The headless corpse finally lay still, blood pulsing from its ragged stump and pooling on the wooden stage. In due course, two dulleyed women arrived to clean the worst of the mess, but the old boards soaked up far more than the crones could ever hope to scrub away. The platform was worn and smooth, and the block itself stained ruddy from use and the countless lives that had ended upon it.
There were many memories in the wood of that stage. If only it could speak, people used to say, what tales it could tell. Whispers of things best left unsaid; of things that should never have been permitted.
After the execution was over, after the King’s Own had hung up his crescent-bladed axe to await the next poor fool to violate King Richard’s sacred law, everyone approved. A painful death was the only thing for heretics and traitors.
Arrest to execution had taken less than four days, one of the fastest the town of Horsham could remember, perhaps because of the nature of the man’s crime. There had been no case for appeal. The prisoner had freely acknowledged that the accusations were true. He had denied nothing and admitted everything.
William Eynon had once been a greatly respected citizen of the town. A talented alchemist and physic, his knowledge of the human body was unsurpassed for miles around. Whether treating simple coughs and sneezes, or healing a young boy with strangulation sickness, Will Eynon’s medicinal skill was a precious gift to the people he treated. He had been a quiet, introverted man with a wife and young son to whom he was devoted. His generosity was well known and his compassion a rare gift in a time of hardship.
William Eynon, now cruelly beheaded before a baying mob. Public executions were intended to remind the people that Richard had ultimate power over every life in his kingdom. William Eynon may have been beloved in his community, but his grisly death served to remind people that nobody could commit treason and escape the law.
Treason .
The word held such terrible connotations. It seemed unlikely that a young physic the likes of Eynon could ever be found guilty of treachery against the King. But an Inquisitor had deemed his medical knowledge more than simple herb-craft and learning. More than the medicine practised by village midwives and wise women, with their salves and poultices. The accusation was that his talent had been bolstered by something greater. Empowered by that which King Richard feared above all else: the gift of magic. Or the curse, as was more commonly believed.
For one young woman, the execution represented much more than a man being brought to the King’s justice. As she stood in the town square, long after the crowd had dispersed, Elizabeth Eynon could do nothing but stare with blank eyes at the spot where her husband’s life had ended. He had sought her out in his last moments, his eyes fixing on hers before the executioner had pushed his head down to expose his neck. He had looked for her in the thronging crowd and he had found her. There had been nothing but love in her husband’s final glance. Love, and an apology.
Forgive me, Bess.
He had spoken to her without words, just as he had done so many times throughout their courtship, and later, their marriage. She had never even truly noticed it. She had just—naively, it transpired— believed that their bond was that strong. Her initial reaction to the discovery that Will had been a practitioner of forbidden magic had been revulsion. But her deep-rooted love for the kindest man she had ever known, the memory of how many lives he had saved and how much pain he had relieved over the years...
I forgive you .
She mouthed the words silently as clouds gathered overhead, as if to mirror her sorrow. Will was no longer here to listen to the absolution, but she knew that somehow he would understand. His head had been taken by the Inquisitor to return to the court of King Richard. There it would remain, mounted on the walls of the Tower, until nothing of her handsome husband remained but a featureless skull. Such was the fate of the magi.
A breeze whipped the rough fabric of her skirts around her legs, and she paid it no heed. She stood staring at the stage with her hands clenched so tightly that her nails drew blood, but the pain was a welcome distraction. It balanced the grief that transfixed her and reminded her that life went on. She was beyond tears, the pain having already passed beyond that simple expression of grief and into an aching, iron band around her heart.
So she stood. Even when the rain began to fall, she stood, not knowing what to do or even where she could go that would be an escape from her loss. Had it not been for her young son, presently in the care of her sister, Elizabeth would have thrown herself on the mercy of the Inquisitor as well. But he had had no interest in her beyond interrogation. He had simply asked her questions— embarrassing, indecent and horrifying in equal measure—over and over again, while consulting with a little copper medallion. It had been enough to establish that William had been alone in his crime. She and Mathias would still suffer for it, however.
