Son of the Morning (88 page)

‘I loved you,’ said Orsino. ‘But now my love is turned to hate.’

‘Will you kill me?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I know what I saw. And if God will not release my wife and son from Hell then perhaps you can. Know that I despise you, but I offer you my sword and my service.’

He bent his knee before Dow.

‘Stand up,’ said Dow. ‘I am no one’s master.’

‘You are mine.’

‘Then I grant you your freedom. There. No cowering in the night praying for a tyrant God’s favour any more, Orsino. I lost my hate for you long ago. You found yours for me. It makes no difference to us; we have worked together thus far and can do so in the future.’

‘You will not make me worship Lucifer?’

‘No. He has been a friend to you, though. But as we do not always choose our enemies, sometimes we don’t our friends. You must follow your heart.’

Orsino pointed at the king. ‘I thought his damnation was my absolution,’ said Orsino. ‘Now I must watch you kill him and cheer as you fight God?’

Dow stared down at the king. ‘What brought him here?’ he said.

‘What brought us here?’ said Orsino, ‘chance and desperation, stupidity and hope. The things that drive men anywhere.’

‘We should wake him.’

‘Why?’

‘To see if God lied.’

‘What difference does it make?’

‘I cannot kill a friend of Lucifer’s, Orsino. I think that is why God set him here. Give me your armour. I will wake him.’

The Florentine he did as he was bid. When he was dressed in the rainbow mail, Dow took the angel’s sword from Orsino too and strode forward through the briars. They reached out to entrap him but they could not grip or penetrate the angel’s mail or helm and when they did snake around his feet or his arm, he cut them back with the sword.

Still, progress was hard and Dow staggered and tore his way up to the plinth, to see his father’s face for the first time.

He could see no similarity between himself and the king – Edward was tall and blond, his face a long oval whereas Dow was much shorter and dark, his face round as Sariel’s had been.

Edward’s eyes were closed, his skin pale and waxy, the starved flesh clinging to his skull, his lips dry and drawn back from his teeth. He was breathing, but that was all that showed he was alive. The rose briar wound him tightly to the box beneath.

Dow looked up into the blue light of the chapel. ‘Lucifer,’ he said, ‘guide me now, friend.’ The briars still hissed and tried to ensnare him.

Dow held up his knife, red with the blood of angels. Then he smeared the blood to the king’s lips.

All was silent, apart from the king’s laboured breathing. A cough, a sigh and Edward opened his eyes.

‘God says I am your son,’ said Dow.

Edward winced, now aware of the pain of the thorns. Dow smeared more angel’s blood across his lips. The old man gulped. His lips were pale, encrusted in sweat.

‘He said you would come for the banner.’ His voice was weak.

‘Who?’ Dow asked.

‘God, that terrible child.’

Orsino crossed himself. ‘Where are your angels, majesty? Are they not here to defend you?’

‘I sent them away when the box was sealed.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ said Edward, ‘they would not fall. I believe in the Son of the Morning. I would not be a king but an ordinary man.’

The king groaned and tried to move his hands to his face where the thorns pricked him but he was held fast by the writhing briars.

‘How shall we release you?’

‘Kill me.’

‘That is against my belief.’ Dow suspected a trick. God had never played straight, but this man
had
been a tyrant. Devils lied, angels dissembled. Only demons had ever told him the truth.

‘If you are a friend of Lucifer, then why did you replace the banner?’ said Dow.

The old man closed his eyes. ‘I was born in the wrong place. I had no pleasure but to cut wood, to thatch roofs and to work with my hands on the land. But I was born to fight, not to toil, though it did not stop me. I loved to make things, to see the beauty of creation in the handle of a knife, or to cut a stone just so to make a step or a lintel. It was there – working with men on my own estates – that I heard the word of Lucifer and determined that all men should live as I could live, free of conflict, by the work of their hands. But Heaven saw me and could not tolerate me. So it sent me a fallen angel to appeal to my weakness.’

‘What weakness?’

‘For beauty. For lust.’

‘Fallen angels serve Lucifer.’

‘Not all. Some were drawn down by the love of the pleasures of the body and seek a way back to God. Piers Gaveston was one such, my first love. But he was corrupt and strange and led me to great abuses. My wife Isabella summoned spirits and worked magic to undo him and I was grateful for a time.

