Son of the Morning (70 page)

‘You would find your Drago and make powerful men more powerful.’

‘If it pleases you, I will tell you my mission truly. It is one of which you will approve. Get down from your horse.’

Both men dismounted and Orsino drew the horses on through the bustle to a quieter part of town.

In a burning square of pale stone they watered the horses at a fountain. Orsino sat down on the lip of its pool and gestured for the boy to join him. No one was in earshot but Orsino spoke in English just in case.

‘My mission is more than capturing The Drago. I am here to kill a king,’ he said.

Dow felt a tightness in his throat. ‘Which king?’

‘The old king of England,’ he said. ‘He is still alive and here, somewhere, and he has the Drago with him.’

‘How will you find him?’

‘The Hospitallers are sheltering him. I think the easiest way is to join them.’

‘That is the shortest course?’

‘These things aren’t achieved overnight. If God has kept old Edward alive, then it is for a reason. Unpicking the work of God is not easy.’

‘You will be damned, according to your religion, you will be damned!’ The intensity of Dow’s feeling took him by surprise. His mouth was dry and his hands balled into fists.

‘I am already damned for what I did in Haute Chapelle and for a hundred other things. Our religion offers salvation. I have promises from Montagu. I will receive a pardon from the king of England. It will be the end of my struggles, Dow. I will be well rewarded. You too. An end to arms, to fighting. A quiet place with some land and some animals and my soul at rest. I could not want for more. You will be free to go, Dow – back to your grey country at the edge of the world if you choose.’

‘Why not let me go now?’

‘You have an art that surpassed Edwin’s, that surpassed anyone’s as far as I know. You will be useful, yet, I am sure. And besides, you don’t want to go. I sense you have your own purposes.’

‘And if I choose not to be useful?’

‘Then go. Go now. I will find this king and kill him without you if I have to. But if we join the Hospitallers, even as lay brothers, we will have to take their oath. You will have to swear to your faith in God and his son Jesus Christ.’

‘
You
swear,’ said Dow, ‘and let me be your servant. The order would never have me, they are too fussy.’

‘They may be too fussy for me,’ said Orsino. ‘Can you disguise your beliefs?’

‘Yes.’

‘And even lie about your faith?’

‘Nothing is wrong if it serves the greater good.’

The square was searingly hot, the waters of the fountain dazzling. Dow found it hard to marshal his thoughts.

Dow could not understand this religion that could commit such barbarities and then, on the word of a king or a priest, have all guilt wiped away. Orsino was going to kill a man, albeit a king. The vast poor would benefit when he lifted the banner. To take a life, though, was such a big step. How could Orsino do it just to gain the favour of his God? A god who loves blood was no god worth having.

‘So is it the Hospitallers or the road?’ said Orsino.

‘Let’s find your Hospitallers,’ said Dow. If he had to, he would swear, and then he would break his oath because it pleased him to defy the God of the priests and the monks.

They pressed on to an inn in a run-down quarter of the town. Orsino was unimpressed with the lodgings but noted that the stables were well kept – more important than his own comfort. In the end the price was too great anyway and they negotiated a stay in the hayloft, along with three cats and a quantity of scurrying rats. It was late and dark when Dow felt Murmur crawl to his side.

‘There are many demons here,’ he said. ‘All Free Hell who could squeeze through
has
squeezed through. We cover the land.’

‘And do you whisper to the people?’

‘Yes. In England we are not far from an uprising.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We swarm in the upper airs. Fellow whispers to fellow and the moon is dark with demon’s wings.’

‘And do you meet resistance?’

‘The old queen casts a net to catch us. Devils have swum from France. In the Temple of Paris a great evil is coming to earth. Hell is moving against Free Hell.’

‘Why can they come through?’

‘The angels of France are still in their shrines. They do not trust Philip after the death of Jegudiel. The devils are not as afraid of them as they were.’

‘Then we must move as fast as we can,’ said Dow.

He had to find that banner, as he had been charged to do by Free Hell. But, though he was nearer to finding it than he had ever been, he sensed he still had a long way to go. As fast as he could might not prove fast enough.

