The Devil's Library

by Tom Pugh

  How is God’s name? Longstaff’s breath came in short gasps. He’d spent the afternoon making comments about the size of the Frenchman’s pack, now it turned out he was trailing assassins across the Holy Roman Empire.

  The stable boy scratched his sore. “Stop it,” said Durant, climbing from his horse. “You’ll only make it worse.”

  For a moment, Longstaff thought he’d rather take his chances with the boyars. “A word,” he drew the Frenchman into the stables. “We have to ride on.”

  “I’m tired and hungry, and in no mood for jokes. I want something to eat and a warm bed for the night.”

  “There are three men inside. They’re here to kill me.”

  Longstaff watched as Durant approached the window and peered cautiously at the hard-bitten assassins.

  “Who are they?”

  “Boyars. In the pay of Ivan the Terrible. I never thought…” Longstaff shook his head. How could he have been so stupid?

  The Frenchman spat on the wet stones.

  “Boy,” said Longstaff, “re-saddle my horse.” The lad looked at him as if he were mad. “Re-saddle the horses. Now!”

  The rain fell in sheets. It was so dark they had to lead the animals for two long hours until Durant finally spat in disgust. “The horses are blown. This is pointless; better to rest now and move on at first light.”

  Longstaff followed him away from the Old Salt Road, into the fringes of a forest. It promised to be an uncomfortable night. He slung his cavalryman’s coat between two beech trees, making a dry space beneath by raking the top layer of undergrowth. He lay on his back, chewing on a piece of the hard, twice-baked bread known as zweiback. They’d have to leave the road, cut away west in the morning…

  “We should have taken our chances with the Russians,” said Durant. “At least we’d be dry.” He tapped fingertips against his lips. “The stable-boy is bound to talk.”

  “What would you have done? Slit his throat?” Longstaff bit his tongue; he’d no business, and no right adding insult to injury.

  “I am a man of imagination,” replied the Frenchman. “Reflect on that, instead of judging me by your standards.”

  Longstaff remained silent, disgusted by his own carelessness. The boyars had followed him across the frozen wastes of Livonia, where he’d killed one of their comrades. He’d been a fool to think they would simply give up and return to face their master’s wrath. The old man in Riga had said Ivan the Terrible had spies in the city – the work of a moment for them to discover his destination, and arrange a rendezvous with a greedy ship’s captain in a quiet bay close to the city. The trail would have gone cold at Lübeck’s docks, but he’d been stupid again, allowing Mathern Schoff to send a boy for his pack and weapons, and bring them to the stables at the head of the Old Salt Road. The stablemaster had seen them off along the only road south. The boyars must have overtaken them while Durant’s horse was being shod…

  Sparrow’s square head loomed in the darkness. She used her teeth to give his coat a warning tug. Longstaff took a final bite of zwieback, before climbing to his feet. It didn’t take him long to weave several branches together into a kind of bower. Once again, he raked away the wet earth, before leading the big grey into the makeshift shelter. What was the horse’s name? The stable master had told him more than once. Durant’s chestnut was called Rudi – that much he could remember – but the grey? Something that sounded vaguely French, he thought. Claude? Trompette? It wasn’t important. Longstaff had owned a dozen horses in his time and they’d all become Martlesham within a day or two.

  “At least the rain will hide our tracks,” he muttered in the darkness. Sparrow shook the water from her coat and settled down beside the horse.

  CHAPTER 11

  Fear wrenched Longstaff from sleep. His fingers closed around a wrist, iron grip threatening to tear ligaments and break bones.

  Someone shouted at him to let go; a voice he recognised. Shaking his head to expel the fog of sleep, he released his hold.

  “God’s teeth,” muttered Durant, “I only wanted to wake you.” He flexed his wrist backwards and forwards. “Next time, I’ll use a stick.”

  It had stopped raining, the sky a deep, dull grey, the sun still an article of faith beneath the horizon. Longstaff sat up, rubbing a hand across his face.

