A Murderous Procession (6 page)

He had given Adelia what status he could, but the stiff smiles and bows being accorded to her from across the table suggested that the three women who gave them weren’t going to clasp her to their bosom any more than Dr. Arnulf intended to be Jonathan to Mansur’s David.

“Also,” the king said, “may I present to you the man who will sail you down the Mediterranean when you reach it, the Lord O’Donnell of the Skerries, my admiral …”

Here was another stranger who’d been attracting glances of curiosity through dinner. With his black, curly hair tied in a plait and more showing at the open neck of his jerkin, the man didn’t look like an admiral; he looked like a pirate. He had curiously long eyes as if he could face forward yet still see to the side; they had rested on Mansur with interest and even longer on Adelia, making her uncomfortable.

The company welcomed Admiral O’Donnell and prepared to sit down at last. But …

“It is by God’s grace that the Lord O’Donnell was in this country on business,” continued the king, mercilessly. “We have not seen him these two years, yet in the past he and I have sailed through storms that would have foundered a lesser shipmaster. His fleet will be awaiting you at Saint Gilles, when you reach it, to sail you down the coast of Italy. And while on board, he
shall be obeyed in all maritime matters.”

Good. Good. The man looked a fine rogue to be accompanying them overland, but if his ships were sound when they reached them … And now could they proceed with dinner?

No, they couldn’t.

“We owe our deep gratitude to our esteemed John, Bishop of Norwich, not only for his time and accomplishment in concluding the arrangements for our princess’s marriage with Sicily but in traveling the route that you will be taking and choosing the hostelries and monasteries to accommodate you on the way, an endeavor that has taken him no less than two years.”

Ah, their accommodation, yes, that was important. The company was pleased to toast the Bishop of Norwich. And now …

“Also,”
Henry said—he was enjoying this—”his nephew, Master Locusta Scaresdale, who accompanied him. Though Bishop John is returning to his diocese, Master Locusta has consented to be your outrider, going ahead to inform your various hosts of your arrival. I commend him to you.”

Locusta?
In Latin it meant lobster.

A dark-haired young man groaned. “William,” Adelia heard him whisper. “My name’s William.”

“Also,”
the king said, “out of our charity and in the service of God, we have given our permission to certain devout pilgrims to the Holy Land that they may cross the Channel with you this evening and travel by land in the safety of my daughter’s train.”

Adelia’s mouth twitched. Henry
loathed
pilgrims; they were exempt from paying any tax for the pilgrimage’s duration and left a hole in his revenue.

The guests, however, nodded their heads at their monarch’s piety even as they looked longingly at the board …

“And, of course,” the king added, “they will be on board the ships that take you into the Mediterranean.
I am sure
they will be extended every Christian kindness.”

He took time with his head cocked on one side, seeming to wonder if there was more to say, reluctantly decided that there wasn’t, and at last waved his guests to their food.

It was too late; the beef was cold and the dumplings had shriveled.

Even after the meal, the king’s guests were expected to mingle amicably, which, under his gaze, they tried to do. Face after face appeared in front of Mansur and Adelia. Two of Henry’s knights, Sir Nicholas Baicer and Lord Ivo of Aldergate, were gravely courteous; both of them weighty, more diplomats than fighters, they seemed unsurprised at Henry’s choice of a Saracen doctor for his daughter—close servants of the Plantagenet eventually stopped being astonished at what he did.

Most of the other guests said polite things with a smile that didn’t stretch to the eyes; ladies-in-waiting, the pirate-admiral, clerics.

Father Guy didn’t bother to smile, though his colleague, Father Adalburt did—but he smiled at everything to the point of simplemindedness. He had never been out of England before, he told them.

“Is not this exciting? But how can you both be Sicilians when you are different colors?”

Adelia tried to explain the many cultures and races that the chaplain would encounter in Sicily “You will find it a very different country from this, Father.”

“Will I? But everybody there worships our Lord, I hope.”

Patiently, Adelia explained that there were as many forms of religion as there were races.

This upset him.
“Ultima Thule,”
he exclaimed. “And we take our dear princess there to marry?
Salvam fac reginam, O Domine.”

As they watched him scurry away, the Bishop of Saint Albans came up, grinning. “I see on your faces the look of people who’ve been talking to Father Adalburt.”