Mathias.
Thinking of her boy forced some kind of sensibility back into Elizabeth’s numbed senses. She had to hold body and mind together, for his sake. He was barely a year old and already his life was marked with tragedy. The family home and assets had been seized by the King’s Treasury, and other than the clothes on her back and a paltry sum of William’s modest wealth that had been granted back to her, she had nothing. Her son, once poised to inherit the family holding, was now little more than a homeless pauper.
Her tears began to fall again, mingling with the rain that pooled at her feet in a mockery of the blood that had spilled on the stage only a few short hours earlier. Elizabeth took a shuddering breath and turned away from the only life she had ever known.
SEVERAL MILES AWAY from the now-deserted square of the small Sussex town, a group of men were returning to London. A broad, heavyset man in a dark, hooded cloak led the group, his body swathed in leather armour and looped with belts. Numerous pouches, pockets and purses jounced around his frame, filled with trinkets and esoteric devices of his trade, and he openly wore a heavy sword and pistols at his waist. He rode with his head down against the driving rain, while behind him trailed his small retinue, six thugs who muttered and bickered amongst themselves. Despite the sturdy cobbles of the King’s roads, the weather had forced them to slow from a gallop to a walk, and their crude banter was becoming a distraction to Charles Weaver’s thoughts.
One of only eight people in the entire kingdom to hold the position of King’s Inquisitor, Weaver was a snarling brute of a man. He had joined the Inquisition, fiery and ambitious, at the age of sixteen, and in the five years he had served his masters had ripped his way through the ranks with unsurpassed ferocity. Still young, he was formidable and unequalled: nobody had delivered as many heads to the feet of Richard the Unyielding as Charles Weaver.
They called him humourless, but never to his face. Weaver thought nothing of disposing of those he considered weak or ineffective. The trail of the dead in his wake consisted of more than just those he hunted. Those who dared speak against him, against the King or just out of turn met a swift end.
‘Yer honour?’ The voice belonged to one of the mercenaries who were so often an unwelcome necessity in his pursuits. Weaver preferred to travel alone and despised the casual blasphemy and petty vice of others, but sometimes his prey would try to run, and every huntsman needed his hounds, however odious they might be.
‘Excuse me? Yer honour?’ The wheedling voice spoke again and Weaver turned to regard the approaching rider. An errant breeze whipped the hood from the Inquisitor’s face, revealing green eyes glittering behind a featureless iron mask. He said nothing, but the movement was enough to acknowledge the speaker’s presence. The scraggly-bearded man who had spoken scratched at his thin, pointed nose. The mercenary clearly didn’t want to speak to him, but had been bullied into the task by his comrades. It was in the stance, the way he shuffled uncomfortably in the saddle. In the way the narrow eyes squinted at him with such anxiety. Charles Weaver had devices at his disposal for drawing out the truth and revealing the unseen, but he was also very
good at reading people. It was part of what made him so very good at his job.
‘Yer honour, me and the lads was just hoping that we could maybe... find an inn or something? It’s a bit... well, it’s miserable, an’ we’re soaked through.’ He indicated his soggy clothing.
Weaver’s head moved a fraction more, turning to fix the sodden group whose notably less expensive mounts were plodding along the road behind him. Then he turned back to the speaker, who persisted gamely.
‘We’re all a bit, well, cold, yer honour. And hungry, tell the truth. Ain’t eaten since before the execution.’ The speaker twisted his damp tunic in his hands. ‘Something hot inside us wouldn’t go amiss.’
The King’s Inquisitor blinked slowly. There was something unsettling in the gesture, briefly closing off the link to the human beneath the mask. The spokesman suppressed a shiver not entirely brought on by the cold. He never knew a blink could convey such contempt.
