Son of the Morning (82 page)

Now they travelled to see it on the pretence of checking anomalies in the books of some minor houses in the north.

Ghost villages – places burned by a forgotten war, put beyond use and never recovered. Churches smashed, houses charred to nothing and then overgrown, the rotted bones of animals and people still under hoof in the streets. The lake would have been no more than a day’s ride from Milan to the north east had the roads been good but they were not good. The area was heavily forested and, though the road went within fifteen miles of Brescia, it bore no one on it and was overgrown and rutted. This did not discomfort Dow. He would have stayed on the moor all his life had Orsino not dragged him away. The only times he’d been off it were when dragged to Plymouth by the priests or when he’d dropped into a town on the rob. High men and adventurers seemed to move all the time. He knew people on Bodmin who had never seen the sea.

‘What happened here?’ said Orsino.

‘A tax dispute nearly twenty years ago now,’ said Bardi. ‘The lord of this place decided to teach his people a lesson. That’s what was said, anyway. Amazing that a man at death’s door should purge the lands he has relied on all his life shortly before bequeathing them, don’t you think? Why render them valueless and then pass them on?’

‘The Hospitallers still haven’t resettled this place.’ Orsino clearly found this a great wonder.

‘The edict banning it from habitation stands, though the lord is dead.’

‘Who is there to enforce it?’ said Orsino.

‘Us,’ said Bardi, ‘it belongs to us Hospitallers now.’

‘This land could be put to good use,’ said Orsino.

‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ said Bardi, ‘but it isn’t. What does that tell you?’

They encountered no one on the tracks, if you could call them tracks. The forest was thick and the horses laboured through deep undergrowth, briars and bogs.

‘We’re making a …’ Dow and Orsino began the same sentence at the same time.

Orsino finished it. ‘A fine trail should anyone want to follow us.’

‘Will people follow us?’

Dow whistled and Murmur came tumbling out of the sky. ‘Anything?’

‘Nothing I can see.’ Dow had not told Murmur what had happened to Catspaw. There was no advantage to it. He needed Bardi, he needed Murmur to work with him.

Bardi crossed himself. ‘Keep that ympe watchful,’ he said, ‘these forests are full of wild men.’

‘You’ve travelled enough to be braver,’ said Dow. He considered telling him he’d still have an ympe of his own to watch, were he a man of his word.

‘Not so lightly attended,’ responded Bardi.

‘Two men-at-arms are as good as twenty,’ said Orsino. ‘Bandits won’t attack if they think they’ll meet any resistance at all. Why not wait for some undefended pilgrims?’

‘Because there aren’t any here?’ said Bardi.

‘Which means there’ll be fewer wild men waiting for us. What hunter waits for a deer where deer are never seen?’

Four days into the forest the hills rose up to distant mountains. They crested a slope and descended through pines. Through the trees, a flash like a blade. The sun on water but no island.

‘Wrong lake,’ said Bardi. ‘That village down there has a herd of cows outside it. Which means a cowherd will be there. If Edward is somewhere guarded by angels the Hospitallers won’t have witnesses on the shore to see their lights.’

They turned the horses. It was another week before they found what they were looking for – a bright mountain dawn crystalling the water of a steel blue lake.

Bardi, Dow and Orsino looked down from the hillside over lake Iseo and its island Monte Isola. The island rose high out of the lake, like a mountain of the imagination. At the top was a fortress and next to it an imposing church. No villages surrounded it, which Dow knew to be odd for a monastery. All the ones he had seen had villages sprouting around them like gall apples on an oak – people flocking to offer services to the monks.

‘You can’t assault that,’ said Orsino.

‘That’s not where we’re going,’ said Bardi.

‘Then where?’

‘There.’

Another island lay in the lake alongside the island mountain, shimmering like a green jewel in the early morning light. It was far smaller, no more than five hundred paces long and dead flat. It too was thick with trees – tall pines and broad cedars. A villa like those of Milan squatted at the water’s edge. The tower of the chapel was just visible through the trees – bloody with roses. If there was anything else, it was obscured by trees.

‘That’s the monastery.’

‘The Cluniacs were thrown out of that twenty years ago when the Hospitallers possessed the land. It’s never been used for anything else since – nothing I can find on the books anyway.’

‘It looks well maintained.’

