by Mark Alder
It did not seem difficult to establish that the facts were true. The wrecker’s mates came in to plead for him – they said he was a man driven mad by war; that the family were fit to die of starvation anyway; that they would pay for his release. One showed Dow a jewelled communion goblet and offered it for his friend’s release. Dow had the man of Hull hanged from the beam of a shattered house, and the goblet thief beside him.
‘I thought we didn’t do this,’ said Greatbelly.
‘I thought we didn’t do this,’ said Dow, holding up the goblet. ‘It’s one thing to rob a church. A good thing. It’s another to conceal the plunder from your fellows, to put selfish desires above the common good. Our beliefs must be protected, even if it means doing things we would prefer not to do. I see that now.’
‘You sound like a priest,’ said Greatbelly. ‘Do not be another magistrate, Dow.’
‘Those I kill will return,’ said Dow, ‘when all the gates of Hell open and Lucifer emerges. When they stand in the morning light their souls will be purified.’
‘Lucifer does not judge.’
‘Though I do. It is a means to an end. We remind our people of their duties to themselves and to others.’
‘You are on the side of the French!’ shouted a wrecker, as he watched his friend kicking out his last.
‘I am on the side of all the poor. Nations are but the conceits of kings. When Lucifer made the world, his light did not shine more on the English than the French, nor more on the Tartars than the Saracens.’
‘Traitor!’ shouted the man. A man of Cornwall struck him and the wreckers set on the man of Cornwall. In moments it was a riot, the Cornish and the Northern wreckers thumping lumps out of each other.
‘Brothers! Brothers!’ cried Dow.
But it was Montagu, wading in with the holy sword Arondight drawn, its cool blue light a smear in the gloom of the tight streets, who restored order, knocking down three men with the clever trips and pushes he had learned in his training as a knight.
‘The next man who raises a hand dies!’ he said.
‘Then will our Antichrist kill you too?’ said a man, picking himself up from the filth of the street. He spat.
Dow turned away from him. He knew he was losing his people. But were they his people? How could they turn on their fellows like this? How could they prey upon people just as poor as they, French or not?
More trouble as the next day dawned. Edward, it appeared, had granted his men free pardon and allowed them to keep any loot they had taken, short of houses, which were his to dispense. He had spared the burghers of Calais who had emerged in their nooses and taken only the houses of the rich for himself. All poorer dwellings were given to the Luciferians to dispose of as they saw fit. The people came to Dow, asking him to settle disputes of who owned which house, who had the right to stay where, to ask for pardon for the goods they had looted and for the right to keep them. He said that he alone could not rule on such matters, and that the whole body of the Luciferian people must decide or elect someone so to do.
He met them at dawn in the town’s main square – the marketplace as was, when there had been provisions or anything else to sell.
The Luciferians crowded in under the rising golden light. At normal times, they would have had no leader. Those who felt compelled to speak would speak and those who wished to stay silent stayed silent. Dow never spoke unless asked for his opinion, which he invariably was. Even then, he tried to hold back from voicing his views. If the people naturally sought leaders, he thought, then their nature was their enemy and he would not help them surrender to it.
There was passion there. The Cornishmen all brought threepronged pitchforks, Lucifer’s sign – the tool of toil turned into the weapon of liberation. They held them proudly aloft, surrounding Dow. A woman in the crowd sang a high, joyful song of praise to the dawn, the morning light and to the morning star that accompanied it, and a deep drum sounded to open the meeting.
The first voice raised called for thanks to Lucifer for the deliverance in battle and the crowd raised up their faces to the sun to thank him. Dow felt glad to see so many standing tall, greeting Lucifer as equals, not bowed in submission to the God of the Church.
The second voice was not so grateful. A woman shouted out, in a heavy French accent, that the people of Lucifer were no more than hypocrites. They had promised to spare the poor but they had set on them like wolves. The crowd turned to see her and a London voice called her a French bitch. Horse shit flew and the woman was dragged into the crowd.
