Son of the Morning (21 page)

‘You can write? Now
that
would be a miracle,’ said Edwin.

Instead Dow used the pen to draw. He used symbols – manacles for himself to represent that he was a captive, a distaff for the woman, shining with light, and then the man with the mouth of fire. The priest knocked the parchment from his hands.

‘You’ll not cast your spells in here,’ he said. ‘You’ll …’ Then he seemed to think better of it and picked up the parchment.

‘Is this a spell?’ he asked. ‘Is this how I make it do my bidding?’

Dow shook his head in frustration, which the priest took for encouragement.

‘You regret handing it over? Well, you’ve given it to me now.’

Dow thought that the man had talked to devils for so long he was incapable of recognising the truth when he saw it.

The priest walked up to the magic circle brandishing the paper. The devil remained lying on the floor. Dow came closer too. The devil was shaking. Then it looked up and Dow realised it was sobbing.

‘Look at this, what do you make of it? Does the paper command you? Will you now do my biddings?’

‘I will do whatever you want – just release me,’ said the devil.

‘Well, that’s progress,’ said Edwin. ‘It’s just repeated its lies about being a pardoner before. Have you heard of the Drago?’

‘Yes. I’ve sold three.’

‘Three?’ said Edwin.

‘Probably more. There was a rush on a few years ago when it looked like our good King Edward was going on crusade with his cousin the French king. When that went quiet, demand dropped off.’

‘There were three Dragos?’

‘There are as many as there are bedsheets with a splash of paint on ’em to look like a dragon. I used to know a lady knocked ’em up lovely. Mind you, why St George would have had a dragon on his pennant going to fight a dragon is anyone’s guess. It’s like going to kill the king of France with his head on your banner. Doesn’t make sense – but it’s what the people want.’

Edwin turned to Dow. ‘Can you interpret his dissembling?’

Dow gestured to his open mouth.

‘The sooner we teach you to write, the better. I can hardly understand a word you say at the best of times.’

Edwin went to his tables and his books, the candle flame wavering to send the shadows dancing as he passed. He took up a book and made the sign of the cross over it. Then he studied it for some time before returning to face the figure in the circle.

‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit I command you, devil, whether of the day or of the night, by the power of the undivided Trinity and the intercession of the glorious Mary ever Virgin, by the prayers of the prophets, by the merits of the patriarchs, by the supplication of the angels and the archangels, by the intercession of the apostles, by the passion of the martyrs, by the faith of the confessors, the chastity of virgins, the intercession of all the saints and by the seven sleepers whose names are Malchus, Maximianus, Dionysius, John, Constantine, Seraphion and Martimanus.’ He approached the devil, repeatedly making the sign of the cross.

‘Cease your vagueness and your deceptions and reveal the truth of what I ask! Christ reigns. Christ commands. Christ conquers!’

The thing in the circle let out a long and sonorous fart.

‘That fart is an offence to God! Will you not be commanded?’

‘What do you want? Just set me free and you can command me to play Evensong out of my arsehole.’

‘Hear it blaspheme! No wonder my mind plays tricks on me when I am forced to work daily with such as this, who laugh in God’s face. Where is the Drago?’ Edwin made the sign of the cross.

‘Where do you think it is?’

‘I think the French took it.’

‘Then the French took it.’

‘You see!’ shouted Edwin, ‘these things can be made to obey!’

‘If a Drago’s all you want I can get you one before the end of the year. I know a woman in Cheapside who, for the right price, will embroider you one so it looks as if the dragon will bite you. Painted version, by the end of the week.’

‘How can the Drago be in Cheapside if it’s also in France? Did French agents bring it to Cheapside?’

‘You are not the most stupid man I have ever met –’ said the devil, ‘– that honour goes to a knight to whom I managed to sell a hoof of St Horse. But you are a creditable second.’

‘I try to use my guile to see truth through lies.’

‘Well, you’re doing a good job of seeing lies through truth here, pal. I am a pardoner, stuck in here by a very odd sort who is probably wandering about as we speak, eating people, or worse. Very probably worse, whatever that is.’

Dow could sense the despair coming off the creature. It had decided, Dow thought, that it had no hope at all of getting out and was now just talking nonsense.