“Where does such a buffoon come from?” Mansur asked in Arabic.

“Scar Fell, I believe. Somewhere in the Lake District, anyway.”

“And why?”

“The Bishop of Winchester is his godfather and employs him out of charity. The thing to do is regard him as a holy fool and enjoy him. I do.”

With meaning, Adelia said, “I am not enjoying anything.”

“Not forgiven me yet, then?”

“No.”

“You will. I’m too charming to withstand for long.” He winked at her and walked off to talk to Lord Ivo.

The trouble is you are,
Adelia thought. He was in plain clothes today, which suited him better than a bishop’s regalia: thigh boots, swirling cloak, a peacock’s feather in his cap. Big, strong, she never knew if he towered among other men in fact, or only in her eyes. Though, in working for the Plantagenet, they’d been through hell together, he’d always been able to make her laugh.

But not this time.
In any case, their meetings and conversation would be restricted from here on in; he could hardly be seen to single out a woman who was apparently nothing to him.
Well, that suits me.

The friendliest reception given to the Arab and Adelia came from Bishop John of Norwich and his nephew; having sojourned in Sicily for so long, they were eager to exchange experiences with two of its natives.

They’d made maps of Joanna’s forthcoming route, which they were distributing, long thin scrolls of parchment like scarves on which were drawn each accommodating castle or hospice, the roads between them marked with the bridges, borders, and tolls to be encountered. Adelia and Mansur were asked for their approval.

Pleased to be consulted, the two Sicilians studied the map. “We’re not going via the Alps, then?” Adelia asked.

That was the most straightforward route. Coming to England, she’d traveled it in reverse, by boat from Salerno up the Italian coast to Genoa, through the Mont Cenis pass into France and thence to the Channel.

Now, she saw, they would be going overland via the extreme west, hugging the edge of the Atlantic, down through Aquitaine, to Saint Gilles on the Mediterranean coast, where they’d board ship for Sicily It would take longer and involve somewhat more time at sea—Adelia still remembered with discomfort the Mediterranean storm that had nearly capsized the boat taking her to Genoa; she didn’t like ocean voyages.

“We decided the route through Northern Italy would be a little too exciting for the princess, didn’t we, my lord bishop?” Locusta said.

His uncle smiled back at him. “We did indeed. The peace between the Lombards and Barbarossa is a little too fragile; we can’t allow Joanna into a war. From Saint Gilles you will travel by ship all the way to Sicily”

“I see. Then I think, my Lord Mansur thinks, that you have done excellently”

“Thank you.” The bishop looked at his nephew. “Let us hope it goes according to plan for you, eh, Locusta?”

The young man sighed.
“Homo proponit
,
sed Deus disponit.
We can only hope.”

Adelia smiled at the young man. “Locusta?”

“I was christened William, lady” He shook a finger in mock disapprobation at the bishop. “But it seems I emerged from the womb so angular and covered in black hair that my good uncle here nicknamed me for a lobster before it is boiled. Locusta I was and Locusta, I fear, I must remain.”

At the door, the Bishop of Winchester was agitatedly telling Admiral O’Donnell, “But they are the wrong sort of boats….”

Hearing disputation, Henry approached them. Adelia, about to leave the room, stopped to listen.

The bishop appealed to the king. “This person, my lord … I have been to the harbor … this person is taking us over the Channel in the wrong sort of boats.”

“Wrong sort of boats, O’Donnell?”

The seaman shrugged. He was very tall. “My lord, what’s wrong is the wind. If it fails to rise, my oarsmen will be rowing us across the Channel.” He looked down at the bishop. “The little fella here is complaining at the lack of castles. . . .”

“Indeed, indeed,” the bishop said. “There should be castles, turrets on our boat, it is too plain. One at the front, one at the back, for defense against pirates …”

“I believe ‘fore and aft’ is the correct expression,” Henry said. “What pirates? Are you aware of any pirates in my Channel, O’Donnell?”

“I am not, me lord. Didn’t you and I clear it of the bastards long ago? However, if the little fella wants castles, he can have castles, for they’re a marvelous way of capsizing a boat in a storm—but not on my fokking ships he doesn’t.”

