devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band

by richard anderton

  “There’s evil abroad Father, are these men sure they want to be outside the walls after dark? The Graoully was seen in the west of the city not six nights ago. They say it bent open the iron cage below the Pont des Morts and devoured the four men inside. The Isle of Ghosts is close by so surely you heard the prisoners’ screams as the beast consumed them?” he said.

  “Alas my hearing is not what it was and I heard nothing,” said Father Sebastian truthfully so the sentry told him the story of the English wizard who’d come to Metz and spent weeks training the city’s dragon to swallow him yet keep him alive in its belly.

  When Father Sebastian asked why anyone would want to do such a thing, the sentry insisted that the warlock wished to kidnap the English rebel prince who lived in the palace of Haute Pierre and carry him back to England, just as Jonah was carried to Ashdod, where he’d be surrendered to his enemy the English king. Apparently, the sorcerer had made at least one successful voyage inside the beast but when summoned to the cage the Graoully had turned on its master and eaten him. Father Sebastian dismissed the story as nonsense but the older sentry insisted his colleague was speaking the gospel truth.

  “My cousin who guards the Pont des Morts says he actually heard the prisoners’ limbs snap as the monster ground his bones like grist under a millstone,” he said.

  “A fitting end for any necromancer to be sure but whilst I’m grateful for the warning these men must make their journey tonight. See how the disease is so advanced in this wretch his skin has turned black,” said Father Sebastian and he opened the bandages wrapped around the Nubian’s shins. Prometheus’ legs had been cut quite badly during his swim to the Isle of Ghosts and though his wounds had almost healed, his dark African skin was still covered crusted with scabs. The sight convinced the sentries that the man’s flesh was rotting on his bones and they recoiled in horror.

  “Be off with you and never set foot in Metz again!” the sentries cried and they covered their mouths and noses with their cloaks as the lepers shuffled by. Father Sebastian began to tell the gatekeepers why he wasn’t going with the doomed men but the curfew bell was sounding and the sentries were too busy securing the city for the night to pay any more attention to the ramblings of an ancient priest. As the lepers reached the far end of the bridge, Thomas glanced back to see Father Sebastian waving farewell, a few seconds later he was lost from sight as the city’s gates were slammed shut.

  “I wouldn’t like to be in those guards’ shoes when they discover they’ve been gulled so easily,” chuckled Quintana as the lepers trudged off down the road.

  “Will Father Sebastian suffer when they find out who we were?” asked Prometheus anxiously but Nagel put his concerns to rest.

  “I doubt it, he’s survived so long amongst the damned no one will dare risk his immortal soul by laying hands on a man so favoured by God but we must make haste. To kill our quarry we’ll first have to catch him and de la Pole has a good start,” said the trumpet player and he suggested that the quickest route south would be to head for Nancy and then follow the old Roman road to Lyons.

  Though Richard de la Pole had marched the Black Band out of Metz some days ago, five men alone could travel much faster than an entire army and the assassins set off in the full confidence that they’d soon run their fox to earth. Their spirits soared even higher once they’d discarded their lepers’ rags and though Father Sebastian hadn’t been able to give them any money there were plenty of poorly guarded barns and chicken coops along the way. With fresh clothes on their backs and their bellies full of stolen eggs, their only problem was finding a way to kill the White Rose.

  “It’ll be difficult to get close to him, our faces are too well known,” said Bos.

  “Then we must fashion new disguises and prepare a trap,” offered Quintana.

  “I agree but what shall we use as bait?” Thomas added.

  “We must discover his secret vices for no man is safe from himself,” said Prometheus and he asked Nagel, who’d been longest in the White Rose’s household, for details of their enemy’s appetites.

  The trumpet player didn’t hesitate to tell them that Richard de la Pole had a weakness for women and though the others had seen scant evidence of the White Rose’s philandering during their time in Metz, Nagel assured them that his former master’s love affairs had once been the scandal of the city. One of the White Rose’s most notorious liaisons had been with the wife of a goldsmith and like David pursuing Bathsheba, he’d seduced the woman by contriving to have her husband sent away. Cunningly, de la Pole had commissioned several fine pieces of jewellery from the man he intended to cuckold, which meant the goldsmith had to travel to Paris to buy materials.

