by Mark Alder
His dick was awaking from its torpor. He awaited, the delicious moment he would feel it change from Jack-Lazy-Abed to Tom-Ready-Sire.
‘You are a great fighter,’ she said.
‘Just a wayward and a trickster, really,’ said Osbert. ‘It’s the armour and the shield. They belong to an angel. Anyone could do it if they had the equipment.’
‘Even me?’ said Aude.’
‘Or anyone.’ He kissed her. ‘Be ready, my love. I have a lance that would enter your lists. By lance, I mean . . .’
‘I know what you mean,’ she said, returning his kiss.
3
The road to Coventry was cluttered with merchants coming to the harvest fair, the canopies of their wagons, their hats and their coats like so many bright flowers in a meadow dazzling beneath the sun.
The crowd was such that the royal party could not have travelled quickly, even flying its banners. Isabella came to Coventry to give thanks for the victory at Crécy. And where better than Coventry, where the arm of St Augustine, who showed how just war can be in the name of Christ and peace, resided in the cathedral?
She rode for much of the way, loving to let the people see her and to be loved. No devil accompanied her for the fear that might occasion in the people. When she grew tired she took to her litter but, in truth, its motion made her sick and she preferred to ride one horse than be carried by two.
‘Stay in the litter, ma’am, I beg you. We have many enemies,’ said her lady-in-waiting, Alice. ‘What if one of the French devils comes for you?’
‘A devil would not dare strike down an anointed queen,’ said Isabella.
‘But what about your retinue? Us?’
Isabella put her hand on the girl’s arm.
‘It’s a risk I am prepared to take.’
Still, Alice, nervous, shrew-eyed, said she was afraid. The queen was the summoner of all the English devils, along with the longbowmen the strength of the nation. What of assassins? What of traitors? Where would England be then?
‘It’s hardly likely to endear us to the people if we come in breathing fire and stinking of sulphur,’ said Isabella. ‘My ordinary guard will serve me very well. We have no need for diaboliques.’
She was glad to leave the capital and travel north. London was in ferment. The preachers of the Luciferian heresy – that all men were made equal and would one day return to being equal – stalked the markets, risking attack by devils and the loyal poor. The little whispering demons, the ympes, still pitter-pattered in their batty flight through the air of evening, whispering dissent.
Coventry was different. There was no revolution in Coventry, no rumblings of discontent. It was such a wealthy, well-favoured city. Its blue cloth was known throughout the world for the depth and fastness of its colour, its glass works were marvels and, miles before they neared the city, the royal party saw the three spires of Christ’s Church, St Mary’s Cathedral and Holy Trinity shimmer into view. Verdant fields with too many sheep to count straddled the road, the shepherds running to see her litter as she passed and cry out ‘God Bless You!’ Well, she’d long given up hope of that. God would have to wait to cast her soul into eternal fire, though, and wait a long time. She dabbed a little angel’s blood on her tongue. It kept her looking younger than her own daughters.
The city had no walls and this lent to its charm. It was like Arcadia, Eden, a place that knew no strife. That was why she had chosen to bury her lover Mortimer there, when her son had killed him. Gentle Mortimer. He would look on those fields and love them. He’d also clear the road better than the clod she had leading the way. She withdrew the curtain of the litter. God, it was hot in there.
‘What is the delay?’ She spoke to the leading horseman, a tall, commanding young man, at least by appearance. He didn’t seem to be doing much commanding here.
‘They won’t budge, ma’am.’
‘Cut off a couple of heads to encourage them.’
‘Ma’am ?’
‘Not seriously, not seriously. Kick a few arses, though. Hard.’
‘Ma’am.’
She let down the curtain. She didn’t know if she wanted to remain in the shade and roast, or open the curtain to the sun and fry.
