Son of the Night

by Mark Alder

  He saw the advantage of having the prince die in such a way – Eu would take the blame, an individual man, not a representative of the House of Valois. But the prince had not died, despite his armour having split like the skin of a grape. Yet pricked by a dagger, he had been wounded. Eu did not know how this could be.

  ‘The prince is a devil,’ said Eu, to himself. ‘The rumours are true.’

  16

  ‘I have drunk of angel’s blood.

  ‘I have thrown down a king and torn out his heart. ‘I have made a devil the prince of England.

  ‘I have travelled to Hell and struck bargains with Satan. ‘I am heartily sorry for these sins.’

  Isabella had never cried in her life. She did not think she was capable of it. Even as a very young girl, friendless on her wedding night, when her husband left her to go and sport with Gaveston, even when her husband left her to the Scots, even when Mortimer met his fate at Tyburn, she had not cried. Now she did.

  She had imagined she could do anything – outlive God, throw down kings, call her lover back from the prison of Hell. But with Mortimer in Heaven, the only way to get to him was to join him there. All her sins weighed in on her now – the murders and the deceptions, the deals with creatures of the Pit. Her soul was heavy, in need of redemption. If Heaven was where Mortimer was, then to Heaven she must go.

  A gulp from the other side of the confession screen. Isabella did not include a list of the people she had killed in her life, largely because she had forgotten many of them but also because some of them had been great enemies of God. There could be no sin in killing them.

  ‘I had expected something—’

  ‘Less ?’

  ‘Yes. Less.’

  ‘I am a queen. As our virtues are greater than those of ordinary men, so are our vices.’

  Isabella had always liked the priest at St Michael’s. He was that rare breed for a churchman – someone who not only believed in God but acted as if he did. He kept a simple house, had only one servant, and travelled on an unimpressive horse. Some priests and most bishops set themselves up as princes if they could. Could she rely on him? Probably. She felt his terror even through the screen.

  The priest took in three large breaths.

  ‘These sins took place since your last Holy Communion?’

  ‘No.’

  Another gulp. She knew what he was thinking: she had taken Communion in a state of unconfessed sin – itself a sin. ‘Does God speak to you? As queen?’

  ‘There have been no angels in England in a long time. Not that I could visit.’

  The priest muttered some Latin under his breath.

  ‘I am truly penitent. I have seen Hell, Father, and I do not wish to go there. And yet, I have bargained my soul with Satan.’

  ‘For what ?’

  ‘For the return of Mortimer.’

  ‘And Satan betrayed you?’

  ‘He misled me. Mortimer is in Heaven.’

  ‘Such a rebel?’

  ‘Against men and devils, not God.’ Even as she spoke, she felt a weight lifting from her. ‘Father, when I threw down my husband,

  I was doing God’s work. This much has been revealed to me.’

  ‘How so ?’

  ‘The greatest devil told me, under a solemn vow before God.

  The Plantagenet line are all descended from devils. Mortimer was doing God’s work.’

  ‘Was not his grandmother a Plantagenet?’ The priest almost seemed to suck the words back in as he spoke, fearing he had said too much.

  ‘His grandmother was the bastard daughter of old King John. Or so it was said, and so John believed. But in truth who knows who she lay with?’

  The priest moaned. ‘Such sin. And among such great men.’

  ‘I am here to atone for it. I am here to put things right.’

  ‘How? By exterminating the entire Plantagenet line?’ Isabella’s hands went to the nosegay about her neck. ‘Would that please God?’

  ‘Lady, I cannot say. I . . .’

  She thought of Satan’s words. By Mortimer’s boldness, he had pleased God. She would do the same.

  ‘There is a point,’ she said, ‘when a tree becomes so rotten, that it must be felled for the safety of all, no matter how long it has stood, no matter how venerable or loved.’

  ‘I have not instructed you to do this.’

  ‘So what should I do?’

