Son of the Morning (18 page)

Dow carefully laid the woman down on the grass. Then he quickly dug a hole by the wall with the knife, dropped it in and covered it.

‘In here.’ Orsino’s voice from inside.

Dow stamped down the soil and went to gather up the lady.

He laid her on the mattress Orsino had dragged down to the kitchen floor. Orsino put his hand to her mouth.

‘Still alive. By God, this woman will be missed by someone.’ Tears were in his eyes. Dow thought this very strange. The Florentine was not at all himself.

Dow drew a cup of water from the pail in the kitchen and swilled it around his mouth. Then he went to the door and spat out red blood into the garden.

Orsino was kneeling in front of the woman. He too had taken a cup and was offering it to her lips. ‘Can you speak boy, what happened?’

Dow tried to talk but it was too painful. All he could say was, ‘Red man.’

‘What?’ The priest, who had lingered in the kitchen, took him by the shoulder.

‘Red man. Mouth fire.’ It was agony to talk, his tongue raw on his palate.

‘A man dressed in red with a mouth of fire?’

Dow nodded.

‘That devil has been freed,’ said Edwin. ‘He’s slipped his circle somehow.’

He ran out of the room and down the stairs into the cellar. Dow heard shouting from below. ‘Where did you find her? How did you get out?’ The priest seemed somewhere between rage and panic.

Neither Dow nor Orsino paid heed to him, instead focusing on the woman. She was giddyingly beautiful. Her black hair shone, her pale skin was unlike any he had ever seen – entirely without flaw, her lips as red as May roses. Again Orsino touched her face.

‘She’s frozen, boy – get a fire going.’

Outside the animals brayed and the dawn chorus began, the birds singing up the sun. A light started to stream in at the little window.

Dow built the fire. Downstairs the priest was still shouting.

‘You’ve been a bold fellow, haven’t you? How did you get out of that circle? What have you done and who is that woman? I constrain you, I command you, in the name of the archangel Michael, in the name of the archangel Gabriel, in the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’

‘Someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning!’ It was Osbert’s voice from the basement, shouting above Edwin’s incantations.

Dow crouched to fan the fire, glancing at Orsino tending the woman. He watched them for a long time, Orsino stroking back her hair, offering her beer, wiping away his tears. Orsino finally met his gaze, and saw the question in Dow’s eyes.

‘She reminds me of my wife – that is all. She is very like her. I had a wife and a son. Dead of fever. I …’ Orsino shrugged, unable to continue.

‘You mentioned it before. I’m sorry that it happened,’ said Dow.

‘So am I. I cursed God, when I should have prayed to him.’

Dow returned to poking at the fire, to save the mercenary the embarrassment of his attention. The Lauds bells had rung out, and then Prime, before Orsino drew himself away from the woman.

‘Let me look at your tongue.’

Dow clamped his jaw. He didn’t want the Florentine poking inside his mouth, causing more damage. And he didn’t want any more of his kindness, the sort that prayed for you before offering you to death.

‘I want to see if it needs a salve. What happened to your chest? – it’s burned again.’

Dow put his hand to the scar. It was very sore. But Hell had come to his aid and he felt lifted by that. Was he up to the task the demon had set him? Perhaps, though not as a boy.

He needed to gain Orsino’s knowledge – to learn to fight to take on the high men. He would show him courtesy, he would make him believe he had won his trust. He opened his mouth and Orsino looked inside.

‘You’ve got a couple of big cuts,’ he said, ‘I’ll see what I can find at market today. Goose grease might be best. I’d love to know what you’ve been up to.’

It was hot and smoky in the room now. Dow saw Orsino cross himself as he looked at the beam of sunlight coming through the window. It reminded Dow of that circle in the church, where the demons had first appeared from Hell – taking their form from the smoke of the torches.

The light beam was moving by tiny degrees across the floor. It touched the woman’s head, shining on her hair.

‘Best move her, she might be uncomfortable in the light,’ said Orsino.

The sun moved across the top of her face, casting a glowing veil over her eyes.

‘Come on, help me move her.’

