devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band

by richard anderton

  “I’m very grateful to be sure but, if you have a boat, why in the name of the king’s piss-stained codpiece didn’t you bring it here?” said Thomas angrily but he lowered his sword.

  “A boat would be of no use now because the tide is almost at full ebb. Look, see for yourself,” said Nagel nervously struggling to his feet. The trumpet player ushered the men to a flight of stone steps that should have led to the river’s edge but the waters had receded so far all the men could see was a wide ribbon of stinking ooze disappearing into the darkness. Before anyone could stop him, Nagel had skipped down the stairs and leapt onto the reeking mud.

  “I can show you the way across the mudflats but we must go now,” Nagel cried.

  Realising they had no choice Thomas and the others followed the little trumpet player down the steps but the moment they stepped onto the mud, they sank up to their ankles in loathsome, cloying filth. Walking over the tidal river bed was impossible so, like giant eels, they slid and slithered across the slime. Nagel led them to another flight of steps, two hundred yards up river of the King’s Wharf, where the escapees hauled themselves out of the quagmire and onto another quayside.

  The five men lay on the cobbles panting for breath and staring at The Tower of London’s western ramparts. They’d succeeded in escaping from the fortress but they were still inside London’s city walls and a long way from safety. Indeed, the men had barely recovered their wind before an elderly watchman, who’d seen the mudlarks crawl from the river like Grendel’s Mother, began ringing a large brass bell. The fugitives groaned. The alarm would bring both the pursuing warders and the city’s nightwatch to this part of the waterfront in a matter of minutes.

  “We’ll be safe once we reach The Steelyard, follow me!” Nagel cried and he took to his heels. Once again Thomas and the others had little choice but to obey so, with their sodden monks’ robes flapping around their ankles, they ran after the trumpet player.

  The Steelyard lay beyond London Bridge, where the little River Walbrook flowed into the Thames, and since the time of King Edward it’s docks and warehouses had been owned by the Hanseatic League. The dues and tolls paid by these shrewd German merchants put so much money in royal coffers, their trading station had been granted the same privileges as a free city, its borders were held to be inviolate and no king dared let his constables enter, even in pursuit of outlaws. Thomas and the other’s would be safe behind The Steelyard’s walls but as they reached London Bridge their way was blocked by a band of the nightwatch emerging from an alley.

  “It is them, and they still blaspheme against Christ by wearing the garb of holy orders, bring crosses, bind them with prayer, make sure the wizards do not use their magic to escape us again!” screeched the watchmen’s captain and he pointed the torch he was carrying at the sacrilegious monks.

  The men of the nightwatch were not professional soldiers or yeomen warders, they were a citizen militia made up of superstitious craftsmen and shopkeepers so instead of surrounding the fugitives with a ring of steel and calling on them to surrender, they began to sing the words of The Magnificat. This craven piety was their downfall. If they’d attacked at once they’d have easily overpowered the escaped prisoners but when Thomas and the others saw their opponents’ reluctance to fight they shouted bloodcurdling battle cries and charged.

  “In Satan’s name I curse you! At The Dark Lord’s bidding you shall be flayed alive and buried up to your neck in salt so rats can gnaw at your face and crows peck at your eyes for all eternity!” Thomas cried as he ran towards the watchmen’s leader.

  The astonished captain, a potter by trade, saw this demonic friar bearing down on him and soiled himself. Despite the discomfort of his piss-soaked hose, the petrified potter dropped his torch and ran for his life. In a trice Thomas had retrieved the last of his homemade candles from beneath his habit, lit the match from the fallen torch and hurled the fizzing, spitting firework into the mob. As before the burning saltpetre, lard and sugar filled the street with choking smoke that smelled like roasted flesh and the terrified watchmen truly believed they were staring into The Abyss.

  “Here me you lackwit peasants, we can open the gates of hell whenever we choose and release the Nine Legions of the Damned to drag you all to Hades!” Prometheus cried and he swung his sword at a tanner who’d had the temerity to stand his ground. The giant Nubian’s blow neatly severed his opponent’s arm at the elbow and a great gout of blood spewed the night sky.

