Son of the Night

by Mark Alder

  12

  Philippa lay in her bed, but no sleep would visit her. She was alone, for a queen, with only three ladies-in-waiting sleeping on beds around her, though she knew there was a guard just the other side of the door in her room in the Château de Calais. Her two children were with her too – full-grown, their long limbs and golden heads lying on couches. She had kept them with her, though they had found her company strange. They had been raised as Luciferians, unused to the riches befitting their station, unused to servants and to prayer. But they stayed; there was that. She would win them eventually, and though she could never reclaim their infancy – games in the gardens at Windsor, boats on the river, seeing her son fitted for his first armour – she could love them in their youth.

  A single wax candle burned, though she had nothing to read. Her husband had seen to it that no book came anywhere near her – for fear that a Bible might be slipped to her and of the damage she might wreak with it. They said she could summon angels. She wished that were true.

  She went to her window, past the softly snoring ladies, and looked out through its arch to the sea. Her husband’s ships had arrived with provisions and troops from England, flying the banners of St George, and of Satan. Once unloaded, the army would march south for Poitiers. This town was England, or at least half of it was, so devils massed about the quay and flew thick in the air. She saw a multitude of winding, flying snakes writhing in the air above the mast of her husband’s ship, great flies above them. On the dock, men who seemed made all of water themselves, living fountains in the image of men, slid into the water while the devils of the imagination, horned, fanged and winged, collected spears from human soldiers.

  News had come that the king of Navarre had been imprisoned by King John and – even better – that John was marching south to meet the Black Prince. Navarre was held under close guard and his captains in Normandy had received no new instructions. Being disinclined to fight, they were holding to their castles. They would not help Edward but they would not oppose him. He could land on the Norman coast and was fairly confident that Le Havre would allow him passage. No fighting his way out of the Calais marshes.

  There were no bowmen here. They had disembarked in Aquitaine with her son, the one they called the Black Prince. Was he still alive, the boy they had swapped for that monster? There was something cold in Philippa’s heart; her stomach seemed turned to stone.

  How could a man like her husband be allowed to prosper? He had taken her children, used them to further his ambitions. She had no holy objects, no focus for her prayer. For want of something to do, and out of habit, she took out her embroidery. She was completing a little design for Edward – a cross of St George with the motto of the Knights of the Garter below. In truth she had not much enthusiasm for the design, but a lady must always be sewing – so had said her mother – and it calmed her to do so.

  She could not allow Satan to be summoned to earth. God had places for everyone and His place for Satan was in Hell. What calamity if he escaped? What calamity if he neglected his duty! A pact with the Sons of Lucifer, a pact with demons and the damned ! No ! No !

  She went to calm herself by sewing but she quickly saw that God had guided her hand. At the bottom of her bag of bits, where she kept the buttons, thimbles and odd bits of thread, she saw a glint. The fragment of glass the pauper Tancré had given her. She crossed herself and looked hard at it. The light shifted inside, reaching out to her like a sunbeam. She had not mentioned its existence to her husband, nor to anyone, and had put it away for fear of what it had shown. Tancré had said it was part of a window from the church of Gâtinais. Was that not, in its way, a holy relic, and did it not shine with holy light?

  She held it inside her hands, stroked it. Then she pressed it between her palms and knelt in prayer.

  ‘Holy Father, by this relic, grant me to know your wishes.’

  She cupped her hands. The fragment glowed blue like a little star. Philippa renewed her prayer. ‘Angels, who spoke to me at Mont-Saint-Michel, come and attend me now.’

  What would she do? Who could replace her husband and the monster that stood in for her son on the throne? Even the children she carried had been infected with devil blood. These beautiful young people who slept beside her had devils’ blood coursing through them. Could she see them rule? She didn’t know. All she could do was love them and trust to God.

  The star’s light dimmed and she held it close to her eye. She heard a voice, from within like the shift of sand in a box: ‘Mortimer.’

  Philippa crossed herself.

