Son of the Morning (86 page)

‘Well, that removes all impediments to me laying this before you. I fear Despenser will take the credit with Hell, building his alliance with Satan.’

‘What’s that to me? – these devils seem to obey me well enough.’

‘Indeed they do. But what if you took the credit? Might that not secure the favour of angels?’

Philip mulled it over. ‘How could I take the credit?’

‘It seems to me that you appointed me. I have found a way to locate the Antichrist. Then the credit is yours, not Despenser’s. He will only gain credit if he kills this enemy of God but I’m not totally sure that God wants him dead.’

‘Why would God want his sworn enemy to live?’

‘You penetrate to the one flaw in my argument, sir. I do not know – other than to say that he still lives.’

Monks began a plainsong chant and a gaggle of priests stood smiling ridiculously by the altar, waiting for Philip to stop talking so mass could begin.

‘Be plainer.’

‘If one examines God’s track record of dealing with his enemies, one inevitably finds that they are burned, afflicted with boils, killed, mutilated, mutilated and killed, mutilated and left to die, consumed in fiery pillars or turned to salt. Salt that is very likely then mutilated.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Our Antichrist hasn’t so much as suffered a bout of indigestion for the last decade, as far as I know. I met him and he appeared in rude health. Why?’

‘Why do you think?’

‘I really cannot guess. Now we know the angels would like a word with him. So what says we use the murderous Despenser to find him – one of his servants even now seeks him – and then we deliver him to you for the angel to examine. This plan, I believe, will find favour with the angels – they will see how you labour for them and they will surely hop forth and dance for you.’

The king looked around him, with the air of a prior asking for a charm for a floppy cock. ‘But Despenser thinks Satan will favour him if he kills this boy.’

‘Yes.’

‘Satan is God’s servant.’

‘How many of your servants have your exact interests at heart, majesty? Despenser is your servant, but do you think he labours more for you or more for himself?’

‘Careful what you say, low man – you are talking about a lord.’

‘Sorry, your majesty.’

‘You’re concluding that Satan wants the Antichrist dead but God wants him alive?’

‘Yes. I think if God and Satan both wanted him dead he’d be dead with the first born of the Egyptians. Angel of Death. Whoosh. Arrrrghhhh!’ He mimed the effects of the passing of the angel of death upon the unlucky families of the Nile.

The king played with his rings. ‘We should put this to the angel.’

‘I think it wise, sir. And then you could dispense with Despenser, so to speak.’

‘He is your master.’

‘Yes.’

‘So do not speak in this way of him,’ said Philip. ‘You are a sorcerer and must treat with strange and unnatural powers. But do not allow them so to corrupt you as to dream of overthrowing God’s order.’

‘Not likely, your majesty,’ said the pardoner. ‘I know which side of the bed is comfiest.’

‘Both sides of my bed are comfortable,’ said the king, slightly puzzled.

‘My point exactly,’ said the pardoner.

‘I’ll put it to the angel,’ said the king.

At his signal, the priests began to swing the incense to purify the air for the mass.

Philip knelt on a velvet cushion, his son John and the queen came and put their cushions beside his, the Constable and the higher nobles behind them. After that, there was an undignified mêlée as lesser men fought to put their cushions near to the king’s. Philip seemed oblivious to it. The pardoner had thought to withdraw but he instead knelt beside the king on the stone floor. Philip said the words of the mass – both the priest’s part and the congregation’s – with great conviction and wringing of hands. The pardoner could just about stay with the Latin.

‘Do me justice, O God, and fight my fight against an unholy people, rescue me from the wicked and deceitful man.

‘For thou, O God, art my strength, why hast thou forsaken me? Why do I go about in sadness while the enemy harasses me? Send forth thy light and thy truth, for they have led me and brought me to the holy hill and thy dwelling place.’

The incense curled in the beams of light, twisting and turning.

‘Why is my soul sad? Why am I downcast? Trust in God, for I shall yet praise him, my saviour and my God.’

A voice like sweet trumpets, impossibly tuneful.

‘Michael,’ said the angel.