  Quintana deftly sliced open the belly of a fat fishmonger whilst Bos, his eyes blazing like a Viking, found himself facing two hedge-layers armed with long, rusty billhooks. Undaunted Bos threw back his cowl and roared his battle cry ‘better dead than a slave’ which in the strange guttural language of the Frisians sounded like Satan’s own speech. The sight of a red-bearded leviathan emerging from purple smoke and bellowing foul curses in a demonic tongue, was enough to put the hedge-layers and the rest of the nightwatch to flight.

  “Tell me Englishman, how did you manage to think of such a vile torture as being skinned alive and buried in salt?” said Bos as he watched the defeated men disappear into the darkened alleyways.

  “He knows the fate that awaits Lutheran heretics like you,” said Quintana wiping his sword on the dead fishmonger’s apron but Prometheus insisted there was no time for jests and urged Nagel, to take them all to The Steelyard before the night watch returned in greater numbers. Pausing only to relieve the dead men of their purses, the five fugitives set off again and they soon reached the high brick wall that surrounded Hansa trading station. Nagel hammered on the large wooden gate with the hilt of his dagger and bawled some words of German. A moment later the gate opened, Nagel tossed a purse of money at the gatekeeper and bundled the others inside.

  In the growing light of the dawn sky, Thomas and the others could see a jumble of half-timbered warehouses facing a stone dock. A wooden jetty had been built at right angles to the quayside and the men were much relieved to see it extended beyond the tidal mud to a large, three masted kogge with a broad, rounded hull and high castles that towered over her bow and stern. The Hansa’s red and white striped pennant flew from the ship’s central main mast and Nagel lost no time in ushering everyone aboard. Once on deck, Nagel pressed another purse into the captain’s grubby hand and if the ship’s master was alarmed by the arrival of five monks covered in mud and gore, he kept silent.

  “You’re just in time, the tide’s turned and there’s a fair wind, now get under cover and keep out of sight until we’re safe at sea,” said the captain, jerking his thumb towards the ship’s bow and the high, covered forecastle. The ship may have been sailing under a German flag but it’s master spoke in the thick burr of East Anglia.

  “I thank you for waiting Master Shobery, but if you’d left without us my employer would’ve fed you to the crows,” snapped Nagel but the captain wasn’t listening, he was too busy ordering his men to untie ropes, unfurl sails and push the ship away from the jetty with long wooden poles. Slowly the stout little ship, which was named The Steffen, drifted into the river’s current and joined the other traffic on the river. Their departure was not a moment too soon. As they approached London Bridge the pursuing warders, now accompanied by the men from half the city’s nightwatch, began to swarm towards the fortified gatehouse over the central arch.

  “Will they bar the bridge?” Bos asked Nagel.

  “Have no fear, this ship carries half a dozen cannon but a Hansa flag is worth more than twenty culverins and no one will dare stop us,” said Nagel yet he still insisted that his passengers should do as the captain ordered and go below decks. Their pursuers would have no idea which, if any, of the dozen ships sailing east on the strengthening morning tide, might be carrying fugitives to freedom but four monks, standing on deck covered in mud and blood, would be sure to give the game away.

  The passengers did as they were asked and made themselves comfortable in the cramped, stifling crew cabin below the forecastle’s deck. Just as Nagel ha
d promised, the bridge master dared not prevent a Hansa ship from passing freely down the Thames so the boom and drawbridge that could have barred their way remained open. The Steffen sailed through London Bridge accompanied by nothing more than a few startled moorhens and the mournful gaze of executed criminals’ severed heads, impaled on the spikes adorning the bridge’s gatehouse.

  A few hours later the pantomime was repeated at Tilbury and the passengers remained hidden whilst an official looking launch approached the kogge to ask the master his destination and cargo. Captain Shobery declared that he was bound for Ghent with a load of English wool and claimed the protection of the Hanseatic League whereupon the launch scuttled back into Tilbury’s harbour. The Steffen slid slowly past the hulks moored on the mudflats but their guns stayed silent and once they’d left these obstacles behind, nothing could stop the kogge from reaching the open sea. Thomas and the others should have felt elated that they’d successfully escaped a cardinal’s wrath and a king’s dungeon but they didn’t care, they were all fast asleep.