‘It should be,’ said Bardi, ‘the bequest was enough to maintain half of Milan, let alone an island of this size.’

‘Can you see any men on the island, Dow? Your eyes are better than mine,’ said Orsino.

Dow squinted. ‘There’s movement,’ he said, ‘look, by the villa.’

A small figure swept the steps by the water’s edge.

‘So how do you get on to it?’ said Bardi.

‘If this is where the king is, he will have his angels with him,’ said Orsino.

Dow wriggled on the floor, his falchion digging into his side as if to beg use. Now? Two blows would do it – or rather one. He could kill Orsino with his first strike and then take his time with Bardi. The little banker would run but he would not get far. Dow had been a faster runner than Orsino almost since he’d known him. He suspected he’d been a faster runner than Bardi for a lot longer than that.

Not now. He still didn’t know what opposition he would meet on that island. The more people on his side the better, though he couldn’t think the banker would be much good in a scrap.

‘We watch,’ said Orsino.

‘We’ve been watching,’ said Bardi, ‘what else is there to see?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Orsino. ‘Which is why we’re going to watch.’

‘For how long?’

‘A week at least, I’d say,’ said Orsino.

‘To what purpose?’

‘To find out what we’re dealing with. Are there food deliveries on the island? Do they feast at any time? Is there a night guard? Other questions I don’t know I need to ask until I see what’s going on there. Now, if I was you, I’d get back over the ridge to the horses and make yourself comfortable for a long wait.’

‘Boy, come with me and make a fire,’ said Bardi.

‘No fire,’ said Orsino.

‘We’ll freeze in the night.’

‘Yes, we will. But better than inviting God knows what or who out of that monastery to butcher us in our beds.’

They watched for four days, the mountain nights cold but not unbearable. Bardi complained, but Dow didn’t see why. The banker had two good cloaks to wrap himself in, as well as four blankets on his horse.

The days were uneventful but the nights were disturbing. Lights flashed within the chapel, and with colours no earthly lamp ever produced – golds and silvers, emerald and ruby. Dow heard songs in what he imagined was the voice of the wind, he heard flutes and cymbals and something else beneath it – a deeper, darker tone that boomed like the ocean.

‘He is here for you, turn to God.’

‘You have been lied to. Turn to God.’

‘Your salvation is at hand. Only welcome God into your heart.’ Dow knew they were speaking to him.

Bright figures were seen flitting and moving in the darkness of the trees – beautiful winged beings who disappeared when Dow stood to face them.

‘Angels?’ said Orsino.

‘I don’t know,’ said Dow. ‘Something.’

‘So they know we are here?’

‘It seems so.’

‘Do they know why?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Dow, ‘they are not all-knowing – Edwin told me that.’

‘Only God is all-knowing,’ said Orsino, ‘all knowing and all powerful.’

‘Then he is a knave,’ said Dow, ‘to see the world’s pain and never lift a finger to stop it.’

‘You’re really quite tiresome,’ said Bardi. ‘Most of the priests I know don’t find it necessary to go banging on about God every second breath, so why do you? You don’t even like him. I don’t like the Duke of Guelders. That’s why you never hear me talk of him – I prefer not to think of him. Broaden your conversation, you’re a dreadful bore.’

‘You who have nothing to live for beyond yourself might think so,’ said Dow. ‘You, Bardi, you do not honour even your God, you do not make a friend of Lucifer, you do not fight or work for your fellows. You worship only idle comforts – you have more love for jewels and gold than you do for your king, for your friends, for any creature or man, and your aim is only ease and indulgence. Even when you had riches beyond the dreams of princes, you lived poorly. A beggar who shares his bread with his friend is a richer man than you.’

‘Still not got the knack of light chat, have we?’ said Bardi.

‘What are they saying to you, Dowzabel?’ Orsino was spooked, it was plain to see. He crouched low and his eyes scanned the forest in fear.

‘They want me to come to God.’

‘You should do, before it’s too late,’ said Bardi.

‘For them or for me?’ said Dow.

‘They are being merciful. You’re lucky to still be alive,’ said Bardi.

‘In my experience the followers of your God refrain from killing for one reason,’ said Dow. ‘They are scared of inviting greater retribution on themselves.’

‘Shhh!’ Orsino waved for them to get lower. ‘A boat!’

