devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band

by richard anderton

  Joan gave a little sob to lend weight to her calumny and the crowd gave a deep sigh of sympathy for the innocent maiden’s plight.

  “You must go on my dear, your God and your king command it,” said Wolsey pressing his fingers together in a gesture of quiet meditation. The spectators leaned forward in their seats in anticipation of what the girl was about to say and they were not disappointed.

  “Very well, if I must speak then so be it. I saw a man dressed in a long black robe standing before a large wooden cross that was as tall as a cherry tree. The man looked like one of the black friars of St Dominic but he was no priest because the cross was upside down and … it was on fire.”

  Joan paused for effect and the crowd dutifully sucked in their breath.

  “You see, no Christian would burn the symbol of our salvation, the prisoner is clearly guilty and I say he should burn at the sake to teach all heretics that the fires of hell await them beyond the grave!” said one of the judges. The crowd roared their approval but the cardinal raised his hand for silence.

  “You must allow the witness to finish her testimony, pray go on my dear,” insisted Wolsey. The girl nodded and continued her story.

  “The man had a long wand in his hand and he used it to draw a circle on the ground whilst he muttered an incantation in a strange language. In the next moment, a column of red smoke began to rise from the centre of the circle and, as I watched, it began to take the form of a magical beast.”

  “The man had opened a gate of hell and released a demon!” cried another of the judges.

  “That was exactly it!” agreed the girl. “The smoke became a hideous demon, with the horned head and cloven hooves of a goat, but it smelled worse than any goat.”

  “Baphomet, the demonic beast worshipped by the disgraced Templars!” shrieked a third judge.

  “But who was the man in the robe who summoned this fiend?” asked Wolsey barely able to contain his own prurient excitement.

  “It was him over there,” said the girl and she pointed directly at Thomas.

  “Then what happened?” said another of the judges breathlessly.

  “Oh but it is too shameful to relate,” wailed the girl with false modesty.

  “You must tell us,” said the judge who had little flecks of spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. “Come, have courage my dear!”

  The girl took a deep breath and began again:

  “The man in the black robe caught sight of me hiding in the bushes. He looked at me with eyes that shone yellow, like the eyes of a dog. I couldn’t look away, he held me in his thrall. He spoke no words but I could hear his voice in my head. He ordered me to step forward and I could do nothing but obey. He bade me disrobe and my fingers obeyed his silent command even though my modesty urged me to resist. Slowly I unlaced my bodice and my petticoats and shed my garments one by one until I stood in that glade as naked as the day I was born.”

  The girl paused and rubbed her hands slowly over her ample breasts and slim waist to show just how much pleasure the sight of her naked form could excite in any male creature, natural or supernatural. At least two of the elderly judges cried out at thought of a young girl standing naked and helpless in front of a burning cross and a lascivious demon.

  “And then?” croaked a judge.

  “The man in the robe ordered the demon to ravish me,” sighed the girl, “I had to give myself to Satan in all his wickedness. He even made me … kiss The Devil’s Lance!”

  The crowd erupted into pandemonium. Half the spectators crowed with delight at the girl’s lewd tale whilst others insisted the satanic fornicator must suffer death this very day for corrupting such an innocent maiden.

  “What nonsense is this? This harlot is clearly lying! How much has she been paid for her testimony?” yelled Thomas, trying to make himself heard over the uproar. Unfortunately for him, the veracity of the girl’s testimony was utterly irrelevant for the crowd had thoroughly enjoyed her story. They stamped their feet on the wooden platforms and cheered until the din threatened to disrupt the business in all the other courts.

  “Silence, or I shall have the court cleared!” bellowed Wolsey and his imperious voice echoing around the hall’s ancient stones had the desired effect. Fearing they might miss more of the girl’s highly colourful story, the crowd settled back into their seats.

  “Pray continue,” insisted Wolsey once order had returned.

  “As the demon sated his lust, I was seized by the madness of Venus and I don’t know quite what happened after that,” said the girl in a hushed whisper. “But I remember hearing the man in the robe whispering with the demon. They were plotting to sacrifice me to The Devil and in exchange for my soul Satan would make Queen Catherine cease her monthly courses so she would become barren before her time.”