But the woman blinked and opened her eyes. Dow had never seen anything like them – they were a pale and rare violet that almost seemed to shine in the sunbeam. They reminded Dow of the fragile blue sky over the moor in the winter morning, of sapphires he had seen on the fine cups and plates in a church, of the blue light of the stained windows and of none of those things. They were a colour unto themselves, unearthly. Orsino actually crossed himself as she awoke.

The lady sat up and turned into the sunbeam stretching up into its warmth.

Edwin was at the door. ‘Are you a gentlewoman? Are you a good Christian woman or a city slut?’

She turned to face him. ‘Your Christ fell, like me,’ she said, ‘or rather, he was pushed.’

‘
My
Christ! The world’s Christ, woman!’

She smiled. ‘As you say.’

Her voice was like a song – bringing with it the fresh feeling of a spring morning, not just a sense of goodness but of evil dispelled. She had a heavy accent – something Dow had not noticed before. She spoke like Orsino, though much more prettily. Dow wanted to ask her, ‘Are you a demon? Did you fall with Lucifer?’ but his mouth and throat were in no fit state for speech. He tried with his thoughts, as he had tried with the fire demon.

‘You saved me, thank you.’

He stared at her so hard it was as if he was trying to bore the words into her mind. She didn’t respond, but stood up.

‘Are you a blasphemer?’ said the priest, extending a shaking finger towards her.

‘Truth is blasphemy,’ said the lady, ‘so says the King of Heaven. I was cast out of Heaven for the love I inspired.’

‘Then you are a demon!’

The priest’s jaw wobbled. Dow had never seen him daunted before, not even when facing that demon back in the burned church. There he had seemed manic, possessed. In front of this strange lady, though, he was uncertain, scared even.

The woman looked about her. ‘This is a dark place,’ she said, ‘I need the light.’

She walked out into the garden. Dow went to the threshold. She put her face up to a horse’s neck. ‘He is light, he is made of light.’ She kissed the horse on the nose.

‘Lady, let us help you,’ said Orsino. ‘You’ve been distressed by your ordeal.’

‘Yes, I have,’ she said. ‘I don’t know my way home any more.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘You’re looking for forgiveness,’ she said, ‘but who is blaming you?’

She walked to the garden gate, opened it and stepped through. Orsino ran after her, following her through. He re-emerged a moment later, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.

‘She’s gone,’ said Orsino. ‘She’s vanished.’ He sat down on the floor heavily, almost as if knocked down by an invisible force. ‘She was like my wife,’ he said. ‘She was like my wife.’

‘These demons can take various forms,’ said Edwin. ‘You, boy, bring Hell to my door. A shame you can’t keep it here. I should have constrained her. If we’d had longer, we could have caught her in a circle.’

‘You think she’s a demon?’ said Orsino.

‘She said she was cast out of Heaven. What more evidence do you want? You felt what she conjured in you. And in me, if I tell the truth. You heard her blaspheme and now she vanishes like the morning mist. You saw her perfection. Not of this realm, for sure,’ said Edwin.

‘Is a fallen angel the same as a demon?’ said Orsino.

‘Not necessarily. When the gates of Hell were shut at The Fall, some fallen angels hid and resisted being rightly turned to beastly forms. The Devil says God has expelled others since, or sent them down when it suits his purposes.’

The priest glanced about him, as if he expected the city watch to burst in at any minute and take him away. He turned to Dow. ‘How did you call her? It took me a lifetime of study to win my spirit, yet you, yet you …’ His words trailed away, but his eyes were fixed on Dow as if his gaze could peel him and lay all his secrets bare. When Dow did not reply Edwin sniffed and said: ‘You will apply yourself to the control of the fellow we have trapped below. You will attend me while I question the spirit about this latest appearance. Now.’

Dow’s mouth was agony and he wanted to rest. But this was his chance to see the spirit in the basement.

6

‘You again, Bardi? Recovered from the attack that took Pole, I see.’

The king sat on the wooden terrace overlooking the knights’ practice field at Windsor. The castle rose behind him, the great round tower white in the sharp sun, the glass of the chapels sparkling, the year’s last nip of frost in the air.

He had come home from the wars in the north of France, though he would not call them wars. ‘I’ve had worse scraps with my son,’ he said.

If he had, the son looked well on it.

On the king’s knee was little Edward, splendid in his green velvet and pearls. King Edward bounced the child up and down as he spoke.