She tried to doze, but the rocking of the horses and the sound of villeins being slapped off the road made it impossible. For what must have been the hundredth time on the trip she burrowed down into the cushions of her litter to pull out a small enamelled casket. She examined it in the dim light. It was a chasse, a container for relics with a sloping roof like a church, inlaid with blue and gold, three golden orbs adorning its central spine. The motif showed the murder of St Thomas Becket, the four knights stabbing him as he lay on the altar. She’d wondered if King Henry, who had ‘accidentally’ ordered his murder, had planned the whole thing. Becket was worth much more as a saint, his blood healing ills, his bones providing fragments for the hilts of blessed swords, his teeth making brooches to defend against evil, than he ever was alive as an interfering churchman. The king all but commands the death, repents and shrives himself before the altar, Canterbury gains a saint, the king some relics, God a helper, Becket Heaven, and everyone is happy. Well, almost everyone. She doubted the knights had prospered.
She wondered how many of her entourage were her son’s spies. None of the men, for sure. Edward knew very well that she was adept at swaying their loyalties. The women? Most of them, she guessed. She didn’t really object. Such surveillance was the least she could expect.
The litter came to a halt.
‘Now what ?’
‘A cart has shed a wheel, ma’am.’
‘Oh, by St Fremund’s severed head, how long is this going to take ?’
‘Only the saints know, ma’am.’
‘Get my horse. We’ll take to the fields. The rest can catch us later.’
‘The people of Coventry will expect you to arrive in pomp, ma’am.’
‘The people of Coventry will expect me to arrive. If we carry on like this, I won’t.’
She stepped from the litter. God’s teeth it was hot. Her horse was brought – a white palfrey. The ladies-in-waiting came from their own litters in a great cluck, begging her to wait. They hadn’t got horses of their own. Well, there was an interesting point.
‘You, what’s your name?’
‘Mowbray, ma’am,’ said the knight.
‘Accompany me.’ She clicked her fingers at the two knights who guarded the rear of her litter.
‘You two. No one comes in and out of my litter, not even my ladies.’
The casket would be safe there.
She swung a leg over the saddle’s high cantle and the ladies ran around her, smoothing her skirt, begging her not to go, in case she might fall.
‘I can out hunt any man,’ she said.
‘My Lady, that is blasphemy.’ A tall, freckled thing spoke to her. What was the girl’s name? Anna? The daughter of someone her husband was seeking to please.
‘God is not so easily offended.’
She squeezed her legs and the horse stepped forward. Forget the road, she’d see how Mowbray could ride. With a turn and a kick, she was over a ditch that ran down the side of the road and into the sheep fields.
‘Come on! Come on!’
The knight spurred his horse forwards and they were off, charging across the fields as if in pursuit of a deer.
‘If you break your neck, your son will blame us!’ shouted Mowbray.
‘God will know you are innocent after Edward sends you to see Him!’ she shouted back.
Would Edward be angry if she died? Whatever their differences, whatever their competing ambitions, they had always loved each other. Her son would be sad, perhaps, but relieved. Perhaps they’d turn her into a saint and use her hair to cure the ague. And perhaps not. And if Edward died? That would be necessary once the business at Coventry was done. It was regrettable and sad, yet impossible to avoid.
The sheep scattered from the charging horses, the crowds of
merchants cheering her on. She looked so fine, felt so alive.
With the horse lathering and blowing, she made the suburbs. Here she found the source of some of the delay, never mind wagons shedding their wheels. The idiots had cleared the roads to greet her, meaning no one could get into the town. Their attempts to speed her way had all but nailed her to the spot. A great knot of dignitaries, as well as a gaggle of the curious townsmen and poor, blocked the way, held back only by some stout men at the front of the crowd. She should have some of these local potentates thrown from their offices – her grandson, after all, held sway in that city by right of his title of Earl of Chester. Her grandson. Rather, she should say, the devil she had bargained with when she had overthrown her husband. Her real grandson was gone. Regrettable, but unavoidable. She was thinking of having those words translated into Latin and using them as her motto.
‘Ma’am! Ma’am!’ The mayor scraped towards her, clanking in his gold chains, rings on his fingers, a fine beaver hat on his head and a staff topped with walrus ivory in his hand. Such finery. They had taxed this place too lightly, clearly.
