by Mark Alder
‘All of them,’ said Dow, ‘from the richest to the poorest. Humanity is corrupted. We’ll have Eden again and we will start anew.’
The creature gave a slow nod. Then it opened its mouth and out poured a black multitude, a gushing, flowing river of hopping, biting fleas. Montagu gasped as he tried uselessly to stop the creatures pouring over him. He could not and, in a moment, he was dead.
2
The Pope, to Isabella’s surprise, rejected her request for a meeting. No explanation, no elaboration, and she wondered if it had been wise to deliver the letter by a clanking stoneskin. It was well established now that devils served God, but perhaps the Pope was of an older outlook that uncharitably viewed anything with horns, wings and a tail as an enemy of the Almighty.
This was a setback, for sure, but Isabella had waited long enough for her Mortimer. She could wait a little longer.
She made preparations for the arrival of Eu, not least a brief correspondence with interested parties in France. She would go to a convent, bide her time and wait for the dice to fall. She would raise no more devils and live the life of a penitent until God recognised her plight and gave her an audience with the Pope. Yes, she saw what needed to be done. Charles of Navarre must be guided on his way to power, but not in a way that might strengthen her son’s hand. He wrote back to her to thank her for the spells she had sent him and suggested that the Count of Eu might be the ideal man to further both their aims.
Eu arrived at the Cheylesmore Lodge a few days after the Feast of the Assumption, a long evening in August. He was received by her maids and given lodgings and food for the night. She had decided she would greet him the next morning as, though she was keen to get down to business, great ladies do not come scuttling downstairs to greet mere counts.
She received him in the morning room, the walls draped with the best tapestries requisitioned from the rich guilds of Coventry. Most of them had been acceptable scenes of hunting – one, pleasingly, of her marriage to old King Edward – but one, from the Dyers’ Guild, was rather puzzling. It depicted two men taking a sheet from a barrel while another, richly dressed, held what must be an abacus and gazed into the distance, as if into the future.
After Eu had greeted her correctly, set a little vial of perfume in a silvered bottle before her as a gift, she dismissed her ladies and his men.
‘What do you think of that?’ she said, nodding at the tapestry. Eu studied it with a look of mild surprise.
‘Did you choose it?’
‘No, I hung it here for its curiosity value. Odd, is it not?’
‘Very odd,’ said Eu.
‘Who could think that a dyer, no matter how rich he had made himself, no matter that he be richer than a king, could be thought a suitable subject for a tapestry?’
‘A dyer, presumably.’
‘They have thoughts?’
‘Thoughts cost nothing. They are available to rich and poor alike.’
‘I shall have you marked for a man of Lucifer,’ she said, smiling, leaning forward almost as if to touch him on the hand but then withdrawing slightly.
She saw she had his attention. Isabella had ridden at the head of an army and knew what it was like to face battle, though she had not been raised to it, like a knight. In this, though – this courtly dance of flirtation, teasing, suggestion of favours material or perhaps more that might be granted should the target of her art bend to her will – she was without equal. She saw Eu’s eyes narrow. He knew what men had done for her – setting forward thinking they were fulfilling their destinies with spear and sword in their hands, when all the time they were simply fulfilling hers.
‘What can we make of this?’ she said. ‘I have seen tapestries before that show the low people toiling but always in their place – harvesting, smithing, threshing or building under the eye of the nobleman, his hawk upon his arm. Can work – necessary, trifling, sweating, dirty work – be placed on a par with the acts of princes ?’
‘If no one works, the acts of princes do not get done. The smith that beats the sword, the cook that feeds the army are as necessary in their way as the paladin who strides the field, a bane to all his foes.’
Isabella puckered her lips and widened her eyes as if she had just been told a rather off-colour joke.
‘You are a man of Lucifer!’
‘Let’s just say I have been in war, great Lady.’
‘And I too. But I never imagined that the farmer who made the hay for my horse was as important as me, at the head of the battle.’