‘The attack by the bandits was lamentable, sir.’ Bardi had been trying to see the king for months but Edward had been back and forth to the continent. He’d been within touching distance of him on several occasions – including at Southampton – but had not yet been invited to speak. Finally, one Edward’s snotty secretaries had said it might be possible. If … If what? What do you think? Money, as always. Well, more money. The amount of bribes he’d doled out should have been enough to secure him an audience with God, let alone a king.

Bardi had received a message from his father saying that the situation at home was becoming difficult. ‘Difficult’ was the word old man Bardi habitually chose when others would have preferred ‘impossible’. People were not convinced the Bardis were going to see a return on their investment and it was taking all Bardi senior’s considerable skills to prevent a run on the bank.

Edward had to be prevented from a suicidal mission into France. Theoretically the crown would still owe the money if Edward died. Practically it would prove nearly impossible to get it from Edward’s successor. The boy prince was only seven. His uncles could argue that their hands were tied regarding any debt until the child came of age.

‘Not hurt yourself, though?’

In truth, Bardi’s arm had not been too badly hurt by the demon’s attack, though a good coat had been ruined, but he had hoped – rather optimistically – that the wound might generate sympathy at court, so he’d kept it bandaged. The banker knew that some of the ladies might look favourably on him, but a warrior, like Edward, wouldn’t regard having an arm
potentially
ripped off – or even ripped off – as much to shout about.

The events of that night still haunted him. He’d covered up his fear from the low men around him at the burned church in Southampton, but he knew who had tried to drag him to Hell. Hugh Despenser, old King Edward II’s dead favourite. Men had called him a devil for all the wickedness he had unleashed on the country. The rebel Mortimer had believed so, because he’d had him covered in magical wards and charms before he’d killed him. But now he was trying to come back from Hell.

Why was he so angry with Bardi? The banker had conveyed some letters for him to the Knights Hospitaller in France. Naturally he’d had the seals broken and remade to check their contents, but he’d made neither head nor tail of them. Some trade in relics, some spiritual advice, nothing he could understand. Magic, and magical skullduggery, no doubt, but Despenser was too clever to give away much in the letters and it wasn’t worth opening the replies. If the baron had suspected, even for an instant, there was something amiss with the seal on the returning letter, he would have given Bardi the sort of death a Roman emperor might have considered harsh.

Bardi had been pleased to make contact with the Hospitallers, though. It stood him in good stead years later in his dealings with Edward. Those fellows had absorbed the Templars on their dissolution. There were certain learned men of that order who were very useful to kings, particularly those who wished to be free of over-powerful uncles. Officially, Bardi had known little about the business between the Hospitallers and Edward. He had simply responded to the young king’s request for ‘useful men’ who might help rid him of ‘certain problems’. The king only had one problem – the power-grabbing Mortimer. A month after Bardi had put Edward in contact with the holy knights, the tyrant Mortimer was gone and Edward was king in fact as well as in name.

‘I’m well, sire.’

‘No chance of dying of gangrene or succumbing to an infection?’

‘I think not, sire.’

King Edward snorted, almost as if he was disappointed to hear that. Edward pulled his cloak closer about him and his son. The three sat in silence and watched the knights going through their paces in the frost of the practice ring, charging hard before wheeling to charge again. Every time a horse turned it paused for a second, wreathed in the steam of its own breath.

‘Magnificent,’ said Edward. ‘No sight in the world like a warhorse stamping, ready for the charge.’

‘Indeed not, sire.’ Bardi looked across the ring at the figure of stout Sir William Neville, who was seated on a tall four-legged bench that stood in for a horse. The knight, in full mail and basinet, with a lance in front of him, was acting as the instructor and the target, catching the lances on a large shield – yellow with a blue chevron. Over his mail he wore a solid breast plate in the latest German style. It covered his chest but his belly was still exposed. What better way to test new armour than to put a man in it, charge warhorses at him and see if he was killed? The English were lunatics, thought Bardi. He was becoming increasingly convinced that the entire country had a death wish. He’d have found it amusing if he hadn’t had such a large amount of money invested in it. He’d wished he’d seen them using themselves as lance targets before he’d parted with all that cash.