Son of the Morning, page 22
part #1 of Banners of Blood Series
At Easter Orsino came back with a rusting suit of mail with a great hole in the back, a mouldy padded coat to go beneath it and a battered old-fashioned helmet the shape and weight of a bucket. With these he taught Dow the art of fighting in armour. Some things Orsino wanted to teach him puzzled the boy greatly. First he had to learn to turn a somersault where he stood. Then he had to do it in all the armour. This was the art of the sword in war. No dodging here, no ducking or blocking. Just all out, savage attack by a body strengthened by ordeal.
And what ordeals. He had to climb a rope using only his hands, this time with the helmet on. He had to jump as far as he could and as high as he could over sticks Orsino lay out on the ground or held in the air. Orsino made him run lengths of the garden flat out in all his armour. Sometimes the Florentine didn’t consider that heavy enough and made him do it again carrying great logs. Dow could see hardly anything through the slit in the helmet and his breathing was almost impossibly restricted. This didn’t seem to bother Orsino, who would wait until Dow had finished his running and jumping and then set about him with a stick.
‘Come on,’ he’d cry, ‘this is when you need to learn to fight. This is when technique and skill will save you, when the strength of your arm has gone and your feet seem set in stone. This is where you live when you might die!’
Dow fought back furiously. He had never wavered in his purpose. He was learning what Orsino could teach him in order to kill great men. And when he had learned that, he would start by killing Orsino. The priest would be second.
The training often exhausted Dow and he was glad when the priest arose and called him in.
Edwin continued to be useful to him. Dow’s studies now included learning to read in Latin. Dow progressed quickly – he had to. The priest rewarded the least slowness, or laziness, with the rod. Dow, though he could have broken the man in two had he chosen, took the beatings. Edwin had achieved a great deal in summoning the thing in the circle. Dow needed to know how that was done – to be a master of the situation the next time he opened the gate to Hell.
When he went to his room at night, Dow took a candle and a book to continue his studies.
All the time, they questioned the figure in the circle, who claimed to be a pardoner called Osbert, but he never yielded anything, just sat in his circle as if trapped out of time, his beard never growing, never getting thinner, never fatter. He would complain only that he was a pardoner, that he had been caught by what must have been a demon, that he wanted to be free to know thirst and hunger again, to get drunk and to gorge himself. The priest was surprised by the spirit’s persistence of form.
Edwin ran off down wild avenues of thought. ‘It has used its mind to make the woman we saw in the garden. It tempted you from your room. How else do locked doors fly open in the middle of the night?
‘In the past it has sought to tempt me,’ he said, ‘appearing as a beautiful woman or a merchant bearing riches. How little it knew me. But now it comes at me through my weak spot and, like a ram at a door, persists and persists, confident in its eventual triumph. My weak spot is pity. In this form, it does stir such feelings in my breast, though with prayer I damp them down.’
The priest questioned Dow on his faith and Dow learned to write. So the priest confirmed his knowledge of Free Hell and how the demons seek the light and the devils serve the three-faced God to keep them in darkness. Edwin wrote all this down, but as soon as the priest had read the notes back he immediately burned them in a candle flame. It was as if he feared their existence, as if burning the words would make them less true.
Edwin could not leave off questioning Osbert.
‘Which part of Hell are you from? Gehenna or Dis?’
‘Get it into your head,’ said Osbert, ‘I am not of Hell. I am of Winchester, where I wish I’d stayed.’
‘Where is the Drago?’
‘Here we go again. It’s up my arse.’
‘Do you think it could have secreted the banner there?’ said Edwin to Dow.
Dow, who was sitting at one of the great books the priest kept in the basement, using a candle for light, shook his head. For the first time since he’d come from the moor he felt like laughing.
The priest sat down on a stool. ‘Perhaps I should send it back and try to summon a new one.’
‘That’d be my favourite,’ said the pardoner. ‘Try sending me back to the Leadenhall market.’
‘We need to question Hell again,’ said Edwin, ‘we need a more compliant devil. I would summon the one we saw in the church but, in truth, I fear it.’
‘That was a demon,’ said Dow, ‘the other thing was the devil.’
Edwin ignored him. ‘This circle works; I would reuse it. Could you send it back?’
Dow felt sorry for Osbert, whatever it was. It had never given up its humour nor its complaint that it had been wronged.
It was nearly summer when he decided – he needed to communicate with Free Hell himself urgently, to seek further instructions. Osbert could do that for him. He would send him to Hell to ask. He would bind the spirit to return, not by spells or ritual but by asking for its word. Yes, he would send the thing back to Hell and, in return, he would give it its freedom – whether to stay in Hell or to wander the earth.
But how to get the key? He had no idea. But he was sure that, if he could question it correctly, Osbert would know. It might be a lesser spirit and not able to tell him where the Drago was – after all, the fire demon in the church hadn’t known that – but he would bet that it knew how to sneak into a room and find a key.
All he would have to do was find a way of speaking to it alone.
2
It wasn’t just the bed bugs and the chill of the spring night that kept Montagu from sleeping. He hadn’t travelled to see the old queen in her prison at the castle lightly. Edward was bound to ask what business his nobles had with his mother and Montagu feared to give him the answer. Still, no one could refuse him now.
