Son of the Morning (12 page)

10

London was unbelievably vast, stretched out as wide as the moor along the north bank of the river. A huge spire to Dow’s left, an enormous white castle and tower to his right shone in the umber dusk. On the river, tiny boats moved, some with lamps, some unlit, all heading for the shore as the sun went down.

They had arrived later than his escorts had intended after detouring to drop Bardi at Windsor. Windsor castle had terrified Dowzabel, so big, so unnatural looking. The biggest building he had ever seen before was a church. This was ten times bigger. The Devil’s Men said that the creator Lucifer would return one day to throw down the high men. Could even he breach the walls of a place like that?

From Windsor they’d travelled with a party of government servants and courtiers up to London, deciding not to cross the river at Staines but by London Bridge, which the priest said would lead them very close to his house in the city. This would spare them crossing through London at dusk.

‘Will we get in at this hour?’ said Orsino.

‘We are not the lower sort,’ said Edwin. ‘As men of good character we should be allowed in at night.’

Dow had never seen anything like the bridge itself. It seemed almost to sag with the weight of buildings on it, higgledy-piggledy houses that jutted out over the river as if being shoved by their fellows to make room. Dowzabel – who had thought Exeter enormous – was breathless at the sight. The heads of those who had displeased the lords of the city looked out from spikes high on the gate tower, some fresh faced, others hardly more than skulls.

The moor either side of the road to the city housed vast camps of people – hungry-eyed children, bony women and broken-down men, clamouring for alms from anyone coming in. Dow knew he was a foreigner in that country and that he might get a hard time from the people of the moor, but probably better to be there, among people he understood, than with these rich fellows who burned and beat him. He thought to slip from his horse, to try to run. But the burn throbbed on his chest, he had a fever and felt weak. Besides, his ankle would still not support him. He would not get away. Why had the demon burned him? He had put his trust in it. He’d been taught on the moor that Lucifer was a kinder soul than Îthekter, called God. But the demon had not been kind. Not kind at all.

He looked down upon children reaching up with thin arms, women calling out offering their bodies, the men begging absolution, forgiveness or, more often, just money from the priest. There were thirty travellers on the road with them – apart from Dowzabel, all people of rank.

But the poor seemed numberless, a field of them stretching out beyond the dilapidated maze of houses and inns on the southern shore into a wide and ragged camp. Dowzabel thought of Abbadon back home on their own moor. How little, he’d said, it would take for the starving and the frozen to reach out and tear these high men down. But they didn’t. They just clamoured and begged. Dowzabel could not understand why. As the column approached the bridge the city guard stepped forward and the wretched fold kept back, no one wanting a kick or a smack with the butt of a polearm to add to their woes.

The priest Edwin had a lamp that he held before him as a sign he was not using the darkness as a cover for evil deeds and Orsino – a foreigner by his manner and dress – had ceded his sword to him.

Once through the damp and piss stink of the gatehouse and portcullis and onto the bridge, the scene was even more remarkable. The bridge
did
sag under the weight of the shops and houses crammed upon it, some straight, some tipping into others at angles, as if shouldering for room. A begrudged strip of road ran down the middle, its fine cobbles firm beneath the horses hooves and beautifully free of mud.

The bridge was not quite deserted; some noblemen – exempt from the curfew laws that applied to ordinary men – rode boldly on with their retinues, or lingered in shops to examine clothes, candles, weapons or books. The shopkeepers would not face the censure of the city watch while they served men of quality.

Something running between the hooves of Dowzabel’s horse made it start. It wasn’t a rat, as he’d thought, but a fine fat black cat, chasing through the shadows for prey.

‘There are doctors here, kid,’ said Orsino. ‘I’ll come tomorrow and get you something for that burn.’

‘He deserves to suffer,’ said Edwin, ‘until he finds a path back to Christ.’

Orsino shrugged. ‘Believers suffer too,’ he said. ‘I lost my wife and both my sons to fever. More Christian people you could not meet.’

The priest gave him a disapproving look that said clearly that people got what they deserved in life. Sickness was God’s punishment for sin, and only a fool would deny it.

