devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band (26 page)

The sky shone red with the first glow of sunset as Father Sebastian and his lepers hurried across the causeway. They quickly found the track across the mudflats and set off for the
pont Ysfroy
but as they neared the bridge a group of fishermen, setting eel nets at the water’s edge, barred their way. At the sound of Father Sebastian’s rattle the frightened fishermen began to shout curses and throw stones but if they thought the lepers would flee from their barrage they were mistaken. Father Sebastian damned them all for cowardly brutes and, like Moses parting the Red Sea, he ushered his charges through the mob, cracking fishermen’s heads with his staff as they went.

“Why is it that wherever we go people through things at us?” muttered Bos as they climbed the eel fishers’ slippery wooden ladders that led to the bridge but no one was listening, the others were too busy looking at the their last obstacle to freedom.

Like the
pont des Morts
, the
pont Ysfroy
was protected by a barbican built over the bridge’s central arch. There were two pairs of gates, divided by a portcullis, but until the curfew bell sounded all the barriers would remain open. As most men of martial spirit had left the city with Richard de la Pole’s Black Band, the barbican was guarded by just two dotards who were leaning on their halberds
dozing until the sound of Father Francis’ rattle and cry of ‘unclean’ spurred them into life.

“Lepers! Don’t come any further, keep back I say!” growled the more senile of the two sentries and he lowered his poleaxe. Behind their veils the lepers held their breath. They were just yards from safety but one word out of place would mean discovery and death.

“Calm yourself my son, I’m Father Sebastian of the Lazar House on the Isle of Ghosts and these men wish to take the holy waters at Benoite de Vaux. I’ve brought them to the city gate at dusk as the law permits, now let these dying men go in peace,” said the priest but neither sentry was satisfied. Whilst the senile sentry kept his halberd levelled at Father Sebastian’s chest his comrade, who still possessed some sense of duty, stepped forward to examine the lepers. Though he was careful not to stand too close to the diseased wretches, he peered at their rags and sniffed the air suspiciously.

“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

T
homas 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 protect 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.