‘Not as important, Lady, but important nevertheless – as the beetle gobbled by the goose is as important to its presence at table.’
Isabella waved her hand like a lady dealing with a midge.
‘I did not bring you here to talk of the barbarities of the modern age.’
He inclined his head.
‘I have certain communications in my possession,’ she said. ‘From the king of Navarre.’
‘He has been a stalwart defender of mine at the Paris court.’
‘Well, yes and no. More no, actually. You are aware he would see himself king?’
‘Impossible. His family surrendered their right years ago.’
Isabella smiled, as if to a slow child who has produced an amusing, if wholly wrong, answer to a simple question.
Eu caught her meaning. ‘There are other men in that position. King John. His son Charles. The Valois line is secure.’
‘It would not be so if the English have another Crécy.’
‘Hardly likely. Mistakes were made that day that will not be repeated.’
‘My son, Edward, has not given up his claim to France.’
Eu sat up straight.
‘He will find it harder to make his way this time.’
‘He has Calais.’
‘A city under the control of a whore, at the neck of marshes that may as well be the neck of a bag, so securely do they hold him. When Calais is France it is a valuable trading port. When it is English it may as well be under siege.’
Again, Isabella smiled.
‘Do you imagine my son couldn’t fight his way out if he pleased?’
‘Yes I do, or he would not be in there. His bowmen are heretics and blasphemers. Many of them have never had a proper roof over their heads. They have no will to move from that town.’
‘There are other bowmen. And other entrances.’
‘Where?’ She saw that Eu was rattled. He almost stood.
‘Normandy.’
‘I can think of ten good castles and as many good towns he would need to overthrow to get through there again. The Norman lords are safe under the command of the King of Navarre.’ The words seemed to drop from his mouth like misfired gunstones.
Isabella widened her arms.
‘Last time,’ she said, ‘we fought largely alone. Gascons, yes, and other men of wider Aquitaine. But with the Normans on side too—’
‘Would Navarre be so treacherous?’
She opened a bag at her side and took out a document.
Eu picked it up and read. It was a letter from the king of Navarre. It promised access to his Norman lands for an English invading force, military help, and an understanding that Edward would be king of half of France, he the other half. The letters seemed to swim before his eyes. It was Navarre’s hand, for sure, his big childish scrawl – Eu had seen it on enough official documents at the French court.
‘How did you get this?’
‘I am not without friends at Windsor.’
‘Why are you showing me it?’
‘Why do you think?’
‘I have no idea.’
She leant forward, suddenly intense.
‘You only need to know that I do not wish this escapade to succeed.’
Eu studied the letter again. Yes, it was Navarre’s scrawly hand. It could not be mistaken. He read on. His benefactor, the man he had thought would help him, was secretly planning his country’s downfall. So why offer to help Eu? Was Navar
re playing a double game? Did he hope to betray the English, defeat them and then . . .
Of course. Eu would be back in France, beholden to Navarre, in his debt. This was Navarre’s way of becoming constable. Were the English too stupid to see that? Was Isabella? Or perhaps it was a truly subtle plan, one of hoped for outcomes and contingency positions. Maybe Navarre would betray the English; maybe he wouldn’t. Eu bristled. Did Navarre think he could be bought like a market day pig? Did he think France could be bargained away in the same manner?
‘With Navarre’s help, with the Black Prince so much older, so much stronger than at Crécy, you cannot guarantee its failure, ma’am. Already Princess Joan travels to be wed at Castile. That will be a mighty alliance.’
‘She will never make it,’ said Isabella.
‘She might, she . . .’
Isabella fixed him with her cold blue eyes. My God, what kind of monster was this woman, who would kill her own granddaughter?
She went on, as if discussing the price of spice on the Leadenhall market.
‘What if the plot were exposed? What if, instead of a welcome party in Normandy, my son met with the flower of French chivalry, ready to defend their lands? Might such a victory not encourage a French angel to return?’
Eu puckered his lips, as if trying a new food and deciding if he liked it or not.