‘You return to your old song,’ said the priest.

He went back to his desk and started leafing through books. Again he took an age, while the thing in the circle muttered disconsolately to itself, making not much sense.

‘Eating people with your mouth open – that has to be worse than just eating them. Why won’t they believe me? How do I know about the Drago? I know about Dragos all right but who knows about the real thing? Is there even a real thing?’

Dow stared at the creature.
Direct me to the banner. Why talk in riddles? Do you not know where it is?

No reply.

‘Kid, why don’t you let me out of this circle. Do you know how?’

‘Keep away from the circle or the price is death, heretic!’

‘Heretic!’ said the figure, ‘now why do you say that?’

‘Don’t get excited, he is not of your party,’ said the priest.

‘I have a party?’ said the pardoner. ‘Glory be! Could you tell them I’m here so they’ll come and rescue me?’

The boy held up three fingers to the creature.

‘Nope, means nothing to me,’ said the pardoner.

‘Now I know that you lie,’ said the priest. ‘You’re telling me you don’t even recognise your own devil’s sign.’

‘Oh,
that
devil’s sign,’ said the pardoner. ‘Now you mention it … no, I don’t.’

‘And yet you said “Oh, that devil’s sign”, clearly recognising it,’ said Edwin, ‘catching yourself out with your own lies.’

‘Have you ever been in an ale house?’ said the pardoner.

‘No,’ said Edwin.

‘Thought not. Go into one. You need to learn when people are joking.’

‘Will that lead me to the Drago?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything? You can have one for sixpence if you let me out of here!’

‘You should mark how he speaks in circles,’ said Edwin to Dow, ‘how nothing at all makes sense. And yet there are glimmers of sense in it. What do you make of it?’

Dow gestured to his mouth. It was agony and he needed to lie down.

‘Still whining about that? This is insufferable,’ said Edwin. ‘If you are to be my assistant you’ll need to learn to communicate properly – not in grunts and groans. We’ll get you reading and writing, and then I can use your skills to question this fiend more closely. He is a devil from Hell, gaoler of those you worship, and I would establish if he is telling the truth about the nature of Hell.’

‘I’m to be here until the kid learns to read? How long will that take? I haven’t eaten, I haven’t drunk!’

‘And neither have you pissed or shat.’

‘Odd, I admit. I don’t even feel hungry. Still, at least I can fart. Whatever happens to me, they’ll never take that from me.’ He laughed, but without mirth. ‘And I haven’t said anything about the nature of anything.’

‘Liar! You told me before that devils are Hell’s gaolers and demons its prisoners.

‘Look, I don’t understand this any better than you do. Just let me out!’

‘You think me a fool, abomination? You are a creature of magic, sustained by magic.’

‘I am a creature of total bollocks, sustained by total bollocks!’ shouted the figure. ‘I am liar, trapped in a fool’s lie to himself.’

‘I have forced a confession of at least that from you. I regard my work as done for a while. Boy, follow me. Orsino must go to Cheapside and find out what he can about the Drago. We need to follow every lead this creature gives us.’

‘I have a lead!’ said the creature.

‘What?’

‘Go to Puppekirty Lane in Cheapside. Ask any of the whores in the more economical establishments to attend here. They will vouch that I am a pardoner and not a devil as you contend.’

‘You ask me to take the word of a whore?’

‘There’s none so truthful as a whore you don’t pay.’

‘Up,’ said the priest to Dow, ‘we will begin your reading and writing lesson. And I will expect attention, for I teach by the rod as the Bible instructs.’

‘Does it instruct you to call devils?’ said the thing in the circle.

‘So you are a devil,’ said Edwin, ‘and condemned from your own mouth.’

‘Oh, by God’s holy testicles,’ said the thing and put its head in its hands.

Dow looked hard at the priest. He would work out how to find this Drago. Then he would act, not for the priest but for himself, his brothers on the moor and for Free Hell. First he had to find out if the thing in the circle was a demon or a devil. If it was a demon, he would help it escape. If it was a devil, as the priest seemed to think, he would practise upon it, learn how to send it back to Hell. Then he would be fitted for the task Free Hell had set him, no matter what God and his servant Satan could throw at him.

