Son of the Morning (55 page)

The light in the chamber was full of memories. It was the light in the wine they’d stolen from a merchant’s house, the light breaking from behind a cloud over the moor, the shimmer on an eel’s back, the flash on a kingfisher’s wing.

Dow found the sensation overwhelming. He heard a voice like the boom of the sea.

‘Jegudiel.’

The devils outside began to twitter and squawk, two running back out of the palace, the cardinal diving to the side of the door to be out of the burning light.

Dow felt the light pouring out of him, from his mouth, from his eyes, from the mark on his chest and he knew the angel was there, stripping away all pretence and illusion. He was light. Everything was light, the chapel a shattered gem spawning rainbows, the windows shimmering veils of blue.

‘Jegudiel. Such beauty.’

‘None such beauty as you, radiant and shining one.’ Sariel stretched out her hands to the light.

‘Who are these?’

Dow could see a figure in the light – a perfect man, winged and haloed, a dancing aura of violet and green around his head.

He had to ask it. ‘Where do we find the king in the east?’

No reply.

Sariel was calling to the creature. ‘Take me to the light, give me forgiveness.’

More shouting down the stairs as the devils engaged more men-at-arms. There was a roar and a flash, screams and shouting.

‘You have beauty beyond compare. What would it be like to touch you? Sariel, is it sweet to fall? What it would be to dwell in the world of flesh. I am lonely sometimes in the light.’

‘Take me to the light.’

‘You are perfection. No glass, no gold holds the lustre of your skin. Your eyes make the jewels of this place seem dull indeed.’

‘Take me to the light!’

‘Is it sweet to fall? What sour pleasures you must feel, embodied and vulnerable. What it must be to scrape a knee, to feel hot porridge burn the mouth, to lie with one such as you in sweat and secretion.’

‘I will join you! I will join you in the light.’

The man, the perfect man who had only been a multitude of glistening crystal sparkles now started to take shape. His hair was like wrought gold, his skin like ivory, his eyes blue sapphires, yet it was a man who took shape in front of Dow, not a statue – impossibly tall, with enormous wings of shining white feathers, armour of plates like a mirror, a sword at his side, a shield on his arm that bore a flaming heart. He sat down on the altar as if it were a chair.

‘Kill him!’ shouted the little boy. ‘That’s your job isn’t it, Antichrist? Kill him!’

But Dow could not move. The light still poured from him.

Sariel ran to the angel and it gathered her into its arms as she sobbed, ‘You fell, you fell! You were not meant to fall. I wanted to come back to the light!’

‘There is light enough,’ said the angel, cradling her to him.

He held up his hand and the colours in Dow stopped their flow. The little boy pressed something into Dow’s hand. The devil’s knife.

Dow gripped it but the angel stretched its hand towards Dow.

‘Brother,’ it said and Dow knew that it spoke the truth. He had been born of light and born of woman.

‘Mother?’ he said to Sariel. In the presence of the French angel, he knew now who she was – he felt it in his heart.

The devils came whooping and clattering into the hall. A dog-headed man on a great horse charged for Dow who gripped the knife and swung it, but to no avail. The horse charged him down, battering him to the floor.

‘Never mind the angel. Take the boy!’ The horrid cardinal took a candle from a votary and put it into his mouth. The dog-headed man jumped down from his horse, stabbing at Dow with his spear. But the cardinal never got to breathe. Orsino had picked up the blackbird’s sword – a big, heavy-bladed falchion – and struck the cardinal hard across the back of the neck. His head came clean off at the shoulders and a pillar of flame burst up to the ceiling.

The trident on Dow’s chest shone as he rolled aside from the dogman’s spear. The dog thing stabbed and stabbed again, but Dow ducked and rolled as Orsino had told him to do. The ceiling of the chapel was now on fire thanks to the exploding cardinal.

‘Fetch more guards! More guards!’ shouted Joan of Navarre. She tried to pull little Charles with her but the boy would not go.

‘Fetch the guards if you must,’ he said. ‘This is the moment of our victory and I want to see it.’

‘You will die.’

‘No.’

‘Come, son! The place is burning.’

‘I’ll wait a while yet, mother. I fancy the angel will not let the fire consume such beauty. Fetch the guards.’

