Son of the Night

by Mark Alder

  ‘I want to see God,’ she said. The scribe scribbled that down.

  The Pope nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  He clapped his hands together. ‘Follow me.’

  4

  Osbert had stuck rather close to La Cerda in the years following the great ‘splitting of the cat’, as the unfortunate division of the king of Navarre had come to be called. And, bizarrely, La Cerda had stuck close to him. He had appointed a couple of men to watch him – which was fine by Osbert, as they were agreeable fellows who liked a drink as much as any man and were tasty types if it came to defending him in a scrap. Beyond this, the lord had been at his side for much of his work, watching him intently. Osbert had the feeling La Cerda had been quietly impressed by his trick of tearing the king of Navarre in half. The court knew the official explanation – that Eu was a sorceror – was rubbish. Osbert had impressed himself by stitching him back together again. La Cerda had been less pleased with that, but had conceded Osbert had little choice, being under the instruction of King John.

  Now he sat looking at Osbert as if at a great treasure. The banishing of Blanche and the death of King Philip had been excellent events as far as La Cerda was concerned. Add to that the bifurcation of Navarre, and it was safe to say that La Cerda regarded Osbert as a splendid fellow indeed, the key to all possibilities. The Plague had abated in the last couple of years – not gone, far from gone, but now it took one in ten instead of two in five or more, like it had before every summer.

  ‘Do you hope to learn my art?’ said Osbert, as La Cerda peered into one of the wax seals he was placing around the door frame.

  ‘I struggle to read,’ said La Cerda. ‘But a lord must know his defences. As I would supervise the construction of a wall or a bailey, I supervise the building of these magical walls.’

  That day, Osbert was on the roof of the tower of the Louvre, inscribing a magic circle and placing on certain seals in order to forestall attack from the air. La Cerda poked about as he did so, examining the seals, asking the odd question.

  ‘This is the name of Our Lord?’

  ‘One of the secret names.’

  La Cerda squinted nearer. ‘And yet you’ve written it in a public place.’

  ‘For those who can read it, who are few. Is it not right that great lords like you should know the names of the Almighty who rose them to great estate?’

  ‘Abba . . . Ab . . . A . . .’ said La Cerda, before giving up. He showed no embarrassment, as no noble would. You could pay someone to read; you can’t pay someone to win you personal honour in battle or to spear a flying boar for you, the things the nobles cared about. Well, you kind of could, but it was much better if you did those things yourself.

  Paris was a wonderful city now the Plague had largely passed. The corpse fires still smouldered, the working man charged a fortune for his services, the working girl even more. Osbert, who accounted himself as somewhere between a craftsman and whore, took their example and billed Prince John handsomely. Osbert was briefly rich, though he couldn’t really work out what he wanted to spend the money on. Not having to work would have been his number one choice, but you didn’t have to be rich to do that. Nor was it an option. The king commanded France be free of devils. Free of devils, though not for free. That might have been another motto.

  Osbert, in his fine court clothes, his long tapering shoes, his beaverskin hat and carrying his gold-topped staff, had been giving a lot of thought to mottos, largely on the grounds that he’d got everything else in life, so he might as well have one. ‘I have everything else in life so might as well have a motto too.’ He tried translating it into Latin, but gave up and carried on stamping seals in wax around the door that accessed the roof. Behind him moved one of the serving girls, a handsome little thing with tits that were monuments to the glory of God, he thought. She was new. Most of the staff were new. Most of them could hardly speak French, or rather had country accents so thick they were unintelligible.

  Gilette was still there and Osbert was flat in love with her. He thought he’d ask her to marry him. Something held him back, though. He couldn’t quite say what it was. Did he feel worthy of her?

  ‘Will this keep Navarre’s sister away if she decides to come back ? The succubus ?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ said Osbert. ‘What was she? An angel trapped in human form, they said.’

  ‘What do you think she was?’

  ‘I have seen such before. It would not surprise me if she was one of the fallen.’

  ‘I should track her down. She should die like a dog for what she did.’