‘Save her,’ said Dow, to the stout Cornishmen at his side. Six of the tin miners waded into the crowd, their fists swinging to make way.
Discord and anger. ‘He’d rather save the French than his own!’ Another voice, this one of Wales.
‘Why should Edward’s men be given licence while we are kept on a chain?’
‘We had more under God than Lucifer!’
‘Friends!’ Dow shouted.
Abuse came back; he was called ‘scum’ and ‘a Frenchman’ and then, worst of all, ‘King’.
‘King Dow!’ shouted someone. ‘Bow down – King Dowzabel wants to speak!’
There was a brief lull.
‘I am no king!’ he shouted.
‘I wish you were – Edward’s offering a better deal!’ A scuffle.
‘Lies!’ shouted another voice. ‘Dowzabel shines with the light of Lucifer.’
‘Swive yourself!’ said still one more.
The smack of fist against face, more scuffling, shouting. Dow climbed up onto the supporting pillar of a house to address the crowd, to prevent a riot.
‘I am no king but, as one of you, equal and no different, I tell you this is wrong. We came here to build Eden, not on the backs of our fellows but alongside them. There has been a grievous slaughter here. There has been theft, not for the common good but for personal gain.’
‘Not for your gain, you mean. You just want all the pie to yourself without leaving any for us.’
‘We came here in the light of Lucifer. We must go on that way!. Everything will be shared to build our new Eden!’
‘Shit!’ shouted someone else, and a bottle crashed off the pillar above Dow.
‘Brothers! Sisters!’ shouted Greatbelly. ‘Hear what Dowzabel has to say.’
‘Put my dick in your mouth, you fat whore, maybe it’ll shut you up !’
More shoving, someone fell. A scream and then the crowd erupted, men of Cornwall fighting men of Wales, fighting men of the North and those of Essex.
Three big men, one with an axe, came for Dowzabel but Montagu stood in their way. Two died before they had got within an arm’s length of him, and the other lost his nerve and ran.
Smoke was in the air. A flash of fire. Someone was burning the houses.
‘This is our inheritance!’ shouted Dow. ‘Do not burn your own homes !’
‘It’s a shithole!’ shouted a voice. ‘We’re better off with the king !’
A great rush came forward at Dow – men brandishing swords and clubs.
He drew his falchion.
‘Away!’ said Greatbelly. ‘Dow, get away.’
‘I need to speak to them. They need to hear me.’
She shook him by the shoulder.
‘Aren’t you always talking about the will of the people?’
‘Yes !’
‘Well, what do you think the will of the people says now?’
‘Go!’ said Montagu ‘Go! They’re after you. We’ll talk later.’
Dow had no choice now. Two men of Cornwall grabbed him by each arm and pulled him away from the throng.
He was bundled down alley after alley.
‘Not the guildhall,’ said Zepar – a Cornishman and one of the true Luciferians who took the names of demons.
‘Then where ?’
‘Here!’ It was a squat church Norman style, its windows smashed and its door broken in.
They took him inside, the sun cutting shadows across the ston
e. A dead priest sat against a pillar, as if weary from sweeping the floor.
A severed head, neatly bearded, sat on the altar. It watched them come in.
‘The place has been looted, they’ll not come here again,’ said Zepar. They made their way through the church, to sit behind the altar.
‘I’ll find our friends,’ whispered Murmur in his ear. The little man flapped out of the church, dancing through the sunbeams like a butterfly.
Dow breathed in. He’d failed. He had thought he had shone a light into the hearts of the poor but he had failed to see that, when the poor accounted themselves wealthy, with enough plunder to last them a month or a year, they no longer thought themselves poor. And what had Dow become? Here he was with a bodyguard, protected from his own people like a tyrant.
The town burned around him through the day. He tried to get up to leave, to stop the destruction, but Zepar, now joined by other men of Cornwall, would not let him. He couldn’t command them; they were his equals. In truth, he didn’t know what he would do if he did get out.