  8

  THE GERMAN OCEAN

  When they woke it was noon and The Steffen was slicing cheerfully through the white-capped waves of the German Ocean. A sailor passed the word it was safe to come on deck and brought fresh clothes, the passengers gratefully swapped their filthy habits for the garb of simple seamen and left the cramped confines of the forecastle. They stood in the ship’s prow, letting the salt water sting their faces. After their long weeks of imprisonment the fresh sea air and warm spring sunshine were as welcome as the promise of salvation. At first the men could only congratulate themselves on the success of their escape but it wasn’t long before they began to ask Nagel some searching questions.

  “So was it chance or God who brought you to our aid last night,” said Bos.

  “Neither, it was Richard de la Pole, exiled Duke of Suffolk, Prince of the House of York and rightful king of England who ordered me to find the famous astrologer Thomas Devilstone and bring him safely to Metz,” replied Nagel’s proudly.

  “That’s very Christian of him, tell your master we’re most grateful,” said Quintana watching a seagull soar lazily over the wave tops but Thomas, who’d been unusually silent, suddenly drew his sword and before the others could stop him, he had the tip pointed at their rescuer’s throat.

  “You’re all too trusting, what you don’t know is that Cardinal Wolsey once sent a trumpet player named Hans Nagel to spy on the Yorkist pretender but he disappeared. So is this man really Hans Nagel or is he an impostor sent to trap us? Speak, you’ve exactly one minute to convince me you’re not playing some sort of double game before I spill your guts over this nicely scrubbed deck,” said Thomas and the steel in his voice was as sharp as the sword in his hand. Nagel turned white with fear as he looked into Thomas’ cold grey eyes but from somewhere he found the strength to speak.

  “You’ve no need to fear me Master Thomas, I hate Wolsey as much as any man. The cardinal caught me seducing one of his married servants and threatened to have the public hangman brand me with red hot irons unless I became his agent,” said Nagel and without any further prompting he told Thomas the full story.

  As it was not unusual for minstrels and troubadours to travel between different cities in search of work, Wolsey had used one of his servants to trap and recruit Nagel, along with an ageing singer named Petrus Alamire. Having ensnared the two musicians Wolsey had sent them to Metz with orders to uncover Yorkist plots to invade England but once again Nagel and Petrus’ weakness for sins of the flesh had been their undoing. The two spies had been unmasked barely a month after their arrival at the Yorkist court-in-exile but, instead of hanging them, de la Pole had decided to play Cardinal Wolsey at his own game. The White Rose had persuaded Nagel and Alamire to work for him and had sent them back to London to spy on their former masters.

  The two musicians had proved to be better spies for the House of York than for the House of Tudor and for almost two years they’d travelled between the two rival courts, betraying King Henry’s secrets to Richard de la Pole and passing misleading information about Yorkist plots to Wolsey. By the time the cardinal had realised his agents were playing him false Nagel and Alamire were back in Metz so, carefully masking his suspicions, he’d sent convivial letters asking them to return. The letters fooled no one. Sensing their luck was running out, the two spies had wisely refused to leave the safety of de la Pole’s castle.

  Cardinal Wolsey, as artful as ever, had hidden this fiasco from the king by lying. He’d told Henry that Nagel and Petrus’ failure to return from Metz could only mean they’d been arrested and hanged by de la Pole. For a while, the brutal execution of two ‘innocent’ musicians by evil Yorkists had been the talk of Henry’s court but the lurid story had soon been forgotten. Nevertheless Nagel and Alamire had continued to serve the House of York in various capacities and when de la Pole found himself in need of Thomas’ unique talents, he’d sent his trusted trumpet player to fetch him.

  “It had been four years since I’d been in London, so there was little danger I’d be recognised, but before I could reach you, I learned that you were about to be arrested. All I could do was send the warning note and, though you didn’t come to The Boar’s Head as I asked, I continued to hope. When I heard you’d been arrested for the murder of Wolsey’s henchmen, I realised there was a slim chance I might be able to free you and bring you to Metz after all,” said Nagel glancing at Thomas’ sword which was still pointed at his gullet.