Henry took the bishop by the elbow. “You see, my lord, Admiral O’Donnell may be a foulmouthed, disrespectful, opinionated limb of Satan and, what’s worse, an Irishman, but at sea he’s Neptune and nobody knows the English seas better—nor the Mediterranean, come to that.” He turned back to O’Donnell. “Is that where you’ve been these last two years?”

There was a gleam of white teeth.
“A mari usque ad mare.
And in Christian company, sure enough. Enriching me soul ferrying crusaders to the Holy Land.”

“Enriching your pocket, you mean. God’s eyes, I should have been a bloody sailor. Well, let us go and see if we can whistle up a breeze.”

O’Donnell saw Adelia watching him and gave an elaborate bow.

So this man would be accompanying them overland on their journey to the Mediterranean, would he? She wished he wasn’t; he made her uncomfortable; she didn’t know why; there was something about him…

On the way out of the door, she was accosted by the princess’s ladies-in-waiting. They were young, beautiful, and exquisitely dressed—Adelia was glad she was in Emma’s pretty bliaut and cloak—and might have been sisters except that Mistress Blanche, as her name indicated, was fair, the other two dark. Suddenly friendly, they spoke as if of one mind, like triplets. “My
dear,”
trilled Lady Petronilla in an Aquitanian accent, “you have no maid with you? Such a misfortune. How did it happen?”

“Allow us to remedy that situation for you,” said Lady Beatrix, another one from Aquitaine to judge from her speech. “We can, can’t we, Blanche?”

“The moment the king mentioned your lack, it came to us.” Lady Petronilla snapped her fingers at a slight figure standing in the doorway “So fortunate that we have such a one who is surplus to our requirements. The girl was attached to the household of my sister-in-law, Lady Kenilworth, you know, who no longer has need of her.”

“We gift her to you,” Lady Beatrix said, barely suppressing a giggle.

The gift came forward, tripped over its overlong skirt, and fell down.

“English, I fear,” Mistress Blanche said in a stage whisper, “but we are sure she will suit you admirably”

“Thank you,” Adelia said, bewildered.

That was too much for them; they turned and walked away, their shoulders shaking.

Adelia helped her new maid to her feet. “What’s your name?”

“Boggart, ladyship, I’m Boggart.”

“Boggart? It can’t be your
name.”

Here in England, a boggart was a clumsy and malicious household sprite that caused milk to sour, objects to disappear, and animals to go lame. This child, only fifteen if she was a day, looked innocent enough with her round, freckled face and wide blue eyes.

“I think so, ladyship,” Boggart said, cheerfully. “Never known no other.”

“But what were you christened?”

“Don’t know as I was, ladyship.”

Oh, dear. Adelia regarded her new acquisition; the girl was clean but her small hands were those of an unlikely lady’s maid, being calloused and with grime in the wrinkles of the knuckles that no scrubbing could remove. Yet a lady’s maid was required on this journey, if only to provide Adelia with necessary status. “Well, um, Boggart, are you willing to enter my service?”

“Eh?” From the girl’s look of incomprehension, it seemed she was puzzled by being given an option. “What’d I have to do?”

“Lord, I don’t know.” Adelia, never having had a lady’s maid as such, was flummoxed; Gyltha had run her household with a rod of iron and such efficiency that Adelia’s requirements had been seen to almost without her noticing. What
did
ladies’ maids do?

“I could clean your boots,” Boggart said, eagerly. “I’m a wonderful boot cleaner.”

Adelia sighed. The Aquitanian ladies had given her a pig in a poke. They’d wanted rid of this child; the wonder was why they’d brought her along in the first place. But the sudden hope in the poor little thing’s eyes made rejection of her unthinkable.

“I belong to you now, then, do I, ladyship?”

“You don’t
belong
to anybody. I’m asking you if you’d like to enter my employment.”

Again the look of incomprehension. Nobody had told Boggart that slavery had been abolished in his lands by William the Conqueror, that she was not a parcel to be passed from hand to hand. “I’m a wonderful boot cleaner,” she repeated.

Adelia gave another sigh. “I suppose that’ll do to start with.”

With Boggart trailing behind her like a puppy, she followed the rest of the guests out onto the ramparts.

Southampton had become a major port, trading good English wool with Normandy in return for wine, and today its harbor was busy with ships coming in and those waiting to go out once there was wind.