A Murderous Procession (8 page)

“So much for
him
comin’ yere,” her nurse said, vengefully “Don’t do no good at all, do he? Bloody Saracen.”

“Tell them,” Mansur said. “Some powdered ginger, wrap her up warm, and take her on deck.”

Adelia told them. Obviously, the child would mend once she was on land, but this wasn’t about seasickness, it was a test to see whether or not she herself could do her job should the princess ever become truly ill. Would they listen to Mansur?

They didn’t. Fortunately for the princess, it was discovered that Dr. Arnulf’s leeches had been wrongly stowed in the other ship.

However, a saintly knuckle was bound to Joanna’s midriff and ginger administered, but only on the nurse’s say-so. Disregarded, Adelia and Mansur left the cabin.

Adelia lurched over to the ship’s side. “Damn, damn,
dammit
.”

“Trouble?” The Bishop of Saint Albans was behind her.

She didn’t look round. “They’re not taking any notice of us.”

“We’ll see about that.”

A minute later, she heard his voice coming from the princess’s cabin; the name of the king was mentioned several times.

“He will right things for us,” Mansur said.

“He does everything right,” Adelia said bitterly, “except parting me from my daughter.”

“It will not hurt her.” For the first time Mansur showed that he, too, thought Allie had been allowed to run wild. “Nor could he permit you to stay with Lady Emma. You were at risk.”

“Eh?”

He told her everything. Of the danger she’d been in while in Somerset from an unknown assailant, of Rowley desperate concern.

Because she’d been unaware, she had difficulty in believing him. Or Will and Alf, for that matter; good men but not the most reliable of sources.

Anyway, in Mansur’s rippling Arabic it sounded like a tale from
One Thousand and One Nights
... a demon attempting to kill her, two faithful
fellahin
looking out for her …

“But who?
Why
?” She had no enemies.

“The Will and the Alf believed it to be the wolf man’s beloved …” Here Mansur spat into the sea. “... the one called Slurry? Sparry?”

“Scarry?” She hadn’t spoken the name in two years; she remembered the Latin lament that had shaken the trees as he’d cradled the dead Wolf in his arms.
Te amo. Te amo.

“Oh, that’s nonsense. The man’s dead. If you remember, Captain Bolt cleared the forest.” And without mercy. Bits of the outlaws had hung from trees for days.

“The bishop does not think so. He believed the Will and the Alf.”

“Why didn’t Rowley
tell
me?”

Mansur shrugged. “He only told me on the way to Sarum.”

“But why didn’t he tell
me?”

“You would not speak to him. Perhaps it is better in any case that you did not know until we reached Normandy, you might not have left.”

“Of course I wouldn’t have left.” Always supposing there was a maniac after her … “He wouldn’t hurt Allie, would he?”

The Arab looked down at her. “Why should he do that? You imagine vain things. Allie is safe enough in Sarum, where her father has put her.”

Logic had little application to fear, but Adelia tried to apply it because, at one level, she knew her friend was right.

“Now you will forgive the bishop,” Mansur said.

In the sense that Rowley had placed their daughter in the charge of Queen Eleanor against the wishes of herself, nothing had changed. But if there were an assassin roaming Somerset—and Adelia still had trouble believing it—Allie was safely out of his way

What was explained was Rowley’s anger that night; he’d always shown fury when he was frightened for her. Stupid man, she thought, as her own anger drained away.

Which left the dilemma that when they could have been friendly together, she had refused. Now that she would, they had no opportunity to; she dare not compromise him, nor could he compromise himself.

“Oh, damnation,” she said, wearily

A shivering princess emerged on deck, wrapped round by a thick cloak and her nurse’s arm, to be helped to windward—presumably because it was the farthest side from Mansur and Adelia.

At that another voice took command. “No, no, the little one will be better to leeward, d’ye see,” Admiral O’Donnell said. “Over this side what comes up tends to fly back in your face.”

Joanna was helped across the deck and her hands placed about a cleat. “Hang onto that,
mavourneen,
and fix your dear eyes on the horizon. Is that better now?”

Wanly, the princess nodded that it was.