They travelled over the bridge and into the city proper. Here the dark was full of eyes – the poor, clinging to the shadows of back alleys and the lees of buildings. Dowzabel saw one man almost naked, huddling by a doorway, clearly desperately sick. The boy wondered why his fellows didn’t help him. In the narrow alleys the darkness bubbled like a black river, thick with rats. The horses were loath to travel that way and it took all Orsino’s considerable skill to make his animal walk forward. This emboldened Edwin’s horse to follow and lead Dowzabel’s.

Dowzabel’s hands had been untied since Bardi left. His captors had confidence he couldn’t escape with his swollen ankle. Where would he go? Dow knew he lived in the west, but had no idea how to get home and, besides, travelling alone, shoeless and branded, he could anticipate his fate. If the bad men didn’t get him, then the good ones would.

He had no plan and felt utterly alone. Hell had not come to his aid, but he would not bow down before Heaven and beg. To take its charity would be to accept everything – the kings, the golden palaces, the churches that rose in beauty to the sky while the people froze, starved and died in the filth of the streets.

They were travelling now along a row of rich houses that lined the river – they seemed to frown down at him, their roofs of slate like the flat black caps of the Plymouth magistrates.

‘Turn here.’ They went up a narrow lane of smaller houses, the path no wider than a stream between them. Orsino ducked as the lower gables threatened to bash his head. The smoke of hearth fires lay low and bitter on the street and it was as if they moved through a moorland mist. Down a tiny alley between two walls they came to a gate secured by a lock.

‘The horses can stay within,’ said Edwin.

He opened the gate to reveal an overgrown patch of land. The men led the horses inside and Dowzabel saw the garden had its own well. Orsino drew up a bucket and let the animals drink.

‘At least the horses will gobble up these weeds,’ said Orsino. ‘A wonder your congregation don’t talk about this.’

‘I have the same gardener who was in Eden,’ said Edwin.

‘Well you want to sack him and get a better one,’ said Orsino.

Edwin rolled his eyes at the bad joke.

‘Doesn’t your curate help? Do you not have a housekeeper?’ said Orsino.

‘No other clergy live here,’ said Edwin; ‘my work forbids housekeepers or any others.’

‘Well, you’ve got the boy now,’ said Orsino. ‘You can set him to cook and clean once he’s back on his feet.’

Edwin snorted and went inside the house. Dowzabel and Orsino followed.

The boy thought that country villeins lived better than this man. The first room was filthy and there was a terrible stench of something burned in there.

‘Someone’s been in here,’ said Edwin. He held up his lamp, his gaze scanning the room.

‘How can you tell?’

‘The cellar door!’

He sprang out of the kitchen and Dowzabel heard him thumping down some stairs.

‘Go down.’ Orsino prodded Dowzabel on in front of him.

The boy stumbled down into darkness. He saw the flash of the lantern and heard a cry.

‘I’m saved!’

By the flickering lamplight Dowzabel could see he was in a cellar. In the corner sat a man in the poor dress of a pardoner, a finger bone tied on a string about his neck. He had clearly been weeping, but now had an expression of wild delight on his face. At his feet, chalked on the floor, was a magic circle like the one Dowzabel had seen in the burned church. The man stood and tried to come towards them. But then he stopped, as if uncertain of the ground in front of him.

‘So this is why you have no housekeeper,’ said Orsino. He crossed himself. ‘You do some dark work, priest.’

Edwin grunted.

‘Friends, let me free,’ said the man in the corner. ‘Are you friends of the cardinal, sent to aid me? He said he’d help me – that great man spared me from the mob. Have you come to free me? I’m the victim of some sorcery. Look, a circle, this is why I can’t leave here. Please, this is evil magic, free me! I am Osbert, a poor pardoner.’

Orsino stood shaking his head. Edwin spoke. ‘This devil,’ he said, ‘is my spirit. He has many guises, though I have never seen this one before.’

‘He doesn’t look very impressive,’ said Orsino.

‘You’re no Lancelot yourself,’ said the pardoner.

‘One of his deceptions. I tell you, Condottiere, if he were to break this circle I have no doubt he’d do worse than that thing we saw at the church.’

‘Why, if as you say he serves God?’

‘I summoned him, pulled him from his purposes in this realm. And that makes me cursed in the eyes of God. Do you know what the bible says? A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.’

