Son of the Morning (27 page)
‘Will you side with us?’ said Edward.
‘You are the vicar of the Holy Roman Empire and I recognise your right. The light at Westminster is enchanting,’ said the angel, ‘I will play in it for a while.’
The wheels flared and spun, the eyes blinked and the angel was gone.
‘The refurbishment of Westminster Abbey was truly worth it,’ said Burghesh. ‘An angel can be anywhere and only true beauty, commissioned to my design, true dedication and prayer, from monks schooled by me, can hold it to one place. We did well to spend the money there, truly we did. My lord, I expect no gratitude – I am here to serve!’
The relief in his voice spoke volumes. England had an angel again.
Edward should have been as happy as a fisherman’s cat and he endeavoured to look it.
‘Games to honour this alliance!’ he said. ‘We have done great work this day, and to honour it I shall tilt in the lists myself!’ A murmur went through the princes, deep approval. A king who manoeuvred his armies and played the game of politics well would be respected and honoured. One who split a few skulls would be loved.
Edward kissed the emperor’s hand and turned from the chapel. ‘Pray,’ he addressed the church. ‘Pray to thank God for this precious gift. And know that I am the true king of France.’ He’d said it on impulse but now it seemed so right.
The congregation drew in breath.
‘Yes,’ said Edward. ‘I have the better claim through my mother’s side than the usurper Philip. I will make war on Philip throughout his lands and watch as his angels recognise my right and come to me!’
The Holy Roman Emperor rocked from side to side on his throne in approval, clapping and braying. Edward knew why. This guaranteed war for a long, long time. While England fought France, the French would not look east.
The church nobles took their cue from Louis.
‘King of France! King of France!’ they cried.
When the shouting was done, Edward left the church, Burghesh was at his side. ‘Well done,’ he said.
Edward grunted.
Douce, Edward, douce. Couch the lance lightly. Be as they expect you to be.
‘Not the usual form for the angel,’ said Edward. ‘Usually they come as strange colours or shining men.’
‘That is one of the Ophanim,’ said Burghesh, ‘one of the carriers of the throne of God.’
‘A good catch?’ said Edward.
‘Well, undoubtedly,’ said Burghesh, ‘but I foresee problems. Firstly, it’s a creature of the third order of the first sphere of angels.’
‘Meaning?’
‘The French have been buttering up the archangel Jegudiel. There’s every chance our angel will just defer to him. You know how they respect God’s holy hierarchy. It was too much to hope that one of the Emperor’s archangels would attend.’
Edward took the bishop by the arm and drew him to a halt.
‘Have we been sold short, Burghesh?’
‘We’ve got what we paid for, majesty. A third of the debt, an angel of the third order. It is a formidable spirit and will prove invaluable in battles where the French cannot summon their angel. And who is to say that they will be able to? God is sure to recognise your claim in France so the angels will come to you.’
‘That is assured,’ said Edward.
The king was aware he was holding up a column of people trying to leave the church, not to mention drawing great attention to his conversation with Burghesh. He walked on, the bishop falling in uncertainly by his side.
Through the houses, on a big area of common ground he could see the bright colours of the tournament tents. Wet earth, no rain. An ideal day for tilting. Perhaps he should indulge in the mêlée too. It was all very well practising the noble art of jousting but he could do with knocking the rust from his armour in some more realistic fighting. He hoped that Stephen would take part on the other side.
Edward had become carried away in claiming the French throne, all the tension and annoyance of the previous years giving way in an instant, wanting physical expression. The prince would find it difficult looking down his nose once he’d had it smashed into his face. A hundred doubts were hammering at the doors of his mind but Edward’s will was a fortress. He had been willing to fight without an angel. Now he had one, he was eager. What had his mother told him when she had announced they were going to overthrow his father and he had begged her not to? ‘Other men tremble. Kings do not.’ He wasn’t afraid – he had deployed his forces in the most favourable way he could, given the land he stood on. He had a chance now, he at least had a dice to roll in his game with Philip. And if God favoured him in war, he could become the true king of France, blessed by victory in battle. Then the French angels would come to him and he would not be dependent on the death of his father.
He addressed Burghesh, an inch from his ear. ‘It might at least engage the other angel for a while and that’ll give us the chance to fight the French sword to sword. By the time Jegudiel finishes parleying with it, God may have given us the battle. The archangel will respect that. Adam!’ He shouted to a squire, ‘Go and stick me in the lists. What we discussed.’ He gave him a wink to remind him to put him up against Stephen. The boy returned a big smile and went running.
‘There is one more problem, majesty,’ said Burghesh.
‘What problem?’
‘Well, not a problem as such. Not for you, my lord. But I would point out that the Ophanim are angels of divine justice. It might be good to remember that in your dealings with it.’
Again, a sharp stab of doubt in his breast. What did Burghesh know? Nothing, but that man had a nose for weakness like a hound’s for a deer. Edward dismissed his anxiety. He had stepped over a precipice on the shakiest of ground. Where he stood now was a secure footing compared to where he had been. He knew what he had done, and what bargains he had struck to replace the tin crown Mortimer had set on his head with one of gold, one of real power. He had done it for England, to honour God’s will that the king should rule, not some skulking usurper. God himself had used Satan – the Bible showed that to be true in the book of Job when he had set him on his dearest worshipper. How was it different, the bargain Edward had struck? Burghesh knew nothing dangerous, and was still smarting because he hadn’t been in on the plot to oust Mortimer … and probably from the kick in the balls Montagu had administered to him.
Edward stopped himself from laughing. He’d necessarily had to stay out of the action in the castle, so as to deny any knowledge should the plan have failed. But he would dearly have loved to have seen the bishop take a good one to the stones. Just thinking about it made him smile.
Ah, Montagu, I need you back.