  ‘In my experience,’ said Osbert, ‘fallen angels are not easy to kill.’

  ‘I can kill anything.’

  ‘I believe it, My Lord, on my faith in Christ.’

  He whistled as he painted some holy water around the doorway. This was pleasant work on a sunny day. Where once his work had been in calling devils, now he was employed in banishing them. It was good to see the great spider devil go scurrying from the lodge at Vincennes, to see Pastus pack his bags and slink from the Palace of the Louvre.

  ‘I thought they would disappear in a puff of smoke,’ said La Cerda to Osbert. The two men stood on the ramparts of the tower of the Louvre, breathing in the fine cold air of a May morning.

  ‘I think that is possible under certain circumstances, but here we have merely forbidden them to enter a prescribed boundary,’ said Osbert. ‘They leave as quickly as they can but it is not as if they are washed away by a flood.’

  ‘Your magic is impressive,’ said La Cerda.

  ‘I am too modest to accept that. Though the truth of it is plain enough.’

  He didn’t bother to tell La Cerda that the work of banishing all devils from Paris, or even from the royal palaces, would take years if they required the puff of smoke and crack of lightning option. The easiest way to get rid of them was simply to tell the devils that King John wanted them to go, show them the seal with which the king had entrusted him, and tell them to close the doors on their way out. They were creatures of impeccable respect for hierarchy and it was in their very nature simply to obey. John was an idiot not to have thought of just banning them directly from his whole realm. Would they obey? Probably, unless Edward persuaded them he could be king.

  The rest of the time he had spent sweeping dust from saints’ tombs, extracting bits of blessed oil, crushing up holy teeth and bones and making a sanctuary – firstly in his own lodgings and then around the palace itself. He had commissioned priests and monks to start inscribing a great magic circle all around the walls of Paris but that would have taken years, even assuming the holy idiots knew what they were doing. ‘Look busy, don’t be busy,’ might have been his motto. So many dead. Why not me? La Cerda joined him on the balcony.

  ‘I have word from England,’ he said.

  ‘Yes ? From who ?’

  ‘Our spy at the court. We have a woman there close to the old queen. Close to Edward. Very close.’

  ‘And ?’

  ‘They are summoning devils. Declared for Satan and determined to bring him to this world.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ said Osbert. ‘They would need the keys of Hell. We have one, one of them is with the Antichrist and the other two are God knows where.’

  ‘Find out. These are mighty weapons. We need to get them before England does. If only to lock them away.’

  ‘They will never be found. Never. We are safe there. If they were around then men would have used them all long ago.’

  ‘First time for everything in my experience.’ So holy, thought Osbert. The man even smelled of incense.

  ‘Are our defences safe?’

  ‘For the tower of the Louvre, yes,’ said Osbert.

  ‘King John is a brave man and a righteous one. There will come a time when all devils are gone, all demons too. Then we shall have no need of sorcerers.’

  Osbert touched his breast. ‘I would love to retire to tend grapes. And free myself from this foul
work with fiend and hellhound.’

  ‘The day there are no more devils is the day you die,’ said La Cerda. ‘I blame you for much of this mess in the first place. If you weren’t so useful to us then I’d have you executed on the spot.’

  ‘I endeavour to be of service,’ said Osbert. ‘But there must be other men like me. Killing me would not stop them. There are priests who have communed with the Pit.’

  ‘None of them seem to have your talent for it. And all of them are beholden to Rome. You’re my sorcerer. I understand you completely. You are not a seeker after knowledge, nor even after power. You are a man who wants a comfortable life. You’ll never have one. It’s not what you deserve.’

  He said it as if it was some sort of defect. If more people looked for a comfortable life, and fewer went seeking after knowledge and power, it struck Osbert that the world might be a very much better place. La Cerda left the roof and Osbert took the opportunity to begin loafing, gazing out over the town.