  With her husband gone, the goldsmith’s wanton wife happily surrendered to the handsome, wealthy and highborn Englishman. After the White Rose had robbed the woman of her virtue, he’d boasted about his conquest and when the goldsmith returned, his outraged friends had told the man about his faithless wife. Most husbands would have thrown the trollop into the street but, fearing the wrath of an exiled king, the goldsmith did nothing. De la Pole therefore continued the affair quite openly, until the city’s scolds and busybodies insisted that Metz’s bishop took action.

  Much to the consternation of the goldsmith, the bishop didn’t prosecute de la Pole, instead he issued warrants for the arrest of the cuckolded husband for failing to control his wife and summoned his sluttish spouse to answer for her adultery. Not wishing to be branded with hot irons and placed in the pillory, the woman had fled to the safety of her lover’s castle but the goldsmith had been sent to prison for several months. The day after his release, the goldsmith and de la Pole had met in the street and the two rivals had fought like thieves, much to the amusement of a large crowd that had gathered, but before any serious wounds could be inflicted the city guards had arrested them both.

  Again no action was taken against de la Pole but this time the bishop ruled that the wife must be returned to her husband, provided that the goldsmith swore on the holy relics of St Stephen and St Clement not to beat her too hard. The goldsmith had refused to take such an oath so he was promptly banished from Metz. The goldsmith’s wife was also banished and she fled to the nearby town of Toul but she remained de la Pole’s mistress until her death a few years later.

  “But if the stupid whore’s dead, how can she help us?” Bos said when Nagel had finished his story.

  “Her death doesn’t mean de la Pole has lost his natural desires, so all we have to do is find another willing to sacrifice her virtue in a noble cause and whilst de la Pole is distracted by her charms, we’ll strike,” said Quintana with a knowing smile.

  “And where will we find such a Delilah?” said Prometheus.

  “That won’t be difficult, every whore in France will be making for the king’s muster at Lyon,” said Thomas. “If we fill a bawdy house with fine lusty trollops it won’t be long before the White Rose pays us a visit and a man is never more vulnerable than when he’s in the arms of Venus!”

  15

  LYON

  Thomas and his companions made good progress by following the Roman road that linked Nancy with Lyon. Even after centuries of neglect, this ancient highway was in a better condition than the muddy tracks of England or Germany and the travellers even began to enjoy the journey. The early summer weather was fine and warm, the roadside inns were plentiful and their cellars full of good food and wine. Moreover, there was an abundance of innocent wayfarers to provide the cash they needed to pay for proper board and lodgings.

  For weeks, the French king’s captains had been pasting recruiting notices on the walls of inns and taverns across France. Now the roads to Lyon were crowded with runaway ploughboys and fugitive apprentices, all eager to win fame and fortune in King Francis’ army. From somewhere, Quintana procured a pack of cards and fleeced these lambs by engaging them in games of primero and piquet. Thomas told fortunes and sold the necessary charms, fashioned from twigs and dried grass, to protec
t against the death or injury in battle he confidently predicted.

  For his part Prometheus resumed his boxing career and challenged the braver bucks to wager on bareknuckle bouts, which he invariably won. Even Bos contributed to their reserves of cash by preaching hell-fire sermons warning of the dangers of popery and passing round his hat. Thomas was surprised that so many of their fellow travellers were eager to embrace the new religion of Luther as most of the people on the road were French and France was the First Daughter of the Roman Church. The French king was also a devout Catholic and his ally the pope had declared Lutheranism to be heresy, nevertheless Bos drew increasingly large audiences at each inn where they stopped.