  Not him, not the man who had usurped her husband’s power.

  ‘Mortimer.’ The voice again, as if far off.

  ‘Lord, be clear with me, let me know your mind.’

  ‘Mortimer !’

  And then a vision, in a blink. He was there, in front of her, reaching towards her, ‘The Mortimer’ as Edward II had called him, splendid in a raiment of light. He bore in his hand a sword of light and on his head was a crown wrought in the shape of three brawling lions.

  ‘Mortimer !’

  She closed her hands over the fragment, her heart thumping. She knew what to do. There was no doubt. It was a choice between her husband and God. There could only be one winner. She woke one of her ladies.

  ‘Get up. Tell my husband I would wish him goodbye. Let me see him on the dock.’

  Who for the throne of England? Anyone but Edward. Anyone but the devil posing as her son.

  Morning came.

  She waited as the other ladies woke, emptied the chamberpots, took out the queen’s clothes for the day. After she was dressed and anointed in oils, the lady returned, begging pardon for the length of her delay.

  ‘He will see you, escorted, at the water’s side,’ she said. Philippa rose, gripping tight on the glass fragment as if she feared it would float away.

  Her ladies and the guards took her down to the waterfront. The boats were in mighty array, forty of them, unloading provisions from England, the army ready to march on Paris once the Black Prince had drawn John to Poitiers.

  Edward emerged on the deck of the hulk, that damned lion at his side as always. She offered a prayer again, to save herself from its teeth. That was unworthy. If God wanted her as a martyr, she should accept it. It was also cowardly. Such a devil wouldn’t try its claws on a queen.

  In the morning sun the king looked magnificent, his breastplate shining silver, his caparison red, a page behind him carrying his helm and weapons. There was no need to be wearing such gear so far from a battle. But to all his men the king was saying, ‘Look at me. Was I not built for war? Who could stand against such a king?’ She could.

  He saw her and bowed his head, came down the gangplank towards her. In his armour he moved as easily as a boy, as he had been when she first knew him. Now his limbs were thicker, his body solid and wider, but his grace was undiminished.

  ‘Philippa,’ he said, ‘are you ready?’ They had not spoken since her children were restored to her.

  ‘I am ready.’

  He knew her too well; he could see her disapproval in the force with which she clasped her hands, the tightness with which she held her shoulders.

  ‘You will board the ship,’ he said. ‘Lady, you are a queen and your responsibility is to England. You will protect us from the angels.’

  ‘What is England? When we were young we never spoke of England, just family and our right.’

  ‘I am England,’ he said. ‘And everywhere that I rule is England too.’

  ‘Then England has betrayed me.’

  The king looked pale.

  ‘I did what I did for the greater good.’

  ‘You speak in French now, like a ruler. Not English, affecting to have something in common with the low born. As if their cause was your cause.’

  ‘Their homes and livelihoods are at stake if we lose to France.’

  ‘Really? Or would it be just another set of masters? Your home, your livelihood, mine too, are at
stake, not theirs.’

  ‘They fight for me because they love me and their homeland!’

  ‘They fight because God says that is what they must do.’

  ‘Good enough reason, I should have thought.’

  ‘I wonder. I wonder if that is what God wants.’

  She held forward the fragment of glass.

  ‘What is this?’

  The glass glowed blue in her hand.

  ‘If you think to bewitch me, I . . .’

  A kaleidoscope of colour burst over his face from the glass, dancing patterns of red, blue and green.

  ‘This is a thing of God,’ she said.

  ‘It is . . .’

  He swayed, unsteady on his feet.

  ‘You stole my children,’ she said. ‘And you frustrated God’s purpose, wedding me to your unholy cause. Look into this glass and behold what you should have done. You are God’s enemy, yet you would raise His servant Satan up as a lord.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Sloth roared from the deck, his voice like a fist in the face.

  ‘Mortimer,’ said Edward. ‘Mortimer is in that glass.’

  ‘He speaks from Heaven,’ said Philippa.