None of them spoke, just sat grim-faced, the taste of smoke in their mouths. Montagu arrived at sunset.
‘I have failed,’ said Dow.
‘No,’ said Montagu. He knelt beside Dow. ‘You have been outmanoeuvred, that is all. I am sure Edward set agitators among the crowd.’
‘Why not before? Why not after Crécy?’
‘Because you were still useful to him, Dow. He’s given you your Eden, as he promised, but it lies in ashes about you. He’s demolished all the houses between here and his quarter of the town. He has the merchants’ dwellings, you have a wasteland and are discredited in front of your men.’
‘They are not my men. They are their own leaders.’
‘But they have not been raised to think that way. You must appear to them as a hero and a warrior as you did when you unfurled the dragon banner.’
‘I did not unfurl it.’
‘They thought you did. That’s all that matters. But you have shown weakness. These men were bred to know masters. It’s their only way of thinking.’
‘So Edward now presents himself and they will bow the knee?’
Montagu put his hand on Dow’s shoulder. ‘Yes. They want bread. That’s all. They follow who feeds them, who lines their pockets with gold. You threatened to take that away’
‘For the common good.’
‘We,’ said Montagu, tapping himself on the breast, ‘the aristocracy, are interested in the common good. You plough the fields, you pay your taxes and our bond is to protect you. No one on my estates ever starved.’
‘Though they ate gritted bread while you dined on swans.’
‘It seemed natural to me. What other way could be imagined? Such was God’s will, I thought. And so do these men, or many of them, though they make the sign of Lucifer, though they stand with their faces raised to the morning light. For every one who truly believes in the friendship of Lucifer, there is another who is here because he follows the crowd, who fears to say what is in his heart. Give him gold, or a stolen candlestick and he feels bolder.’
Dow cast his head into his hands. Edward had seen the weakness of his position and exploited it masterfully.
‘At Crécy you made a promise,’ said Montagu. ‘If I advised your troops, if I advised you on your dealings with Edward, you would help me find the true Prince of Wales, the true heir to the English throne and help rid it of the devil who has usurped that name.’
‘I did.’
‘Then help me now. We can find him – we have the means of the angel feather cloaks. When he is found and returned here, Edward will be destroyed, utterly discredited. You can do to him what he did to you.’
Dow sat for a while more, his legs numb from sitting on the stone.
‘The cloaks weaken those who travel by them.’
‘Yes. But we are made of stern stuff, you and I, Dowzabel.’
‘Why can’t you go alone?’
‘Without your say so I have no right to the cloaks. And you need the glory, just as I need your help. You are a rare magician. You have seen God and faced him down, if you are to be believed, which I think you are. Whatever awaits me when I find the true young Edward, I want you at my side.’
Greatbelly came into the church, a meat cleaver in her hand.
‘Is he in there?’
‘He’s here,’ said Montagu.
She bustled towards him.
‘You’re all right. I’m glad. I’m sorry, Dow, we tried to make you something you’re not.’
‘How many men remain loyal?’
‘How many remain alive? Cornwall is on your side, mostly, some of the men of Wales, but the new converts from London and the marshes have pledged faith to Edward if he allows them to keep their spoils to themselves.’
‘I need to remain here,’ said Dow. ‘I need to be with Lucifer’s friends.’
Greatbelly knelt and hugged him to her.
‘No. You cannot be here for now.’
‘Come with me,’ said Montagu. ‘There is more than one way to shake a king.’
‘And who will speak with Lucifer’s voice here? Who will establish Eden ?’
Greatbelly kissed him on the top of his head.
‘I will,’ she said. ‘Who better than a whore to haggle with powerful men ?’
PART III
1348-1350
The years of the Great Pestilence
1
Far below, far below, they saw a great port under a penny moon, white walls stark in the silver light.
The port was almost empty of ships and all around the walls, laid out for a league around the city, were the tents of what must have been a huge army. Siege engines and earthworks surrounded the walls, and a great herd of horses grazed beyond the limit of the tents. Out at sea, a string of ships sat bobbing like vultures waiting for a lion to drop.