‘But she saw that I was dangerous to her. Isabella was born to rule and thought I would set swineherds on the throne. And so I would have. She tried to control me, but I was too strong. Not strong against beauty, though. Heaven sent another fallen angel to me – Hugh Despenser. I loved him, but he enchanted me, made me rule as a tyrant. He could do everything but control my angels. They had fled me for my treason against God but they would not go to him.

‘When my wife moved against him, he asked the Hospitallers for a banner of great power that he believed to be the Drago. But many Templars, friends of Lucifer, had joined the Hospitallers in secret for refuge when the Capetian King Philip moved against them. They saw the harm Hugh was doing and sent him the Evertere instead.’

‘What does the Evertere do?’ said Dow.

‘It eats angels and commands all demons to follow it. My angels returned to me when the throne was threatened, but the Evertere chased most of them away.’

‘So why did you agree to put it away? You sought to overthrow the angels, so you say.’

‘Because of The Mortimer – the usurper, my wife’s lover. I knew him to be a dangerous man, a far worse tyrant in the making. If he got his hands on it he would have caused damage without limit. The Evertere is for the use of Lucifer on the final day – not for selfish mortals. I called God himself to help me, and we sealed it in its chest after a great struggle. The Hospitallers brought me here and God bound me so, my sacrifice of pain, like Christ’s to keep the world from sin, so he said.’

‘What were the other two angels doing here?

‘They were mine. They ran from the Evertere so God put them where they could never run again. They sought to return to him and perhaps they have. This island is the nearest he can come to the world, the portal between Heaven, earth and Hell. With his wound he would die if he set foot on the earth. This is why Satan and Lucifer think they can build their kingdoms there.’

‘I would build such a kingdom for Lucifer, where all men can be equal.’

‘Then it is the last days. You must kill me and take the banner,’ said Edward.

‘I cannot. I am sworn to defend Lucifer’s friends.’

‘Then let me,’ said Orsino. He took his crossbow from his back.

Dow drew the sword in the king’s defence. ‘My oath is inviolable, there must be another way.’

‘There is not,’ said Edward, ‘God set me with this rose to suffer, to sustain the rose and be sustained by it. If you would kill it, you must kill me.’

Dow tried to pull away the briars that pricked the king’s skin but they wound around his hand, lacerating it. He cut the clinging briars free with his devil knife. Already his fingers were swelling.

‘This is no time to stand on fine principles,’ said Orsino. ‘Do, do, and repent later.’

‘There would be no repentance for killing a friend of Lucifer,’ said Dow.

‘Lucifer would forgive you,’ said the king.

‘I would not forgive myself.’

‘Hell must be opened!’ said Orsino. ‘Dow, this must be done.’ He was trying to get a clear shot at the king but Dow swayed in front of Edward, guarding him.

Dow came wading out of the briars, slashing them away with the angel sword, only for them to regrow and reach out to him again. Without the angel armour, he would have been engulfed. Even with it, his exposed skin was cut, itching terribly where the thorns had torn it. Orsino fired his crossbow but Dow leapt in front of it. A thump in his chest and snick as the shot was deflected off the angel’s mail and Dow waded on, slashing at the clinging briars. Behind him the king moaned and cried out as the snaking thorns moved over his skin. Orsino reloaded.

‘Dow don’t. This is the only way.’

‘It is not the only way!’

Dow broke free of the briars, shoved the crossbow from Orsino’s hand, threw down the helm, pulled off the coat of mail.

‘There is an easy way out,’ said Dow. ‘Kill me. Any man can be the Antichrist with enough will. Years ago I heard a fire demon tell you Hell had a use for you. This must be it. Kill me. Then take the banner. Find the keys. Open Hell and kiss your darlings again. It should be easy, for you hate me.’

‘So you would die?’ said Orsino.

‘Better than dishonour.’

‘I’ve seen both and it really isn’t,’ said Orsino. ‘You can’t die, Dowzabel. You’re a fanatic, as bad as the worst torturing priest. You couldn’t let me kill you. You want to see this through to the end.’

‘Perhaps I do. It doesn’t matter. I’ve brought you this far, Orsino. It’s in your hands now. This completes everything. If I die, then I can never be tempted to pull the sword free. God’s way back to power is closed. Maybe that was why Lucifer let them nail him up at Golgotha – because he would not forgive God. I will not forgive him. Kill me.’