35

Three were dead at the door before they stopped coming. Arondight was as true as ever, the mail of the first monk giving no resistance to its blade. The second who tried to clamber past his fallen companion was dispatched with a flick of the wrist, the big sword as light as a wand in the hand, heavy as a hammer on the side of the head. Some idiot from the rear tried to shoot him with a crossbow and damn near succeeded, albeit that the quarrel passed through a monk before it shaved Montagu’s whiskers. The shot monk kept advancing for a few paces before a look of surprise overtook him and he collapsed. Montagu doubted he even knew he’d been hit.

After that, Montagu got the door shut again. It was a disadvantage that he couldn’t see anyone coming but he could hear them and the singing of Arondight would alert him when danger was close, the saints’ songs rising to a tumult in his mind. Two more crossbow bolts came through the door, splintering the wood.

People were shouting at the bottom of the tower, telling him to give himself up. Montagu almost laughed. He’d been involved in many sieges himself but never one as tricky as this. The obvious tactic would have been to leave him up there to die of hunger or thirst. An intelligent commander would just seal the door and leave Montagu to amuse himself on the roof for a couple of weeks. Of course, there would always be the threat they would take him while he slept. His prospects were not good.

It was quiet on the stairs and he risked looking out over the parapet. A man went scurrying into the chapel. He was carrying a bundle of papers under his arm, two big quills tucked behind his ear, making him look like he was dressed up for a May festival.

Montagu waited a while.

‘Come down. You cannot stay up there for ever.’ A voice from up the stairs. He didn’t bother to reply.

‘We know you are only two. How long do you think you can hold out up there?’

Again Montagu said nothing. He looked over the parapet. The wall had cracks in it but he was never going to be able to climb down it. Even if he didn’t fall – which he would – he’d be spotted and there’d be a reception committee at the bottom, if they didn’t bother to pick him off with crossbows first.

The fog swirled about him. Was it fog? It seemed thicker, like smoke. Were they trying to burn him out? No, this wasn’t smoke, it was something fouler by far. Montagu coughed, an acid taste in his throat.

The smoke pooled at his feet. Sorcery. More devils? He grasped Arondight in both hands, ready to strike.

‘Stay your hand.’

The voice was like the rending of metal.

Curling around his feet was an extraordinary creature – a grey snake, its body as thick as a man’s. Taking shape on its back were a pair of enormous diaphanous wings. The smoke was still thick about him and he beat it away.

‘What are you?’

‘A devil, come to offer you a ride away, lord.’

‘I don’t deal with devils.’

The creature reared up now, its great mouth level with Montagu’s face. ‘I am going to England.’

‘Get away from me!’

The creature gave a great hiss and shot up into the air, its tail swirling behind it like a rope from the rigging.

‘Who’s up there?’ The voice came from the courtyard below, so loud it was almost like a blow.

Montagu looked over the side and crossed himself. Below him was a gigantic figure – a man with his hair cropped close to his skull, a toothless mouth shouting up at him.

‘I see you, little Montagu. Don’t you know me?’

Montagu took a pace back.

‘I am Hugh Despenser, who should have been your lord, come back from Hell to claim what is his and reign forever on earth under the patronage of great Satan!’

Despenser! Back from Hell. Well, if anyone could make himself unpopular enough to be thrown out of the infernal pit, it was Despenser.

Without thinking what he was doing, Montagu ran to the other side of the roof. At the back of Caesar’s Tower there was a faint glow. The Templar, or someone, had decided to ignore the exit and come through the wall using the angel’s feather.

A thump at the side of the tower and a cry. Montagu ran back to that side of the wall and looked down. The giant figure was near to the wall, holding its foot. It cursed when it saw him and jumped at the wall. Its fingers dug into the stone; it was clearly wounded, as it howled every time it drove its right foot into a crack.

Montagu looked above him. The snake was still up there, its coils winding like part of the fog.

‘Come away to England.’

Not with a devil, and not without the letters incriminating Philip.

