“Come for a walk.”
Followed by Ward, they strolled down the hill together, Adelia glancing anxiously back in case one of her patients suffered a mishap in her absence. The sun was chilly. They sat down under the bare branches of a lonely fig tree.
Rowley took her hand. “Sweetheart, at last we’re in touch with the outside world. Our messenger met up with King Henry at Périgord. I’m being sent away I’ve got to go ahead. The trouble with Angouleme has stirred up the southern lords....”
He was leaving her. That was all she heard before the old, old misery took her in its jaws. He was going. Even such snatched moments as they’d had together were to be taken away
He went on talking, explaining the region’s constantly shifting and bloody history “We’re approaching the southernmost boundary of Henry’s empire,” he told her. “From here on we’ll be in dragon country.”
He spoke of the dragon lords who took any opportunity to ride to war and invade their neighbor, of alliances kept and broken, of counts, viscounts, princes, Alfonso of Aragon, Roger of Carcassonne, Raymond of Toulouse, D’Albi ... the names drifted up into the branches above her, translating themselves into rapine and corpses.
“So there it is,” he said. “I have to make sure Joanna has safe conduct through to Saint Gilles. There’s to be an attempt at a peace conference at Carcassonne....”
“When are you going?” she asked.
“Tomorrow And ...” His fists clenched. “I won’t be coming back.”
“Not coming back?”
He reached into his robe and brought out a parchment from which dangled a heavy red seal. “Read this.”
She began reading: “To our best beloved Rowley, Bishop of Saint Albans, greetings in the Lord from Henry, King of the English, Lord of Normandy and Aquitaine ...” She skimmed through the titles; they could take forever. “Know that we have need of your esteemed service in Lombardy....”
She handed it back. “Just tell me.”
It was politics. It was to do with Emperor Barbarossa and the Lombardians, with popes, anti-popes, staying on good terms with some, undermining others.”
She stopped listening. Henry The king. Always his king. Above God, above everything: Henry Plantagenet.
“You do see, sweetheart,” he said desperately, “Henry can’t afford trouble in Northern Italy Diplomacy and guile are necessary” He looked at her and became angry. “Peace, mistress. Stopping people dying. I’ve got to go.”
“I know.”
In silence, they watched a robin hopping incautiously near their feet in a search for worms.
“Will we meet in Sicily?” she asked eventually
“No. I’ll be there for the wedding, I hope, but tomorrow you’re going straight back to England, you and Mansur. I’ve arranged with Captain Bolt ...”
She sat up, making the robin flutter away “I am not. You know I want to go, but Henry entrusted Joanna’s health to me ...”
“Yes, you bloody well are. There’s somebody in her household means you harm, and I’m not just talking about Father Guy You go tomorrow”
He could answer the call of his duty, but hers was of no account. By God, she’d been right not to marry him; he’d have stifled her.
He said: “And the sooner you get away from those women back there, the better.”
“I’ll have you know, those two nuns are better Christians than ...”
“They’re not nuns,” he said. “They’re Cathars.”
Cathars.
She stopped shouting at him. Cathars. Another word that carried disturbance with it. A name hardly heard in England, nor in Sicily for that matter, but it brought a response of unease from somewhere in her memory. “Cathars? Aren’t they heretics?”
“Yes, they damn well are. I’d no idea their heresy had spread so far north. Of course they don’t eat meat; it’s forbidden them. Didn’t you notice neither of those women wears a cross? Which reminds me, I meant to replace yours—this is dangerous territory to be without one. There’s bishops around here would as soon put a Cathar on the fire as kindling.” He leaned back and regarded her without enthusiasm. “They’d throw you, if they saw you now. What the hell are you wearing?”
“Aelith lent Boggart and me some of their robes. One felt the cowshed was not the place for Emma’s satins. Rowley, we’ve been trying to save lives. Ermengarde, Aelith, they’re good women; they’ve worked like mules. If Christianity isn’t about tending the sick, what is it about?”
