Son of the Morning (13 page)
The priest moved his lips as if trying to expel a fish bone. ‘Then you will be responsible for the boy remaining here.’
‘He will remain here. He can hardly walk, and even if he could, where has he got to go?’ said Orsino.
‘Very well. I’ll show you where he’s to be locked for the night.’ The priest made towards the stairs.
‘Do not leave me!’ shouted Osbert. ‘Do not leave me!’
But Edwin directed Dowzabel and Orsino back upstairs. The boy looked back at the thing in the corner. Even a devil was a rare fount of knowledge. He could find out what Hell wanted of him, why he had been burned.
‘Stop staring at him and get up the stairs.’ The priest thrust his knuckle into Dowzabel’s back, making him cry out in pain as he straightened up and stretched the skin over his burnt chest. ‘Don’t give me that insolent look; I can whip you if I choose, no matter what the captain here says.’
Dowzabel struggled up the stairs, Orsino behind him and Edwin at the back with the light.
‘Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me! I’m
not
a spirit. Look, there was a farmer who bought the skull of St Anthony; there was a bowman who did the same, in Leadenhall by the goose stall. I was pursued. Ask them what I am – that’s if they’re still alive and haven’t run from the country in fear!’
The man in the circle was frantic, wringing his hands and hopping on the spot as if his feet were on fire. But they did leave him and, at the top of the stairs, Father Edwin set down his lamp, closed the door and returned the cellar to darkness.
In the year that King Charles of France, called the Wise, was born to Prince John and Queen Bonne and that King Edward was delivered of a son, Lionel.
Dunbar. Montagu was weary just saying the name. How long had his army been camped in front of those walls? Two months – not long in terms of a siege, but he had thought the castle would fall inside a fortnight. He’d ridden hard from the south coast to be there, almost believing that the siege would be over by the time he arrived in Scotland. It wasn’t. Black Agnes – Countess Dunbar – and her hideous army were still holding out, despite the best pounding the English catapults could give them. Every time he allowed himself to think they’d had a breakthrough in the war in Scotland, they suffered a setback. It was just depressing. All the lands north of the Forth had been lost and Bothwell Castle reduced to a ruin by William Douglas. Montagu sometimes found it difficult to keep track of the shifting allegiances of the Scots. The English army was at Dunbar backing the claim to the Scottish throne of Edward Balliol, son of John, whom the Scots had first ignored until he was out of the way in exile. As soon as he’d left they’d claimed him as their king, despite the fact King John had clearly become sick of them by then and never wanted to feel heather beneath his feet again.
Montagu would rather face Douglas or any other Scotsman than the countess any day. After one particularly vicious assault by the siege engines, the woman had led her maids onto the walls of the castle and contemptuously dusted the debris away. Then, using one of the very stones that had been fired at her, she had managed to crush his best battering ram. It was March, spring, though someone had forgotten to tell the Scottish weather, which clearly still thought it was January. Montagu shivered in the sleet as he dismounted from his horse.
He needed to take the castle soon. With the Scots active and the French raiding the channel and the eastern ports, the country was burning from both ends and one side. He returned the greetings and salutes of the army and nobles and he strode through the ranks of wet tents. He was tired and sore but knew the importance of communicating health and vigour to his troops.
‘How goes it, cousin?’
Hugh De La Spencer, a young noble in a pale blue surcoat marked with golden doves came running to meet Montagu. He was wrapped in so many scarfs Montagu could hardly see his face. The boy was known by his middle name of George, to distinguish him from his father – the late Hugh Despenser, in Montagu’s opinion the worst man who ever lived.
‘As ever, Earl Salisbury.’
‘No sign of them cracking?’
‘I’m afraid the countess’s resolve is firm, sir.’
Montagu rolled his eyes. ‘The woman constitutes an entire second front just on her own.’
‘She is a remarkable lady, sir, but we have one piece of good news.’
‘What?’
‘We’ve caught her brother, the Earl of Moray.’
