After thirty minutes of almost continuous carnage, only a dozen men remained alive out of the four thousand who’d left the Porta Repentina wagon fort barely three hours before. Brandishing their halberds, these paladins surrounded their standard bearer and dared the bravest of their enemies to try and wrest their sacred battle flag from them but the landsknechts did nothing. Every man in the imperial army knew that the Black Band’s last moments had come and they’d fallen silent as if saying a wordless requiem for their oldest and most implacable foes.
When no one stepped forward to answer their challenge, the last members of the Black Band unbuckled their armour and let it fall to the ground whilst their standard bearer anointed his red and black banner with the contents of a flask hanging from his belt. When his comrades produced flint and steel, the landsknechts suddenly realised their enemies meant to burn their standard to prevent the dishonour of its capture and they surged forward but it was too late. The flask must have contained aquavit or some other flammable spirit for the first spark turned the cloth into an inferno.
“All is lost save honour!” yelled the standard bearer and, waving his flaming banner, he led his comrades in a final, futile charge at the front line of Frundsberg’s igel. In reply the landsknechts’ steel tipped pikes smashed their attackers’ ribs and ripped through their lungs, leaving the twelve dying paladins transfixed like the impaled prisoners of Wallachian princes. The standard bearer managed a last defiant wave of his burning banner before the life drained from his body and the blazing cloth fell to earth.
Despite their devotion to duty, there’d be no honour in death for the men of the Black Band. The moment the standard bearer dropped his flag, the victorious imperials gave a great cheer and swarmed forward to loot the piles of dead that now covered the battlefield. Daggers flashed as the looters deftly sliced off fingers to retrieve rings or slit open bellies to search for swallowed gems, yet for all the landsknechts’ savagery the plundering of the Black Band’s dead was over quickly.
The seasoned veterans of the imperial igels knew that even greater riches lay in the undefended French tents so, as soon as everything of value had been stripped from the Black Band’s corpses, a tide of greed-crazed landsknechts streamed towards their defeated enemy’s camp. Thomas knew better than to keep his men from their plunder but he and Bos were reluctant to join the rest of The Devil’s Band in the search for booty. The two men hadn’t forgotten that they’d yet to settle with Nagel but they also knew that Prometheus and Quintana were waiting for them by the wood.
“We should follow our comrades, de la Pole may be dead but his treacherous trumpet player could be hiding in the French camp. Have you forgotten that Nagel tried to kill us when he blew up your infernal boat?” Bos said grimly.
“Actually I don’t think it was Nagel that sank The Hippocamp,” said Thomas thoughtfully.
“Well if it wasn’t him then who was it?” Bos spluttered and he was even more surprised when Thomas named the Duke of Albany. The evidence, though circumstantial, was indeed damning. Albany had already quarrelled with de la Pole over their invasion and destroying Thomas’ underwater boat would wreck his rival’s plan to capture London before Edinburgh once and for all.
“Albany had plenty of opportunity to swap my saltpetre for gunpowder and besides, since when did a Scot ever need an excuse to kill an Englishman?” Thomas said wryly.
“Unfortunately the noble Scottish Duke is still besieging Naples, so you can’t bring him to account, but it doesn’t matter who destroyed the boat. Nagel tricked and betrayed us, so are we going to let him get away with that?” Bos insisted.
“If I know Nagel, he’ll have fled the French camp the moment he realised the day was lost. He’ll be half way to Flanders by now but Quintana and Prometheus are still here and most likely they’re beset by looters and plunderers,” said Thomas and Bos had to agree that the human vultures picking over the dead wouldn’t hesitate to slit the throat of any wounded man, friend or foe, who resisted.
“Very well we’ll leave Nagel to the judgement of God, at least for the time being, but if I ever see him again I shall do unto him what God did unto the Midianites,” said Bos but Thomas had already set off back the way they’d come.
The receding tide of war had left the battlefield of Pavia strewn with wreckage. Broken banners, pikes and lances sprouted from the ground like the shattered stumps of a forest destroyed by a violent storm and everywhere swarms of scrawny women pushed handcarts piled high with looted clothing and armour between the piles of bloated, bloody corpses. In their wake, flocks of grubby children searched for spent shot that could be sold back to the gunners for a few kreuzers each. Occasionally an urchin would hold up a severed head, and pretend to mistake his gruesome trophy for a cannon ball, which delighted his fellow ghouls.