‘Inns are a cesspool of corruption and heresy,’ Weaver said eventually. His voice was slow and ponderous; a deep, bass rumble that could be heard even across a crowded room. The iron mask added a hollow, sepulchral tone that chilled the blood. Charles Weaver had not once been heard to shout. He did not need to. ‘If I find reason to suspect any of you are involved in vice or villainy, then I will scourge the wickedness from you personally. Am I understood?’
‘Yes, yer honour.’ The spokesman’s eyes lingered on the tools of Weaver’s trade, hanging from the richly-tooled leather belt at his waist. More were stored in the saddlebags, but Weaver knew the importance of first impressions. Few things created such a good first impression as a serrated-edged torture knife. ‘Perfectly clear.’
‘Then ride ahead and find an inn. And be sure that it is a clean one. Inform the innkeep precisely who it is that you travel with and that we are not pilgrims to be fleeced by moneysnatchers. I am certain that will make them more accommodating. Stables for the horses, food and a bed for the night. We will depart at dawn.’ Weaver pulled the hood back up over his head, reached within the folds of his cloak and tossed a bag of coins at the man.
‘Why do you tarry? Go.’
‘At once, yer honour.’ The snivelling toady bowed and galloped away. Weaver turned his attentions back to the road ahead and ignored the excited whispering from behind him. They would no doubt end up in the kind of establishment that the men thought suitable for a man the calibre of Charles Weaver. Lice-ridden mattresses, rats in the kitchen...
It didn’t matter. Not really. The task had been completed. He had rooted out another heretic and the execution had been satisfactory enough. The mage’s head was packed in a sack tied to his saddlebags, and by this time the next day, he would kneel before his liege-lord and present it. Richard would reward him handsomely and send him out on the hunt again. It was what Weaver lived for. Not the money or the vast estate in Kent where he never spent any time. The reward he hungered for came with the blood of magi and the praise of his King.
The rain continued to pour, washing the countryside in shades of grey and slicking the cobbles so that they shone in the failing light. A pall of darkness hung in the sky to the north.
London.
Whitehall Palace
England
‘COME BACK TO bed, Richard.’
King Richard the Fifth of England, Richard the Unyielding, stood at the open window of his bedchamber. Dirty rain sluiced from the palace roof, streaking the walls with ash and soot, the refuse from the many chimneys and fire stacks that pierced the London skyline. Even at this hour, the ring of metal and the hue and cry of chain-gangs echoed in the streets, keeping the foundries burning. Pools of pale light dotted the palace grounds, crystal globes of lambent gas fastened to iron spars casting an eerie glow in the evening gloom. Richard dreamed of a day when such wonders lined the streets of every English town and village, the light of science casting out the shade of magic once and for all.
The King wore only a loose shirt to cover his nudity, and even then only barely. Behind him, his queen was stretched out languidly on the soft feather pillow, unashamedly naked. He glanced at her appreciatively. Her full figure, admired by so many, had softened over the years. The birth of their five children had given her a pearly network of marks on her belly, and had forced her girlish curves into those of a woman. Her meticulous attention to her appearance caused sensations at court; any number of young noblewomen sought to emulate her style, but none succeeded.
Tresses of a striking shade of burnished copper fell to the middle of her back when she wore her hair loose. Right now, her hair lay over her naked breasts, sending a new wave of desire through the King. He adored her.
For a fleeting moment, Richard took the rare opportunity to forget his troubles and simply enjoyed looking at her, the smooth, alabaster flesh of her body laid bare for him to do with as he pleased. Their lovemaking had been more gentle than usual this evening. Richard was a harried, frenetic lover, servicing his wife with the focused energy that he applied to most things. But he had needed some comfort this night. Anna had given him that.
Strange how it had turned out. It had been a marriage of convenience rather than of desire; she was the eldest daughter of the present High Lord of Scotland, and his father, King Richard the Fourth, had arranged the marriage as a part of the treaty. Richard had been disgusted at the thought of marrying into the barbarous apes of the northlands. He had raged against his father’s decree for months, whilst around him, his younger siblings married whomever they desired.