“But maybe,” the O’Donnell said, sliding his eyes toward Adelia, “we should dispense with the little dog.”

Adelia glanced down at her feet where Ward, looking as wan as the princess, had put his head on her shoes and was exuding a smell that competed against the freshness of wind and sea.

There had already been complaints about him from the ladies-in-waiting with whom Adelia had shared the night—”He’ll give
our
little dogs fleas.” “
Our
little dogs are perfumed.”—and she’d been compelled to shut him outside on deck where, tied to a stanchion, he’d whined away the hours at being parted from the mistress with whom he’d only just been reunited.

Shrugging, she turned away, Ward staggering after her on unsteady legs.

So the battle of the doctors had been won—with Rowley’s help.

Adelia wondered if the royal nurse, obviously a powerful figure in Joanna’s life, would prove an ally now that Mansur’s advice had triumphed.

It appeared that she would not. Across the width of the deck, Edeva, her substantial Irish figure looming over her charge, could be heard stating in a loud mutter that “darkies” would only lay hands on “my darling” over her dead body

AT
THE
MOUTH
of the Orne, a galloper was sent ahead to Caen while the two ships stopped to pretty themselves. Sails were taken down, the salt of the Channel cleansed from woodwork, gilding was polished, bunting was spread, musicians readied their instruments, oarsmen settled into their benches. The company arrayed itself on deck. A recovered Joanna, dressed in white and gold, was placed on a raised throne and the sun shone on her.

Father Adalburt was expressing his surprise at Normandy’s similarity to England. “Look, look,” he kept saying, “fields and … and reeds. And
there
. . . wading birds just like those at home. Who would have thought it? Dear Lord, how wondrous are Thy works.”

Slowly, with oars dimpling the water in unison, and to the sound of flute and tabors, they began to glide down the river from which the Norman warships of William the Conqueror had set out for England more than a hundred years before.

On the banks, reed cutters dropped their scythes to watch, and herdsmen left their cows, calling to their wives and children to come and see these unearthly swans go by

As the ships entered the harbor, the musicians on board changed their instruments to trumpets and blew a fanfare that was answered by a line of tabarded heralds on the quay.

Dressed in its best, Caen’s entire nobility had turned out to greet its Plantagenet princess.

It might have saved itself the trouble; Joanna had no eyes for anyone but the young man robed in peacock colors in the forefront of the crowd. Showing animation for the first time, she bounced, squeaking with pleasure. “Henry!”

Crowned eight years ago when his father had feared for the succession, the Young King was glorious, resembling his mother in his beauty and his father not at all.

And
kind
, Adelia thought, as Joanna ran across the lowered gang-plank to be picked up and whirled around in her brother’s arms, both of them abandoning royal dignity Here was someone showing more care for the girl than the parents who had let her go so easily.

And charming. Everybody on board the royal boat, from bishop to oarsmen, was thanked for his sister’s safe arrival in Normandy. He was gracious to Mansur … “My lord, your fame in medicine precedes you.” To Adelia he said: “Mistress, we are honored by a lady so knowledgeable in Arabic. Have you spoken it long?”

By the time Adelia had risen from her deep bow and was ready to reply, he had passed on to the next recipient of his attention. She didn’t mind; it had been nice of him to distinguish her by asking. But she was left with an impression of lightness, an easiness without depth. A fine prince, maybe, but not a king. A symbol, not an administrator.

There was the trouble, she thought. When he was this boy’s age, Henry Plantagenet had fought for and won the throne of England and already given it a stability that was the envy of monarchs everywhere.

Young Henry, on the other hand, had been passed an easy crown without responsibility, because he himself either had none or wasn’t ready for it, leaving him with the trappings of kingship and no means to apply them, a situation that, egged on by Eleanor, had caused resentment and, eventually, rebellion.

Father and son had since exchanged the kiss of peace—but at a price. According to Rowley, Young Henry’s return to the fold had been bought with the enormous stipend of a hundred pounds of Angevin money a day Which, from the look of it, he was spending. His retinue as they progressed toward the Abbaye-aux-Hommes and its church of Saint Etienne for a service to greet Joanna included at least fifty noisy young knights complete with squires, all gorgeously dressed and mounted. To the disapproval of the staid Sir Nicholas Baicer and Lord Ivo, they chattered and laughed throughout the ceremony so that it was difficult to distinguish the words of the mass. Nor did their Young King attempt to quiet them.

