Son of the Morning (43 page)

His man Orsino came back up. The soldier was fatter, Bardi thought – sitting around on his behind living the easy life at his expense. Well, that was over.

‘He’s below,’ said Orsino.

‘With the devil?’

‘Not yet. We’re waiting for you.’

‘Wait no more.’

Bardi followed Orsino down the stairs.

There was the priest, who at least hadn’t been gorging himself on Bardi’s money. The boy, though, had grown somewhat taller, and stronger. His hollow face had filled out and he looked healthy. The room was the chaotic mess he remembered – books, potions and dismembered animals everywhere. Leaning against a table he noticed some disgusting goo too near to his hand. He moved the hand away. There was the magic circle – empty.

Bardi walked up to Dow and pinched the flesh of his cheek. ‘You’ve had some fine dinners at my expense, boy.’

Dow grabbed the banker’s hand and held it with a firm grip. Bardi wasn’t going to do anything as undignified as struggle but he was in pain.

‘Orsino, make him let me go, then thrash the boy.’

‘Dow!’ warned Orsino.

The boy released Bardi’s hand. Bardi felt like slapping him but thought twice about it. He didn’t fancy being slapped back. ‘Thrash him, as I told you to.’

‘He’s a little beyond thrashing, sir,’ said Orsino. ‘If you want that, I suggest you do it yourself.’

Bardi looked at Dow. The boy was not tall but still much taller than the banker. And he was strong-looking, his muscles hard beneath his shirt, visible at the neck. Better dressed, he could be mistaken for a knight’s squire. Bardi should ask Joan of Navarre a high price for him. He felt sure she wanted him for purposes of sorcery. Edwin’s devil had identified Dow, Bardi’s men had found him and he had delivered at least one summoning to match Edwin’s. But Edwin’s had taken thirty years of study. This boy had called a spirit of Hell at his first attempt. Joan would pay well for him.

‘No dinner for him then, for a week.’

‘We have made breakthroughs, sir.’ It was the priest.

‘What breakthroughs?’

‘The devil you saw has been sent back to Hell for answers; we expect his return imminently.’

‘Do you? Well?’ He gestured for Edwin to explain.

‘The boy can best tell you.’

‘Then tell.’

Dow said nothing.

‘Talk, Dow – the sooner you do the sooner this man is out of the house,’ said Orsino.

‘I think the devil who was in there ain’t in there any longer,’ said Dow.

‘I can see that,’ said Bardi.

‘But he never was. He come after me in the street and he got sent packing. What was in there was a man. And now he’s in Hell.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I sent him there.’

‘And now?’

‘He’s coming back.’

‘You’re sure of that?

‘I can hear him calling. I just have to open the gate.’

‘And why haven’t you?’

‘Priest here thinks you should see it. So do I as it happens. Maybe it’ll kill you.’

Bardi smiled and tried to look unfazed. ‘You do know, boy, that when you are no longer useful to me I will have you flogged, don’t you? What do you think this man is going to tell you on his return from Hell?’

‘Something about what we want to know, because if he don’t I’m sending him back,’ said Dow.

Bardi walked round the cellar and looked at the second magic circle Dow had drawn. ‘Is that the name of Lucifer?’ he said, pointing down to some chalk writing.

‘Pretty much,’ said Dow, ‘though it could just as well be a stone put down there with the idea of Lucifer in your mind. He don’t bother much about writing.’

Bardi crossed himself. He somehow instinctively trusted the boy to deliver what he said he could.

Three big bangs, metal on metal like a dissonant bell, sounded through the cellar.

Dow took a little pouch off Edwin and took something from it. He put it inside the empty magic circle that had contained the devil. Then he walked calmly to his circle. Edwin, with less assurance, stepped in beside him and Bardi, who was nothing if not quick on the uptake, followed suit. Orsino too stepped over the chalk.

‘No faith in Lucifer, but faith enough when you’re scared,’ said Dow.

He took something from a pouch at his neck.

Dow began to intone in his lisping voice: horrid names, demonic summonses, commands in the name of Lucifer.

Bardi felt that terrible pressure in his ears again, a mad rush of blood. A smell like sulphur, a hot wind and a taste of ashes. The light was jelly – a heat haze but concentrated only in the circle. Mad voices, skittering like loose rocks on a hillside path. ‘Here’s one who took a pat of butter when his master was not looking. Here’s one who thought of his neighbour’s pretty wife. Here’s a wench who kissed a dolly and said “melt my lover’s heart”. Sinners sizzling on Hell’s hot grill. Sycophants and hierophants paying Hell’s hot bill!’

