devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band (42 page)

The Devil’s Band were in the van of the column that crept through the wintry countryside as silently as tens of thousands of fully armed men could. Their feet crunched on the frosty earth and their breath hung in great clouds around each man’s head. Though their destination was only three miles away, the darkness of the night and the sheer number of men slowed the column’s march to a crawl and it took nearly four hours to reach the breach in the wall made by the sappers.

Much to Lannoy’s annoyance the gap was far too small to allow an entire army to pass through, so in spite of the cold and their eagerness to slaughter sleeping Frenchmen, the army had to wait whilst the Spanish
gastadores
broke down more masonry. It took another three hours for the sappers to make the original breach wider, and open two additional gaps in the wall, so it was nearly dawn when the Marquis de Vasto climbed onto a pile of rubble to address the Neapolitan arquebusiers who were to attack the Castel Mirabello.

“Listen you men, I am Alfonso, de Avolos, d’Aquini Marquis de Vasto and like you I’m from Naples. Though we may be cold now, I’m going to lead you to a place that’s hotter than the mouth of Vesuvius because it’s there
we’ll find fame, glory and plunder! We’re to surprise the French king and his noble dukes and marquises as they sleep at Castel Mirabello and if we take them alive we’ll share a ransom beyond the avarice of a Persian emperor. So prime your guns, light your matches and follow me!” said de Vasto and he led his men into the breach. Quintana watched the Neapolitans disappear into the dawn mist and cursed his luck.

“Did you hear what that prince of pasta pedlars said? It should be us snatching French fops from their beds and making a fortune not a bunch of Byzantine bandits,” he said bitterly but no one was listening because Lannoy had given the signal for the rest of his army to enter the deer park. In spite of the sappers’ best efforts, the
igels
still had to break formation to pass through the breaches and it took another thirty minutes for the thousands of men to assemble on the other side of the wall.

The
landsknechts
reformed their squares at the northern edge of a boggy heath that stretched all the way to Pavia three miles to the south. This broad expanse of open grassland was roughly half a mile wide and bordered to the east and west by thick woods. The road that linked the
Porta Pescarina
with the Castel Mirabello and the
Torretta
gate ran through the centre of this heath and disappeared into a bank of fog rising off the marshes. The thick mist muffled sound but there was no mistaking the crack of gunfire that indicated that de Vasto’s attack on the hunting lodge had begun.

As Lannoy’s plan required, the imperial army now split into two columns. The bulk of the cavalry, followed
by Bourbon and Pescara’s
igels
, galloped away to attack the French camp at the
Porta Repentina
and were soon hidden from sight as they disappeared into the trees at the western edge of the heath. Meanwhile, Frundsberg’s and Sittich’s 8,000 German
landsknechts
and Spanish
ginetes
marched east, to attack Flourance’s Swiss at the
Porta Levrieri
, and Thomas could only curse as they set off in the one direction that led him away from Richard de la Pole and the Black Band.

To add to his frustration, The Devil’s Band had been placed in the rear of Frundsberg’s
igel
and despite his promise to his men Thomas was beginning to worry that they’d not be given the chance to draw their swords let alone win fame and glory. His fears grew when the din of battle drifting across the heath suddenly changed, the crack of ordered volleys gave way to sporadic gunshots and the disembodied shouts of men fighting at close quarters became the shrill screams of women.

The new noises coming from the direction of the hunting lodge could only mean that de Vasto’s men had captured the French baggage train and any sutler or whore who refused to surrender their wealth was being shot in cold blood. The sound of the Neapolitan victory reminded Quintana that the profits from their bordello still lay buried beneath the tent they’d abandoned two months ago so he left his place in the ranks and ran to speak to Bos and Prometheus.

“Do you hear that? That’s the sound of people stealing our money!” Quintana groaned.

“It sounds to me like the souls of the damned being tortured on the other side of the abyss,” said Prometheus.

