devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band (27 page)

“Telling fortunes and playing cards will take too long to raise enough money to buy everything we need but what happened to your
grimoire
Thomas? Perhaps you could use it to find great wealth,” said Nagel hopefully but Thomas shook his head. Though
The Munich Handbook
offered plenty of spells that promised to lead a necromancer to riches hidden in the earth, he’d left the book in his chamber at Haute Pierre.

“As far as I know the White Rose now has
The Munich Handbook
and considering it’s brought us nothing but disaster perhaps it’s for the best,” he said bitterly. However, whilst Thomas no longer valued the book’s impotent magic spells, he couldn’t forget that it had been sabotage rather than a flaw in his design that had sunk
The Hippocamp
. Prometheus agreed that Leonardo’s irreplaceable drawings
could have been sold or pawned for a handsome sum if the book hadn’t been left behind but Bos was delighted that the evil
grimoire
had been lost.

“It was a tool of Satan and no good could ever come from its possession,” he said firmly and the debate continued until Quintana suggested an alternative way to raise some money.

“If we can find the sutleress called Mistress Kleber she might give us credit. She and I have done business before and she knows me well,” he said confidently.

“If she knows you well, the only thing you’ll get is her boot up your arse,” said Bos.

“And even if she’s here, how will we find her in this labyrinth of wood and cloth?” said Prometheus but Quintana was quite certain he could find the mysterious woman.

“You’ll always find Kleber where there’s most money’s to be made, so I reckon she’ll have bribed the Camp Provost for a pitch in the middle of the camp,” he said and before the others could protest, he’d set off down one of the tented streets. The others sighed and trudged after him.

The Portugee led his companions through the dusty alleys between the tents where all the equipment and supplies required by an army on campaign were offered for sale. In one part of the camp, tailors stitched the garish doublets and breeches favoured by men at war whilst cobblers sold new shoes from long poles carried on their shoulders. Elsewhere, armourers forged steel helmets and breastplates, blacksmiths shoed horses and sharpened
swords and apothecaries sold the medicines and ointments that promised to cure everything from warts to a gangrenous limb.

Besides these specialist artisans there were the tents belonging to the cooks and general traders called sutlers who, for a price, provided the army’s ordinary rank and file with everything else they needed. Some sutlers were veterans, men too old or too crippled to fight but who still yearned for the excitement and freedom of life on campaign. Others were widows or deserted wives who’d become sutleresses simply to earn a living but the woman they were looking for was none of these. According to Quintana, Mistress Kleber had joined the
tross
to escape the boredom of the marriage bed and had quickly become notorious for driving the hardest of bargains.

The maze of tented streets met at a broad square in the centre of the camp that served as both a market place and a parade ground. Dozens of brightly coloured flags had been planted around the edge of the square and each banner was accompanied by a drummer, a fifer and a sergeant. Like rival traders in a street market, the battle scarred sergeants competed with each other for recruits by shouting inflated promises of wealth and glory whilst their musicians played stirring martial tunes. The scene looked like a village hiring fair but instead of reapers and cowherds, the sergeants wanted men skilled in the art of splitting skulls with heavy halberds, piercing ribs with eighteen foot pikes or slitting open stomachs with the razor sharp ‘cat-skinner’ swords called
katzbalgers
.

Ignoring several invitations to join various regiments, Quintana asked a young ensign if he knew where Mistress Kleber was to be found and to the others’ surprise, the boy pointed to a large red pavilion on the opposite side of the square. Outside this tent, groups of customers were examining heaps of clothing, weapons and armour piled high on trestle tables but the centrepiece of Mistress Kleber’s bazaar was an immense iron cauldron that hung from a stout wooden beam as thick as a man’s arm. A grubby boy tended the blazing fire beneath the steaming pot whilst the woman herself served the queue of men waiting for bowls of her piping hot stew.