Joan pulled at her son hard but found she could not move him. She crossed herself twice and ran from the chapel.

Jegudiel was rapt, staring into Sariel’s eyes. ‘Your beauty is enchanting. On the river Swin, in the setting sun, ships are burning as men fight for the honour of the Lord. It is a wonderful sight and yet nothing compared to the glory of your eyes,’ said Jegudiel. His voice was all beauty, like the sucking and drawing of the tides, like the wind in a forest.

The horse creature with the peacock fan had taken up the holy lance and now rounded on Orsino, shrieking. The mercenary was quick, though, twisting and turning, not bothering to parry, cutting at the devil’s head so it had to look to defence rather than attack. It goaded him as they fought. ‘Here’s one who cursed the Lord’s name when he should have prayed in grief. Here’s a killer and a thief!’

The flames above filled the chapel with a noxious smoke, hazing the light of the windows. For the first time, Jegudiel looked up. He held out his hand and the flames just weren’t there any more. The unicorn devil leapt at him, his daggers whirling, but Jegudiel simply turned his hand to the devil. A flash of unbearable intensity and the devil had vanished.

Again, the dog-faced man came for Dow, but the flash had given Dow time to recover his feet. He knocked the spear aside, just enough to make it miss, and then he was on the devil, the dagger stabbing down into its chest and shoulders.

A clinging black ichor burst from its wounds, covering Dow’s face, but the dogman seemed unaffected, punching and kicking at Dow so hard the boy retched. It seized him by the throat, driving him back onto the floor.

Dow felt something humming inside him; his head was a blister ready to pop. The devil couldn’t focus on Dow, the burning light from the fork on his chest blinding its eyes and forcing it to turn its head. Dow’s hand went to the fork and, without thinking what he was doing, he lifted it from his chest. In his hand was a trident of searing light and he thrust it into the dog creature. It screamed and shrivelled in on itself like parchment in a fire, reducing to nothing.

The angel was watching him now, though Sariel just gazed up at Jegudiel in bliss.

The peacock creature leapt back from Orsino’s flashing sword. Then it threw the holy lance. Orsino tried to swat it aside but it was thrown too hard, too quickly, and took him straight through the chest.

The mercenary fell back, grasping the shaft of the spear, trying to pull it out, but it was no good, the lance had gone through him to protrude a foot behind. He fell heavily, gasping.

Dow ran at the peacock devil which, unarmed, turned to face him, claws raised. It cried out in alarm as it saw the fork of light and put out its hands to grasp it. The fork struck the creature, which collapsed in on itself and disappeared.

All the devils were now gone and Dow dropped to his knees, the trident blinking and fading in his hand.

The angels still sat on the altar, holding hands, their eyes locked. Jegudiel lifted Sariel’s hand to his and kissed it.

Montagu came running into the hall.

‘An angel!’ he cried. ‘As Lord Marschall of England, appointed by Edward, appointed by God, standing in his place as Edward stands in the place of God, I charge you to tell me, does the old King Edward live? If alive, where is he?’

Jegudiel looked up from his rapture. ‘Kings,’ said the angel, its voice like the crash of many cymbals.

‘Where are the angels? Where is Barachiel who dwelled in the abbey? Where is the seraph who lived at Walsingham? Where the Elohim who lived in the light at Canterbury?’

‘Where they always are.’

‘Where is that?’

‘Where God wants them to be. With the king.’

‘Does old Edward live?’

‘His angels attend him. God still waits for him.’

‘Proof!’ shouted Montagu.

‘Where is the king? Where is old Edward?’ he said.

‘I cannot tell. The snake eats the man. There he lies.’

‘Where is old Edward?’ begged Montagu, but the angel said nothing, just returned to gazing at Sariel. He held her and kissed her and she was rapt.

Dow got to his feet and went to Orsino. The mercenary had heaved the lance from his chest but his breath was rasping and his mouth bubbled with blood.

‘Sariel, help him!’ begged Dow but she was lost to the angel’s beauty.

Orsino got to his feet, the lance in his hand. He staggered forward in a weaving line, up towards the altar where the angels sat. He spoke directly to Sariel. ‘You are the light and I love you,’ he said.

Neither of the angels replied; both just sat as if entranced, staring into each other’s eyes, Jegudiel’s arm on Sariel’s shoulder.