  ‘For such sin? Give away all your goods. Walk in sackcloth.

  Pray always. Go on a long pilgrimage. Fast often. Become a nun and pray day and night!’

  That was easy. She had not eaten since she returned from Hell, could not eat. Food seemed repulsive to her now, along with the jewels which had been her delight. All her former life had been lived in error and she must put things right.

  ‘I will do all these things,’ said Isabella.

  ‘Had you not feared for your soul before?’

  ‘I had not thought to die.’

  ‘And now ?’

  ‘It is my only wish. But I must be free of my sins.’

  ‘I cannot grant this, Lady.’

  ‘Who could ?’

  ‘The Pope. No one short of the Pope!’

  ‘Then I will see him,’ said Isabella.

  ‘And what of the devils on the throne of England? Will you leave them there?’

  ‘I will apply the old cure.’

  ‘Which is ?’

  She did not reply. She would use the best resort of kings. Death.

  And then the Pope would grant her absolution. She would travel to see him in his court in Avignon. Pope Clement loved France, so he should love her – a queen of France by birth – and should love what she proposed to do. The English monarchy would be returned to its pure line. The house of Plantagenet must fall. They had used her like a brood mare. A true line must be put in its place. She had thought that she would be its founder, but now that plan had to wait. It was a sin to drink the blood of angels and sinners did not get into Heaven. She would age and die as a normal woman from now on.

  But first she would rid England of its stain, or at least purge that which she could. The idea had been growing in her for some time. When she had ascended to the throne and overthrown her husband, she had bargained with devils to do so. She’d said only that she would make one of their number prince of England. It was no sin to kill such a presumptuous fiend. And her son? Yes, he too would need to be dealt with.

  Isabella hesitated over Edward. They had been very close once and she had thought him the very perfect model of a prince – brave, strong, gifted at arms, and – above all – pliable. When he had rebelled against Mortimer, cast off all reasonable guidance and direction, she had thought her heart would break. She concentrated on that – her outrage at what her son had done, breaking into Nottingham Castle, through whatever magical means he had used, to steal gentle Mortimer from her. All her hate had poured into Montagu, who had led the band which abducted her lover. Now she tried to direct that towards her son. It was he who had set up a special gibbet at Tyburn just for Mortimer, he who had ordered Mortimer’s entrails burned in front of him. God favoured Mortimer, that much was clear. How else had He welcomed him into his Heaven?

  Yet still she could not quite feel comfortable doing it. Part devil he might be but Edward was an anointed king, his ‘son’ the anointed prince – no matter that he was a devil. She could not move against them lightly. But move against them she would. Her first step would to be ensure they had some more formidable enemies in France than the vacillating Philip and his idiot son John. The Valois could not be trusted. House Capet would have to ascend again, one way or the other. Her nephew had made that argument when he had written to her in some writhing, odd ink telling her he planned to ally with Edward, help him in to France, and asking for magical help. That had too many dangers – Edward and Navarre together might conceivably win. And then, line of devils or not, angels might attend her son again, as a reward for his valour and recognition of the throne o
n which God had set him. No, that plot must fail, but she would have to offer Charles something to help him abandon it. She would have to pretend to help him.

  Before absolution, then, further damnation. More magic would be required, more royal blood. Well, there were happy coincidences there. England should never be strengthened by an alliance with Castile. The marriage of Joanna and Peter must not take place.

  She took out her pen to write to Charles of Navarre. Then she sent for the count of Eu.

  17

  Navarre had written to Eu and suggested he try persuading the English royals to reduce his ransom. He should make promises, show himself of service, he said. Perhaps he should even hint they would remove the blockade on Calais at the neck of the marshes, now that the town had fallen. Calamity was occurring in France. La Cerda had been given control of all of the constable’s lands. It was an outrage, said Navarre, an outrage, but he could do nothing about it. Eu’s heart sank but a letter from his wife confirmed the truth of it.