‘Lord Mayor,’ she smiled, raising an expectant eyebrow. He caught her meaning.
‘The gifts, ma’am, the gifts.’
He clapped his hands, the bugles sounded and sixteen pages trotted out to lay the city’s bounty before her – great rolls of skyblue cloth, glasswear, gloves, a fine sword and a psalter. All very pleasing, made to the highest standards by the best craftsmen. Coventry’s workshops produced the finest goods in England. Still, it wasn’t enough. She dismounted, dropping lightly to the ground.
‘My leg chafes me,’ said Isabella. ‘Good mayor, lend me your staff.’
The mayor pushed out his fat tongue with the puzzled look of a mastiff who had been asked a question on astronomy ‘That is my staff of office, ma’am.’
‘Would you make your queen hobble?’
‘We have a carriage waiting for you.’ He smiled a broad grin.
Indeed, there was a fine carriage equipped with a painted blue cover in the quartered arms of the fleur-de-lys and English leopards.
‘Only a few paces, but I find that hobble I but once in a day and it is quite ruined for me. Would you begrudge me support?’
‘No, ma’am, of course not.’ The mayor’s smile remained, though his eyes died. He unpeeled his fingers from the staff and handed it over.
It really was a fine thing, stained a deep black with a gold claw holding a ball of walrus ivory at the top. He wouldn’t be getting that back.
She walked to the carriage and waved to the people.
‘We’ll be staying at Cheylesmore Manor?’ she asked the mayor, who bobbed alongside her like a gilded fool, though she had taken his tickling stick.
‘We will, ma’am.’
She had stayed there before. Her son Edward – the supposed puppet she and her lover Mortimer had used to govern the country – had grown up quicker than she realised. He had kidnapped Mortimer in front of her, hanged him and cut him at Tyburn. She had buried Mortimer at Greyfriars, on her way to prison at Castle Rising. Her son had allowed her that. Why Greyfriars? She had made several bequests there in the past. Also, the monastery housed certain men who knew certain things.
‘We ?’
‘The aldermen of the town will accompany you to see to your every need.’
‘My first need is to have no aldermen. I am one for isolation. The park is as abundant as ever?’
‘It is a haven for stag and doe.’
‘Good. We will hunt the day after tomorrow. For now, we will observe the formalities of greeting and then be left alone.’
‘Ma’am, a huge feast is prepared at the Guildhall.’
‘Prepare another for the day after tomorrow. Give the present one to the poor.’
‘It cost fifty pounds!’
Isabella smiled her perfect smile.
‘Were you planning on entertaining some merchant? Some wife of a country knight? I am Isabella Plantagenet, née Capet, queen of England, rightful queen of France, mother to the greatest king this country has ever seen. Fifty pounds? That is not a feast fit for a miller!’
‘There are few millers who eat for—’ The mayor caught himself. ‘A feast worthy of your magnificence will be prepared for the date you indicated, ma’am.’
‘Yes, it will,’ she said. ‘Now take me to Cheylesmore. It’s been so long since I stayed there and I long to see it again. Send my men and litter there immediately to follow me.’
* That night, tired and stiff from the long journey, the queen dismissed her ladies from her room in the great manor. They were reluctant to go – as much because they would have to find a less comfortable perch than her bed to sleep on as from any annoyance at being unable to spy on her. She had them dress her before they went. Isabella normally bowed to the fashion for relative austerity in women’s clothes, limiting herself to a few pearls in her hair, a simple emerald necklace, a cambric underskirt and velvet mantle. Now, though, she dressed as she, and he – Mortimer – had liked.
Her blonde hair fell in a single plait from a velvet cap; her mantle was cloth of gold adorned with a constellation of diamonds, rubies and pearls. Her hands were heavy with rings and a sapphire necklace burned blue at her white throat. People had known how to dress when Mortimer was alive. The ladies had not asked, dared not have asked, why she spent two hours dressing for bed. Perhaps they guessed she wanted to test her magnificence for the coming days of feasting. No, she wanted to dress in the old-fashioned way. The way that had pleased Mortimer, the way that pleased her.