Montagu and Dow spiralled downwards, ever downwards, caught in the angel-feather cloaks’ cocoons of light. They spun as they fell and Dow felt the familiar surge of nausea brought on by their magic flight.
Montagu caught his breath as he saw they were tumbling towards a high tower. The windows were surely too narrow for them to pass through. But pass through they did, landing with a soft thump upon the floor of a deeply carpeted room. At first Dow thought he had stepped into a fire, but he saw that the room was decked in gold and carpets strewn with precious gems. One wall hanging showed the night sky, the swirl of the stars picked out in diamonds, and another Christ on the Cross, His blood rubies, His skin silver against cloth of gold.
A fine feast was set upon an altar – fruits and meats, a calf’s head, the eyes vacant, the meat partly picked away so that the creature seemed to grin down at him.
Montagu retched. He was on all fours, his head spinning, his body weak. Dow, however, stood. There were men about them, swords and knives drawn. He smelled incense and felt the heat of a fire. Words were gabbled in a tongue Montagu half understood. Spanish? Italian.
They were seized, disarmed, the angel feather cloaks stripped. A blue light in the chamber. One of them had drawn Montagu’s sword Arondight, that had been Lancelot’s. Another held up Dow’s heavy falchion. Montagu was bright red, sweating; he tried to stand but he was kicked to the floor by a heavily built man who wore a gem-studded surcoat in the Italian style. There was something odd about him. Montagu focused. The man’s head was misshapen, formless, almost like a wax figure, made by a child who had then pushed its thumb into it. Were Montagu’s eyes full of water? No, the man’s head was really like that.
Montagu had a terrible urge to sink into sleep, as a drowning man might suddenly want to give in to the pull of the water.
‘We are English, come for King Edward’s true son!’ said Montagu.
‘Kill them,’ said a voice, in English, as if for his benefit.
‘No, no, no!’ Something crossed his vision. A pair of rich red boots.
Montagu forced his eyes upwards to discover he was looki
ng at Edward III, or rather, Edward as he had known him when he was young – sixteen or seventeen – when they’d conspired to wrest back power from the tyrant Mortimer. The voice was not Edward’s, though, but a foreigner’s, heavily accented. Italian almost certainly, Genoese at a guess. This young Edward was dressed in the Italian fashion – in a very short tunic, red embroidered with silver swallows. He was paler than his father, slimmer. There was one other in the room beside the young man and the creature with the smudged head, though the third was behind the other two and Montagu only got a sense of him when his sword had been stripped away.
‘It’s you,’ said Montagu. ‘True prince of England.’
The man took Montagu by the arm.
‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘They are assassins, sir, sent by the Tartars to kill you.’ The thing with the misshapen head spoke in English too, its mouth no more than a flap.
‘Do Tartars send Englishmen?’ said the prince. ‘And such weaklings ?’
‘They send anyone.’ From behind the prince and the devil a short, powerful man in a tunic bearing a white fluted cross emerged. Montagu recognised it as the livery of the Knights Hospitaller. He knew well what they were – magical middle-men, who had absorbed the Order of the Templars and forced its magicians to do their bidding. He had fought with them and against them, but you could say that for a lot of people.
The Hospitaller held Arondight in his hand, the blue light of the sword’s steel sharp even under the lamplight.
‘Allow us to dispatch these rogues, sir,’ said the devil.
‘Why does this one call me a prince?’
‘Because that is what you are,’ said Montagu, ‘taken from your cot in a bargain between Isabella, your grandmother, and the devils who backed her rise against her husband.’
‘My grandmother ?’
‘And an enemy of God.’
Even as he said it, Montagu felt a tinge of betrayal. He had betrayed his best friend, the king, in lying with his mother, cuckolded the king’s father – no matter everyone had believed him dead. In penance for his crime he had sought damnation, thrown himself in with these Luciferians.