“Mistress Kleber, you’re looking as young and as beautiful as ever!” cried Quintana but the woman was not in the first flush of youth. She was nearly sixty years old, her skin was waxy and pale and her hair was as grey as the ash beneath her cauldron. Despite her trade, she was thin, almost skeletal, and her face was lined with a scowl as bitter as the black bread she handed out with her potage.

“Such smooth talk can only come from the tongue of a blind man or a lying, Portugee bastard, so what do you want Quintana!” she said, without look up from her pot.

“Your hand in marriage,” said Quintana dropping to one knee and seizing the woman’s arm. The crone turned to look at him, smiled and spat on the ground in disgust.

“Judging by the rags you wear I’m still much too good for you. Now enough of your jests, tell me what you want or piss off,” she said snatching her hand away.

“I want to borrow some money and I’ve always paid my debts, to you at least,” said Quintana rising to his feet.
Mistress Kleber put down her ladle, wiped her hands on her filthy apron and looked at the dishevelled group with a disapproving eye.

“The last time we met you said you’d return rich but I see you still keep the company of thieves, vagabonds and heathen blackamoors! The French King’s captains won’t want an infidel savage in their ranks so my advice to you is find some other war in which to get yourself killed,” she said.

Quintana winced as he saw Prometheus frown and he quickly informed the sutleress that the Nubian was a baptised Christian who’d be sitting at God’s right hand whilst she was in Purgatory serving soup to lost souls. Kleber was unimpressed and was about to reply with another stream of insults when Thomas hurriedly intervened. He explained that he and his companions wished to set up in business and needed to borrow fifty livres to buy a tent, wagon, stock and clothes more befitting merchants of quality.

“Fifty livres? That’s a king’s ransom and the camp already has so many sutlers a poor old woman can’t make an honest living,” sniffed Mistress Kleber.

“Who said anything about an honest living? We intend to deal in whores,” said Thomas but the old woman merely laughed out loud.

“You fools, you’ll starve in a week! There are already plenty of whores here,” she said.

Undeterred Quintana returned to the fray and pointed out that common streetwalkers were good enough for common soldiers but the noble lords who’d left high born
wives and sweethearts at home wouldn’t be content to plough a furrow that had been worked by a hundred others. However they planned to supply only the finest female flesh and ensure their favours were reserved for men of gentle birth. He also assured Kleber that rich noblemen would pay handsomely for such women and they’d pay her back double what had they’d borrowed within three months. Kleber rubbed her bristled chin and thought for a moment. She agreed it was a generous offer but she insisted on something to guarantee the loan.

“I’ll lend you the money but in return I want a few hours alone with him,” she said, staring at Thomas with hunger in her eyes.

“Me!” the object of her lust gasped and he began to feel the bile rise in his throat.

“Yes you, my old bones haven’t been ridden in years and I want a good long hack. Besides, if you’re going into the whoring business it will be useful experience!” laughed the crone and before Thomas could declare he’d rather return to the cage his companions bundled him to one side.

“I won’t whore myself like an East Cheap cokenay!” Thomas protested.

“So you’re quite happy to be a pimp but you refuse to get your hands dirty?” said Bos sternly.

“It’s not my hands I’m worried about,” snapped Thomas.

“There’s more cluck in an old hen than a young chicken!” said Prometheus with a broad grin.

“And you might find you have a taste for well-seasoned fowl,” said Quintana.

“Foul is the word, she must be a hundred years old! She’ll be as dry as a crypt and you might as well ask me to put my manhood in a cheese-grater!” cried Thomas but the others refused listen to his pleas. Eventually he had no choice but to surrender however he demanded a bottle of aquavit to put the fire of passion in his belly.

“It’s a bargain Mistress Kleber, our young friend promises to ride you straight to the arms of Venus this very night,” said Quintana happily when they returned to the cauldron.

