devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band (23 page)

“Did you enjoy your meal? And what would could be better to go with such fine victuals than some pleasurable company?” said the bearded gaoler. Thomas braced himself for a shower rats or some other vermin but instead he felt the cage move upwards. This time it was raised to the level of the bridge where the door in the roof was opened once more.

In the bottom of the cage, Thomas couldn’t see what was going on but it seemed as if a riot had broken out above his head. The air was filled with the sound of cursing and in the next moment three men were tipped head first into Thomas’ prison. Despite the bruises, dried blood and encrusted filth that covered their faces he recognised the new arrivals at once, they were Bos, Prometheus and Quintana.

“So you too have been put to the torture,” said Quintana, eyeing Thomas’ battered, naked body, but there was no hint of kindness or sympathy in his voice.

“You see now that the Left Hand Path leads to pain and death,” groaned Bos miserably but the Nubian was more forgiving.

“Leave him be, it seems to me he’s suffered enough. Have you forgotten that we all followed him to Metz willingly and we’re no worse off now than before we met him. Besides, if he escaped The Fleet and the Tower of London then this chicken coop should present no problem. So Thomas, can you release us from this cage?” Prometheus said hopefully.

“I will not die here because I’ve sworn a solemn oath to revenge myself on the prince of lies who calls himself the White Rose!” said Thomas hoarsely.

“By the looks of things you couldn’t revenge yourself on a dog that had pissed over your boots,” said Quintana with as much humour as he could muster.

“Your tortures are but a warning of the torments that await all sinners in Hell, you must repent and leave vengeance to The Almighty,” said Bos eyeing the Englishman’s battered body. Thomas ignored the Frisian and insisted that he’d not rest until his enemies had been defeated but even Prometheus urged the Englishman to put all thoughts of revenge out of his mind, at least for the time being.

“You’re a remarkable man Thomas,” said the Nubian. “Most of us can make an enemy of one king but you’ve managed to incur the wrath of two!”

13

THE CAGE

W
ith four men imprisoned in the tiny cage there was no room to lie down or stand up. All the prisoners could do was sit with their legs dangling between the bars of the cage’s floor and with each hour that passed their torments increased.

When the sun rose they had to endure the steady stream of rocks and refuse dropped through the grating above their heads. In the evening they were plagued by the bites of gnats and mosquitoes that clouded around them and when the sun set, the damp rising from the river seemed to chill the very marrow of their tortured bones. Thomas suffered worst of all. Having been thrown into the cage naked, he had no clothes to protect him from the day’s fierce heat or the night’s cold air and he soon developed a fever. After five days his condition suddenly worsened and the others realised the shadow of death was upon them all.

“We can’t stay here, the Englishman won’t last much longer,” said Bos.

“I’m all right,” Thomas whispered but it was clear that he wasn’t. Some of his deeper wounds had failed to close and his blood was slowly being poisoned by the filth that fell from above.

“Bravely spoken but I’ve grown tired of these lodgings and intend to quit this address forthwith,” said Quintana with a weak smile. “Now how shall we take our leave, by road or river?”

Unfortunately their situation seemed hopeless. They had no tools to pick the locks that fastened the cage’s door or money to bribe the guards and not even the combined strength of Bos and Prometheus could bend the solid iron bars. Even if they could escape their prison, they would have to climb up the chain that attached the cage to the bridge, open another locked grating and force the wooden gates of the barbican that barred their way to freedom. Yet, unbeknown to them all, they still had allies in Metz. On the morning of the sixth day, after the merchants and drovers had made their way into the city, a familiar face appeared at the iron grating in the bridge.

“Thomas, are you there?” hissed the visitor. The Englishman was faint with hunger and fever but he opened his eyes and saw the face of Hans Nagel looking down at him.

“Trumpet player! What in the name of de la Pole’s stinking codpiece brings you here? Do you still serve the White Rose? Have you come to report my suffering to that pus-sucking viper? God’s blood if I were free of this cage, I’d wring your scrawny neck,” he said weakly. The
other prisoners were about to spit their own curses at Nagel but he begged to be allowed to speak.

“Hear me out, you must be mindful that all is not as it seems. I’m here to help you escape, as I helped you once before, but I can’t explain now. The few florins I paid the sentries will turn their heads for no more than a minute so take this, put your faith in the power of the onager and when you’re free, meet me at the Lazar House on the Isle of Ghosts,” hissed Nagel.