A small fishing boat with a lantern on board made its way from the Green Mountain island, two men rowing a curve from an unseen dock towards the villa entrance. ‘What’s in it, Dow?’

‘Food, I should say. There are barrels.’

‘So there can’t be too many men on the smaller island. That’s not enough to restock a sizeable garrison,’ said Orsino.

‘Could be a top up,’ said Dow.

‘Yes. Wait a little more.’

‘I thought you were men of action,’ said Bardi.

‘We’re live men of action,’ said Orsino. ‘Which means that most of the time we look before we leap. Do you think we could take the boat, Dow?’

‘We could, but we don’t know it’s not watched from the bigger island, or who would greet us.’

‘You could kill the men on the boat and take their clothes,’ said Bardi, ‘or hide inside the barrels.’

Orsino snorted. ‘You’ve listened to too many travellers’ tales, Bardi,’ said Orsino. ‘How do you expect us to fold ourselves up into wine barrels or even have time to do that? Getting to the big island will be as difficult as getting to the small one. No wonder you went bankrupt with reasoning like that.’

‘Then how will you get across?’

‘We will get across,’ said Dow, ‘but when we are ready.’

‘You can’t swim it, Dow; we need weapons.’

‘We won’t be swimming,’ said Dow.

Another six days’ watch showed only the little boat again. Orsino spent long hours gazing at the lake as though if he only thought hard enough its waters would part.

‘Any point in waiting any longer?’ said Dow to Orsino. He never addressed his comments to Bardi unless he had to. It would be too easy to kill the banker in a fit of rage if he spent too much time talking to him, so Dow kept contact to a minimum.

‘No.’

‘Then tonight?’

‘How?’

‘The ympes will carry us.’

‘How so? They are too small.’

‘They will do it.’

The sun sank beside them, casting the lake in a copper glow before the dark shadow of the hill pushed a deep cool blue across the water. A sharp crescent moon burned cold above the black of the mountains and the lights in the windows of the chapels began to move. The moon silvered the tower that rose out of the trees, the roses black in its ghost light.

‘We’ll drop into the cover of the trees and then make our way from there,’ said Dow. ‘We must kill the guards quickly and quietly.’

Dow’s ympe scurried among the needles of a pine.

Orsino took the angel’s mail from his pack.

‘Best carry that until you get to the island,’ said Dow, ‘the ympes may not like to touch it directly.’

Orsino grunted, strapped on his sword and shield, shouldered his pack and took up his crossbow, along with its quiver. ‘Now what?’

Dow checked all his weapons – his falchion, his dagger, his crossbow. He too carried his mail in a separate pack, not because the ympes would not touch it but because he wanted to make himself as light as he could. He called to Murmur in the trees.

Tiny wings raced across the moon, turning in a swarm like a flock of starlings. Murmur had done what Dow had asked him to and called the whispering ympes from all corners of France and Italy. They came down in a cloud, lifting up Dow’s pack, his crossbow and then himself. He saw the uncertainty in Bardi’s eyes and felt good about that, enjoying his instant of power over the banker. Then he banished the thought. Bardi was worthless. There was no glory or pleasure in discomfiting him. There would be no glory or pleasure in killing him – only justice. Hundreds of tiny hands plucked at Dow’s body and clothes, seizing the thick cloth of his gambeson, the laces of his boots, his hose, even his fingers and the ympes pulled him precariously into the air.

He heard Orsino cry out, surprised as the ympes took him. He looked to the island. The flickering of the light in the church did not change, no alarm was heard from the shore.

Up into the moonlit air at the centre of a fluttering swarm, lurching across the bay in fits and starts as the tiny demons pulled, tired, and let go to be replaced by others and returned to their efforts anew. The silver path of moonlight stretched out, the stars spun and danced, the trees swung below him as he swayed out towards the island. Dow tried to use his vantage point to get a survey of the island but the ympes were all about him, thick as a cloud, their tiny breaths hot on his face and hands, their wings pattering like rain and he only saw glimpses of where he was.

He began to drop, the ympe cloud taking him down to forest. Here he fell in stages as some of the ympes were forced to let him go as they descended into the trees. They released him, darted below him and caught him again.

Finally he was on the ground, pine needles sharp on his hands. The ympes dispersed into the trees and he saw Orsino dropping above him as if trapped in a swarm of huge flapping bats. The ympes dropped the mercenary too.