Despenser hammered at the wall. He was half way up. The fall to the ground would kill Montagu if he tried to jump but not if … He had no other plan. He inverted Arondight in his hands, holding it like a knight holds a sword on a tomb and jumped towards Despenser’s shoulders.

The giant swatted at him as he fell, but Montagu was on him, landing squarely on his chest and driving him from the wall. Then everything seemed both fast and slow at the same time. Despenser fell backward, Montagu stabbed down with the sword but Despenser caught both Montagu’s hands in his giant fist and they fell together. The fall was unreal: the two seemed to float down as slow as a feather, Montagu dodging a huge swipe aimed at his head. The unequal combatants rolled as they fell. Montagu saw the ground looming and feared he would be trapped under the giant. A final twist and Despenser finished underneath him, Arondight stabbing down through his arm to pin him to the floor. The giant twisted and screamed, trying to extricate the sword but the holy blade was an anathema to him and he could not touch it.

Montagu didn’t hesitate, he ran. It was too dangerous to pull the sword out and stab the giant again, even if it meant leaving so valuable a weapon. Holy swords came to those who deserved them. The blade had been lost and had found its way back to him before. If God wished him to have it, it would return to Montagu again.

Two steps and his foot jerked back. Despite its injury, the giant had grabbed his leg with the hand that was not pinned to the floor. Montagu stamped down on its fingers but its grip was unrelenting.

‘Now, you die, Montagu!’

Montagu had no choice but to reach for his sword and yank it free. The giant groaned and immediately sat up, dashing him onto the soft earth which, luckily for Montagu, left him little more than winded. Arondight sang through the air, severing the giant’s right hand. The monster howled and swung for him with its left but Montagu rolled away. A harsh white light dazzled his eyes, a sound like a crack and the giant standing above him went blurry.

As he lost consciousness Montagu heard a voice he knew.

‘I hope you will remember this service, my lord.’

Above him stood someone he knew – a man who had journeyed with him on the cog from England. The companion of the mercenary. Yes, a merchant of the more common sort who had been there when the angel was stripped. A name came into his head. ‘Osbert’. And then he knew no more.

36

The warrior monks stood in the fine mizzle shoulder to shoulder around the perimeter of Castle Rising’s earthworks. Each one had a shield marked with the fluted cross of the Hospitallers, and each had a sword, a mace or a polearm. In front of them, treading carefully on a slabbed path, a priest walked the circumference of the defences swinging a censer, singing out a prayer. All the time he looked at his feet, careful not to disturb a single mark that had been daubed onto the stone of the slabs. It was a magic circle – dust of the tomb of St Mark mixed with blood of the Hanley angel and all that stood between them and the hordes of Hell.

A boy monk crossed himself, looking up to Brother Robert, the huge monk like a castle tower himself, seemingly unperturbed by the siege.

‘A message must have reached the king by now,’ said the boy.

‘The king is on the continent with all his best men. We might
hope
for relief but we cannot expect it. Better to pray to Christ than call for men to aid us.’

The boy crossed himself again. There were fires out there in the dark, torches moving, voices calling.

‘They will not cross the perimeter,’ said the big monk, ‘they cannot. They are Satan’s and our circle invokes the name of God.’

‘So why are we here?’

‘They might use men to try to break it.’

Something screeched through the darkness, a baggy, flapping thing, big as a dog flying low along the perimeter.

‘What was that?’

‘A thing of Hell.’

‘It’s her doing – the one up there,’ said the boy. He gestured back to the castle. Why don’t we kill her?’

‘She is a queen. That would be against God’s law.’

‘She is to blame for this, surely?’

‘How? She’s locked inside two magic circles. Nothing that is not of God can cross them.’

Something came lumbering forward through the night – a giant of a thing twice as tall as an ordinary man. But it was a man, pale, dressed as richly as any merchant but its hands were long talons, its teeth a row of shining spikes and its feet those of a rooster.

‘We would have parley,’ declared the creature.

‘Who are you?’ called out Robert.

‘Lord Greed of Hell’s Cinderlands. You are under siege, and none will come to lift it. I have almost the entire 12
^th
Legion of the Burning Plains of Antenora here. It will be a brave earthly army that stands against it.’