  Some of the most ardent members of Bos’ congregation were veterans of France’s endless wars with the Hapsburg kingdoms of Germany, Spain, Sicily and Italy - four crowns now united in the single person of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. These grizzled warriors had known glorious victories at Mézières and Marignano and crushing defeats at Bicocca and Sesia. Yet despite the dangers of battle these men gladly continued in the profession of arms. No peasant ever became rich but a pikeman, halberdier or arquebusier could win enough loot to retire and, whatever their past sins, Bos’ preaching assured them of a place in heaven if only they had faith in their own salvation.

  There were not just eager tyros and battle hardened veterans heading for Lyon. Just as a rotting carcass attracts swarms of flies, the king’s muster brought forth the tross an unruly caravan of pedlars, sutlers and merchants who clogged the road with their lumbering wagons and in their wake came gaggles of beggarly women with brattish children clinging to their dust-caked skirts. South of Dijon the numbers of the trossen were swelled by scores of thieves and whores also hoping to profit from the business of war and the would-be assassins gratefully hid themselves in this throng.

  The men arrived at their destination at the end of July and they were amazed to discover that France’s ancient capital had adopted a younger sister. The original Lyon of brick and stone still stood on the peninsular formed by the meeting of the rivers Rhone and Saone but, on the flat plain to the east of the Rhone, a new city of wood and canvas had been born. The French camp’s hundreds of white tents and brightly coloured pavilions had been laid out like a permanent settlement, complete with broad streets, narrow alleys and open squares, and like any other city this temporary metropolis thronged with people.

  The cries of merchants selling their wares, sergeants drilling their men and whores plying their trade mingled in the warm air and drifted over the valley floor like a swarm of angry bees. The panorama of sights and sounds was strangely intoxicating and for several minutes Thomas and others could only stand at the side of the road, staring at the tented Sodom stretched out before them.

  “And it came to pass that God destroyed the cities of the plain for their wickedness,” muttered Bos.

  “But he remembered the righteousness of Abraham and brought him out of the wicked city,” countered Prometheus.

  “To Hell with Abraham and every righteous hypocrite who ever walked the earth, there’s a lot of money in those tents and I intend to have my share,” said Quintana, licking his lips in anticipation.

  “We won’t get rich looking like this and if we plan to open a brothel fit for a king we’ll need more than just new garb,” said Thomas waving a hand over the rags he was wearing. He and the others had barely noticed that the journey from Metz had reduced their clothing to tatters and they now looked more like the wretched lepers they’d left behind than the prosperous whoremasters they hoped to become.

  “Telling fortunes and playing cards will take too long to raise enough money to buy everything we need but what happened to your grimoire Thomas? Perhaps you could use it to find great wealth,” said Nagel hopefully but Thomas shook his head. Though The Munich Handbook offered plenty of spells that promised to lead a necromancer to riches hidden in the earth, he’d left the book in his chamber at Haute Pierre.

  “As far as I know the White Rose now has The Munich Handbook and considering it’s brought us nothing but disaster perhaps it’s for the best,” he said bitterly. However, whilst Thomas no longer valued the book’s impotent magic spells, he couldn’t forget that it had been sabotage rather than a flaw in his design that had sunk The Hippocamp. Prometheus agreed that Leonardo’s irreplaceable drawings could have been sold or pawned for a handsome sum if the book hadn’t been left behind but Bos was delighted that the evil grimoire had been lost.

  “It was a tool of Satan and no good could ever come from its possession,” he said firmly and the debate continued until Quintana suggested an alternative way to raise some money.

  “If we can find the sutleress called Mistress Kleber she might give us credit. She and I have done business before and she knows me well,” he said confidently.

  “If she knows you well, the only thing you’ll get is her boot up your arse,” said Bos.

  “And even if she’s here, how will we find her in this labyrinth of wood and cloth?” said Prometheus but Quintana was quite certain he could find the mysterious woman.

  “You’ll always find Kleber where there’s most money’s to be made, so I reckon she’ll have bribed the Camp Provost for a pitch in the middle of the camp,” he said and before the others could protest, he’d set off down one of the tented streets. The others sighed and trudged after him.