Dow ran to support Orsino, knowing he might fall. Orsino coughed and hacked, blood on his lips. ‘Darkness, then,’ he said. He stabbed the holy lance up into Jegudiel’s armpit, where the mail did not protect him, and collapsed against him.

The angel looked down at the lance. Then its beautiful eyes settled on Dow.

‘You,’ it said. It reached out its hand to touch him but Dow struck him at the neck with the dagger and the angel collapsed.

18

Edwin sweated, giddy at the edge of his bed, holding back from the life time’s habit of morning prayer.

‘You must break this practice. You have chosen now.’ Know-Much sat at the corner of the room, her little legs poking out from her fat belly, her arms resting on top of it.

The priest almost felt like crying when he looked at the little demon. In one moment he felt elation, he could learn so much about the inner workings of Heaven and Hell. In another, despair – as he felt certain he was destined for the latter as soon as he died.

‘Are angels individuals, Know-Much? Have they material form or are they, as Aquinas tells us, pure forms, immaterial minds?’

‘Angels are light.’

‘And so is one separate from another?’

‘Better to ask if one person is separate from another.’

‘I have form and substance and so do you. Therefore we are separate.’

‘So, are angels, who have no form, separate even from us. We are light.’ The demon spoke in a slow croak.

‘We are clay and to clay we return,’ said Edwin.

‘In the beginning was the void and then there was light. Light is everything. Everything is light.’

‘Even you, Know-Much? For to me you seem a creature of darkness.’

‘And yet you look to me for enlightenment. How dark a creature must you be?’

The priest had tears coming down his face. ‘I need to pray.’

‘Then pray,’ said Know-Much, ‘for Lucifer would not wish to see you distressed. If you are happy as a servant, then be a servant.’

‘It is right that I serve the King of Creation.’

‘Creation has no king. How can a tree have a king? Could your Edward bid it walk?’

Edwin put his head into his hands. ‘I know no purpose, for I have no master to follow.’

‘But you have a friend to help, and to help you.’

‘Who is that friend?’

‘Lucifer.’

‘I am damned.’

‘You were damned before you rejected your God. He damned you for raising spirits. He damned you for impure thoughts. He damned you for coveting knowledge, though it was your nature, the nature he claims to have given you. If he really was the creator, what a funny fellow he must be to make such a flawed creature and then blame it for its imperfections. Bring me a fish, good Edwin, for I am hungry.’

The priest got up off the bed and went downstairs. There was a knock at the door which, as usual, he ignored. Beggars often came for alms to the house but they should have known to apply at the church.

He went into the kitchen. Since the demon had arrived he had been forced to take better care of his domestic arrangements because it had a prodigious appetite for salted fish. He took a herring from the cool slab and walked along the corridor back to the stairs.

There was a click and Edwin realised with a shock that someone had picked the lock in the front door. His instinct was to run off and raise the hue and cry, but he couldn’t do that with the demon in the house. So he remained transfixed for a heartbeat too long.

Suddenly, in the doorway, stood one of the most remarkable figures he had ever seen – a giant of a man with a shaggy red beard and long red hair – a pauper by his dress, lean but muscular. He strode towards Edwin and lifted the priest up by his throat, pinning him against the wall.

‘Where he?’

Edwin could hardly speak. Around the stranger’s head, rising and falling with the bouncing flight of bats, two little demons chattered and pointed, tiny men with horns on their heads and pitchforks in their hands, wings beating the air. One was a mottled blue, the other a patchy black and red, and both seemed in a state of high excitement.

‘Where’s who?’ Even in his predicament, Edwin was fascinated by the demons – wanted to question them, to measure and draw them.

‘Dowzabel. Where Dowzabel?’

Four other men were in the house, running up the stairs, down into the cellar. Edwin’s mind was shot with panic and he feared they were magistrates looking for evidence of his magical investigations. Bardi and the influence he bought had long protected him, but now Bardi’s money was withdrawn and, with it, his protection.

‘We’re looking for the boy.’ It was a female voice. The pressure on his throat lessened slightly and he managed to turn his head to see a great fat woman in a ragged red velvet gown beside him.

‘He’s not here,’ said Edwin.

‘Where he? Where he?’