“Now what? Even if we can climb up the chain, there are a dozen more obstacles in our way once we reach the bridge,” said Prometheus, as he stared nervously into the black waters of the Moselle that churned twenty feet below the cage.
“Then we must swim to this Isle of Ghosts, if the plunge into the river doesn’t kill us,” said Quintana but Prometheus insisted there had to be another way.
“Do you fear the living dead that dwell on the island of lepers?” scoffed Bos.
“I fear nothing but I’ve told you before, I was born in a desert and I’d no need to learn swimming!” snapped Prometheus. Bos began to protest that the Nubian had managed to escape the underwater boat but Prometheus insisted there was a great deal of difference between scrambling a few yards to the shore and swimming half a mile through treacherous currents.
“Not only that, we could break our necks jumping into the river… and it’s dark … and what about the Englishman? He’s in no condition to leap into freezing water,” added Prometheus and he pointed at Thomas who was sitting forlornly in a corner of the cage. His face was the colour of ash, and he was both shivering and sweating with fever, but there was also a look of grim determination in his eyes.
“Don’t worry about me, if I have to crawl through all nine circles of Hell to revenge myself on Richard de la Pole I’ll do it,” he said hoarsely.
“Good, because we can’t wait for morning when our gaolers will see what we’ve done to their nice shiny cage,” said Quintana and without a second thought he leapt into empty space. For a heartbeat there was silence then a faint splash announced the Portugee had reached the water.
“He’s a madman!” said Prometheus leaning through the gap in the bars to watch Quintana’s fall.
“Mad or not we must follow,” said Bos and he gave the Nubian a hefty shove. Taken by surprise, Prometheus lost his grip on the bars, toppled forwards and fell. His arms whirled like windmills, and his feet flailed as if he was trying to run up invisible stairs, before he too disappeared into the water.
“Are you sure you can make this leap Englishman?” said the Frisian. Thomas nodded but in truth he was nearing the end of his strength.
“We’ll jump together and I’ll use Nagel’s cord to pull you to the island,” said Bos and before Thomas could protest, the Frisian had tied the cord around their wrists. As soon as he’d done this, he climbed through the gap in the bars and balanced on the iron beam that formed the outside edge of the cage’s floor. Summoning the last of his strength, Thomas forced his quaking limbs to follow. With both men standing precariously on one side of the cage, it tipped alarmingly and before they could change their minds they’d been pitched into the night.
For a brief moment, the cold air rushed against Thomas’ naked skin then the suffocating waters close over his head like the lid of a coffin. As the muddy river filled his mouth and nostrils for the second time in a month, he thought he was back in the sinking Hippocamp, yet the memory only served to remind him that if he could survive one drowning he could survive another. He felt a tug on his wrist as the cord tightened and he kicked his legs. Together, the two men clawed their way to the surface and managed to seize a lungful of precious air before the powerful current caught them.
The weight of water sent the men tumbling down river, tossing them around like a terrier playing with two dead rabbits. Somehow Bos managed to keep them both afloat and in his delirium Thomas prayed to any god who would listen to guide these poor sinners to dry land. After what seemed like an eternity, his prayers were answered. An eddy pushed the two half-drowned fugitives towards the shallow water around the Isle of Ghosts and Thomas felt mud under his bare feet. Though still half submerged, he managed to crawl into the reeds at the water’s edge but here his strength gave out.
“I can make it,” Thomas insisted but Bos had to drag the exhausted Englishman through the reeds and overhanging trees into a muddy clearing where they lay on the wet, spongy ground gasping for breath. Fortune had at least guided them to their destination, and the trees hid them from the eyes of the sentries on the city’s bridges, but a voice from the darkness made Bos sit up with a start.
“Frisian, is that you? It’s me, Quintana, and I’ve caught the biggest, blackest fish you ever saw!” said the Portugee and he crawled into the boggy glade closely followed by Prometheus. They were both dripping wet, and covered in cuts and bruises, but even though it was only the Nubian’s pride that had been seriously hurt, Prometheus was not in a forgiving mood.
