturday; usually he was preparing for the next day’s service in some far-flung church or another.

In any case, he never shared her bed on Sundays-a ridiculous decision perhaps, and certainly hypocritical, but one which, knowing how it weighed on him to preach abstinence to his flock while not practicing it himself, Adelia was prepared to countenance… and, after all, it wasn’t midnight yet.

So, bewildered, she said: “What?”

“We’re leaving for Sarum in the morning. I came to tell you.”

“Oh, did you?” Not for love, then. “What for? And anyway, I can’t. I’ve got a patient over in Street who needs me.”

“We’re going.”

“Rowley, I am not.” She began to grope for her clothes; he was making her feel foolish without them.

“Captain Bolt is coming to escort us. The king wishes it.”

“Not again, oh God, not again.” Le roi le veult. For Adelia, the four most doom-laden words in any language; there was no appeal against them.

Drearily, she poked her head through her smock and looked at him. “What does he want this time?”

“He’s sending us to Sicily”

Ah, now that was different… “Sicily? Rowley, how wonderful. I shall see my parents. They can meet you and Allie.”

“Almeison will not be coming with us.”

“Of course she will, of course she will. I won’t leave her behind.”

“No. Henry’s keeping her here to make sure you come back to him.”

“But, Sicily… we could be away for a year or more. I can’t leave her that long.”

“She’ll be well looked after. She can have Gyltha with her, I’ve seen to that. They’ll be lodged with the queen at Sarum.” This was both suggestio falsi and suppressio veri on Rowley’s part. Henry Plantagenet would have been perfectly content for Allie to stay where she was, at Wolvercote in the care of Emma. It had been Rowley who’d begged him to allow the child to move in with Eleanor, and then got the queen to agree.