The air seemed heavy. The pardoner was already kneeling but felt the urge to prostrate himself, as if under a great weight. For some reason the words of the Bible came back to him. ‘There was war in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in Heaven.’ He’d always assumed that meant the dragon had lost. Had Michael been thrown out?
In the name of St Peter’s porker, Osbert, this is no time to be having sacrilegious thoughts!

‘Are you worthy of the saint’s blood? What do you bring me for the banner?’

The voice was a fanfare. Osbert couldn’t believe the king was willing to be this open – to allow the angel to be seen to favour France reluctantly. But perhaps it was his way of communicating his difficulties to his nobles.

‘We are labouring to bring you the head of the Antichrist.’

‘Where is he? That is hidden from my eyes.’

‘We can find him. I have instructed learned men …’ he gestured to the pardoner who crossed himself hard enough to hurt. ‘They will find him. They will …’

‘Bring him to obedience,’ said Osbert.

‘You should be struck down for your presumption!’ said the Count of Eu, who took exception to a commoner, particularly a mouthy one, sitting next to the king.

The inside of the cathedral swam with a light like the sun on blue water, the vault ocean blue, the decorations as red and gold as the bodies of bright fishes.

‘Approach the Oriflamme,’ said the angel.

The king went to the altar. The tattered banner lay there, its sun motif dull and faded, the blood of St Denis still spattered across the yellow – just a dark stain on the red. Philip picked up the banner and the cathedral was no longer an underwater cave but a bright bubble of incandescent crimson as the banner shone over all the nobles. Their faces reflected the blood light and each man cheered, the Count of Eu now slapping the pardoner’s back.

Philip waved the banner and shouted. ‘All hesitancy is gone, as the mists of spring are burned away by the shining face of summer. As the season of the sun stirs the lightning and the thunder, so stir I! To arms, Frenchmen, and flood our green meadows with English blood!’

‘Might this entail a promotion?’ said Osbert.

‘You are the Supreme French Sorcerer!’ cried the Count who, thought Osbert, showed the same sudden change of heart whores show upon seeing the glitter of your gold.

‘I was hoping for cash, rather than titles,’ said Osbert. ‘However, could you confirm that is an actual promotion – I could get several decent loans out of it.’ The Constable did not hear him. He had gone to the altar to embrace the wild-eyed king.

8

Dow opened the door of the rose-covered chapel and let out the light in all its streaming colours. Orsino was beside him, the angel’s rainbow mail on his back, the heart-shield and the holy sword in his hand, ready to strike.

There were roses everywhere inside the chapel, across the floor, across the wall, up onto the altar. At the centre of the church lay what looked like a tomb, a stone king lying on top of it. But the king was not stone, he was a man, dressed in a fine white robe stained with blood.

Below the plinth sat two of the most beautiful creatures Dow had ever seen. They were people, a man and a woman made not of flesh but of light. It was as if a figure in a stained glass window had come to life, shining blue, red and gold but substantial and solid, not flat like an image. Both had wings on their backs but not like those of Jegudiel, who had fallen to flesh in the chapel. It reminded Dow of looking into the body of a gem. These wings were many-coloured, spectral, half-substantial. In one instant they looked like splendid feathers, in the next foils of light. Both carried spears in their hands. But they too were covered in roses, which grew from their shining skins in bright whites and reds.

Dow heard a name. ‘Afriel, angel of the newborn.’ He saw visions of a lush forest, of foals in the dawn, of a land renewed under rain. Another, in the woman’s voice. ‘Aftiel, angel of the dying sun.’ He saw a red dusk, heard night birds and the call of frogs, had a sense of mist descending on the land.

Dow walked forward with the sword. The angels did not move. Yet he had a sense of them. They were tattered and torn, he now thought. They were neither one thing nor the other and what he took for beauty, the rare light that emerged from them, came from where the rose thorns pierced their skin.

The angels regarded him. They spoke, in unison. ‘You are the Antichrist. Half human, half angel. The opposite of divine. A mongrel, impure thing.’ The angels’ voices bore no hatred.

‘I am a man.’

‘A servant of Lucifer,’ they said together.

‘Not a servant. A friend.’

‘Then help us. We are fallen, trapped here by God.’