“It’s not about Cathars calling us the Church of Satan, and refusing to pay their bloody tithes because they say we’re all corrupted by riches.”
A diamond flash of the bishop’s seal ring on his finger as he gestured made Adelia’s lips twitch; he saw it and tucked his hands into the folds of his excellent robe, like a boy whose fingers had been raiding a jam pot.
“Well ...” he said. “Well, the point is ... the point is that, now it’s turned out not to be the plague, Joanna, like a good little princess, has decided to come and pay a royal visit to her faithful servants. When she does, she’ll bring Winchester with her to give his blessing to the sick and he’ll bring the chaplains. For Christ’s sake, imagine what Father Guy will do when he realizes that you and the others have been sojourning with a couple of heretics who reject the Trinity ... God’s eyes, Adelia, they believe in reincarnation. Reincarnation ... I ask you.”
She got to her feet; the last thing she must do was bring trouble on two women who’d been so kind. “Tell Joanna she needn’t visit. Most of the patients should be ready to travel this afternoon if you send us some carts. The Irishman can go with them. I’ll come along with the rest tomorrow”
“And then set out for England?” he insisted. When she hesitated, he said: “I’ve spoken to Mansur. He agrees.”
In which case he’d manacled her, just as he had at Poitiers. Without Mansur she had no standing. “Damn you,” she said.
“Good.” He took up the letter again; he had the look he wore when he was about to disarm her. “So now, I’ll read you Henry’s postscript. “And to my daughter’s lady Arabic speaker, her kings greetings. She is to know that a certain child at Sarum progresses well under the care of the queen and a dragon of the name of Gyltha with whom she is acquainted.”
“Oh.” Adelia sat down. “Oh. She’s well. They’re both well.”
“Less than a month ago.” He was pleased with himself. “Henry’s messengers travel fast.”
She began pummeling him in her joy. “You couldn’t have read that first, could you? To hell with Barbarossa and Lombards and popes, the most important thing in it was about our daughter.”
He caught her hands and imprisoned them in his. “You’ll miss me until I get back to England,” he said.
“No, I won’t.”
“You will. You adore me.”
And the trouble was that she would, and did.
CARTS WERE SENT, and by evening the cowshed hospital was cleared of all patients except Ulf and Rankin who, Adelia felt, could do with another night’s rest.
She went down to the road to watch the little procession wind its way toward the mountains that hid Figères. In the light of the torches they carried, she could see hands that she’d held when they were suffering waving to her. She waved back and saw the O’Donnell sweep off his cap in salute.
The Irishman had been curiously reluctant to go. “I’m not happy we should be leaving you behind, mistress. Master Ulf’s been telling me there’s a mysterious killer been stalking you like a fox after a chicken.”
“Has he indeed?” She’d have a word with Ulf. “The fox exists more in that lad’s imagination than real life. But we’ll be leaving ourselves tomorrow. And I understand that you’re needed at Figères right away”
“So my lord Saint Albans tells me.”
“Then you must go.” (From the first, Rowley had looked with a jaundiced eye on what he called the admiral’s wish to soothe the fevered brow of Adelia’s patients. “Want
s you to soothe his fevered prick, more like,” he’d said.)
If the summons to Figères was Rowley’s ruse to prevent the O’Donnell spending one more night in her company, she was relieved by it; helpful as he’d been, the Irishman still made her feel uncomfortable; his eyes were too long, and they watched her too much.
“Will you not at least keep Deniz by you?” he’d asked.
“No.” She’d been sharper than she meant to be. “I have Mansur and Ulf and Rankin.” Then, because in truth she didn’t know what she’d have done without him and his Turk, she said: “We are eternally grateful to you both.”
He spread his hands. “Ipsa quidem pretium virtus sibi, mistress. Virtue is its own reward.”
He wasn’t cast down by her refusal; he went off singing. Even when the carts had disappeared into the twilight, she could still hear his voice:
But they couldn’t keep time on the cold earthen floor
So to humor the music, they danced on the door.