  The king rocked back and forth. Philippa herself felt giddy – the blue of the day, the play of the colours on Edward’s face. Sloth sprang over the gangplank, his teeth bared.

  ‘I am a sinner.’ Edward collapsed to the boards.

  ‘What magic is this?’ said Sloth.

  ‘The king is inconvenienced,’ said Philippa. ‘Prince Edward is away. I am in power here. Bow before me.’

  Sloth looked around him, his great mane rattling, as if asking for advice. Then he knelt and bowed his head.

  ‘Take King Edward to his chamber,’ she said. ‘Stand down the sails. We ride for Gâtinais.’

  ‘The Black Prince will be slaughtered,’ said Sloth. ‘We must get word to him! I’ll send a devil!’

  ‘What was it my husband said at Crécy? “Let the boy win his spurs.” No word will be sent, by my command, appointed by God. My son’s fortune is in the hands of God. I leave on God’s business. Now get me a horse saddled, we’ll be gone within the hour.’

  13

  Five monks cowered in the darkness. These were not warlike men and were unarmed. Aude kicked them on down the passage. ‘Where is it? Where is the banner?’

  ‘We cannot tell you that.’

  ‘I will kill you.’

  ‘Keep them moving,’ said Dow. If they were holy men, their blood would be useful to his ritual.

  Aude drove the men on into the depths of the tomb.

  As Dow had suspected, the tomb was well marked with sigils and magical devices. They were carved into the wall in a style he had not seen before – figures of angels and the stories from the Bible. Each was beautifully rendered and, in the glow of the angelic armour and weapons, he could see they had been exquisitely painted and inlaid with gold.

  Would such things work against the Evertere? Would they work against what he was planning to release upon the earth – all the devils of Hell? He doubted it.

  The tomb went down two levels into a short corridor. In one small dusty room were three sarcophaguses. In another, through a doorway engraved with magic circles and the names of angels, just one sarcophagus.

  ‘No! No!’ said a monk.

  ‘If you can’t keep quiet I will kill you here,’ said Aude.

  The monks all crossed themselves.

  Dow approached the sarcophagus. He touched the lid and withdrew his hand on instinct. Something was stirring inside.

  ‘How did you get it out of its box?’ said Dow. He recalled the banner had been in a specially sealed container, when he had put it away at Crécy.

  ‘It’s still in the box,’ said a monk. ‘We put it in without opening it.’

  Dow slid back the lid. It was not the box as he remembered it. Someone had constructed an outer steel skin around it – another metal box held together with rivets. There was no lock, no hinge. It was sealed shut.

  ‘Get it out,’ said Dow.

  ‘You will use it for evil.’

  ‘Kill one of them, Aude.’

  Aude raised her sword.

  ‘All right! All right!’

  He took out the first key to Hell from his bag, opening the little case that carried it very carefully.

  There it was, gossamer thin. A breath might blow it away.

  ‘It will want blood.’ Dow passed the key to Aude. The monks quailed.

  Dow cut a little nick on the side of his forearm. A bead of blood appeared. He sheathed the misericord and gestured for Aude to give him back the key. She did so and he held it so that the blood dropped on to it. The little bead sat for an instant on top of the key and then was sucked within as if it had never been there.

  The monks fell to their knees, praying and crossing themselves.

  He laid the key on the ground. The smell of smoke. Were the monks above trying to burn them out already? Would Isabella allow that ?

  He had used the key before, with invocations and with circles made from the dust of the tombs of saints, but never like this. No circle. No protection against whatever might come through. What did he expect? An increase in the closeness of the room, a ringing of bells, the feeling of teetering on the edge of a great precipice. The key had drunk blood. It should work. But it did not. He squeezed more blood on to it, but nothing.

  The smell of smoke came drifting through the door.

  ‘I thought you could do this,’ said Aude.

  ‘So did I. Kill one of the brothers, we’ll drain his blood onto the thing.’

  ‘No!’ screamed a monk.