To complete this vision of Hell, the trees at the edge of the wood bore fresh fruit in the form of hanged men. Whether the dead were French prisoners or imperial deserters no one could tell but their torn hose, ripped doublets and hands pinioned behind their backs bore witness to their last pathetic struggle for life on a day dedicated to death. Thomas looked at the dangling bodies and touched his scarred throat. The skin had healed but he’d never forget the feel of a noose around his own neck.
They found Quintana, still lying insensible in the mud, a few paces from de la Pole’s body and next to him was Prometheus. The Nubian stared at the sky with sightless eyes whilst a few yards away a coven of squalid Valkyrie fought over his clothing. So intent were they on their argument they failed to notice Bos and Thomas’ approach.
“Bitches, foul daughters of Lilith!” Bos cried and he drew his sword. The women scurried away and the Frisian was about to give chase but Thomas stopped him.
“I think our friends live, but they need our help urgently,” he said and drawing his sword he knelt beside the Nubian. Carefully, he held the flat of falchion’s blade close to Prometheus’ lips whilst Bos did the same with Quintana. Instantly, the cold metal of each sword became clouded and both men breathed a sigh of relief.
“Praise be to Christ, they’re alive but who’d dare attack this Nubian buffalo?” said Bos.
“My guess is he was busy tending to Quintana when one of those hags hit him from behind,” said Thomas, examining the lump on the back of the Nubian’s skull.
“If only he’d kept his wits he could’ve healed himself and the Portugee,” said Bos.
“Perhaps he still can,” replied Thomas and he began to search for the pouch that he knew the Nubian always kept hidden beneath his shirt. Fortunately, the little calfskin bag he was looking for had escaped the notice of the looters and Thomas soon found the phial of white crystals he wanted. He removed the cork and the air became filled with a pungent smell of a tannery but wafting the little bottle under each man’s nose produced instant results. First the Nubian then the Portugee was dragged back into the realm of the living by the noxious vapours.
“By the stinking turds floating down the nine rivers of hell what’s that odour!” Quintana spluttered.
“It’s nothing but sal ammoniac, an elixir that would fetch Eurydice herself from Hades,” said Thomas with delight. The crystals had also worked their magic on Prometheus and as soon as he’d recovered his senses Thomas asked him what had happened. As he rubbed his bruised head, the Nubian admitted that before he could revive Quintana an old crone had offered him a florin for the Portugee’s sword but that was the last thing he could remember.
“So whilst you took her money her confederate hit you from behind, it’s the oldest trick in the book and you fell for it,” Bos chided but Thomas was more forgiving and he told Prometheus and Quintana that the imperial army had won a great victory. The White Rose and the Black Band were no more, the Swiss scattered and the French king was a prisoner. Moreover, the last of the enemy camps had been captured and was in the process of being looted by their comrades. Prometheus was delighted with the news but Quintana was horrified.
“Wha
t are we waiting for? We must hurry and see if there’s anything left worth stealing,” he said as he struggled to his feet but Thomas insisted there was no need to go back to the Porta Repentina.
“The camp will have been emptied of everything but lice and fleas by the time we get there but it doesn’t matter. The only thing we need to make us rich is proof that the we’ve sent the last Yorkist prince to Hell,” he said triumphantly.
The others refused to believe they could still profit directly from the death of the White Rose but Thomas ignored them and turned his attention to de la Pole’s mutilated carcase. The signet ring the Yorkist pretender had used to seal the box of heron feathers would suit his purpose admirably but de la Pole’s fingers had already been reduced to bloody stumps by the looters they’d chased away earlier. Cursing his own tardiness, Thomas drew his falchion whereupon Bos cried out in alarm.
“If you’re going to hack off de la Pole’s head and carry it back to Henry, remember what happened to the assassins of Pompey,” said the Frisian uneasily but Thomas had no intention of committing such sacrilege. Apart from knowing that the men who’d presented Julius Caesar with the head of his greatest enemy were themselves executed for desecrating the famous general’s corpse, Thomas knew that Bos’ arquebus ball had shattered the White Rose’s face beyond recognition.
However, there was one item on de la Pole’s body that might convince King Henry that the last threat to his throne was truly dead and that was the White Rose’s surcoat. The tattered cloth was covered in mud and gore but the golden sun of York was still clearly visible so Thomas began to cut the garment free of its late owner’s armour.
“If you think that rag will prove we killed the White Rose you’re a fool because any mountebank can take a piece of cloth, soak it in pig’s blood and claim he killed the Shah of Persia to get it,” said Quintana when he realised what the Englishman was doing.
“The Portugee’s right, if you take that cloth to Henry you’ll fare no better than Joseph’s brothers who were cursed with famine after they tried to deceive Jacob with the bloodstained coat of many colours,” said Bos.