‘Really? Oh, he’s a good fellow – I’ve met him at a tournament. Send him to me when you have a minute.’
‘Very good.’
Twenty paces away, Montagu noticed someone staring at him. He was a very thin, brown fellow in tattered clothes – just rags tied about his feet for shoes.
George saw him too. ‘Go away, villein, you can have nothing to say to the lord.’
‘Great Lord Montagu.’ The man dropped to his knees in the freezing mud.
‘If you want food, my man, I suggest you commend yourself to one of our engineers or other useful men. We work for our living in this army,’ said Montagu.
‘Sir, I would speak with you.’
‘Do you think the Earl of Salisbury spends his time consorting with beggars?’ said George. ‘I’m sorry, my lord, he’s been here nearly as long as we have and has been asking after you daily. I’ve grown tired of beating him, though I can again if it pleases you.’
The man put out his hands, imploring. ‘I am of Corfe. Of Corfe Castle. I would speak to you. I have news of the king.’
‘I’ve just come from the king; you can have no news I don’t know.’
‘The old king, sir. King Edward that was, not King Edward that is. Of what happened at Corfe.’
That got Montagu’s interest. ‘What news? He’s been dead ten years.’
‘I would speak with you alone.’
Montagu pondered for an instant. ‘You’ll have as long as it takes them to fetch me some dry clothes,’ said Montagu. ‘George, I’ll take your tent to speak to him. In the meantime throw up a scaffold – a big one – right in front of her walls where she normally appears. Threaten to hang Moray. See if that softens her up a bit.’
‘Yes, sire. Though I wouldn’t count on it.’
‘Neither would I, neither would I. If it doesn’t work, bring him back here and I’ll take dinner with him later.’
George led Montagu to his tent, the beggar trailing behind.
It was a small affair in stained yellow canvas, but dry and with a comfortable couch. How different George was from his father, the notorious Hugh Despenser, favourite of King Edward II, his lover, his bewitcher, it was said. The older Hugh’s tent had been bigger than the king’s, stuffed with precious things, silks and gold, and giving the impression of staging a permanent banquet.
Mind you, George had hardly known his father. His mother felt betrayed by her husband for misleading the old King Edward into tyranny and she never spoke of him. And when Mortimer – The Mortimer as old Edward had known him, giving him a name as if he was a pox you could catch – had thrown down old Edward and Despenser, he had killed everyone in Despenser’s immediate retinue too. Legend had it that he’d drawn and quartered his hunting dogs and horses into the bargain. Montagu knew this to be untrue – Mortimer was far too mean to throw valuable animals away like that. Despenser’s greyhounds alone had been worth a fortune.
But The Mortimer had – in his own words – ‘burned the weed to the root’ – even imprisoning Despenser’s wife for a time and forcing his daughters into nunneries. Young George had only been saved because he had been raised well away from his father – partly, guessed Montagu, for his own protection. His mother had seen trouble coming. When finally freed, the woman had run off with Walter De La Zouche. First, however, she had burned Despenser’s family castle at Hanley – clear proof, people said, that she abhorred his memory. People said other things too – Hugh had been sent from the Devil. But the low people said that about anyone they didn’t like. Mind you, they said it an awful lot about Hugh.
Montagu sat down and helped himself to the young man’s wine. He breathed in the smell of the tent. Camp life. It was all he’d known since he’d been fourteen years old. Sieges, battles, expeditions. For a second he wondered what it would be like to turn his back on it, sit in some castle or manor house warm and snug for the rest of his days. Boring, probably.
The beggar shuffled into the tent. Montagu picked up a loaf, tore off a bit and ate.
‘Say what you’ve got to say, man.’
‘Sir. I beg your pardon and ask indulgence of your greatness, I being …’
‘Cut out the fawning and slice into the meat of it, fellow.’
The man looked uncomprehending.
‘Say your piece directly,’ said Montagu.
‘I am John Lockey, formerly of Corfe Castle.’
‘You’ve come a long way masterless, Lockey.’