“That could be us lying dead in the mud of Mirabello, truly the wages of sin is death,” added Bos.

“So long as those thieving Neapolitan bastards don’t get their hands our gold I don’t care how they’re paid,” muttered Quintana but before he could suggest they abandoned the battle, at least temporarily, to dig up their money Thomas ordered them back into line. Still grumbling, Quintana hurried back to his
rotten
and as he disappeared into the ranks Frundsberg ordered his
igel
to prepare for an attack.

Whilst the Spanish cavalry galloped away to guard the imperial column’s flanks, Frundsberg’s and Sittich’s well drilled
landsknechts
clattered to a stop. For a moment there was silence then the siren sounds of drums and fifes came floating out of the fog. As the strange, ethereal music grew louder, Frundsberg’s ordered both squares’
doppelsöldners
to advance and form a skirmish line thirty yards in front of each
igels’
spines. Brandishing two-handed swords, halberds and arquebuses, the
landsknechts’
forlorn hope ran forward and as they prepared to greet the Swiss with a storm of hot iron and cold steel, a ghostly forest of pikes began to take shape at the edge of the mist.

In his dreams Richard de la Pole heard the call to arms but before he was properly awake, his page was shaking him.

“An attack, My Lord, there’s word from the north gate the imperial army has breached the wall and is marching
towards us. There is even talk that the Castle Mirabello has been captured and every man and woman in the baggage train slaughtered!” The boy stammered nervously.

“Murderous cowards, what sort of knave kills unarmed pedlars and helpless women? Well don’t just stand there like a moonfaced poltroon, get me dressed,” growled the White Rose sleepily.

Whilst the boy fetched his master’s armour from its wooden stand in the far corner of the tent, de la Pole rose from his cot and began pulling on his braies and hose. Like King Francis, the Yorkist prince insisted on wearing a full harness of expensive, though outdated, fluted armour as a badge of his rank and though his page worked feverishly to buckle the cowters, pauldrons, vambraces and other metal plates around his body, the complicated task took some minutes to complete.

“Hurry up you sluggard, you’re as slow as a sinner’s progress through purgatory!” De la Pole bawled but his impatience only made matters worse. In his haste, the boy’s fingers struggled to match straps with buckles and his master was only partially encased in steel when Georg Langenmantel and Hans Nagel arrived with more news. The Black Band’s senior captain was more concerned about missing his breakfast than the enemy attack but Nagel was deathly white and he was shaking with fear.

“What’s the matter trumpet player, you look like a corpse raised from the grave?” De la Pole snapped as his page began to fit greaves and cuisses around his master’s legs.

“My Lord, the enemy is everywhere!” Nagel whimpered but Langenmantel dismissed his fear.

“There’s no reason to panic there is a general attack but Flourance’s Swiss have two imperial pike squares pinned down by the
Porta Levrieri
and though a gang of Neapolitan cutthroats has seized our baggage park at Mirabello the king, praise God, wasn’t there. Francis is alive and thirsting for battle so he’s ordered all his knights and gendarmes to attack the two
igels
advancing towards us,” said the captain.

“Then come Georg, we mustn’t keep His Majesty waiting!” De la Pole cried and he snatched his helmet, an old fashioned
armet
with a bulbous visor and three purple plumes, from his page’s outstretched hands.

“Wait My Lord, there’s one more thing. A new banner has been in the imperial ranks, it shows a dancing devil and the rumour is that the men who follow this
fähnlein
are led by an English sorcerer who survived his own hanging,” said Nagel, who knew nothing of Thomas’ recent challenge to meet the White Rose in single combat. De la Pole however was unsurprised by the news.

“So the fiend has failed to heed my advice to go home and play battledore. Very well, if God means me to kill him, I shall but I won’t stain noble steel with his foul blood. Only iron can kill a witch and I have just the thing!” De la Pole snarled and he went to the rack of weapons on the far side of his tent. With a grunt of satisfaction, he selected a lethal looking raven’s beak war hammer, with a flat crushing face on one side of its iron head and a vicious curved spike on the other. After trying a few
practice strokes he tied the weapon’s long wooden handle to his sword belt with a leather thong and strode towards his tent’s entrance.