“You stupid, murderous, bastard son of Japheth, what d’you mean by pushing me into the river? I’m a prince not a pike fish, I could’ve drowned!” Prometheus hissed.
“You ungrateful son of Ham, I saved your life, if I’d left you in the cage you’d be dead by nightfall,” said Bos indignantly. Both men struggled to their feet and they would have come to blows had not Quintana quickly placed himself between them.
“Perhaps we’re already dead and we’ve passed into Hell but if we’d crossed rivers of burning brimstone we’d all feel a lot warmer than we do now,” he said but Bos and Prometheus continued to threaten each other with extreme violence until the Portugee pointed out they were risking certain capture unless they put as much distance as possible between themselves and the city of Metz before sunrise. Reluctantly the two men admitted the folly of fighting each other and, with peace restored, they began to discuss what to do next.
“Do we wait for Nagel or do we strike out on our own? The lepers must keep a boat somewhere on this miserable mudflat and we can use it to get away before anyone finds us,” said Bos.
“I also vote we abandon Nagel,” said Prometheus slowly nodding his head. “By his own admission the trumpet player has spied for the House of Tudor and the House of York and by helping us escape he’s betrayed them both so who knows where his loyalties truly lie?”
“I agree Nagel’s not to be trusted so, whatever he’s up to, I say to The Devil with Tudors, Yorkists and trumpet players, let’s seek our fortunes elsewhere,” said Quintana.
The Portugee suggested that as they could no longer fight for the French king, or his ally Richard de la Pole, they should revive their original plan and offer their martial skills to one of the German princelings who always needed good men to keep their mutinous peasants under control. Prometheus agreed they must abandon their former employers but insisted they’d make more money by enlisting with one of the imperial mercenary captains helping the rebel Duke of Bourbon besiege Marseille. Even Bos agreed that their brightest future lay with the pike squares.
“I’ll never forget what the imperial landsknechts did to my homeland, so I have no love for The Empire or its Hapsburg Emperor, but if there’s no other way to keep body and soul together I’ll go with you. Did not Our Lord say that we must render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s?” said Bos.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about Frisian, all I know is an imperial guilder will buy as much wine and as many women as a French florin so I’m all for joining the imperial fähnleins wherever they’re headed,” said Quintana.
“So we’ll forget the quarrels of English kings and head for Marseille to sign with an imperial captain. If our friend wishes to continue his fight with the White Rose that’ll be his choice and though I’ve no wish to let the injuries we’ve suffered go unavenged, a feud between Englishmen was never our concern,” said Prometheus and he turned to look at Thomas who’d yet to offer his views on their future. It was only then that the three men realised that the Englishman had passed out.
Prometheus knelt beside Thomas to check his pulse and breathing, both were weak and he was shivering with fever. The Nubian shook his head and announced there was nothing he could do, unless the Englishman was taken to the leper house and left in the care of the monks he’d die. The others didn’t hesitate, Bos helped Prometheus pick up the unconscious Thomas and, with Quintana leading the way, they set off through the undergrowth. Fortunately, the Isle of Ghosts measured just a few hundred
yards from end to end and it didn’t take them long to find the leper hospital.
A century ago, during an outbreak of plague, Metz’s bishop had decreed that anyone who fell sick must be cared for outside the city walls. To comply with their bishop’s instructions, monks from the city’s Abbey of St Nicholas had turned an abandoned watermill, on a nameless islet in the Moselle, into an infirmary and once the plague had abated this hospital had become a refuge for the city’s lepers. A few years later, the islet’s crumbling mill house had been rebuilt, consecrated as a chapel to St Lazarus and surrounded by a high wall with only a single narrow gateway. Behind this rampart against infection lived a score of unfortunate souls, with two elderly friars to minister to their needs, and ever since its occupation by the lepers the islet had been known as the Isle of Ghosts.