  “Time to go,” said Durant, “unless we want your Russian friends dogging us all the way to Italy.”

  The bastard was trying to catch him off guard. “Who said anything about Italy?” snapped Longstaff.

  They hadn’t gone far when Durant turned off the road and dismounted. Longstaff nudged his horse after the Frenchman. The rising run revealed a walled town, less than a mile away, surrounded by a ring of heavily worked fields. The brewers and fishermen were still in bed, the hop gardens and ponds untended. Only in the far distance could Longstaff see any sign of life, where two young women walked towards the forest, muffled against the cold, heads thrown back in laughter.

  Longstaff glanced at his travelling companion. The Frenchman stood at the edge of a new cemetery and helped himself to a portion of dried meat and a flask of weak beer from his pack. He looked strangely at home among the half-dug graves, wrapped against the morning chill in a dark cloak.

  Durant looked past him. “Perhaps we should have done something about the stable boy, after all.”

  Longstaff turned in his saddle. The three Russians were at the foot of the long, shallow slope, urging their horses into a gallop. Longstaff hesitated in the face of such grim determination; they had pursued him all the way from Muscovy. They would not stop until he was dead.

  Durant had soft hands and a light sword – Longstaff couldn’t trust the Frenchman when it came to close-quarter killing. What then? Meet them alone?

  Durant mounted his horse, narrow face perfectly calm. “Would you like me to provide the solution? Or do you feel the need to attempt something spectacular?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Durant laughed: “A simple demonstration of the advantages of brain over brawn.”

  He spurred his horse across the open ring of land, making for the distant trees. Sparrow bounded after him. Longstaff cursed and kicked Martlesham in pursuit. Durant’s horse was swifter; the Frenchman disappeared into the trees. Longstaff crouched low in the saddle and urged his horse across the broken ground. Sparrow entered the forest. Seconds passed like hours, then Longstaff crashed through the trees, Russians snapping at his heels.

  A low branch whipped the top of his head. He reeled in the saddle, grabbed at Martlesham’s mane. A narrow track ran through the dense tangle of undergrowth, the floor littered with stones and broken sticks. He broke out of the trees into a wide clearing. A woman stared at him in terror, then threw herself to the ground. Longstaff checked Martlesham’s stride. The horse cleared her by inches.

  “Papists!” screamed Durant. “Agents of the Antichrist. Thieves. Help us”

  There were people everywhere. What in God’s name?

  The lead boyar crashed into the clearing. A man raised a hand in protest. The Russian ran him down. The labourer fell, neck twisted at an impossible angle. Longstaff heaved on his reins, twisted in the saddle and caught the boyar’s curved sabre on the edge of his katzbalger.

  “Papists!” bawled Durant.

  Men and women swarmed across the clearing, furious at the death of their friend.

  Spurring Martlesham, Longstaff forced his adversary back into the mob. The man kicked a steel-shod boot into a labourer’s face, his eyes blazing with rage. Hands clawed at him – cramped the curved sabre, as he was dragged down into the sea of wild men.

  Labourers streamed like ants from their flimsy shelters. The boyars fought bravely, but were hopelessly outnumbered, drowning in the dark wave of fury. Sparrow raised her head and howled.

  One boyar cleared a path with his sabre, hauled himself up onto his horse.

  “He’s getting away,” said Durant.

  Longstaff raised the musket an
d took aim at his broad back. He hesitated, long enough for a labourer to grab the boyar by his boot. Another lunged at the toppling man, and raked the eyes from his face.

  Longstaff lowered the musket, heard the plaintive wail of an abandoned baby. Women appeared, yelling encouragement; girls in clean skirts, who could have passed for serving girls; crones with reddened lips and exhausted eyes. Beggars hammered at the dying boyars with such ferocity it was impossible to tell which were the abrahams, who made their living by shamming madness, which the deaf and dumb dommerers, and which the palliards, who made sores on their bodies with ratsbane and spearwort. Longstaff looked away. Durant seized him roughly by the shoulder.

  “Keep watching,” he shouted angrily.