  In the sky, he saw a mote, what he took for one of those strange spirits that seem to float within the eye when you look up into a clear day. But against the blue, he saw something taking shape – a dark form, like a little man with long plumes rising up from his shoulders. A devil! He reached for a case at his side, the one that bore the king’s order that no devil should be in the land. It fluttered towards him, or rather spun, or did something. As it neared, he could see its body was made of two snakes that danced around each other in a dizzying helix. Were they attached? Were they separate? It didn’t matter. Clinging to their tails was none other than the maggoty Simon Pastus.

  ‘Hi, ho, and hold your horses!’ Osbert said. ‘Hold it right there. Out, the pair of you. Not allowed in France, by declaration of the French king.’ He waved the piece of vellum at them. ‘Go on, scarper! What will you be doing for my reputation?’

  ‘I have a message for you,’ said Pastus.

  ‘Not another one,’ said Osbert.

  ‘One knows something,’ said one of the snakes.

  ‘Then one must say,’ said the other.

  ‘Not listening,’ said Osbert, putting his fingers into his ears.

  ‘I bear a message, sent from a prince,’ said one snake.

  ‘He bears a message that must be heard,’ said the other snake.

  ‘It must not be heard,’ said Osbert. ‘I have heard enough of devils. Now go – a king commands.’

  ‘I am technically ambassador to the court and so exempt,’ said Pastus.

  ‘Yes, but they aren’t and they have conveyed you here. They can go and you with them.’

  ‘Montagu is near,’ said Pastus. ‘Possessor of the second key.’

  ‘Well, you get it off him.’

  ‘A devil cannot face such a hero. It must be won by tricks,’ said Pastus.

  ‘So you’re from Navarre,’ said Osbert. Years of street skulduggery had taught him to very quickly work out whose hand was thrust up any particular puppet. Osbert had worked out that Montagu had the second key. Only one other person was in a position to do that and that was Navarre, who had been in the tower when it was taken from him.

  ‘Montagu would meet with you forthwith. He is the sword of God.’

  ‘I’m not leaving this palace, mate. Nice try. Navarre would have me in bits in minutes. Or summoning devils or something that is out of the line of work I currently enjoy. So hop it.’ He gestured with his thumb for the creature to disappear.

  ‘Remember, you escape damnation according to our deal, if you find the keys,’ said Pastus, dangling from below the creatures.

  Osbert clung to the balustrade before him, as if he feared the snake would tear him away.

  ‘No, no, no, no no,’ he said.

  ‘You are in peril. France is in peril.’

  ‘Well, I expect there’ll be a crumb in it for me – there normally is,’ said Osbert. ‘And . . .’ He had been looking at the two gyrating snakes for rather a long time. His head felt dizzy. Very dizzy. He touched the bone of St Aaron he kept in his pocket, offering a prayer to the saint. His head cleared.

  ‘Piss off,’ he said. ‘The three of you.’

  ‘You will come,’ said the snakes. ‘By bait or by hook, you will come. By the baited hook.’

  The two snakes shimmered and twisted, then vanished upwards, Pastus beneath them.

  Cheeky bastards, sneaking in on the orders of Navarre. Yes, by the book they were obeying a king, but they must have known full well they were countermanding the orders of a much greater king. Pastus might have had a point with the ambassador thing, he supposed. He shivered.

  ‘One banishing for the day, lots of protection work, one quest avoided,’ said Osbert to himself. ‘Time for a glass of wine and a walk with Gilette.’

  He began to wonder what was happening to him. His normal state of raging lust had faded. He thought not so much about other women now, though he naturally did think of them. He thought of her, standing by his side. Sometimes he thought the whole world would die and he would be left with her – a new Adam, a new Eve, to start all over again. So Pastus had ended up in Normandy, had he? Clearly now advising Navarre. Osbert was no fool and saw exactly what he was – a weapon. Navarre might hate him but he would covet him too. He probably wanted him to find a way to stitch him back together.

  He made his way down to the kitchens to find Gilette, but she wasn’t there, just cooks busying themselves about the place. He tasted a pie here, licked gravy there for a while but Gilette did not appear. He did not feel like wine. Why did he not feel like wine? He always felt like wine. When dinner was served and she still did not return and the cook cursed her for not being there to help with the cleaning and stacking of the plates, he knew.