  The Portugee led his companions through the dusty alleys between the tents where all the equipment and supplies required by an army on campaign were offered for sale. In one part of the camp, tailors stitched the garish doublets and breeches favoured by men at war whilst cobblers sold new shoes from long poles carried on their shoulders. Elsewhere, armourers forged steel helmets and breastplates, blacksmiths shoed horses and sharpened swords and apothecaries sold the medicines and ointments that promised to cure everything from warts to a gangrenous limb.

  Besides these specialist artisans there were the tents belonging to the cooks and general traders called sutlers who, for a price, provided the army’s ordinary rank and file with everything else they needed. Some sutlers were veterans, men too old or too crippled to fight but who still yearned for the excitement and freedom of life on campaign. Others were widows or deserted wives who’d become sutleresses simply to earn a living but the woman they were looking for was none of these. According to Quintana, Mistress Kleber had joined the tross to escape the boredom of the marriage bed and had quickly become notorious for driving the hardest of bargains.

  The maze of tented streets met at a broad square in the centre of the camp that served as both a market place and a parade ground. Dozens of brightly coloured flags had been planted around the edge of the square and each banner was accompanied by a drummer, a fifer and a sergeant. Like rival traders in a street market, the battle scarred sergeants competed with each other for recruits by shouting inflated promises of wealth and glory whilst their musicians played stirring martial tunes. The scene looked like a village hiring fair but instead of reapers and cowherds, the sergeants wanted men skilled in the art of splitting skulls with heavy halberds, piercing ribs with eighteen foot pikes or slitting open stomachs with the razor sharp ‘cat-skinner’ swords called katzbalgers.

  Ignoring several invitations to join various regiments, Quintana asked a young ensign if he knew where Mistress Kleber was to be found and to the others’ surprise, the boy pointed to a large red pavilion on the opposite side of the square. Outside this tent, groups of customers were examining heaps of clothing, weapons and armour piled high on trestle tables but the centrepiece of Mistress Kleber’s bazaar was an immense iron cauldron that hung from a stout wooden beam as thick as a man’s arm. A grubby boy tended the blazing fire beneath the steaming pot whilst the woman herself served the queue of men waiting for bowls of her piping hot stew.

  “Mistress Kleber, you’re looking as young and as beautiful as ever!” cried Quintana but the woman was not in the first flush of youth. She was nearly sixty years old, her ski
n was waxy and pale and her hair was as grey as the ash beneath her cauldron. Despite her trade, she was thin, almost skeletal, and her face was lined with a scowl as bitter as the black bread she handed out with her potage.

  “Such smooth talk can only come from the tongue of a blind man or a lying, Portugee bastard, so what do you want Quintana!” she said, without look up from her pot.

  “Your hand in marriage,” said Quintana dropping to one knee and seizing the woman’s arm. The crone turned to look at him, smiled and spat on the ground in disgust.

  “Judging by the rags you wear I’m still much too good for you. Now enough of your jests, tell me what you want or piss off,” she said snatching her hand away.

  “I want to borrow some money and I’ve always paid my debts, to you at least,” said Quintana rising to his feet. Mistress Kleber put down her ladle, wiped her hands on her filthy apron and looked at the dishevelled group with a disapproving eye.

  “The last time we met you said you’d return rich but I see you still keep the company of thieves, vagabonds and heathen blackamoors! The French King’s captains won’t want an infidel savage in their ranks so my advice to you is find some other war in which to get yourself killed,” she said.

  Quintana winced as he saw Prometheus frown and he quickly informed the sutleress that the Nubian was a baptised Christian who’d be sitting at God’s right hand whilst she was in Purgatory serving soup to lost souls. Kleber was unimpressed and was about to reply with another stream of insults when Thomas hurriedly intervened. He explained that he and his companions wished to set up in business and needed to borrow fifty livres to buy a tent, wagon, stock and clothes more befitting merchants of quality.

  “Fifty livres? That’s a king’s ransom and the camp already has so many sutlers a poor old woman can’t make an honest living,” sniffed Mistress Kleber.