‘It might. Or might not.’
‘An angel needs to return. I have need of one.’
‘You are English!’
‘An Englishwoman, true,’ she said in her perfect court French. ‘I see no chance of an angel coming to England – we are in league with every kind of fiend. If one comes to France you may be sure I will speak to it. But you need it more. France needs the emissaries of God among it again, doing its bidding. Would not the slaying of a great imposter, a devil in the role that God set for man, please the angels?’
‘Navarre ?’
‘Yes. But one even greater too. I could hand you my grandson. You could pick your time to remove him from the English ranks. His sudden disappearance on the morning of battle would affright the entire English army. And it would please God, I believe.’
Eu remained calm, though she saw the sheen of sweat on his brow.
‘Then the rumours are true.’
‘The true prince was taken as an infant and replaced with that thing.’
‘Does Edward know?’
‘I don’t think he believed me.’
‘At Crécy he let him be sorely tested.’
‘And by you at the tournament, if my spies tell me true. He knows – he must.’
‘I think he tried to have him killed. By me.’
‘I doubt it. My son is direct, and if he wanted the creature dead he would be dead. More likely he was seeking to confirm what he already suspected.’
‘To what end?’
‘The Black Prince is a devil, and a very powerful one. If Satan has placed an emissary as heir to the throne of England, then Satan has a purpose. That means he wants something and can be bargained with.’
‘More devils.’
‘Directly obtained.’
Eu laughed. ‘With you removed from the reckoning.’
‘Indeed.’ She smiled.
‘So you have not moved against the prince?’
‘I am moving against it. This is why you are here. Because God’s interests and my interests no longer coincide with those of my son and this thing he has invented called England. My son has been my enemy since he dragged my love Mortimer from my arms and butchered him at Tyburn. I cannot have him stronger. I cannot have him independent.’
Eu looked ready to bolt for the door.
‘I will pay your ransom,’ she said.
‘That . . .’
He did not want to say it, but surely Isabella didn’t have the money to cover that. She had lands, yes, and more since her escape from her prison in the east, but the amount Edward wanted would test the French crown, let alone the little English one.
‘You think I haven’t the money?’
He said nothing.
She took off her rings and threw them towards him, undid the fine necklace at her neck.
‘You will have to add a little,’ she said. ‘I can give Nottingham Castle back to my son, perhaps Castle Rising too. Beyond that, everything I own.’
‘Leaving you with nothing.’
‘Yes. Nothing. I am sorry for what I have done and intend to live the life of a nun.’
Eu could not have been more surprised if she had said she was going to sprout wings and fly him home personally. In fact, in these days of sorcery, he would have been much less surprised.
‘And in return?’
‘You will be the count of Eu. It’s simple, is it not? I ask no more of you than to fight for your country, rid it of evil men and resist the invader. Keep the letter for when you return. And one thing more. The prince is a devil and can be summoned like a devil, though it will take great art to do so. You must find a cunning man in France. The Hospitallers might provide someone if they don’t know your purpose, or one of the old Templars. Was there not a man at court who summoned many devils for Hugh Despenser when he fought with the French?’
‘There was.’
‘So seek him out.’
She took out another scroll.
‘I am sworn not to harm this Black Prince. Not so you. Use the cunning man, the sorcerer, whoever you can find and take this, along with certain relics I have collected. Dust from Becket’s tomb, the hair of St Joan. Summon the prince to Paris and kill him there. You still have the great Charles’s sword?’
‘I have. They have not taken it from me.’
‘Do you wonder why not? Such devils are wary around blessed items such as that. Summon him to France and kill him with whatever blessed items you can find. Do it at the just moment, exactly when it will weaken our forces most.’
‘And if your son, the king should be killed?’
‘Then that is God’s will. Go, dear Eu. Restore your France, save it from the grip of idiots and evil men. And bring back its angels, for I need to speak to one.’
‘You would shake nations simply to speak to an angel?’