He climbed the stairs, clenching his jaw and hoping that Orsino had found something to ease the pain.

9

King Edward sat in his room, his head bent over the parchments in front of him. He’d secured the very best lodgings in Antwerp – a splendid merchant’s house he’d rented for the duration, but even that was an expense he wished he did not have to bear.

They’d arrived in the city to find the wool he had been promised simply wasn’t in the warehouses, and no one had had the courage to tell him that until he’d gone to see it himself. It was as bad a situation as could have been imagined, short of losing it to the French. The levy that Parliament had ordered simply hadn’t taken place. The wool hadn’t even been gathered – corrupt collectors and disobedient subjects had meant that only £3,000 worth of a promised £200,000 had arrived to sell to the weavers of Flanders. No wool, no money, no army, no allies, no war.

Well, the wool
would
be collected – he’d make sure of that. On that security he thought he might touch the Bardi bankers and other Florentines for £100,000. The great crown could be mortgaged and the treasures of the monasteries too. He’d be bled dry, he knew – massive interest rates and sureties demanded – but he had no choice. He had to start paying the allies, he had to travel to meet the Holy Roman Emperor in great style and to distribute monies freely as he went. To be a king is to be seen to be a king. If his allies suspected the real state of his finances he would be done for.

He went to the window and looked out. The town bristled with English banners, bright flowers growing on the dung heap of his debt. Every day his army remained static was a day he had to pay them while getting nothing in return. It was July, though a cold one. His couldn’t pay for this lot beyond August, unless he raised more money.

He dashed off a letter himself, demanding that a new wool levy take place in England. It was demeaning not to use a scribe, but he was not willing to give anyone in his camp access to such dispiriting news. He scratched his anger into the vellum. Not having any wool was not an excuse for not providing any. Men who didn’t own any must buy some.

His meeting with the princes of Flanders and the Rhineland had gone terribly. Each had said they hadn’t yet mustered a proper army – only their personal entourages had come with them. Each had demanded money and one – the Margrave of Juliers – had requested to come into the presence of the angel. Edward had put him off, arguing it would be a while before the chapel in Flanders was ready. It was no easy job to call an English angel and an even harder one to make it go back again if it considered it had been raised for nothing. Still, he’d found a good course of action to keep the meddlesome Margrave busy – sending him to Germany to set up a meeting with the Holy Roman Emperor.

Edward stirred the fire. One of the innovations in the merchant’s house was a brick chimney, which meant the room was wonderfully free of smoke. July, and the evenings chilly – just his luck to have to buy firewood in high summer.

He owed Louis of Bavaria – the Holy Roman Emperor – £54,000. If he couldn’t pay some of that back, he would never receive his blessing. He had to buy an angel because he hadn’t inherited one.

He snuffed out his candle. The last of the daylight filtered weakly through the glass of his window. He kneeled towards it. ‘Lord, help me. Lead me from this wilderness. Grant me your favour. I have built you a great chapel at Windsor, I have contributed mightily to your church. I will crusade, I will tear the unbeliever from Jerusalem – but build my strength. Let me bring King Philip to terms. I am not a greedy king. I do not seek to rule France, just to defend my lands. When I have angels, I will …’

Somehow he couldn’t say the words. Atone. Put it all right. They implied he had been in the wrong, not the victim of a fraud perpetrated by his mother and by her lover The Mortimer. He had been forced to take radical steps, make unpalatable bargains. He had no choice.
Never forget that, Edward. There was no other way.

No angels. Why? Because The Mortimer had compromised him, told him his father was dead. After young Edward had been crowned, The Mortimer told him his father had not died after all but had been taken away. The threat was clear – be The Mortimer’s spaniel or face exposure as a usurper. For a time he hadn’t known if The Mortimer had lied. But where were his angels?

He touched the finger bone of St Catherine he carried in a purse at his belt, trying to bring the saint into his mind. He saw and felt nothing, no light, no sense of calm.

The light was dying. A wind was in the chimney. Edward watched as the fire breathed sparks into the room, each one so bright and so quickly extinguished. Like men’s hopes, he thought.