  “Treason!” cried one of the judges leaping to his feet and pointing an accusing finger at Thomas, “Clearly the prisoner has plotted against the natural fortune of his sovereign and the safety of the realm! No wonder the Queen cannot bear a healthy child if warlocks such as he cast their wicked spells upon her!”

  “This is ridiculous! If I’d sacrificed this whore how come she’s standing here? And why would I wish the queen to become barren? How would I profit from such wickedness?” Thomas countered.

  “You were paid by the agents of France or the House of York,” retorted Wolsey accusingly.

  “Then where’s your evidence?” cried Thomas holding his arms wide so the crowd could see he was dressed in rags but Wolsey raised his hand to signify the trial was at an end.

  “Enough, there is nothing more to be said. The accused’s guilt is confirmed by the testimony of the witness and she may go,” said Wolsey. The girl curtsied and flounced from the room, clearly pleased with her performance. Thomas wondered if she knew that her lies had condemned him to a brutal and painful death. Most probably she did and she didn’t care.

  “The jury is instructed to find the prisoner Thomas Devilstone guilty on all charges,” continued Wolsey, addressing the jury’s nervous looking foreman. The other judges on the bench nodded their agreement and Thomas knew he was doomed. The niceties of legal procedure were maintained, and the jury was allowed to retire to consider their verdict, but the outcome was never in doubt. No juror would dare disobey the cardinal or they too would hang. After less than a quarter of an hour the jurymen filed back into court and pronounced the prisoner guilty of conspiring with evil spirits to prevent the Queen’s conception of a child, a crime that was nothing short of High Treason.

  “The punishment for traitors has been established by common practice since the days of King Edward Primus and it is my solemn duty to pass sentence,” said Wolsey with a noticeable air of satisfaction.

  “It is the order of this court that the prisoner Thomas Devilstone be detained at His Majesty’s pleasure until the appointed day when he shall suffer execution in a manner befitting a necromancer, heretic and traitor. On that day he shall be drawn on a hurdle to Smithfield and there hanged by the neck till he be half dead. He shall then be cut down alive, his privy parts shall be cut off, his belly ripped asunder, his bowels drawn from his body and burnt whilst he still lives. His corpse shall be divided into four quarters, one quarter to be set up over each of the four gates of the city of London and his head set upon London Bridge until it doth corrupt and decay. Officers of the court, do your duty.”

  The moment Wolsey finished passing sentence the crowd became a baying mob. The lawyers, students and other spectators stood on the benches and howled for the prisoner to be taken outside immediately and dismembered in the Palace Yard, lest he use his powers of witchcraft to turn into a bat-winged angel of Hell and fly from the king’s justice. Fortunately for Thomas, the court officers ignored the crowd’s pleas but they took tight hold of their prisoner’s arms, just in case.

  5

  THE TOWER OF LONDON

  With the sound of the crowd’s blood lust ringing in his ears, Thomas was led from the court but
he was not returned to the Fleet Prison. Instead he was loaded with more chains, bundled through a side door and taken to The King’s Stairs, the river jetty that served Westminster Palace. Here a small barge, painted in the green and white livery of the Tudors, waited to convey him to a more secure place of imprisonment - The Tower of London.

  As the bargemen rowed the boat out into the Thames, Thomas’ mind began to spin like the eddies formed by their gaily painted oars. If he could reach Southwark perhaps he could disappear into the slums and hovels on the south bank of the Thames like the Nubian he’d met in the Fleet Prison but though the river here was narrower than at Tilbury, his chances of reaching the opposite bank by swimming were just as remote. If he tried to leap over the boat’s side his guards would hack him to pieces before he reached the gunwale and even if he evaded their weapons the heavy chains that secured his wrists and ankles would send him straight to the bottom of the river.