He wanted his friend at his side to celebrate his success. And to give Stephen a second spanking after he’d finished with him. Burghesh was one of those species of men who liked to place the blame for his misfortune on anything and anyone but himself, and had been heard to blame anyone from the Devil to the bankers to the Jews for the brief inconvenience and imprisonment he’d suffered when The Mortimer fell. In truth, he should have thanked his lucky stars. If Edward’s father had caught the man consorting with his enemy, he’d have handed him over to Despenser for one of the more sickening deaths history had to record. Burghesh was lucky the new king was a practical man. Raised in France and an assured diplomat, Burghesh was too valuable to send to the scaffold. No point letting the past poison the present.
‘I have nothing to fear, Burghesh,’ said Edward, ‘I am an instrument of justice.’
‘In that case, sir,’ said Burghesh, ‘I’m sure you’ll get along just fine. But it’s too late to campaign this year. Given the state of the finances it looks like it might be you and the angel on your own next year against the French, sir. You’re a formidable man, I’m sure that will be enough.’
Edward prodded the bishop in the chest. ‘I
am
a formidable man,’ said Edward. ‘And will and faith in God can succeed in place of money, in place of armies, in place of anything. France will burn until I get what I want.’
In the year that the French conference at Vincennes resolved to invade England, with a great force of Normans, and that Plymouth, Southampton and Ipswich were burned. Louis was born to John of France and England was shamed at La Flamengrie. The Agenais suffered under most grievous wars and sieges and Edward’s cog
Christopher
was captured by the French.
The uses of ritual circle and ritual sword, ritual crown and ritual ring – the names of the angels and the names of the demons of Hell, Dow learned them all. He learned the importance of moondark and moonrise, the ascent of Venus and the decline of Mars, the nature of the angels who live in the south and those who live in the north, how conjunction of the planets intersected with the temper of devils and demons, that time and tide must be exactly right to summon Belial and not incur the wrath of Asmodeus. A dismembered cat, tallow and mercury were needed to appease Baal, mandrake and gold to call and compel Mammon.
Devils were easier to call than demons because a demon needs to sneak through a crack in the walls of Hell. A devil may be licensed to leave or may simply walk through a gate.
While the streets of London sighed with fear of French invasion, while Edward wandered France like the embodiment of a biblical plague, burning and pillaging but forever incapable of taking a town, or inflicting any real damage on Philip, and while the French stalled and burned the English ports as best they could in this hobbled sort of war, Dow learned.
But he only learned. He did not act. The priest seemed indecisive and, though he endlessly discussed what might be done with Dow, even set up summoning rituals and rehearsed them with the boy, he did not go through with them. Never did he take out that key to Hell he kept in the pouch around his neck. Instead, the priest spent day after day shouting at the man in the circle, trying to command him with every name holy and unholy he could remember. He seemed more trapped than the devil as he clung to the repetition of rituals that had repeatedly failed. He was like the king in France, repeatedly burning the same bit of earth.
The priest was afraid now, Dow could tell. The woman had unnerved him. He endlessly questioned Dow on what he had seen in the street. Dow told him. He was as keen as the priest to discover the true nature of what he had seen, if for very different reasons. Dow suspected the red cardinal had been a devil. The woman had to be a fallen angel, by the protection she had offered him. The thing in the circle? Some sort of spirit. He just called it Osbert now.
Orsino had taken to wandering the streets in the early morning, searching for her. ‘Why do you look for her?’ the priest asked him as he left the house one morning.
‘She is beautiful. She’s a creature of the dawn,’ he said.
‘Who knew fighting men could be poets?’ said the priest.
‘Aren’t your knights poets?’
‘They’re men of a different rank from you.’
‘We’re all the same rank dead, priest,’ said Orsino.
‘That,’ declared Edwin, ‘shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Heaven.’
Edwin was a very tired man, Dow saw. He never really ate and seemed physically frail. Not too frail to wield the whip when he was displeased, though. Dow took his beatings. He was learning, slowly, and – in his room at night – he said the beautiful names of the demons and, in particular, those of the fallen angels. There were two hundred of them and Edwin wanted him to memorise them all.
‘Araqiel, Armaros, Penemue, Samyaza, Shamsiel, Baraqel, Gadriel, Azazel and Sariel – also called Suriel, Suriyel, Sahariel, Juriel, Seriel, Sauriel, Esdreel, Surya Saraqael, Sarakiel, Jariel, Suruel, Surufel and Sourial.’
Sariel. That was the name of the angel his nan had used to bless him. He hoped that the woman he’d seen in the street was her. The name seemed to fit her – he couldn’t think that she could have another. The priest said Sariel was male, all angels were male. But Sariel was a woman. Dow found the fallen angel’s description in a book the priest had brought back – written in English, unusually.
He guessed this book must have been written by someone of his own Luciferian faith. The priests wrote in Latin, keeping their secrets tight. The book said Sariel was one of the watchers – the Grigori. They were not rebellious angels, but had fallen in love with humans and were cast out of Heaven. Sariel was an angel of death, forever writing in a mortal book, forever crossing out names. But she – ‘he’ it said in the book – was a healing angel too and was known by the name ‘moon of God’. She was made of fire and air and reflected the light of God.
Dow found this disturbing. Was the angel in league with his enemy, the usurper Îthekter? He could not believe that, and the idea of her presence remained a great comfort to him.
By day, in the hours the priest slept, Orsino tried to teach him the arts of war. Dow learned quickly and uncomplainingly. He tried to hold on to his hate of Orsino, an anchor to his past, what he had been. The man had snatched him from his homeland, killed his friends when they tried to rescue him. But, in another way of looking at it, he had freed him from a prison and simply defended himself when attacked. It was difficult not to admire the warrior – he was no high man – but it was very hard to return his friendliness.