‘Shall I fetch a rock?’ said Orsino.

‘No need, I will atone when my curiosity is slaked.’

‘Just let me out, noble fellows, let me out,’ said Osbert.

‘This is a sly fellow, but I am privy to all his tricks,’ said Edwin.

‘He led you to the boy?’ said Orsino.

‘Yes. And presently we’ll have more out of him concerning the Drago. Who has been here, spirit? I command the truth by the high name of God!’

Dow felt none of the terror that had emanated from the priest devil at the church. Perhaps it was actually a demon! The priest clearly was clearly playing ‘try my luck’ with the spirits of Hell. Dow had to try to speak to it. He tried to use his thoughts, as he had done in the ruined church.

Why did Hell abandon me? Why did the demon mark me? Do you still want me to find the Drago?
Dow received no reply.

‘I am not a spirit. I was chased here by a mob. I was chased here. Sirs, I am but a poor pardoner. A good man who cares for the souls of others. If I have been ensorcelled then break the spell. Let me free. I am a good man – it is not right to keep a good man so confined.’

‘It wants to kill the boy,’ said the priest. ‘He was protected on the moors.’

‘His tongue was mutilated there, he was branded, and abducted. How is that
protected
?’ said Orsino.

‘Protected from things more terrible than pincers and hot irons,’ said the priest.

‘Protected from what and by what?’ asked Orsino.

‘By the rebels, from God. By demons, from servants of God – devils like this vile fellow in the circle.’

‘Hey!’ said the pardoner, ‘I might be a little shabby but plenty of women find me pleasing enough.’

Edwin ignored him.

‘So why is it not safe to release him?’

‘Not everything that is of God is friendly to man. Consider the lion and the wolf. God made them both and they were pleasing to Him. I bargained with this devil to bring the boy here. I would deliver the boy to death once he had opened the great gate of Hell. But I have reneged on that bargain, as a bargain with a devil needn’t be kept, although I have no doubt that, if it could, it would seek revenge.’

‘How can it be dangerous to a priest if it is of God?’

‘“I make peace and create evil, I the Lord do all these things.”
So says the Bible. God is more mysterious than you can know.’

‘So you won’t give the boy to it?’ said Orsino.

‘He’s too useful to be fed to a fiend. That much became apparent in that church. I want to keep it around longer. There are further bargains to be struck and, if I cannot have them softly …’ he tapped one of his books, ‘I shall have them by force.’

‘What bargains?’

‘For the only thing worth having. Knowledge.’ The priest’s tongue flicked at his lips.

‘You want to know how to save England?’ said Orsino.

The priest laughed. ‘Perhaps that. Bardi would not let me keep the key unless I asked that. But these creatures can tell us so much about existence. There are mysteries, celestial and infernal. I would gaze upon them all.’

‘And why can’t this fellow tell you that?’

‘He has revealed a lot. I have begun to understand the nature of Hell. But this spirit is of a different order to what we saw at the burned church. That was a demon, and I had hoped to command him. This is a devil, a respecter of order, and so easier to direct. This fellow was licensed to leave Hell to seek the boy.’

‘For what?’

‘To kill him,’ said Edwin. ‘He is an assassin.’

‘I could murder an ale but that’s about all,’ said Osbert. The man joked, though Dow thought he looked uncomfortable. Had he been sent to murder him? He didn’t look like the men-at-arms that scoured the moor for his fellow outlaws. In fact, thought Dow, he looked as if an ale would stand a good chance of murdering
him
. For the first time since he had been taken, Dow smiled.

‘I am tired,’ said Edwin, ‘and I need to regain my strength before confronting him again. I will sleep and tomorrow face him, using harsher strategies to pull out the truth. In the meantime, beat the boy as a lesson to him.’

Dow felt his stomach skip.

‘The kid’s been beaten enough,’ said Orsino.

‘If you won’t do it, I will. He may try to escape and needs to learn what will happen if he does.’

‘I won’t do it,’ said Orsino, ‘and neither will you.’

‘Do you defy the authority of the church?’

Orsino said nothing, but his gaze met the priest’s eyes unwaveringly, saying clearly that twenty years’ experience of fighting and a solid right fist were all the authority that mattered in this situation.