Ariana Franklin: A Murderous Procession aka The Assassin

Rowley charged out of his stall and began running, stripping off his cope as he went. He sent his miter spinning onto the altar steps, his jeweled crook of office still bouncing and clattering on the stones of the nave for some seconds after he’d disappeared out of the cathedral’s great front door, leaving a shocked and staring congregation behind him.

THE MARIONETTE-MAKER, a fat and elderly bearded Greek, was being difficult. “Signora, the knights, yes, I have plenty of those, but of the beasts I have only the two my sons are manipulating this moment. They are a draw, a favorite with children, I cannot let those last two go until I have made more.”

It was a ploy, of course. The damned man was going to put up the price; he’d seen her standing outside his booth before she came in, slavering over the dancing, kicking camel and mule; seen, too, that she was richly dressed, despite the unlovely dog to which her dangling sleeve was attached.

The booth was basically a long, thin canvas tent and smelled of paint and wood shavings. At this end, directly behind the stage, the backsides of two younger men waggled as they leaned over its little proscenium arch, expertly working the strings of the puppets for the benefit of the openmouthed children and adults outside who watched them. At the other end, the tent’s flaps were pulled up to let in light on a long bench on which lay half-finished figures amidst a complexity of struts and string.

Signor Feodor had sat her down when she’d entered, offered her a glass of sherbet, and got ready for the bargaining without which no sale in La Kalsa was complete.

She sipped her drink: “How much, Signor?”

“For the knights, a gold tari. For the animals, two.”

“Each?”

He spread his hands. “What would you, Signora? The articulation to make them kick and bite is complex. Also, as I say, I am reluctant to let them go.”

It was a ridiculous price. Normally, she’d have pretended to walk out of the shop, and he’d have called her back with a lower offer, and she’d have pretended to leave again, and he’d have called her back… but it would take time that she didn’t have-while he did.

“Three tari for the lot,” she said.

“You would ruin me, Signora? Five.”

“Four.”

“Four and a half, and I am a fool to myself.”

“Done,” she said. “Wrap them up.”

She’d surprised him; he’d have gone down to three and a half. He was on his feet in a second, tapping the son pulling the animals’ strings on his rump. “We have a sale, Eneas.”

Because she’d overpaid, much grateful attention was given to parceling the puppets. She would be traveling far with them? Then they must be encased in wool to prevent damage. And the lucky recipient? A girl? Allow us to include a box of Greek delight for her…

Ward was pulling at her sleeve and making the noise in his throat that indicated he’d smelled something or somebody he knew and liked. Still sitting with the glass in her hand, Adelia turned her head to peer through the narrow gaps in the calico ribbons that hung over the booth’s entrance to keep out flies.

The piazza was beginning to celebrate its king’s wedding; flares were being lit, merchants were redoubling their efforts to sell plaster-cast depictions of a crowned bride and groom, drink stalls were doing a roaring trade, and, in the square’s center, a dais was being put together for a band to accompany the night’s dancing.

“Who’ve you seen, you silly dog?”

Then she saw who it was because his was the only figure in the piazza that was totally still. A man she knew was standing on the far side of the piazza under a fan-shaped palm tree, looking toward the booth, where the two remaining marionettes were still jouncing.

He and she had traveled the same one thousand miles-much of it together.

“Poor thing, he’s ill” was her first thought; his hair, which was capless, had been allowed to grow bushy, his robe was worn ragged, while his face had the fixity of suffering.

Adelia got up to go and greet him. As she did it, the wind gusted, swaying the fronds of the man’s palm tree, raising his hair, and sending shade and light flickering over him as, once, they had flickered over a wild figure in the glade of a Somerset forest, striping his face as it had been striped then.

The eyes gleamed when the light caught them, then went dark; they weren’t staring at the marionettes; it was the booth’s curtain strips. When the same gust of wind that had revealed him blew them aside to reveal her, he smiled. She saw his teeth. And the knife in his hand.

She couldn’t move.

“There, Signora. Signora?”

The string handle of a heavy parcel was being slipped over the untrammeled wrist of her left arm. Still she didn’t move.

All this way, destroying as he went, unsuspected. He’d killed. He’d smiled and killed… who? She was unable to remember, only that they were dead. Now it was her turn.

A group of people moved, chattering, across the square, blanking him out for a moment. When they’d gone, the space beneath the palm tree was empty.

She began to move backward slowly, pulling Ward with her, the parcel weighing on her other arm as it groped for any obstruction behind her. It was a shrinking away, not so much through terror for herself-though she was terrified-as through a dreadful revulsion. That thing out there was disordered, no longer human, more a giant poisonous insect unable to control itself; its antennae had discovered her and its fangs would sink into her whether or not there were people around to watch.

“ Get away. Get away .” She didn’t know if she said it to the creature or herself.

“Signora?”

She kept backing off until she bumped into the marionette table. Then she turned and began running for the opening at the rear of the tent, Ward galloping beside her.

She was in an alley. Turn left, yes-if she turned left and left again she would be farther down the piazza. The antennae would wave and not locate her. Run. She’d run with everything she had, regain the cathedral and be safe.

She swung left, but there was no other turning to the left, only another alley going to the right. She took it. Again, no left turn.

She ran, doubled back, took a narrow cut between some houses where crumbling balconies overhead formed a roof that gave an echo to her running footsteps-and, she thought in her panic, somebody else’s.

There was no one around. Everybody had gone to the main streets to join in the celebrations. The noise of music and singing faded into quiet as Adelia became lost in the labyrinth that was the oldest and poorest part of La Kalsa…

ROWLEY HURLED HIMSELF through the streets, shoving people out of the way, yelling for anybody who’d seen a lady and a dog. A garishly dressed woman held out her arms to him. “A lady and a dog,” he shouted at her. She laughed, and he pushed her off.

A beggar obstructed him and Rowley knocked him flying before he realized the man had nodded. He went back and hauled the wretch to his feet. “A woman and a dog.”

“Dressed pretty, was she? Her headed that way, sir. Have pity on an old crusader, sir.” With one hand, the beggar pointed toward La Kalsa’s piazza and extended the other for money

He didn’t get any.

Running, Rowley entered the piazza. It was full of men, women, and children dancing. Shouting for Adelia, he broke through prancing circles of dancers that merely reformed behind him.

Jesus Christ, where was she? What the hell had she come here for? If it was her.

He began looking into shop fronts. “A lady and a dog? Has she been here?”

And then, because God was good, a fat fellow standing outside a marionette booth beckoned him over. “The lady with the dog?”