  “But why go to all that trouble? What can Thomas offer this White Rose that other men can’t?” Quintana asked.

  “The White Rose has vowed to end Henry VIII’s tyranny once and for all and as we speak he’s raising a great army to recover his lost throne but he needs a man with knowledge of the stars to find the right day for his invasion. Thomas will study the heavens and find a propitious day with favourable winds, tides and other good omens,” Nagel declared and at last Thomas sheathed his sword.

  “So it would seem that your master and I are destined to make common cause, for I was already on my way to Burgundy when I was taken by King Henry’s men. Now it’s also my solemn vow to see that great Welsh wine-sack hanging from a Tyburn gibbet and I’ll rejoice when white roses bloom once more in England!” Thomas declared but now it was Prometheus’ turn to look perplexed.

  “Very poetic Thomas, but Henry is your anointed king and you forget that I too have been chosen by God to wear a crown. For that reason alone I can’t permit you to aid a rebellion against another Christian monarch without placing my own soul in mortal peril,” he said. Prometheus’ stern expression convinced everyone that the Nubian would happily throw Thomas overboard unless all talk of rebellion was abandoned but the Englishman had no intention of conceding defeat.

  “A king is nothing more than the strongest brigand in the band and if the robber chief becomes a cruel tyrant then his fellow thieves have every right to depose him,” Thomas said in his defence.

  “You’re wrong Thomas, only God can take away what has been given by God,” Prometheus insisted and he folded his huge arms across his chest so he looked like an Arabian jinn but Thomas was not to be deterred.

  “Not so long ago we were all sitting in the shadow of the gallows but God has favoured us since we met so perhaps we’re to be the instruments of God’s will. What’s more I can prove to you that Henry is a false king who cannot command the loyalty of good Christians,” Thomas replied but before he could explain how the House of York’s heirs had been cheated of their throne, there was a cry of alarm from the masthead.

  “Sail astern!” hollered the lookout and every man on board ran to the ship’s rail to get a better look at the small but sleek, square rigged vessel that seemed to be following them.

  “By the barnacles on King Neptune’s balls she’s a balinger,” cursed one the sailors shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare with a weather beaten hand. Thomas scoffed at the threat from such a small boat but the sailor informed the p
assengers that balingers were coastal craft and didn’t normally venture this far out to sea unless they were up to no good. Nagel asked the sailor if they could outrun their pursuers but the seaman shook his head and assured them a balinger could run down a kogge faster than a greyhound coursing a hare but another sailor was more hopeful.

  “Don’t listen to that gloomy old sod, he’s not had a good word to say about anything these last twenty years! To be sure a balinger’s faster than a kogge in daylight but it will be dark in a few hours, perhaps we can lose her during the night,” said the more optimistic seaman. The captain seemed to have heard him and ordered his crew to put on more sail in an attempt to outpace their shadow.

  The kogge duly increased her speed but she was built to carry Flemish cloth and Rhenish wine safely rather than quickly. The heavy cargo ship couldn’t outrun the sleeker balinger and by the time the sun touched the horizon, the gap between the two vessels had closed to a few hundred yards. There could be no doubt that the balinger’s crew had hostile intentions so The Steffen’s captain summoned his men to the main deck and addressed them from the stern castle’s rail.

  “Those bastards mean to take this ship, so I want every man armed and ready. If they try and jump us during the night we’ll give them such a hot welcome the fires of hell will be a blessed relief!” said Captain Shobery. Nagel tried to protest that his orders shouldn’t apply to passengers but no one was listening. The main deck of The Steffen had become a hive of muffled activity as the crew loaded their cannon with a lethal mix of nails, sharp stones and anything else that could shred human flesh.

  “If there’s a fight, stay out of it Thomas you hold the fate of kingdoms in your hand and you’re too valuable to be killed in some pointless skirmish,” said Nagel, taking hold of the Englishman’s sleeve.