“But My Lord! What about me? Remember it was I who unmasked the English necromancer’s treachery and if he finds me here, he’ll kill me,” Nagel pleaded. With a snort of contempt Langmantel de la Pole told the spy he’d be quite safe in the French camp with the rest of the whores and left the tent but de la Pole was a little more sympathetic to the musician’s concerns.

“Calm yourself, Master Nagel, besides myself and the Black Band there are more than 3,000 fully armed knights between you and Thomas Devisltone so stay here and polish your trumpet, you’ll be needing it to celebrate our victory!” de la Pole laughed and he followed his captain outside.

Nagel watched them go and felt a strange sense of foreboding. He was roughly the same age as his master but he began to wonder if he’d lived too long to play the game of crowns that Richard de la Pole enjoyed so much. It took less than a minute for the trumpet player to decide it was high time he left the White Rose’s service and, pausing only to fetch his belongs, which were pitifully few, he made his way to the
Porta Repentina
. The deer park’s western gate was deserted, as every man in the French camp had rushed to join their king preparing to repel the imperial attack, so no one saw the little trumpet player disappear into the misty Lombard dawn.

Despite the weight of steel around his limbs, the White Rose mounted his waiting horse with graceful ease
before snatching his lance from his varlet and galloping away to lead the Black Band into battle. His men had already formed into a square and when they saw the sunburst pennant of the House of York flying from their colonel’s lance, they cheered as loudly as if the war had already been won. In reply, the White Rose pointed towards the sunrise and addressed his men.

“Today two suns rise over Pavia, the sun in the heavens and the sun of York! Now we march to fight filthy
landsknechts
and they say that the treacherous English sorcerer that neither the Graoully of Metz or the demon Frundsberg could kill is among them but let’s see how this son of Satan fares against our good, honest steel!” De la Pole cried and he gave the signal to advance. Drums beat, fifes played and the men of the Black Band took a pace forward. Soon the 4,000 men under de la Pole’s command were marching in perfect step towards the four lines of French cavalry that had already formed up in the open ground half a mile to the east of their camp.

Immediately in front of the French horsemen were six hundred yards of boggy grass and beyond that was the woodland that lay between the
Porta Repentina
and the breach in the deer park wall. Mounted on their richly caparisoned chargers, and wearing full suits of armour covered by surcoats emblazoned with ancient coats of arms, the 3,000 French knights and mounted men-at arms looked as if they were parading for a coronation but as the noble lords waited patiently for an enemy to fight, men on foot carrying blood red banners began to appear at the edge of the trees. These flag bearers were quickly
joined by groups of two-handed swordsmen, halberdiers and arquebusiers all wearing white feathers in their broad brimmed hats.

A quarter of a mile away, de la Pole watched the imperial foot soldiers emerge from the wood and realised these men must be the forlorn hope from Pescara and Bourbon’s pike squares, sent to pin down the French until the main body of their
igels
arrived, but for the moment neither side could attack the other. The imperial arquebuses didn’t have the range to reach their enemy and even
doppelsöldners
wouldn’t be so foolish as to challenge a force of armoured horsemen in the open. Equally, it would be madness for the French knights to charge handgunners as old-fashioned armour and aristocratic escutcheons offered little protection against arquebus balls.

Having satisfied himself that the French horsemen were in no immediate danger, de la Pole glanced to his right and saw the captain of a French gun battery guarding the road from the
Porta Repentina
to the Castel Mirabello had also spotted the enemy and had quickly turned several of his lighter pieces to face the wood. Without warning, a dozen French
sakers
and
falconets
fired a volley of shots and though the imperials promptly retreated into the trees, the cypresses and cedars of the wood could not stop solid spheres of iron.