She found herself bowing her head, as if in prayer. ‘For love and for Heaven, I would cast them into the sea.’
She dismissed Eu from her room and sat down to write to Navarre.
‘Eu is coming. Give him a month before you act.’ She included certain spells and with them the travel itinerary of Joan of England for her journey to her new life in Castile. Then she drew out the box that contained her poisons. How many of her ladies-in-waiting were spies? All of them, she guessed. She would kill them all to be sure before she left for Navarre in case one had managed by hook or crook to find out what she was doing. She would start with that simpering wretch Alice.
‘Alice!’ she called. ‘Alice! Attend me.’
But Alice was nowhere to be found. Isabella called for a groom. She would ride for Dover immediately.
3
‘I would have loved to have seen her in her wedding dress.’
Edward clasped Philippa to him. `The great devil Sloth looked on, his head bowed onto his great mane of steel rods in respect.
The queen’s face was wet with tears. She made no effort to brush them away.
Joanna was dead, their daughter, killed by the Great Plague on her way to be married at Castile. Not yet fifteen, she had been Edward’s favourite, and he had put great faith in the value of the alliance her marriage to the great Spanish state would bring. Now? All ashes. All ashes.
Edward tightened his jaw. He was as near to weeping as Philippa had ever seen him, but tears were not for the king. They were for other, lesser, men, women and children. The king’s grief ran to anger, to the smashing of chairs, sometimes of people. Now, though, he stood almost limply, dazed. Grief had come upon him too many times. He had punched and he had kicked and he had broken and torn and what good had it done him?
‘What a specta
cle she should have made,’ said Edward. ‘What a pleasure to man and to angels. Where are the angels? Where are the angels? Where is God? Why has He forsaken me?’
Philippa crossed herself. Was Edward comparing himself to Christ? If he was, then he was a poor Christ. The only time he turned the other cheek was to drive a fist into it.
Philippa had been at the fitting. The rakematiz alone had been 150 yards long – silk, imported at huge expense. Then all her lovely clothes for the feast. They had worked a way to build corsets into two of the dresses so they were almost invisible, one dress in green rakematiz embroidered all over with roses and wild men chasing wild animals, the other brown with a base of powdered gold, woven with lions as a sign of her royal birth. Then there were the velvet suits strewn with silver, the golden corsets of stars and diamonds, the diamond hairnet, the boar brooches in tribute to her father. All these riches in Joanna’s train walled in at Bordeaux by the docks, which had then been burnt and levelled by the townspeople terrified of the Plague.
‘You look like you have fallen from Heaven,’ her mother had said to her. And now she had gone back to it.
‘The alliance is gone,’ said Edward, stating the obvious.
Philippa didn’t mind that he turned from the personal tragedy to the political so quickly; she knew him to be a practical man who had suffered a great many deaths of those dear to him. He had his own ways of coping and she needed to respect those.
She held his hand.
‘Where is God?’ he said. ‘Where is God? He has never helped me, never stood by my side. One minor angel He granted me – one. Philip filled the air with his angels. And where was God when the dragon came? What does it say in Revelation? That the dragon shall be cast down! And yet it tore the angels from the sky as the hawk tears the dove. Where is God? Where is God?’
He leant against the wall, thumped it with the butt of his fist. Other men might weep. Edward raged, but Philippa could see how hurt he was. Joan was his favourite.
Philippa said nothing, bowed her head, let her tears flow. She had another burden on her heart, more and even worse than this, and she could not tell him. She was sure their son had been taken and a devil put in his place. She had swapped Eu’s lance for a sharp one and it had pierced Edward’s armour but the prince had not even been unhorsed. In the contest of daggers things had been different, and Philippa knew why. She had arranged for Eu to be passed a blessed dagger. So the ordinary lance had failed to wound the prince but the blessed dagger had cut him. Only one conclusion could be drawn: he was a devil. Now, what to do about it? Eu had not yet found the sorceror, though he was sending letters discreetly.