Adelia, however, was encouraged; with an escort as large as this, she thought, the safety of the journey to Sicily was ensured.

She said so to Captain Bolt as she emerged from the church to find him and a troop of his men waiting outside, ready to escort her and the ladies of the party from the Abbaye-aux-Hommes to the Abbaye-aux-Dames, where they would spend the night, Caen being unique in having two great convents, one for men, one for women, standing on either side of the city; the first built by William the Conqueror and the second by his wife, Matilda, both in expiation of their sin of marrying each other against the law of consanguinity—they’d been cousins.

“Them,”
Captain Bolt responded with all the contempt of a professional soldier for men who paid for the land they held of the king by a knightly service that allowed them to go home after thirty days. “No discipline. See how they behaved in church? Shocking it was.”

WARD
SPENT
THE
NIGHT
somewhere in the bowels of the nunnery with Boggart. Dog and maid had become delighted with each other, Boggart because, for the first time in her life she had something, however smelly, on which to lavish affection, and Ward because Boggart, though lacking skill as a lady’s attendant, was a marvel at stealing food from kitchens with which to feed him.

That’s one problem solved, then,
Adelia thought, as she climbed wearily into the large bed already containing Lady Beatrix, Lady Petronilla, and Mistress Blanche.
Dear Lord, keep Allie safe and don’t let her be missing me as much as I’m missing her.

THE
MORNING
BROUGHT
its own problem, a larger one.

The ladies of the party had risen early to be escorted across Caen to the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, where they were now gathered in its courtyard waiting for the great journey to Sicily to properly begin.

And waited.

Loud and angry voices could be heard coming from inside the monastery, the Bishop of Saint Albans’s louder and angrier than anyone’s.

At last he emerged, flanked by Lord Ivo and Sir Nicholas Baicer, both looking nearly as thunderous as he did. He bowed to Joanna. “My lady, I must inform you that the Young King has gone to Falaise. For a tournament, apparently And all his knights with him. He begs you to expect his return in a few days.”

What the princess replied was inaudible, but Adelia heard Lady Priscilla exclaim, “A tournament, how I adore tournaments. Oh, that he might have taken us with him.”

A few
days? It might not matter to that young woman how long the journey took—she had no child waiting for her to come back.

As for the Young King … it was known that he was addicted to tournaments, but this was irresponsibility; what an abrogation of duty.

Adelia had been present at a tournament once during a visit to Emma’s Normandy manor near Calais and, for her, that had been one tournament too many. They were called entertainments, two teams of knights hacking away at each other in what was supposed to be a mock battle, but during the melee at Calais four young men had been killed and fifteen others permanently maimed.

The attraction for the victors was in holding the defeated to ransom, along with their armor and horses—a way of earning so much money that as many as several hundred eager knights would take part, not only wasting precious lives but trampling peasants’ crops for miles around. Henry in his wisdom had banned them from England but here, it seemed, under the nominal rule of the Young King, they were still legal.

She saw Captain Bolt talking with Rowley and, when he’d finished, went up to him. “What can be done?”

“Nothing.” Bolt was tight-lipped with fury. “We wait.”

They waited for four days, during which Caen’s welcome to the princess and her large company began to drain away—like its resources.

On the fifth day a messenger was sent to Falaise to ask the Young King when he was expecting to return.

Again, Adelia approached Captain Bolt. “What’s happened?”

“The messenger had to go on to Rouen. That young b …” Bolt took in a long breath. “... the Young King’s heard as there’s another big tournament there and he’s off to fight in it.”

“Rouen’s, what, eighty miles away What are we going to do?”

“I dunno, mistress. The bishops and Sir Nicholas and Lord Ivo are in conference about it.”

Master Locusta, it appeared, was frantic that his arrangements with the castles and monasteries scheduled to receive them on the way would be put out. “I’ve no wish to speak ill of the Young King, but
really
. . . .”