  Yet Thomas could hardly complain that his sentence was unjust or undeserved. The trial may have been a sham, and he sincerely doubted that the girl had really seen what she’d claimed to have seen, but he was guilty of casting spells to raise demons in the coppice beyond Aldersgate that night. In fact Thomas had cast great many spells, on a great many occasions, but he’d never burned a holy cross, still less ravished a naked virgin in front of a voyeuristic, goat-headed demon.

  His purpose in performing the ritual that had sealed his doom was to try and summon the demon Astaroth, the bat-winged, dragon-riding, serpent-bearer who must answer any question asked by a necromancer. Thomas had hoped to force this fiend to explain why the astrological charts he’d prepared with such care had failed to reveal the truth about Queen Catherine’s false pregnancy. Nevertheless, though he’d performed the spell and spoken the incantation exactly as described in his grimoire, the only thing that had appeared in the coppice had been a rather nervous badger.

  Though angry at the spell’s failure, he’d not been surprised when yet another demon had refused to answer his summons. During his years studying the Dark Arts, both he and Agrippa had performed hundreds of similar rituals without the slightest hint of success but this final fiasco had been the last straw. As he’d stood alone in the coppice, chilled by the cold light of dawn, he’d finally realised that his tutor’s rejection of the occult had been the right choice after all. There and then, he too had resolved to abandon his studies and devote himself to more earthly, and more profitable, pursuits.

  After the debacle of that last spell, Thomas had returned to his apartments in the king’s palace at Greenwich but he’d known he would have to leave London as soon as possible if he keep a whole skin. His only hope of survival was to join the last Yorkist pretender to the English throne who’d established a court of Yorkist exiles in the free Bishopric of Metz but at least Thomas knew this city well. He and Agrippa had spent two years there during their travels, and so he’d decided to travel to Burgundy and offer his services to the ‘White Rose’.

  With the king still distracted by the queen’s false pregnancy Thomas reckoned he’d have a few days grace before Henry could be persuaded to sign his former favourite’s death warrant. Thomas vowed to use what time he had to settle his affairs and slip quietly out of London but that very night an anonymous note, warning him that Wolsey’s men were about to arrest the king’s warlock had been slipped under his door. Without a second thought, Thomas had snatched up the sword his father had bequeathed him, stuffed his most precious grimoire into the lining of his cloak and fled into the labyrinth of tenements to the east of St Paul’s Cathedral.

  Besides the warning, the note had urged Thomas to meet with friends at The Boar’s Head in East Cheap but fearing a trap he’d preferred to make his own way out of the city. He’d sold his rings and other jewellery to raise the money for his passage but the first captain he’d approached had cheated him of his gold. The few shillings Thomas had managed to keep had soon been spent and he’d been forced to approach the moneylender Pynch. If only he’d chosen to trust the author of the note he might be on a ship bound for the continent instead of sitting in a barge heading for The Tower.

  “Cheer up,” said one of the yeoman, noticing the strange look on Thomas’ face. “Tomorrow’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, so they won’t chop off your head for at least another forty days.”

  “Even when we do cut off his head why should he worry?” said another guard mischievously. “He’s a powerful wizard so all he has to do is pick up his head and sew it back on!”

  “That’s as maybe,” said a third guard joining in the fun, “but he’s also sentenced to be quartered so if we’ve cut off his arms, how can he pick up his head!”

  The boatmen burst into laughter but Thomas ignored them, he was too busy trying to think of a way out of his predicament. Slowly the boat drew nearer to the grey walled fortress he’d struggled so hard to avoid and after a few more minutes they reached The Tower’s Water Gate, the entrance reserved for traitors under sentence of death. There was an agonising screech of wood scraping against ancient stone as the gate’s portcullis was raised.

  The barge passed under the quay called the King’s Wharf and entered the moat that surrounded The Tower’s outer ward, here a second portcullis guarded the entrance to the inner ward. This too was raised and the barge passed into a stone chamber beneath the massive bastion of the aptly named St Thomas’ Tower. The lapping of the oily water and the hollow splashes of the oars echoed eerily around the weed choked vault, making Thomas feel he was being rowed across the Styx to suffer all the torments of Tartarus.