It was a bright cold spring, and Montagu was Marschall. With the queen and prince on campaign with the king, he was de facto ruler of England. He didn’t much relish the job – particularly since it meant he had to travel with a ridiculously large retinue, flying the royal banners – now quartered with the arms of France to reflect Edward’s claim. Even Montagu – Edward’s best friend – found that a bit hard to take. Philip’s claim was stronger by far. What, then, had been the point of Edward calling himself king of France? To absolve the lowland French vassal lords of rebellion in backing Edward against Philip – and of course as a sort of spiritual gamble they’d get some French angels. It hadn’t worked and that was no surprise.
Montagu had been raising finances for over a year now, and doing it well. The issue was so pressing that he’d had no time to devote to investigation of the lack of angels and the whereabouts of the king and he was glad of it, an excuse to do nothing. But now the right men were in place to see that things worked smoothly and duty demanded that Montagu act, no matter how uncomfortable he was in doing that.
The war on the continent was at a stalemate. Philip had put his army of sixty thousand in the field but refused to close with Edward. Edward was razing everything around him, but Philip opted to let him, reasoning that the English king would soon run out of money and supplies or simply exhaust the patience of his army. A good strategy, if you could prevent hot-headed lords from charging into the English come what may. Philip intended to let the English army sit in the field and rot. There had been some English successes – against the French raids on Plymouth and the Channel Islands. On both occasions the angel had appeared – devastating the French and Genoese fleet on Guernsey with tongues of fire. After that the country had been in a buoyant mood – an angel in the sky over English shores again.
Montagu, bringing in the revenue, was not cheerful. He knew that the angel had effectively been hired. If the money ran out, then so would the lease. The wool collection had diverted him from his investigation. But he remained troubled. If old Edward was found – and killed – it would beat all the wool collecting in the world. No William. Yet if old Edward was found he must be restored. Increasingly that idea appalled him. If a way could be found to kill the old king, the angels would come. Inaction was not an option. In months the English army could have simply petered away in France, leaving England very vulnerable. With a true king on the throne, old Edward or young Edward with his father dead, invasion became a much tougher prospect.
What had really happened to the old king? He hoped a visit to Isabella would help him find out.
How would he justify his visit to the old queen? He’d toyed with some story about just dropping in while supervising the loading of wool in King’s Lynn, but he didn’t think the king would accept that. No one just ‘dropped in’ on the old queen. But Montagu needed the truth about her husband. In addition, he would get to observe the Knights Hospitaller at close quarters, though he wouldn’t waste his breath questioning them.
Montagu was to meet the monk by his inn at dawn. They’d arrived the previous evening but too late to go on as a group to Castle Rising, so he’d sent a rider ahead and got his head down as best he could.
He sat up in bed. He got up without waking either the two squires who slept alongside him, or the pages who, having missed out on the bed, had made camp on the floor.
Already dressed, having slept with his clothes on, he picked up his cloak and boots, felt his way down the stairs and made his way through the hall of the inn – the fire still smouldering in the hearth, the dogs asleep around it.
He stepped outside into the dewy dawn, the sky a deep, dark metallic blue, the stars fading. One bright star hung next to the moon.
‘No angels in England,’ he said aloud. Montagu hadn’t seen the new king in a year – Edward was a virtual prisoner of his creditors on the continent, so unable to get home. Montagu missed his friend. Was it possible he didn’t know his father was alive? Possible, yes. Cling to that.
The dawn chorus began and the inn stirred. Montagu walked a little way down the lane that led up to the castle. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts which thronged in on him.
He recalled that attack by Isabella and Mortimer. No one had stood against them, no one. The king’s army had melted away before them. Some said it was sorcery, some spoke of angels in the sky, others of devils.
The king had faced them at Orwell and been defeated – his army mutinying and joining Isabella – even though the people had no fondness for Mortimer. Old Edward’s angels were seen, but offered no defence. That alone, said the people, was proof of the judgement of God.
The Mortimer had thought to use young Edward as a puppet ruler, but had succeeded only briefly: Edward was a poor puppet.
Montagu remembered the night they’d taken the rebel Mortimer at Nottingham. Parliament was being held there and Mortimer had thrown the Earl of Lancaster out of his rooms to make way for himself and his own retinue. He’d also told the castle guard to ignore the young king’s orders. Even now Montagu felt his anger rise at mere recall of such arrant presumption. Well, Mortimer had enjoyed his last taste of usurped power.
The king had discovered, through the warder William Eland, that there was a secret passage that led from the river to the queen’s apartments. How the fog had come down that night – Mirk Night the chroniclers called it later. Bill Bohun was with him, Ralph Stafford, Robert Ufford and John Neville.