“Think about it Thomas, take that coat to England and you’ll have become worse than the Roman soldiers who diced for Christ’s robe as he hung on the cross,” added Prometheus.
Though Thomas now wore his religion as lightly as a summer shirt, the Nubian’s words did make him stop and think. He stared at the filthy surcoat in his hands and had to admit that it looked more like the used bandages in a barber-surgeon’s laundry than a piece of a noble knight’s clothing. King Henry would never offer a pardon for any of their crimes, real or imagined, in exchange for a piece of soiled cloth of uncertain provenance so he tossed the surcoat back into the mud.
“So it’s all been for nothing,” he said ruefully.
“Not exactly, have you forgotten we still have the gold buried in the earth at Mirabello? There’s enough for us all to enjoy at least a year or two of doing nothing so I suggest we dig it up before some other thieving bastard finds it!” Quintana replied.
EPILOGUE
MIRABELLO
It didn’t take much for the Portugee to convince the others that their last chance of making a profit lay beneath their temple to Venus so without further debate they set off for the French camp at Mirabello. They all knew that the hunting lodge would’ve been thoroughly ransacked by the Neapolitans who’d captured it but de Vasto’s men would not have had the time to make a systematic search of every abandoned cart and tent in the baggage park. With luck, their treasure would still be where’d they’d left it but to reach heaven they would have to walk through hell.
Though they’d just fought a terrible battle, nothing could’ve prepared Thomas and the others for the horrific scenes of murder and pillage waiting for them at Mirabello. Every tent in the baggage park had been razed to the ground and the bodies of massacred men, women and children, all stained red with gore, lay scattered over the ground like fallen maple leaves. Already the air was foul with the stench of death and as the four men picked their way through this charnel house they found the remains of Mistress Kleber, she was half naked and the back of her skull had been crushed.
“Poor bitch, she cheated her customers and never made an honest bargain but she deserved a better end than this,” said Quintana. The others nodded their agreement but, pausing only to cover their late benefactress with a tattered cloak, they continued their search.
They found their tent, or what was left of it, in the centre of the camp and it wasn’t difficult to work out what had happened. No one would’ve questioned the sudden disappearance of four foreign bawds and after a week their abandoned property would’ve been seized and auctioned off by the provost in charge of the baggage train. Although their tent’s new owners had failed to stop de Vasto’s men from stealing what they could carry, and burning everything else to ashes, the ground beneath the charred remains of their seraglio had not been disturbed.
The former whoremasters quickly identified the spot where they’d hidden their gold and began to scratch at the blackened soil with their swords. After a few minutes, their blades struck something hard and with mounting excitement they prised the buried chest from its grave. As soon as the strongbox was free of the half-frozen mud, Quintana smashed off the padlock with the hilt of his sword and opened the lid but the only thing inside was a scrap of paper. Puzzled, Thomas picked it up and began to read the crude, spidery handwriting.
Dear Master Thomas and the rest
of you idle pig shaggers,
as we earned this gold lying on our backs,
and you did sod all,
we reckon it all be ours so we’ve taken it.
If you want any more, go fuck yourselves,
love Magda and Ulla
“The thieving bitches, I thought they hated each other!” Quintana cried.
“It seems they hated us more, truly a love of money is the root of all evil,” said Bos shaking his head.
“So what do we do now? The emperor’s won his war so the landsknechts will be paid off and sent home,” groaned Prometheus but Quintana reminded them that none of them could return to their homes as they were all under sentence of death. Bos gloomily remarked that they must now starve or become brigands, which was the fate of all soldiers in time of peace, but Thomas was smiling.
“We still have one treasure left … The Devil’s Band and I’m still its captain. Any peace between the Spanish and the French won’t last long and even if it does, there’s bound to be at least one king in Christendom who has need of the hanged man and his brave warriors who won the great battle of Pavia,” he said and after a moment’s thought the others nodded in agreement.
“Some say there’s a peasants’ rebellion brewing in Germany,” said Bos thoughtfully.
“And the Turks are always threatening to invade the Christian kingdoms along the Danube,” added Prometheus.
“So shall we earn our bread slaughtering peasants for the noble lords of Germany or infidel Turks for the Hungarian king?” said Quintana.
“That’s an easy matter to decide,” said Thomas, “if money is the root of all evil, The Devil’s Band must serve whoever pays the most!”
THE END
Thomas’ adventures continue in
The Devil’s Lance
find out more at
www.thedevilstonechronicles.com
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