  As he climbed out of the boat, Thomas wondered what it would be like to feel the hangman’s rope slowly choking the life from his body, or the cold steel of the executioner’s knife slicing through his genitals. Yet for all his fears, his arrival was a curiously pleasant experience. He was greeted by no less a person than Sir William Kingston, the Constable of The Tower, whom Thomas had glimpsed on the battlefield of Flodden. Though Sir William didn’t recognised his new prisoner, he did treat Thomas as if he were his honoured guest.

  Sir William ordered Thomas’ chains to be removed, he was allowed to wash and given his pick of clothing from a large wooden chest. Thomas picked out a white linen shirt, smart green doublet, matching breeches and bright red hose but he insisted on keeping his old cloak. Sir William had no objection though he ordered the garment to be searched. Thomas held his breath as a warder ran his fingers along the hem and seams but he need not have worried. The gaoler found no hidden dagger or other weapon so he handed the garment back to Thomas.

  If he was surprised at being given such a warm welcome, he was even more astonished by his lodgings. Instead of being cast into a stygian cell, Thomas was taken to a light and airy chamber high in the Beauchamp Tower. The room measured a dozen paces across and boasted three tall, loophole windows in vaulted bays. The windows were unglazed but shuttered and a fire burned in the grate so the room felt warm and dry. The furniture consisted of a bed, table and chair, and though rushlights rather than candles burned in the sconces the room was luxurious compared to The Fleet’s pestilential dungeon. Thomas asked his gaolers if all prisoners were so fortunate but the warder would only mumble that the proper fees had been paid then withdrew, locking the door behind him.

  Once Thomas was alone he strolled to the nearest window and peered out. The Beauchamp Tower was located on the western side of the fortress and formed part of the wall that surrounded the inner ward. From this vantage point he could see across the narrow outer ward to a second wall and beyond that there was the moat. He was just a two hundred feet from freedom but to escape he would have to widen the windows, climb down fifty feet of ice smooth wall, scale the outer ward’s equally un-climbable parapets and swim across the foetid waters of the moat. Moreover he would have to accomplish all these tasks unseen by The Tower’s ever-watchful yeomen warders.

  Cursing his luck, Thomas turned away from the window and stretched out on the bed to think. For a
few hours he amused himself by incinerating lice in the rushlight by his bed and as each verminous insect popped in the flame, a new plan of escape flashed into his mind. There were as many ways to leave a prison as to enter it but the greatest obstacle to his freedom was the fact he was alone. Without allies he couldn’t bribe guards, smuggle disguises into his cell or steal keys and he began to wish that Bos, Prometheus and Quintana were with him. Together, the four of them might fight their way to freedom but as far as he knew his former cellmates were still rotting in The Fleet’s dungeons.

  Having exhausted the supply of lice large enough to catch, Thomas tried to sleep but he’d barely closed his eyes when he heard the sound of a key turning in the cell door’s lock. He was about to tell his visitor to go to hell but before he could speak a warder ushered an attractive young woman through the door. The girl wore an expensive gown of dark red velvet over a kirtle of crimson silk and her black woollen cloak was trimmed with white fox fur. Delicate gold chains hung about her slender neck and her embroidered French hood was studded with pearls. Thomas recognised her at once, it was the girl who’d sheltered him, albeit briefly, during his rooftop flight across Cheapside. As the girl dismissed the warder from the cell, Thomas rose from his bed and made a polite bow.

  “Mistress Anne Boleyn, you do me great honour by your presence,” he said and the girl blushed.

  “So you’ve discovered my name and I’ve discovered yours, indeed I knew it the moment I laid eyes on you in my chamber, you’re the notorious wizard Thomas Devilstone,” she said.

  “I’m flattered you know me Mistress Anne but to what do I the owe the pleasure of this visit?” Thomas asked. He wasn’t surprised the girl had recognised him as he’d been well-known at court but he did wonder if she’d come to enquire about her missing necklaces. If she wanted them back, she would have to ask the light-fingered constables of Tilbury.