‘You’d go to Hell. God would work on you there.’

‘So why did he not kill me and torture me at his leisure?’

‘I can’t guess his mind.’

‘I can. He needs me alive or I’d already be dead.’

Dow looked around him, at the blasted landscape – only the roses, bright red as blood from a wound, alive.

‘So what do I do?’ said Orsino.

‘Kill me. And then keep killing. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Kill the angels, kill the devils, find the demons to work the magic to find the rest of the keys to Hell. Then be a champion in the final war. Destroy Hell. Free your wife, your child and every tormented soul.’

‘What of the murderers, the cheats and the torturers who are deservedly in Hell?’

‘Send them to their own place. We will build our Eden. They can build theirs.’

‘Isn’t that what God said?’

Dow looked around him. ‘There’s far more good than bad in the world, Orsino. There are so few real sins. Let’s bother about our friends and let our enemies look after themselves. Plunge in the sword and let the fall of God begin. I will go to Hell, but you will free me. My dear nan, your family, are suffering greatly because of me. I would not ask something of others I would not give myself. Plunge in the sword.’

Orsino swung a great blow at Dow’s neck, pulling the blade so late it cut the young man’s collar. Dow did not flinch.

‘You mean it, don’t you?’

‘I have a vow to the friends of Lucifer. I cannot break it. This is the only way forward. Cut and be done.’

Orsino swung again. The blow was pulled again, though this time it cut off the top of Dow’s ear. Still he did not shy from the blow.

‘Last chance,’ said Orsino.

‘Summon your hate, Orsino. Remember who suffers because of me.’

Orsino gave a cry and pulled back his sword to strike. Dow knew that this time the blow would not be pulled. The sword swung towards him, Dow spoke a word, ‘Mother’, and Orsino burst into flames.

For an instant he had thought it
was
her, Sariel. She had appeared like a trick of the light, a flash of green, a glimpse of white skin, the flicker of a candle. She took shape – beautiful against the roses on the plinth. But when she spoke, her word was fire, blasting from her mouth in a torrent, sweeping Orsino away, engulfed in her burning curses. Dow sprang up, but she had him by the neck, dragging him away from his father. Dow fumbled for his misericord but she snatched it from him.

The king looked out from the briars with peace in his eyes. ‘Am I to live?’ he asked.

‘The blood briar,’ said the devil possessing Sariel’s body. ‘I’ve seen that before in the torture gardens of the fortress of Gall. No way of cutting you out of that, I’m afraid, or even burning it. And it’s against God’s holy order to kill you. I’ve bigger fish to fry. Well, not fry, not yet anyway.’

Dow tried to break free, to get it to release its grip but he could not. The light swam, danced in little points at the corner of his vision and then was gone. He knew nothing.

When he awoke he was on a cart, bound at the neck by an iron collar and chain. The blackened island was behind them, the mass of red roses seeming to smoke like a dragon’s mouth.

‘Where are you taking me?’ said Dow.

‘To Hell,’ said Nergal, ‘via a trip to meet Hugh Despenser, who wants the pleasure of sending you there.’

‘What of the banner?’

‘Not sent to get that,’ said the devil, ‘and I wouldn’t anyway. Anyone releasing that will be damned to the lowest levels of Hell and believe me, damnation is doubly difficult for a devil. You can’t look for sympathy from sinners you’ve been roasting alive ten minutes before. Hey a!’

He cracked the whip and the horses lurched forward. Above him, Murmur wheeled away in the sky.

9

Bardi watched for a day before he decided to go across. He could see nothing on the island – just the green of the pines, brilliant against the glimmer of the lake. But where were Orsino and Dow? He could not call on his courage, so he called on his greed. His life as a monk was comfortable. But to Bardi, comfortable was uncomfortable. He had been used to riches and needed them again.

How to get across? Oh dear, oh dear, so how to get across? Swimming was a complete waste of time because he’d want to take the banner with him when he left. A boat, then. He finally hit on the idea of making the horses swim it when he saw the red cardinal dragging the boy across by his belt, his body steaming as the water boiled about him. Where was Orsino? Must be dead. The cardinal had no loot with him. The Drago still had to be on the island. Bye bye, Antichrist, time to pay for your heresies.