Walking back up the track, she stopped at the cowshed to make sure that Ulf and Rankin were warm enough by the fire that Mansur had built for them, then went on up to the nuns’ cottage.
In telling her about Cathar belief, Rowley had expected her to be as indignant as he was. He was, in his way, a very orthodox Catholic, which, she supposed, a bishop had to be.
She’d found the Cathar faith strange, certainly, but then she found some of the precepts held by the established Church to be as strange. The Trinity, for example; she’d never been able to get her mind to encompass that precept. It was in the Cathars’ favor that they rejected it.
To Cathars, it appeared, the material world was the devil’s creation. The soul had to be liberated from it by living a pure life so that, when the body died, it could be returned to the light of Heaven which was its proper destination.
Since God wouldn’t have sent his son to live bodily amongst evil, Christ had been a spirit and, therefore, could not have suffered crucifixion—hence their refusal to recognize or wear the cross.
“And they recognize women priests as well as male,” Rowley’d said, shaking his head. “Parfaits, they call them. Perfect, God give me strength.”
“Tut-tut,” she’d said. “Women priests. Enough to make the angels weep.”
“Enough to make me weep. And take that look off your face.” Reaching the cottage now, she saw that Sister Ermengarde was speaking to someone who was only a shape in the orchard, so she sat down on a bench by the front door to wait for her.
Boggart was sitting in the open doorway, using the light from the room behind her to practice stitching, using a threaded bone needle on a scrap of cloth given her by Ermengarde, who’d been horrified to learn that the girl couldn’t sew.
“The bishop’s making plans to send you, me, and Mansur home tomorrow,” Adelia told her. “Will you be glad to see England again?”
Boggart’s response was immediate. “He won’t get me again, will he?”
Who? Oh, poor child, the rapist. “No, he damn well won’t. If nothing else, we’re under the protection of the king now. If that man so much as looks in your direction, which he won’t, Henry will cut off his whatsits and fry them with parsley.”
“ ‘At’s good,” Boggart said in relief. “Been a rare thing, though, ain’t it, traveling with royalty an’ seeing all these wonders? Still, it’ll be nice to meet up with your Allie.”
“Yes, yes it will.”
From up here it was possible to see a faded violet flush behind the western mountains still left by the sun’s departure, but it was cold and she was glad of her cloak
Ermengarde joined her on the bench. “That was a friend of ours come to warn us. Aelith and I must leave this place tomorrow. The word is that the Church is hunting for us. Splendid. It means we’ve frightened the devils. Of course, you and yours are welcome to stay on here as long as you like.”
“I know we are.” Adelia put out her hand to touch Ermengarde’s. “But we’re ready to go now. I’m leaving for England myself tomorrow. I’m sorry you have trouble.”
It was as if the two women knew each other well, but, actually, it was almost the first time they’d been able to sit together and converse about something other than their patients.
From behind them in the cottage came the sibilant, feminine sounds of sweeping and scurrying as Aelith, now free from the hours of nursing, got ready to leave it.
Like the stars, the full scent of the late autumn night was emerging. Ward, with his head on Adelia’s foot, and a nearby tethered goat added their own flavor to it.
“We expect nothing but trouble from a world created by Satan, nor from that Roman Church of wolves,” Ermengarde said.
The large voice of the little woman boomed its heresy into a dusk speckled with flittering bats.
Adelia flinched. If they should hear her. There was nobody to hear; yet the feeling persisted that somewhere out there, in the mountains, the vast monolith of the Church was listening. “This ain’t nice country,” Captain Bolt had said, “got something nasty in its bones.”
“Where will you go?” she asked.
“North. We’ve done well here. Adelia, you should see us in dispute with priests in the town squares—it is splendid; their blasphemy and corruption are shown up for what they are. Now we must go north to tell the people of the true faith, of the divine spark that is trapped in their mortal bodies until it should be reunited with Heaven.”
The true faith, thought Adelia. They all claimed it: Christian, Roman, Greek Orthodox, Jew, Moslem, Cathar, every one of them assured that the right way to worship God belonged only to them.