‘I heard your army was in Scotland, sir. You are the new king’s most trusted friend and have a reputation as a gentle and noble lord.’
‘Have I? Perhaps I should do something about that; it never does for low men to think their masters too mild. Why have you come from Corfe? You could have saved yourself a trip; I was down in Southampton not a month ago.’
‘I didn’t know that, sir. Only that your army was here.’
‘Indeed. So you worked for old Edward’s gaoler, Berkeley?’
‘I did work for that mighty lord. And it is in that capacity that I came to know what you must know.’
‘Get on with it.’ Montagu sipped at the wine.
‘There was a rumour among the servants.’
‘There is always a rumour among the servants. I hope you’re not wasting my time, Lockey.’
‘No sir, I saw them.’
‘Who?’
‘The king, the king and the angel. They were there until nine years ago, I swear it.’
‘The king is in Windsor.’
‘I mean the old king, sir – old Edward.’
Montagu put down his cup of wine. ‘Rubbish.’
‘I swear it, sir; in Christ’s name I swear it. I would not risk my life to bring you this news were it not so.’
‘Rubbish, I say again. You are lying and now you have blasphemed against Heaven and will hang.’
‘Please no, sir! I got drunk, sir, and on a dare I went to the tower to see who the prisoner was. We knew we had a prisoner and that he was an important one, but people said he was all sorts of people. One of the Despensers, I thought. We were all in a curiosity to know, so I snuck in there to see him.’
Montagu found this amusing. ‘You’re a brave fellow when you’re drunk. The Despensers aren’t the sort to tolerate paupers crawling to their rooms at midnight. Hugh Despenser had Lady Baret’s arms and legs broken until she went mad. Don’t think he even quite knew what she’d done to offend him. What he’d do to a sneaking villein beggars the imagination.’
‘I didn’t think of that, sir. There are ways up that tower that only the servants use and the old doors have holes in them. I thought I’d just take a look.’
‘What did you see?’
‘A man. And light. More light than I’ve ever seen. Light everywhere. And something snapping, sir. A red serpent that crawled and spat.’
‘What did you take that to be?’
‘I heard his name – Edward. The light said his name and I know that doesn’t make sense, but it did. It was the old king, I’m sure and he was with a bright, bright angel and they were fighting the Devil.’
‘Old Edward died nearly ten years ago at Berkeley castle. I was at the funeral myself and saw the usurper Mortimer who had him killed smirking in the corner of the Abbey. You’ve wasted my time.’
‘But I was told, sir, to come and see you – it told me.’
‘An angel spoke to a pauper? Well, now I am sure you’re lying.’
‘Not the angel, sir. No. The serpent. The serpent told me to find you and say what I had seen.’
Montagu leaned back on the couch, stretching. ‘And it took you nine years?’
‘I couldn’t leave Corfe – I was tied to the land. And then I was thrown out for drinking and I feared I should starve. You and your generosity are all that stand between me and the grave, sir. I am telling the truth, I implore you to believe me.’
Montagu leaned forward, putting his forearms onto his knees. Something about the man suggested he should not dismiss him. ‘What did he look like? What did the king look like?’
‘He was a very tall man, sir.’
‘Everyone in England knows that.’
‘But the serpent, sir – it said it had a message for you.’
‘What message?’ Montagu’s patience was coming to an end.
‘“Verus Rex ago. Pede poena claudo.” It said you would know it to be a true message by those words.’
Montagu found that he had stood up.
It was unusual enough to hear a villein speaking Latin but what he had just said was remarkable.
The true king lives. Punishment comes limping.
It was conceivable that a pauper might have learned some Latin by rote to perpetrate a fraud. But he had given code words – the ones Edward III had used to verify his letters to Montagu when they were planning the rebellion against The Mortimer. Pede poena claudo! Two people in the world knew that secret – Edward and himself. Montagu reached and took up the cup of wine from the camp table, swigging the last of it down. He was trying to escape the conclusion that he’d just received a direct message from the Devil.