Dow saw how the roses engulfed them. He looked at the man on the plinth. He too was covered – ensnared – in the flowers. The plinth beneath him was not a plinth at all, but a gigantic box, bound with the rose briars, marked with strange symbols.

‘For what purpose?’

‘To feed the briar that holds in the banner.’

Dow saw that the thorns of the briar were pricking into the angels and that the light shone ruby red where they penetrated. The man on the plinth too was pierced all over, big thorns sticking into his face, his torso, his limbs.

‘I will cut you free.’ He hacked into the briars but, as quick as he did, they regrew, rustling and hissing, snaking up to catch his hand. He jumped back.

‘The only way to have the banner is to kill us, yet do not,’ said the angels. ‘Have pity on us.’

Dow looked at the fallen angels. Could he kill such beautiful things? Not if they were friends of Lucifer.

‘The struggle we’re engaged in is a great one,’ said Dow.

‘We fell when Lucifer fell, but God caught us and put us here.’

‘I need the banner.’

‘I was a sunbeam in the dawn,’ said Afriel.

‘And I in the dusk,’ said Aftiel.

‘Do not extinguish our lights.’

Dow put his hand to his sword. He had not expected to find the angels so vulnerable, nor thought they would be allies, not enemies. He could not kill a friend of Lucifer’s.

‘I am the Alpha and the Omega. The first and the last.’ A youth’s voice. Dow couldn’t see where it came from.

The air darkened and swam and he saw the angels tremble.

‘Who’s that?’

‘I am the one who inhabits eternity.’

Dow looked around him. Another angel? He didn’t feel that headiness he’d felt in the chapel in Paris, nor the first-flush-of-wine feeling he had when he looked at the angels in the briars. Dread gripped him, his stomach contorting, his teeth clenching as if he beheld a dizzying vastness, stood at the bottom of some great tower looking up and wondering why it did not fall.

‘Heaven is my throne and the earth my footstool.’

Dow felt as if the top of his head was lifting off, as if his thoughts were a flock of birds, wheeling and turning in the dusk of his mind. His hands were clammy, his mouth dry.

He looked up and the ceiling of the chapel was no longer there. Instead, a huge sky, snowed with stars, spread out above him, the sickle moon sharp and brilliant, comets cutting trails across the heavens. A bright light fell from the heavens, dazzling and blinding his eyes. When he regained his sight, a dazzling boy of around thirteen stood next to him, clothed in an ermine cloak and with a magnificent crown of fire on his head. The pale skin of his face was marked with magical symbols, the rest of his body invisible beneath rich dark clothes shining with the brilliant light of the rare gems that studded it. His cloak was a cloak of stars. He was a being of such perfection that it was difficult to look at him.

‘Yours will be the vast heavens, yours the depthless oceans. You will play forever in the sunbeams and starlight. Lucifer fell.
You
might ascend if only you will worship me.’ The boy extended a hand. In it, impossibly bright, burned a little sun.

‘Who are you to offer me these things?’

The boy closed his hand and the sun disappeared. Dow steeled himself to look at the strange being and when he did, he saw that the perfection was marred. A great fresh welt marked the boy’s face and a sword like a shaft of light was stuck through his body. His trembling hand was grasping the hilt as if he would pull it away but dare not. Still, the youth hurt to look at and Dow turned his eyes away. When he looked back again the youth was whole and beautiful, yet Dow sensed the perfection was an illusion.

‘You are Îthekter.’

‘I do not accept that name. Do not call me that for I am no horror.’

‘You put some men above others. You drink the blood of your martyrs. What else should I call you?’

‘God.’ The boy stood tall. ‘What do you want? What can I give you that you will bow down and worship me?’

‘I would see the poor free and fed.’

‘I will show you how to make stones into bread. How many could you feed then?’

‘Not so many as the kings can rob and kill.’

‘See my splendid clothes, cut from the cloth of the night and sprinkled with the stars of Heaven. Does the sight not thrill you? Bow down before me and you will be a king.’

‘Not while my fellows starve.’

‘You cannot help them. I made some men to lead and others to follow. Given all the riches of the earth they would fritter them and be in rags within a year. You best help them by ruling them firmly in my name.’

‘We don’t want the riches of the earth. Just the fruits of our toil.’