But he had changed his mind the moment Anna had stepped from the carriage that had brought her down from Scotland and delivered her into his life. A beauty even at the tender age of fifteen, she captivated him, and it soon became apparent that she possessed a startling intelligence and quick wit that matched her new husband easily. Necessity had swiftly given way to the kind of deep, abiding love that Richard had never thought possible.
Over the decades, and through careful marriage, some of the physical deformities had been bred out of the Plantagenet line. King Richard the Fifth was just coming into his prime, and unlike his oftderided ancestor, he was passably handsome. He was taller than his father had been, with a rangy set to his muscles. Portraits of the longgone Henry the Second could have been swapped with his own and few could have told the difference.
Richard John Edward Plantagenet had come to the throne at the age of twenty-four. For fifteen years he had reigned, a hale, healthy and vigorous man, during which time the face of England had altered dramatically. Advancements in everything from weaponry to construction, combined with blueprints obtained at great cost from Italy, had allowed his country to develop faster than he ever could have dreamed. The English fleet, bolstered with ironclads and dreadnoughts, was the terror of the seas.
Being gifted with an inherent ability to understand and appreciate engineering, Richard spent long hours in meetings with the land’s greatest architects, smiths and builders, working with them to realise and improve da Vinci’s designs. Workshops, foundries and shipwrights worked day and night, producing ever more potent and terrifying weapons for his army and navy. When England returned to France, it would be an invincible machine, ready to roll across Europe and free it of the yoke of magic.
And the time would come. Of that, Richard had no doubt. ‘Richard?’ Anna moved to stand behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist. ‘What’s wrong?’ Her soft voice was accented lightly, the Scots burr having faded in her time in the English court. She still had all the Celtic fire that so endeared her to him, though.
He turned around and looked down at her, her pale skin contrasting strongly with his own tanned flesh. Richard was not the kind of man to sit idly at court all day while streams of courtiers curried for a word or boon. He left that business to others. He planned and studied, he trained with the armies. He spent as much time as possible away from the throne his ancestors had fought so desperately to take.
Because he was acutely aware of the price that had be
en paid for that throne. A price that might one day be exacted from his own flesh and blood. He had learned the truth from his father in those fateful minutes before he had wrung the last breath from the old King’s body. He recalled the pride in his father’s eyes as the light had faded from them. He had borne aloft the dagger that had killed a long line of illustrious kings and he had tasted the power in his blood, the power in his very soul.
‘Nothing of note, my love,’ he replied, the lie coming easily to his lips, as every lie did. ‘Let’s go back to bed. Weaver should be returning tomorrow with the head of the Sussex witch. There will be feasting and celebration.’
‘I do not like him.’ Her rosebud lips pouted prettily and he smiled indulgently. If this strong man, this solid king had one weakness, she was standing right before him. He patted her cheek fondly.
‘Charles Weaver is a great Inquisitor,’ he said. ‘He will drive the shadows out of my kingdom. He will pave the way for the advance of enlightenment free of the infernal magi and their arcane superstitions.’
‘He is evil,’ she persisted, and Richard’s pat on her cheek became something entirely less friendly. She shrank back and he pulled her to him, immediately contrite.
‘So are they, my love,’ he said and led her back to the bed, reaching up to pull the curtain around them. ‘So are they.’
Two
August, 1589
Portsmouth
England
ISAAC BONNINGTON KNEW that the Indomitable was unlike any other vessel in the King’s Fleet. The fact gave him great pride. He had brought the initial designs to court and stood, visibly trembling, whilst the King had pored over them in mute reflection. Isaac was not a brave man, but he knew how to build gunships. He understood the workings of black powder weaponry with fine precision, and when he had come to choose his career, he had wavered between becoming a shipwright and taking an apprenticeship at the Hall of Science. The apprenticeship had won out in the end, and in time, the position of Royal Engineer had come to him.
Heirs of the Demon King: Uprising Page 4