  The inhabitants of this forest camp stripped the boyars of their possessions. Durant rose in his stirrups, as if he’d been waiting for this first sign that the frenzy was ebbing.

  “Bravo, my friends,” he shouted. “You have done God’s work, truly.” He threw several silver coins into the clearing. “Take these criminals to the Duke. He will reward you richly for your loyalty.”

  Durant turned and kicked his horse into a canter. Longstaff stayed a moment longer, pinching the inside of his forearm. He should have waited for Ivan to leave Moscow. These three boyars – and the fourth outside Riga – would still be alive if he’d borne the fat merchant’s company for a few days more.

  He pulled Martlesham round in a half circle and followed Durant deeper into the forest, away from the shrieking and chanting.

  *

  Gaetan Durant slowed his horse to a walk, peering up through the high canopy of leaves to get his bearings. He closed his eyes and thought of the terrible scene he’d orchestrated. Vicious fools, so depraved they were willing to kill at a stranger’s command. Not one had questioned his wild claim; it had been enough that the boyars looked different, shouted their fear and rage in a foreign tongue.

  Quietly, Durant cursed these ignorant, fearful times; who’d ever heard of papists wearing beards to their waists or wielding curved swords? But had the world been so much better in the past, the people kinder, the sun warmer?

  In his youth, Durant had mocked old men for railing against a world mired in sin and depravity. Now, old before his time, he mocked himself for the same flaw. It was impossible to know the truth of it. Had people always been willing to tear strangers limb from limb, or had they really been debased by half a century of cruel propaganda? The Roman Church blamed Martin Luther, claiming the monk’s certainty that he was living in the Last Days had unlocked forbidden passions. The split in Christianity had undoubtedly caused an orgy of blood and violence. At first, the slaughter had been official, but common folk had soon learned to kill their fellows and celebrate these crimes as acts of piety.

  Durant held all churchmen in contempt, but he was still looking forward to being back in Catholic lands, where it was inconceivable for a butcher or tailor to claim he knew the will of God. Priests might be corrupt in the south, but they were rarely as terrifying as these earnest northerners in their reformers caps, who seemed to find such cold joy in silencing bells and extinguishing candles, blinding their followers to the most beautiful objects man could make.

  Durant shifted in the saddle and stole a glance at Longstaff. Just the sight was enough to anger him – the sensible, hard-wearing clothes, the dirty blond hair, the dog. The incompetent fool must have left a trail a mile wide for the Russians to follow.

  The Englishman was a liability and Durant wasn’t prepared to devote weeks of his life to keeping him alive. The letter he carried was too important.

  He didn’t think it would be difficult to prize the lawyer’s paper from Longstaff’s possession – it might even be fun – leave the blundering fool somewhere on the road. What had Mathern Schoff said? On its own, the palimpsest is worthless. It is encoded and requires a key. Durant felt confident that if he acquired this key, as well as the palimpsest, then the mysterious leader of the Otiosi would overlook the Englishman’s absence; the world was imperfect, after all, and men of Longstaff’s temperament were prey to a great variety of dangers and distractions. Durant smiled.

  “Something amuses you?” asked Longstaff.

  Now that he’d decided to abandon him, Durant was prepared to treat the Englishman graciously. “I was picturing the look on Duke Wilhelm’s face when a group of his least appealing subjects arrive at the palace with three mutilated corpses.”

  Longstaff shook his head: “Forgive me if I fail to see the joke.”

  “Of course,” Durant dropped his voice. “I wouldn’t be laughing either, if I were responsible for three dead and another thirty souls stained with the sin of murder.”

  The Englishman winced. Durant had struck a sore spot – as good a time as any to begin winning Longstaff’s confidence. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

  “No,” Longstaff shook his head. “How did you know?”

  “That those forest-dwellers would behave as they did?”

  Longstaff coloured as he pushed blunt fingers through his hair. “How did you know where to find them?”