  Eu sensed he might have one potential ally at the English court, the lady who had given him her favour at the tournament. Was that an invitation to further contact? He would take it as one. He sent the lance head from the tournament field to Queen Philippa. He received an invitation to an audience within the week.

  He might have been in France as he was called into Philippa’s day room. All the wall hangings were in the French style, showing French scenes. Here there was a lady receiving a flower beneath a castle that could only be French, there a knight with the fleurde-lys on his banners. But England was not France. Though it was only October, a fire burned beneath a brick chimney, the smoke hanging at the ceiling. Eu himself had worn furs – nothing extravagant, just a coat of camlet Edward had given to him, topped with a simple cap.

  The difficulties in speaking privately to a queen are considerable, particularly for a man, and a prisoner at that. Queens are never alone. Their ladies attend them constantly from waking to sleeping and, when their ladies are not there, their husband inevitably is. Even a queen as favoured as Philippa could not talk alone to someone like Eu without exciting comment. So there are ways and means of engineering privacy known to queens throughout Christendom. The first is to call a meeting late. Young ladies have their business and some of that business is best conducted in the night hours, when poems – and more – are received from certain gentlemen.

  The older women are more inclined to stay with their queen, but she is able to let all but one or two go as an act of kindness. The one she kept by her side in her reception room in the Round Tower was a woman old enough to be the queen’s mother – arguably anyone’s mother. She was that most useful of attendants, largely deaf, sleepy, and apt to forget whatever it was she did manage to hear. However, there was one more person in the chamber – someone Eu had not expected to see. Joanna, princess of England, sat embroidering by the fire.

  Philippa herself was at ease behind a table, plump, full-breasted, clearly pregnant. How many children now? This would be her twelfth. King Edward was a man of famous passions and it seemed that his wife devoted herself to slaking them.

  Her lady pointed Eu to a seat ‘You have brought the board, Count?’ said Philippa. She spoke in her beautiful Northern French, her consonants tinged to a brittle hardness by a Flemish frost.

  ‘Yes, lady. It was difficult to get. Our ambassador had one.’ He produced the board of the Philosophers’ Game from its velvet bag.

  ‘Couldn’t you have asked one of your spies?’ said Joanna, smiling.

  ‘They have not made themselves known to me, My Lady.’

  ‘Then you should worry about your position at your court.’

  She smiled, teasing. Her words bore a bitter truth, however. Why hadn’t the spies contacted him? He had told himself that it would be too difficult for them, but difficulty was meat and drink to a spy. Had there been stirrings against him at home? Had his capture at Caen been blamed for the debacle at Crécy? He knew what his enemies would make of it. Or was spying just becoming too difficult in this age of devils and magic? Joanna collected her things, kissed her mother and left.

  ‘You are accomplished at this game?’ Philippa gestured to the board.

  ‘There was a fashion for it in Paris a few years ago. I have played since I was a boy.’

  ‘Then you must instruct me. We are so far behind here in England.’

  ‘In everything but war.’

  ‘In everything but that.’

  Her lady gathered herself in her chair and tried to look interested.

  Eu opened the board and laid the pieces out. The lady crossed herself.

  ‘They are not devil signs, My Lady,’ said Eu, ‘simply numbers.’

  ‘They don’t look like numbers.’

  ‘The game is more easily played this way. Using the Roman numbers taxes an old head like mine.’

  ‘This is two, isn’t it?’ said Philippa, picking up a counter bearing a swan-like sigil.

  ‘Yes, madame. I shall explain them all before we begin.’

  The queen’s lady made a queer shape with her mouth and then yawned deeply. Clearly mathematical board games were not to her liking. She put down her needlework and lay back, hands on her belly.

  Eu passed the queen her reckoner and set out his own. He saw what was required. They didn’t need to play. The heat of the fire, combined with a very detailed explanation of common victories, of grand victories or victories of excellence achieved by aligning mathematical progressions across the squares, would be enough to serve their purpose.