Now it was Ermengarde’s hand that reached out to Adelia’s. “The flame burns strongly in you, my child. I see it. How splendid it would be if you joined us, to become a parfait.”
Adelia coughed. Rowley had said that to become a “perfect,” she would not only have to abandon meat and live a life of poverty, she would have to become chaste.
“Too difficult?” asked Sister Ermengarde.
If this woman had seen her and Rowley saying good-bye to each other under the fig tree, she wouldn’t ask. “I’m afraid I love a man.”
“More than God?”
“Yes.”
Ermengarde sighed in pity “Once Aelith was born, my husband and I found that our love had turned to the spiritual. He, too, is a parfait now.” She became brisk again. “Well, you must just make sure you starve yourself of the sins of the flesh on your deathbed. We call it the endura. Without it you will be condemned to be born again in another human body, or even as an animal, until your soul is pure enough to enter Heaven. That is why we abstain from meat in our meals—you never know who you’ll be eating.”
Adelia laughed. “I’m going to miss you, Ermengarde.”
“And I you ... Doctor.”
“Oh, dear. Has it been that obvious?”
“It is in everything you do. ‘Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel.’ So the Sermon on the Mount instructs us. Jesus used the word men in the sense of all humanity, of course, for men and women are equal in the sight of God.” Sister Ermengarde harrumphed. “Catch the Pope in Rome agreeing to that.”
Ward growled. He’d stood up, his fur raised in a ridge along his back. His snout was pointing down the hill to where the flames of the fire outside the cowshed seemed to have multiplied and were streaming back and forth, occasionally disappearing and appearing, as if from a rush of activity. A lot of shouting started up down there.
“What is it?”
Adelia got to her feet and squinted down the hill. Against the light of the fires, she could just make out the shapes of men wearing helmets. Oh, God, Richard’s war has spread to here.
Whoever the men were, they were coming up the hill. Now she could hear what they were shouting: “Heretics,” they yelled. And, “Burn.”
For a second, Ermengarde was still. “They’ve come for us.” Then she whipped around, shouting. “Aelith. Out the back. R
un, I’ll hold them off.”
She gave Adelia a push before grabbing at Boggart’s hand in an effort to raise her up. “Run, both of you. Run.”
Unwieldy from pregnancy, Boggart was struggling to rise. As Adelia went to help her, the men closed in; she was enveloped in a smell of sweat and iron. Even in her terror, she knew it was the Cathars they’d come for, not her, and that Aelith, at least, must get away.
Ermengarde had slammed the cottage door shut and was shrieking and struggling to keep it closed. Adelia joined her where she clung onto the latch. “Leave her alone, leave her alone.”
She felt her collarbone break as one of the men tried to wrench her away, but she still held on.
The two women gave Aelith just enough time to clamber out of the back window and escape into the woods. But they couldn’t save themselves—or Boggart.
Nine
BOTH COWSHED AND COTTAGE were put to the flame. “Like you fucking Cathars when we get where we’re going,” the leader of their captors assured them.
“We are not Cathars,” Adelia told him, struggling for calm, aware that she and Boggart had their hair bound up like any Cathar women and were wearing the black robes Aelith had lent them.
If she was distancing herself from Ermengarde, she was sorry, but so be it; she was only telling the truth, and there were the others to think of.
She said: “We are the servants of King Henry Plantagenet, and he’ll be mightily displeased if we’re harmed.”
“You’re fucking Cathars, that’s what you are,” he’d said, and spat. “And where we’re going ain’t Plantagenet land.”
At that point there’d been no sign of Mansur nor Ulf nor Rankin, and she was in terror in case they’d been killed. Then some more men came up the hill, and from their midst she heard the multilingual oaths of Mansur’s Arabic, Rankin’s Gaelic, and the good fenland English of Ulf—the latter cursing his captors and demanding in God’s name that his wooden cross be returned to him.
The captives’ hands were bound with ropes, each of which was tied to a saddle of a captor’s mule.