  Aude grabbed one by the habit but the others ran to the door, wrenching it aside, jumping through and falling into the red light of the first layer of Hell. A heat blast like a smith’s furnace hit Dow. He went to the doorway and saw that it led to a precarious, crumbling terrace on the edge of a huge wall of red bricks that ran with ichor and slime. Aude cried out.

  ‘How can they get out, how can the devils get out? If they come here ?’

  ‘They’ll find a way!’ said Dow. ‘Let’s open the banner as soon as we are in Hell.’ He pushed the box containing the Evertere in front of him, steeled himself and stepped out onto the terrace. Clouds of stinging black smoke bit his eyes and he blinked for vision. He was impossibly high up. He had seen the cliffs at Dover and this wall towered way beyond their height.

  He took a step on the terrace, the heat rising up through his boots. Aude stepped out beside him.

  ‘Does the armour protect you?’ he said. ‘Can you see?’

  ‘Yes !’

  ‘Strike the box! Free the banner.’

  He leant back against the wall of the terrace but the ground crumbled beneath his feet.

  ‘No!’ he heard Aude say and, blinking through the smoke, he saw the Evertere falling away far below.

  No time for panic. He could retrieve it. ‘Be my eyes until we get down!’ he said.

  Aude crossed herself out of habit but then made the three fingers of Lucifer on her chest. It was the last he saw, his eyes shutting tight against the smoke.

  She took his hand and led him down. As they descended, the smoke cleared and he could see better. Coming up towards them was a man who appeared to be carrying an armful of rope. Dow saw when he got closer that it was his entrails, which spilled from a ragged hole in his side.

  ‘Are you one of the damned, brother?’ said Dow. ‘For the way is open to you!’

  The man hissed and threw his entrails like a great ensnaring rope. Aude was in the lead and, though the shield raised itself to protect her, the entrails wrapped over it, engulfing her armour. Three snicks from the rainbow blade and they were severed, the devil – for he must have been a devil – staggering backwards and falling from the wall. Dow wondered what happened to these Devils when they died in Hell. Did they cease to exist or did they simply live on, terribly maimed, for ever?

  ‘Don’t kill ever
yone who comes this way or they’ll never find the gate is open,’ said Dow. He was crying with the smoke and with the emotion. So close to his goal. When Hell had opened before, God had bargained with Dow for the release from Hell of his beloved Nan. Now he would take her and restore her to life, with all the unjustly damned.

  They stumbled on down the stinking walls, their feet slipping on the slime that thrived in the heat.

  The fall of the first devil was attracting the attention of others now. Dow saw them massing at the distant foot of the stairs – hundreds, maybe a thousand devils, great grey bodied things that, even at such a distance, looked enormous.

  ‘Can we fight them?’

  ‘Yes, but can I protect you?’ said Aude. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps if I go down there alone.’

  ‘No. We can’t fight all of Hell, or at least I can’t. And they kept angels here too, I know it, ones who fell with Lucifer. There might be things to harm you. Let us see if we can talk to them.’

  ‘About what ?’

  ‘Their freedom. Their master’s wish to leave Hell.’

  They went down. As they got closer they saw that the creatures resembled the hippopotamus of legend – giant things as big as houses each. As Dow and Aude approached they all roared as one, and Dow could see that in their peg-toothed mouths were living people, striving to get out but quickly chomped back down again by the devils. There, embedded in the floor, was the box with the Evertere in it.

  ‘Who here?’ said three of the devils simultaneously.

  ‘What purpose?’ said another three.

  ‘That is angel light,’ said another three. ‘And it hurts our eyes.’

  ‘We are men of the upper world,’ said Dow, ‘come to offer the jailer of Hell his own freedom.’

  ‘How can men offer Satan freedom? You are damned souls for sure.’

  ‘We have the keys to Hell. No damned soul could touch them.’

  He produced the first key.

  The great hulks chattered and clacked their jaws, the people within groaning and screaming in pain.