  ‘Why is it “the philosopher’s game”?’ said Philippa. ‘Why not the game of numbers?’

  Eu smiled. ‘It is indeed called the game of numbers, ma’am. But also, as it demonstrates the progressions of the great Pythagoras, it reveals to us the harmonies within nature, harmonies ordained by God. Unshakeable harmonies.’

  The lady let out a breath like a post horse after a day’s ride. She was asleep.

  ‘This move would be safe?’ said Eu. The queen caught his meaning.

  ‘She never wakes,’ she said. ‘It is not her only charm, but it is chief among them.’

  ‘Why am I here?’

  ‘For the sake of harmony. I am afraid.’

  ‘Of what ?’

  ‘You know the rumours that surround my son?’

  Philippa moved a five back and forth across the board. ‘That he is an uncommonly able warrior.’

  ‘The lance head,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It . . .’ She didn’t say what she wanted to, but made a gesture with her fingers to show it the lance bouncing away.

  ‘He could have been killed.’

  ‘God would have protected him, had he not been . . . The dagger was blessed. That hurt him easy enough.’

  Eu lowered his eyes. As he thought, the queen had tested her son. Now what?

  The queen placed an eight next to the five. Now an eleven went next to the eight. A good sequence. Philippa had played this game before.

  ‘If my son was abducted at birth and replaced with—’

  ‘That is a wild supposition.’

  ‘He would never suckle at my breast.’ Her eyes avoided his.

  Eu said nothing. She wanted to unburden herself. He wasn’t going to stop her.

  ‘He had a wet nurse?’

  ‘Queen Isabella provided her. I was ill after the birth and could take no part in the selection.’

  ‘It sounds like you regret it.’

  ‘We all know now what that woman is capable of. I visited her at Nottingham. The skies around it were black with devils.’

  ‘The devils do God’s work. We know that.’

  ‘Do they? What is God’s work, Count, because I am not sure I know. Do you see His hand in the affairs of men? If He wants stability and order, where is it? He is all-powerful.’

  ‘My philosophy is limited to that of this game, ma’am.’

  The lady-in-waiting snuffled in her seat.

&n
bsp; ‘I need your help, Raoul. My son is not close to me. He never has been. He scorns me, has never touched me. Even as a child.’

  ‘You are of a royal line.’

  ‘Yes. Appointed by God. A devil would not approach me. We need to test the prince. If he is a devil then he cannot cross a magic circle. I need a man who can draw one.’

  She stacked the pieces of the game – two squares, two triangles, two rounds, number thirty-six at the base, twenty-five above it, sixteen above that, squares of three, two and one one above that. It made the white pyramid, the game’s second most powerful piece. Eu saw in the pyramid the image of the world, the teeming multitudes below, the rare, the singular perched on top.

  ‘Why are you asking me this? You put yourself in great danger. I could report all this to Philip.’

  ‘It’s no more than what half the marketplaces between here and Paris are saying. Your family has been friends of the Capetians and the Valois for generations. Because my husband quarrels with my cousin, it’s no reason for us to forget old ties. You will not betray me because of our current little skirmish.’

  ‘I am French and you are English. Or on the side of the English.’

  ‘How modern of you, Count, the virtues of being “patriotic”. It is a lie we tell the poor, is it not, and the more credulous of the nobility? Family first. Family always first.’

  She gestured to the board, as if implying that the war – with its thousands of noble dead, with its burnings of valuable lands, animals, serfs and villeins – was of no more importance.

  ‘Then what do you want from me?’

  ‘You had a famous sorcerer at the French court. Could he be used ?’

  ‘Osbert, yes. He has gone, I think. I could write to Navarre and see if he can discover where he is.’

  ‘Do. I would employ him. Do you think he would work for me?’

  ‘If he moves against your son then he is doing the work of the court. He will not know the request comes from you. If it emerges the Black Prince is a devil?’