The reliquary was on a little table. She put her hand to it. That evening she would weave two magics – a small one and a great one. The reliquary would be needed later. For now, she only touched it for comfort.
She drew the magic circle on the floor with practised ease. Her mother had showed her the art – a gift of the Capetian queens. She drew the protective triangle, wrote the names of God, the names of the angels of the north wind, the south wind, the east and the west winds.
She was to summon the spirits of the air, strange things that had been there since the world began. God had made them and set them free to give sinners a taste of the torments of Hell and to spur them to repentance. The candles were lit; the dried tongue of a cat and the claw of a scorpion burned within them. Now the candles were extinguished again, only one kept alight by her side. She unclipped the linen that covered the window, a rush of summer air welcome in her lungs.
A knock at the door.
‘You are not required.’
‘Very good, ma’am.’ That silly girl with the freckles again. She was beginning to despise her.
She began the chant, low and soft to avoid detection.
Come nightmares Wet from swimming all the waters of the world Eyes wide from counting all the stars Come nightmares Born of breath Denying breath Cold-shoed, Moth-winged, There is no broom at the door There is no belt on the bed Come nightmares The horses of sleep are awaiting you.
Nothing at first, nothing for a long time. She continued the chant, repeated it again and again until the words seemed to her like the stir of a breeze on a summer’s day, lulling, indistinct, the sound of the sea, of the wind among trees, always moving, always in the same place, a swaying between this world and the next.
A cloud across the moon. The light in the window boiled and flickered and then moths, more moths than she had ever seen, poured in, a purr of felt wings filling the chamber all about her protective circle, trying to get to the candle.
‘Alice!’ she called.
The girl was right behind the door and opened it immediately. Isabella blew out the candle and the moths swept over the girl, stopping her mouth, her nose. She collapsed to the floor and the great blanket of insects flew through the house to fall upon the inhabitants like snow upon a meadow, commanding sleep, deep and long.
Another shape across the moon. A stoneskin gargoyle, falling swift as a pebble into a well, followed by another
. And another and another.
The creature clambered onto the outside of her window as she stepped out of the magic circle. She took up her casket and passed it to the devil. It pushed off like a swimmer from a bank to hover in the air. Another took its place. In its hands it had a long length of cloth, like a hammock. It offered a hand through the window and she took it, surprised at how cold it was. She climbed through the window and sat on its sill. The gargoyle wrapped the cloth around her and she shifted her weight to sit on it. They lifted her, as if she was on a swing.
She flew off, a fox peering up at her, its eyes sharp in the moonlight. She went over the sleeping city, towards Greyfriars Abbey. The little magic was done. Now she must ready herself for a bigger test. One gargoyle flew in front of her, clasping her casket. The air was warm, the air full of the night scents of summer. Isabella hummed to herself.
Westron Wind, when will thou blow? The small rain down can rain Christ, if my love were in my arms And I in my bed again.
‘Oh, Mortimer,’ she said. ‘I who have been loved by so many, only ever loved you. But I am near, my love. I will fetch you from Hell.’
The gargoyles landed softly in the courtyard of the abbey. It was quiet and still, long before Matins, though the first hour came early in summer.
A man stepped out of the darkness of the cloisters. He was tall and thin but with a good belly on him. She could have mistaken him for pregnant.
‘Friar,’ she said, ‘you have made the preparations.’
‘Yes, lady. You have the ingredients?’
She gestured to the casket.
‘Then let us begin,’ said the friar.
4
A memory, or a dream? Osbert could not recall.
‘Shall I play the knight’ she asked, ‘and you be the horse? I shall ride you until you cry “neigh”.’
‘Mount, good lady, and I shall carry you where you wish, though you may find me a bumpy ride.’
‘To be worthy of such a handsome stallion, I must be fittingly caparisoned,’ said Aude. ‘Let me wear your mail, my love.’ She was above him, her heavy breasts brushing his chest, her body smelling of ale and cinders.