“Good, now go and bathe him, I like my men to smell as sweet as a primrose not stink like a Saracen’s arsehole,” said Kleber. Once again, Thomas was marched away and whilst the prospective lover bathed in the river, Nagel used the last of their spare cash to buy a flask of brandy. He returned to see Thomas emerge from the water covered in frothy soapwort and looking like Aphrodite rising from the foam. The Englishman rinsed the suds from his hair, climbed on to the riverbank and without bothering to dress he snatched the flask from Nagel’s hand.

“You’d better get me drunker than Irish lord at Christmas or the deal’s off,” said Thomas taking a long greedy pull from the flask. The fiery liquid burnt his throat and made his eyes water but he felt a little better. The others urged him to take care but Thomas ignored them and took another swig.

“Not too much, you don’t want to spoil your magnificent gifts,” said Nagel, eyeing Thomas’ naked form.

“You needn’t worry, all Englishmen can take their drink, you could drown me in beer and I’ll still be able to tup the old crone till her eyes pop,” said Thomas, but
despite his boast it was a decidedly tipsy Englishman that staggered to his place of execution. Night had fallen, which was a blessing, and the old woman had done her best to make herself presentable. She had donned a wig of long golden hair, rouged her lips and cheeks and changed her apron. Unfortunately the flickering candlelight made her look less like a blushing young maid and more like a demon in a passion play.

“Ah my love,” she cooed as Thomas was brought into her presence. Quintana and the others could barely contain their laughter as the aged cook planted a clumsy wet kiss on Thomas’ lips.

“I think I am going to be sick,” muttered Thomas drunkenly as he felt the stubble of the old woman’s chin scratch against his cheek.

“Fear not, I have a physick to cure you,” replied Kleber and she dragged her reluctant lover into the tent. As Thomas disappeared inside the others looked at each other and wondered whether or not to rescue their friend but in the next moment they were all shaking with laughter.

“She’ll eat him alive!” chuckled Bos.

“With some of her stew and black bread!” laughed Prometheus.

“Come on, let’s listen to Cupid’s chorus,” said Quintana and he led the others around the back of the tent. The canvas was no barrier to any sound and they could hear every word being said.

“Oh you are such a pretty boy and I know what boys like to play with, undo my bodice,” said the voice of Mistress Kleber. There was a disgusted grunt from Thomas.

“Do you like my poonts, pretty boy?” said Mistress Kleber eagerly.

“Oh yes, very nice,” said Thomas without enthusiasm.

“Hold them, oh but your hands are cold, I know where I can warm them…”

“Jesus and all the saints, slow down mistress, I beg you!” said Thomas.

“Feel me there, just there …”

“Ugh!” said Thomas in a voice that sounded like the mewling of a strangled cat.

“Now take me … ride me … plough me deep!”

Outside the tent, the audience could bear no more. Stuffing their fists in their mouths they ran from the scene and when they were at a safe distance they collapsed into paroxysms of mirth. It took several minutes for their laughter to subside but once they’d recovered their composure the four men retreated to Mistress Kleber’s cauldron to warm themselves and wait for Leander to return to Abydos. It was long after midnight when the bedraggled lover appeared at the fireside and though he was desperate to forget the last few hours, the others tormented Thomas with questions until he begged for mercy.

“By the blood stained hands of St Dominic you’re worse than Torquemada! Very well, if you must know, her skin was like leather, her tits like empty wine skins and her coney would make Lucifer himself vomit up his own intestines. That’s my last word, except to say that whatever debt I may have owed you all for getting you into this mess is now paid,” Thomas told his inquisitors.

“Do you think you may have left her with child?” giggled Nagel but Thomas ignored him, wrapped himself in a borrowed blanket and refused to say another word.

When they woke the next morning, Mistress Kleber was as good as her word and fetched the fifty livres Thomas had asked for from a large iron bound chest. The Englishman had evidently done his work well as she radiated good humour and chattered like a novice nun as the men picked out new clothes from her extensive stock of second hand breeches, doublets and hose. The men had already decided that a recreation of an Ottoman Sultan’s seraglio would attract wealthy customers such as Richard de la Pole and so they chose to dress as
Phanariots
.