Few healthy folk dared to venture across the weed encrusted, wooden causeway that was the only way to get on or off the Isle of Ghosts with dry feet so Bos, Quintana and Prometheus met no one as they carried the insensible Thomas through the marshy woodland. After a short walk, they emerged from the alders to see the leper house standing in the middle of an open patch of bog. A muddy path led from the hospital’s gate to the end of the causeway and through a gap in the trees, the men could see the broad channel of the Moselle that separated the Isle of Ghosts from the Island of Chambière. At the far end of the causeway Metz’s city walls rose out of the mud like a sheer cliff.
Suddenly the clouds in the night sky parted, bathing the Lazar House’s in ethereal moonlight, and for a brief moment the three men felt like Percival gazing on the castle of the Fisher King. Fearful that Nagel could have laid a trap, they waited until the clearing had returned to darkness before carrying the unconscious Thomas through the reeds to the hospital’s entrance. Two burning torches had been placed in sconces on either side of the doorway and in their flickering light the men could see a green cross of St Lazarus, patron saint of lepers, had been daubed on the door’s worm-eaten planks. They could also see a frayed bell rope disappearing into a hole between the moss- covered stones.
Prometheus and Bos laid their burden by the door whilst Quintana pulled on the rope. From deep inside the hospital a bell rang as if sounding a death knell for their souls. Alarmed by the noise, the three men sprinted back to the safety of the trees but there was no sign of anyone from de la Pole’s Black Band or the city’s nightwatch. The clanging of the bell eventually gave way to the sound of iron bolts being slid back and the door creaked on its hinges. The graves of the dead being opened on Judgement Day would make just such a noise but in the silence that followed St Peter didn’t blow his last trumpet. Instead a small, pale faced friar appeared in the doorway.
“Come my friends, it’s quite safe and I’ll need your help to carry this sick man inside,” called the friar kindly but the men hiding in the thicket hesitated. They all knew that those cursed with leprosy were driven from towns and villages with sticks and stones, forbidden to beg by the roadside and even refused entry into ordinary churches. They all feared the disease far more than they feared any king or his army but they couldn’t abandon their patient until he was safe from the White Rose. As quickly as they could, they carried Thomas into the leper house but they’d barely stepped over the threshold before the wooden door slammed shut and Hans Nagel stepped out of the shadows.
“Open that door trumpet player or I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands!” Bos roared.
“Why so hostile Frisian?” said Nagel cheerfully. “I’m alone, unarmed and I’ve helped you escape from certain death not once but twice!”
“All we know is that you’re not to be trusted and we’ve only brought Thomas here because he needs a physician but we intend to leave at once,” said Quintana.
“And if you try to stop us, we’ll kill you,” said Prometheus with a shrug.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to stay. If you don’t, you’ll be recaptured and returned to your cage as soon as the sun rises but here you’re perfectly safe,” insisted Nagel.
“After all who’d think of looking for the living on the Isle of Ghosts?” added the friar who’d opened the door.
“It is not discovery that concerns us, it’s the risk of becoming lepers if we remain here,” protested Quintana, whereupon the friar gave a little laugh and informed his guests that leprosy was a gift from God because those who suffered on earth would be spared the pain of purgatory after death.
“Only those whom God chooses are blessed with the noble disease so you may remain in this house without fear,” said the friar as he covered Thomas’ naked body with his cloak. The others were far from convinced by his logic but they couldn’t deny that the friar seemed to be perfectly healthy.
Bos, Prometheus and Quintana looked at each other as they tried to make up their minds. Wherever Nagel’s loyalties lay, he certainly spoke the truth about their prospects of escape. At daybreak, the city watch would begin searching for them and they’d be lucky if their freedom lasted until sunset. Eventually Bos announced that if Jesus could keep company with lepers so could he. Cursing him for a pious fool, the others agreed to stay and they helped the Frisian carry Thomas, who’d remained comatose throughout the debate, across the leper house’s large and muddy courtyard.