Bardi’s head spun and his knees felt as though they might give way. ‘Will this circle hold, boy?’ The banker felt as though he was going to be sick, sicker than he’d ever felt with excess of wine or food. There was a salt taste in his throat, a heat there too.

‘Don’t know,’ said the boy, his eyes on the other circle, ‘but I reckon we’re going to see.’ He held up the key interposing it between him and whatever was coming from Hell.

Now a wind, hot and gritty. Bardi shielded his eyes. There were figures in the circle, as if concealed in a mist, shadows that leapt and turned. A fat man strode forward. Bardi could just make him out. It was Pole! Now he seemed clearer. He was chained at the throat by a great iron collar. What was that behind him? A huge, shambling, shuffling thing, a giant, a great giant, towering, despite crouching behind Pole, a vast muscular body, holding the chain that secured the merchant. But it had no features, or rather its head had only gestures towards features, like a half-finished clay model that the artist had discarded before he bothered to put finer work into the nose, the eyes and the mouth. The jibber-jabber of voices was at an almost unbearable level. ‘Here’s she who gossiped during mass, her tongue quite torn and ripped. Here’s he who sold customers short, his fingers turned to stone. Here’s one who railed against his lord, his treacherous heart full of coals.’

‘What is that thing?’ Orsino spoke. He was on his knees, crossing himself, clasping his hands in prayer then crossing himself again.

‘A devil, I should say,’ said Dow, ‘sent to stop the damned escaping Hell.’

‘Is Despenser there?’ said Bardi. ‘The one who grabbed me before?’

‘You’ll be safe, don’t you fret,’ said Dow.

‘Pole, is that you?’ Bardi could hardly see for the wind. The boy, however, seemed unaffected by it, his hand holding that tiny bone key.

‘Come through, pardoner, if that’s what you are; come through!’ shouted the boy. ‘Come through Master Osbert!’

Pole shoved someone forward. Bardi didn’t recognise him – a terrified and bloody man, crouching almost, creeping. Bardi had seen enough beaten servants to recognise the gait. The man had received a thrashing.

Other things were coming through now, little scampering creatures. The big featureless devil smashed at them with his fists, jerking Pole this way and that. The man the boy had called the pardoner collapsed into the circle. There was a rush of wings, flapping and screeching. Bats? No – tiny demons, horned and tailed, swarming as if in a funnel around the circle, a whirlpool of beating wings. Faces loomed among the swarm – misshapen, odd things – a baboon with a man’s head, a man with a spear through him – but they were being beaten back by the eyeless devil and others who were rushing in to join him. One made the exit. It was a funny, male thing, but with exaggerated teats like a dog’s, stone-grey skin, a wide mouth with peg teeth, horns and stubby pointed tail.

‘I am Know-Much,’ it said in a crackling, spitting voice.

Now another figure loomed in the background. The man with the tied-on head.

‘Despenser!’ said Bardi, ‘he is a dangerous one, don’t let him in! For God’s sake keep him away, he’s a lunatic!’

‘Who is he?’ asked Dow.

‘Don’t question me boy, do as I say and close the gate.’

‘When you answer me.’

‘A lord of England. A bad one. The worst man I’ve ever known and I have known many.’

‘I’m bad, according to you.’

‘He was a lord of this land and killed thousands of people like you, and a fair few of greater worth. He is a tyrant, given the chance.’

The panic in Bardi’s eyes convinced Dow.

‘I close the gate!’ Again the creaking, again the sound of metal on metal. Pole was jerked back on his chain. The heat haze faded, the pardoner was on the floor, curled up in a ball.

‘I close the gate!’ The jellied light collapsed like a falling veil.

The man on the floor whined and gurgled. Creatures swarmed above the circle, as if trapped in a vast invisible bottle.

‘Please let me go! Please let me go!’ Osbert’s face was contorted like a sinner’s in a doom painting. He beat the floor and wept.

The boy walked out of his own circle.

‘You’ll release those demons!’ screamed the priest.

The boy ignored him and kicked a gap in the other magic circle, stamping out an area a yard wide. The buzzing, flying things rushed out, as did the pardoner, diving from the circle to land sprawling on the floor of the cellar.