  He walked out into the kitchen garden, looked up at the night sky. She had gone – been taken in order to draw him out of the protection of Paris and into the clutches of Navarre, at last. No devils to help him, no cloak of angel’s feathers. All magic banished.

  He should, of course, have let her go. She was as good as dead in the hands of Navarre, more than likely raped and murdered already. He knew what was coming on the other side of the garden gate, knew where he would be going – on a pretence to bargain for the life of Gilette.

  He went up into the body of the Louvre to find his rooms, collected a few things. He would need to escape from the palace – La Cerda would never give him permission to leave. That would not be difficult, in truth. There were guards on the main entrance but the kitchen and the attendant gardens were not policed, though they were locked from the inside. And, if he was stopped, he would make some excuse.

  The kitchen was quiet and a mist hung over the garden as he left the Louvre. He walked through dingy streets that led from the palace, close-lying alleys that radiated from the king’s dwellings, places of vice and danger – in normal times. Now they were eerily silent, so many had died in the Plague years.

  Osbert knew what to expect – the footsteps following him, the sense of being a target. It was dark and only a weak moon lit the streets. He could scarcely see his hand before his face and he stumbled as he stepped on. Then there was the flash of torches behind him. He kept walking, secure in his judgement that whoever had taken Gilette – and it had to be Pastus acting on Navarre’s say-so – would be coming for him then.

  Torches before him now. Nowhere to walk so he stopped. A hissed voice.

  ‘Stop in the name of Navarre.’

  ‘I thought I smelled cat’s piss,’ said Osbert.

  A man strode forward, his face obscured by the light of a torch, and struck Osbert very hard across the face with his open hand.

  Osbert saw a white light at the side of his eye but he did not cry out or sink to his knees.

  ‘You boys are going to have to keep me sweet if I’m going to do as your lord and master wants,’ he said.

  Another heavy blow, this time to the belly. He sank to his knees and looked up in anticipation of further punishment. A toughlooking man, a fighter by his buil
d, was standing above him.

  ‘I’ll explain to the king of Navarre why I can’t heal him owing to the ringing in my ears after the blow you’ve given me. The same goes if you hurt Gilette. I cannot mend kings in a state of grief.’

  The fighting man said nothing, just pulled him to his feet.

  ‘The marshes,’ he said.

  Hands grabbed him, and pushed him on through the tiny streets. Why the torches? he thought. Why the torches? It’s like they want to be seen. Of course! He was bait! Get La Cerda to chase him and leave the door to an unimpeded meeting with King John open!

  ‘Hurry up,’ said a voice.

  Osbert didn’t resist but let himself be bumped along. A torch was beside him, blinding his eyes. Then it was on the floor. Two torches on the floor. Three. They were throwing their torches down. No they weren’t – they were falling. The man who had hold of Osbert threw his own torch away, drew his sword.

  A flash of something brighter than fire – so bright it lit the whole street. A cry as another man hit the ground. Only two left. He felt a sword at his throat.

  ‘Move and I cut his throat.’

  ‘Cut it, then. You’ll save us the trouble.’

  It was a voice he recognised. Dowzabel – the boy who had sent him to Hell in the first place, his only real companion of the years of magical apprenticeship trapped in a magic circle in a cellar in Bow. He was under no illusions, though. The boy was not his friend. He was a fanatic.

  Osbert spoke to the man holding him.

  ‘We’re both dead,’ he said.

  But he was wrong. Only one of them was.

  5

  ‘I wish I knew where that sorcerer was – I would feel more comfortable about this.’ In truth, Charles of Navarre hadn’t felt comfortable since he had been split in two. His iron corset chafed him, his neck collar gave him an ache, and now he wore a great padded coat on top of them, a coat of mail on top of that. He’d be out of the armour as soon as the business was done but he bore no hope it would bring him any relief.