  “You remember the cemetery? Lutherans are forever digging up corpses and carting them off to the middle of nowhere. They don’t like having the dead in towns. Makes it too easy for priests to gull the superstitious into paying for pardons and masses in the hope that parents and grandparents will put in a good word for them at the gates of Heaven. One consequence is an influx of landless men – grave-diggers, bringing beggars and whores in their wake. They aren’t welcome in the towns, and set up camp nearby. You saw those two women walk into the trees?” Durant smiled. “A bit early for picking mushrooms. They were on their way home after a hard night’s whoring. And now the Duke has three new bodies for his cemetery and peasants demanding rewards. They’ll get a whipping for their impertinence, even though these cemeteries are a profitable business – the old Catholic burial grounds were always in the best locations.”

  “I’m impressed. That wouldn’t have occurred to me.”

  Durant shrugged: “I told you last night, the world never lacks for options – only people with the imagination to grasp them.”

  “You’ve a talent for reasoning,” acknowledged Longstaff. “And a gift for manipulation. It’s a hard thing to use a man’s religious feelings against him.”

  “Touché,” Durant inclined his head. “I hope I wouldn’t use a man’s love of God against him. But I regard religious feelings as fair game.”

  “A fine distinction.”

  “Not really. You asked why I hadn’t simply handed over the palimpsest? I hope it will lead to a better future,” Durant gave a short, bitter laugh. He had grown used to hiding this last kernel of idealism, and was only revealing it now to gain Longstaff’s trust.

  “Lucretius believed God to be as different from man as we are from ants. What would you say if an ant raised its head and claimed: All the parts of the universe have me in view; the earth serves for me to walk on, the sun to give me light and the stars to breathe their influences into me; I gain this advantage from the winds and that from the waters, for I am the darling of nature. Lucretius rejected the idea that we win God’s favour through prayer, or incur His displeasure through sin, and claimed the most telling emblem of religion was the death of a child.” Durant fell silent, thinking of the priests who’d plagued him with tales of God’s sacrifice after his daughter disappeared.

  “And that’s what you hope to find?” asked Longstaff. “Ammunition against the Church?”

  Durant ignored the question. “What are you doing here, Longstaff? You seem more suited to the life of a soldier, winning fame and glory on the battlefield. I imagine war is a straightforward business.”

  “I was a soldier. Spent my days outside city walls, cutting supply lines, starving women and children. Fame and glory are for storytellers.”

  “All for the sake of religion,” said Durant.

  Longstaff shook his head: “The men I served didn’
t fight for God. They fought for wealth and power. A place in history.”

  “Yes, but whose history? The Church describes a downward spiral; every generation sunk deeper in sin than the last. I prefer Lucretius’ version. In the beginning, men were no better than animals, communicating in grunts and whistles. But they began to feel love for one another – pride, jealousy; call it what you will. They created language, took the first tentative steps towards civilization. The poet wants us to take pride in our accomplishments, not dwell on our sins. He wants us to ask ourselves what more we might achieve.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Matthew Longstaff set a hard pace towards the River Rhine, insisting they avoid the towns en route. He claimed to have no patience with the bribes and paperwork, the petty officials and their endless questions. There was truth in his argument, though it did not fully explain his impatience. He was more interested in learning what he could about Durant.

  The Frenchman had been talkative since their encounter with the boyars. Longstaff met his attempts at conversation with silence – the sudden change in Durant made him uneasy – and kept a careful watch. The Frenchman looked soft, with his fine clothes and pale complexion, but rode well and was unfailingly polite to the smallholders – an extended family of farmers, a garrulous beekeeper, a small community of glass-makers – on whose hospitality they imposed.

  On the fourth night, they passed a large quarry where Longstaff thought they might be offered beds for the night. Durant’s mood remained buoyant even when the quarrymen ran them off with picks.

  “We should count ourselves lucky if these fellows are the worst of our problems.” He began to list the various bandit troops supposed to infest the region. “The best are disaffected knights and burghers’ sons gone bad, but there are Leapers in these lands, and Batenburgers and Swarmers.”