On the boy’s shoulder landed something with wings, tall as a blackbird, but it was no bird. Its skin was piebald, shot through with stains of yellow and its wings were like a bat’s. Bardi crossed himself. ‘I am Murmur, an ympe,’ it hissed.

The other escaped creatures were smaller, some flying up to exit through the gaps in the boards, some swarming up the stairs to crawl out under the door. A crack and the floorboards above were lifted off and came crashing down about them. So many flapping and beating things, pouring forth, desperate for the sky.

‘A familiar!’ said Edwin, ‘and I have struggled to gain one for so long!’ He tried to snatch at the cloud of flying demons as they passed, but they avoided him easily.

‘Do you want one?’ said Dow.

‘Yes!’

‘Then say that you follow the Son of the Morning, not because he commands you or owns you, but because you choose to do so and as an equal – as all men are equals.’

‘So I swear!’ said Edwin.

A creature from the circle scuttled towards Edwin and leapt upon his back. It was large, as big as a three-year-old child, and Edwin struggled to bear its weight.

The pardoner stood and cried out. ‘You will find the banner by asking the angel at the French court. Find the woman who chased away your devil, Dowzabel. She will help you speak to the angel! The old English king has the banner, but the angel will know where to go. Ask the angel of France – the beautiful lady who seeks the light can help. The one who came to protect you, Dowzabel. She will help you get what you want.’ He choked, heaved and spat. ‘Now get me ale for my throat is full of coals!’ The effort of his pronouncement was too much for the pardoner, and he collapsed in a dead faint to the floor.

‘Get him ale,’ said Dow. Orsino ran up the stairs to fetch it.

‘I give the orders round here,’ reminded Bardi.

‘No,’ said Dow, ‘I’ll consider what you want for as long as you put your hand into your purse and in as much as it fits with what I seek to do.’

Bardi smiled. ‘My God, you do deserve a whipping. If the angel can tell us the location of the Drago, then you must go to France. You will travel with Orsino and you will find this woman to go with you. I have contacts at the court. You will ask for the prince of Navarre.’

That would definitely smite two birds with one stone. He’d give Orsino a letter for Joan explaining the boy’s worth as a sorcerer, whilst requesting she return him to enable a ‘mission of mutual advantage’. Bardi would look generous in sending the boy free of charge and whet her appetite for when he sold her the Drago.

‘You must take me,’ said Edwin. ‘I need to find the Drago. What other knowledge might be unlocked in the search for it? Think of what I could learn with this spirit’s help.’ The little creature was playing gently with the priest’s ear.

‘No,’ said Dow, ‘your use is at an end, priest. You’re fine in front of a book – this requires men of action.’

‘I could use my art to find where the lady is,’ said Edwin.

‘No need for that,’ said Orsino, who had returned with the drink, ‘I know where she is. She sits every day in the abbey at Westminster. I’ve seen her there. I watch over her.’ He cradled Osbert in his arms, feeding him the beer. The smell of it brought Osbert round and he gulped at the cup.

‘Edwin will stay,’ said Bardi. ‘You two be ready by the end of the week and make sure you get this woman to come with you.’

‘If she says no?’ said Orsino. He put the cup to the pardoner’s lips.

‘Then make her say yes,’ said Bardi. ‘And you, Orsino, let me speak with you in private, I have a mission for you.’

‘Killing?’ said Orsino.

Bardi laughed. ‘Well you’re too expensive to employ as a gardener.’

He took him up the stairs, out into the garden.

‘Yes?’ said Orsino.

‘I want you to kill a king,’ said Bardi.

4

Dow did not like the ship. It struck him as unnatural that something so large should be able to float upon the water and, as it shot clear of the Thames’ mouth at Margate, he felt a lurch in the pit of his stomach, almost as if he could feel the river become the sea.

They ran quickly on the ebb tide, the wind at their backs. The cog only put half a sail to the wind for fear of swamping, the sailors nervous to travel so late in the year.

Orsino came alongside him. ‘God’s granted us a fair wind.’

Dow said nothing, just looked out over the grey swell that heaved beneath the ship.

‘I fear for your soul,’ said Orsino.

‘And I for yours.’

‘Is that thing that came from the circle still with you?’

‘The ympe?’

‘Whatever you call it.’

‘It is.’

‘And what blasphemies does it speak?’

‘It tells me its fellows are abroad in the world. Whispering to them who need whispering to, persuading and encouraging.’