The king had patted Montagu on the shoulder and wished him Godspeed. He had anointed them with oil from the tomb of St Mark as a blessing against sorcery – Mortimer was very capable of invoking infernal powers, it was known. For this reason he couldn’t be allowed to utter a word, and would need to be gagged. Montagu recalled the night smell of the autumn river, the bonfires on the air, the cold mail against his cheek. He remembered his nervousness as he stepped into the passage, first of twenty, all the time fearing a trap or a trick. They’d reached the top and found the small door opened into a closet and that on to a spiral staircase to the queen’s chamber. It had so nearly come to ruin. Fat old Sir Hugh Turpington was doggedly doing his rounds. He’d screamed and drawn, but Montagu was quick, running him through before they stormed the doors. That good man John Neville had battered his way in and cut down two of the rebel’s squires.
They’d caught the traitors in the hall of the queen’s lodgings, discussing what to do about the plots against them. Too late: both Mortimer’s sons were caught, along with the conspirator Beresford and Mortimer himself.
Montagu recalled his own delight as he’d seen Mortimer rush desperately for his sword. He laughed as he thought of Bishop Burghesh clucking and fretting like a hen with the wind up it, trying to find an exit. Montagu had been young then, and had kicked the bishop hard in the balls. It was his revenge for when he’d had to look after Burghesh on a diplomatic mission to Avignon and had suffered from his pomposity. Any young knight in the country would have deployed his foot with similar enthusiasm.
Mortimer, for all his vaunted battle skill, was no match for ten opponents and Neville tore the sword from his grasp. Montagu had thought to gut him there and then, but something had stayed his hand – the queen’s anguish: ‘Spare gentle Mortimer!’ Gentle Mortimer had managed to black Montagu’s eye with a headbutt even as they’d dragged him down to the river – bound and gagged, as Edward had instructed. But the lady had asked him to spare Mortimer’s life and so he had.
That was the last time he’d seen the queen. She almost certainly hated him, but Montagu was undeterred. He had to persuade her to put the safety of the realm, the continuation of her royal line, above any personal feelings – if she still had personal feelings. It was widely believed that Isabella had gone mad. It was still worth questioning her. The mad, he thought, might be less careful with their words than the sane. Perhaps too it was a convenient madness – providing reason for her confinement and explanation for her rebellious behaviour. Montagu reflected, however, that he had never seen any signs of madness in her before.
His men were rising now, calling out that the lord was up and to make haste to serve him. They wouldn’t eat in the inn, but would wait to be received at Castle Rising.
The horses were readied while he stretched his legs. He felt at home here, his men busy with the animals, his squires kneeling before him, awaiting instruction. He’d lived a lot of his life on the trail and the rituals of camp and campaign were a comfort to him.
‘Sir, your clothes.’
‘Oh yes.’
In his moment of nostalgia, Montagu had forgotten that he was about to meet the most splendid lady in Europe, not burn her lands.
His squire brought him his fine tunic of green taffeta embroidered with the rich red diamonds of his family crest, blue hose and green shoes tapered to points a good eight inches beyond his toes.
‘Do I have to wear these?’
‘They are de rigueur at court, sir.’
‘Not my court. Note this, George, if I ever see you in a pair of these you can do an hour at the trot wearing them and full armour besides. Carry them – I’ll put them on when we get to the castle.’ In front of them down the lane they heard a horse blowing.
Brother Robert rode through the wet dawn, his white cloak emerging from the green of the lane to the castle, two of his brothers behind him. The arrowed white crosses that adorned their black surcoats seemed to float in the morning haze. It was only when they got nearer that Montagu realised the men were fully mailed, though they hadn’t gone so far as armouring their horses.
‘Hello, brother, is the way so perilous between here and the castle?’
Robert drew up his horse. He was a large, very athletic man with a muscular neck and a shaved head. He had the look, thought Montagu, of a man who could be hit over the head with a spade without it disturbing his supper.
‘We are warriors for Christ,’ said the monk. ‘It’s good to remind ourselves of that. And to let men see it.’ He spoke his French with a rather common accent. Montagu reminded himself that the Hospitallers, although a proper order whose upper echelons were drawn solely from men of high birth, had admitted a number of Templars to their ranks when that order had been dissolved. The Templars had not been as scrupulous in their recruitment or promotion, and common soldiers’ sons had been known to advance to high office in their monasteries. Montagu might have regretted the bloody manner of the Templars’ dissolution, but he could not regret the dissolution itself. Promotion based on talent was a recipe for anarchy and an affront to God.
‘We’re all warriors for Christ, brother,’ said Montagu.
‘Really? Or for self-aggrandisement and riches?’
‘The aims aren’t mutually exclusive.’
‘Yes, they are.’
‘Don’t contradict me, brother. Your order may admit low men, but in England we still have standards and insist on doing things the right way. You are a man of low birth. Remember that when you speak to me.’ Already Montagu was finding the monk hard work. He’d had some dealings with the Knights Hospitaller before, when on crusade against the pagans in Lithuania as a younger man. They always kept themselves to themselves, which was the way he liked it. They took themselves rather seriously and were notorious booty-hogs, despite their high moral posturings.
‘I am a man before God,’ said Robert, ‘so I am your equal.’
‘God ranks men and beasts in order according to their estate, monk. Remember that. Look, let’s get this over so I can get out of your sight as quickly as you would wish.’