The friar led the way through a chaos of vegetable patches, beehives, pigsties and chicken runs to the only stone structure inside the walls. This building, which served as a chapel, dormitory and hospital, was constructed from large cobbles collected from the riverbed and thatched with reeds cut from its banks. Beneath the apex of the steeply pitched roof were two thin, lancet windows and below these was a rounded arched door. Much to the men’s discomfort, the black openings of the chapel’s windows and doorway, set against the wall of pale cobbles, looked like the face of a dying man screaming in fear of Hell.
The interior of the building comprised of a single, large, rectangular room with rushes on the floor and rows of wooden cots arranged along the two long walls. Each bunk contained a pile of rags that murmured softly in fitful sleep. The remains of a fire glowed mournfully in the centre of the room and a wisp of smoke curled towards a hole in the thatch. The smell of wood smoke mixed with the stench of unwashed, putrefying flesh was indescribable but the men followed the monk to the eastern end of the room where a crude wooden table served as a simple altar. There was no altar cloth but there was a gold cross, flanked by a pair of equally expensive candlesticks. A priest was kneeling in front of the cross, his hands clasped in prayer.
“Father Sebastian,” said Nagel with a polite cough.
“Who disturbs me at this holy hour?” said the priest in a cracked reedy voice. He spoke in French, but his accent was unmistakeably English.
“Our guests have arrived, including our friend from England, alas he’s sick and in need of your care.” whispered Nagel. The priest quickly finished his devotions and dismissed the other friar, who gratefully scurried away to his bed. As Nagel helped Father Sebastian rise from his knees the altar candles illuminated the elderly priest’s face and the new arrivals could see he was ancient.
Apart from being as old as Abraham, Father Sebastian was small and thin with a gaunt, deeply lined face that had the same colour as burr walnut. His few strands of grey hair clung to his otherwise bald head like wisps of cloud around a bare mountain top, but his eyes were bright and alert. His dress was similar to that of a hospitaller knight but instead of the white cross of St John, his coarse black habit had the green cross of St Lazarus stitched to one shoulder. The priest greeted his visitors warmly before turning to examine Thomas. After a few moments, he announced that although the patient was gravely ill, he would recover if given the proper care.
“He has a high fever and must be kept warm, has he suffered much?” Father Sebastian asked as Bos and Prometheus carried Thomas to a spare cot on the far side of the dormitory.
“He’s been put to the Judas Cradle and exposed in the iron cage below the Bridge of the Dead, all at the express order of the Wh
ite Rose,” said Bos as Thomas was laid on the cot’s rat chewed, straw filled mattress and covered with threadbare blankets.
“That’s truly an outrage, Thomas Devilstone is a good man, righteous in the eyes of God,” said Father Sebastian shaking his head. “I remember meeting him on his first visit to Metz. He and his master understood that leprosy is not carried by demons or an evil miasma and wished to learn more of my experiences treating the sick in the hope they could discover an elixir to cure the disease. I believe they had high hopes for the healing properties of quicksilver.”
“Judging by the occupants of these cots they laboured in vain,” said Prometheus who knew only death could relieve the suffering of lepers.
“Nevertheless I thank them for their efforts but enough of such talk. Thomas needs rest and you must also be tired. Stay here for as long as you like and if you’d prefer to sleep in one of the barns I’ll quite understand,” said Father Sebastian. The exhausted men gratefully accepted the monk’s offer and retreated to a byre on the opposite side of the courtyard. There were no beds but the piles of hay and straw that littered the floor were dry and as soon as the men lay down they were asleep.
14
THE LAZAR HOUSE
At dawn the following day, the fugitives were woken by the sound of church bells ringing across the city and they guessed the call to arms meant their escape had at last been discovered. Once the tocsins had fallen silent, the men listened to the faint shouts of a large crowd gathering on the other side of the river until Nagel arrived with boiled eggs, bread and cheese for their breakfast.
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