From his previous time in the city Thomas knew that the Isle of Ghosts was a small, wooded islet that lay a few hundred yards downstream of the
pont des Morts
. He also remembered that its only inhabitants were lepers. The other prisoners cried out in horror at thought of taking refuge among those cursed with a disease that putrefied a victim’s flesh whilst they still lived but Nagel wouldn’t listen to their protests.

“There’s no danger,” the trumpet player insisted and he dropped a heavy package through the grate. The object landed on the cage’s roof and was retrieved by Prometheus who stared at it in bewilderment. Nagel had given them a length of stout silk cord wrapped around a short iron rod, as thick as a constable’s staff but no longer than a man’s forearm. At first examination neither item seemed to be of any use in their current predicament but before they could ask the trumpet player to explain further, he’d vanished into the crowd crossing the bridge.

“What’s the good of this?” said Quintana examining the cord. “Even if we could break out of the cage the rope is too short to reach anywhere and what in the name of
the King of Spain’s great hairy bollocks did Nagel mean by trusting in the power of the onager?”

“To The Devil with ghosts and onagers, whatever they are, we should not trust a trumpet player who produces nothing but wind for a living,” muttered Bos whereupon Prometheus burst out laughing.

“I’m surprised you’ve not heard of the wild desert asses that are as stubborn as a Lutheran cleric and smell just as bad. Onagers have a kick as powerful as their odour, so the beasts have given their name to a type of catapult. My father used these war machines to great effect during his wars with Funj,” he chuckled

Prometheus described how, during one battle with the invaders, boulders hurled by onagers had scattered his father’s enemies like flocks of frightened quail and if only the Nubians had possessed more of these catapults, which drew their power from coils of twisted rope, their homeland might still be Christian. The others protested that ancient siege engines would be of little help in escaping from a cage hanging below a bridge but Prometheus insisted that the same power of twisted rope could open their prison. All they had to do was tie the silk cord around two of the cage’s bars and use the iron rod as a lever to wind the loop ever tighter.

To raise their spirits higher, the prisoners could actually see the Isle of Ghosts that lay in the main channel of the Moselle between the fortified bridges of the
pont des Morts
and the
pont Ysfroy
. This narrow islet was little more than a waterlogged mound of trees and reeds but it seemed to call to the prisoners like the Isle of the Blessed
called to ancient Greek heroes. Tall thickets of willow and alder hid the leper house from view but if Thomas and the others could escape from the cage they could reach it by the long causeway that joined the Isle of Ghosts to the larger Island of Chambière.

The prospect of escape seemed to revive Thomas a little but having discovered the secret of freeing themselves from the cage they had to wait until nightfall before they could put Prometheus’ theory into practice. With agonising slowness, the sun crept across the cloudless summer sky and whilst they waited they had to endure another day of being pelted with taunts and garbage. At last the city’s curfew bells sounded and the barbican’s gates were closed. The footsteps of the sentries faded into the night and as soon as the prisoners heard nothing but silence they set about their task.

As quietly as he could, Quintana tied the silk cord around two bars in the middle of one of the cage’s sides then Bos and Prometheus used the rod to twist the loop ever smaller. Miraculously, the solid iron that had refused to budge when pulled by human muscle alone opened as easily as an eager bride’s legs on her wedding night. When the first two bars had been forced apart, they repeated the process with adjacent bars until the gap was wide enough for even the Nubian to pass through.

“Now what? Even if we can climb up the chain, there are a dozen more obstacles in our way once we reach the bridge,” said Prometheus, as he stared nervously into the black waters of the Moselle that churned twenty feet below the cage.

“Then we must swim to this Isle of Ghosts, if the plunge into the river doesn’t kill us,” said Quintana but Prometheus insisted there had to be another way.

“Do you fear the living dead that dwell on the island of lepers?” scoffed Bos.

“I fear nothing but I’ve told you before, I was born in a desert and I’d no need to learn swimming!” snapped Prometheus. Bos began to protest that the Nubian had managed to escape the underwater boat but Prometheus insisted there was a great deal of difference between scrambling a few yards to the shore and swimming half a mile through treacherous currents.

“Not only that, we could break our necks jumping into the river… and it’s dark … and what about the Englishman? He’s in no condition to leap into freezing water,” added Prometheus and he pointed at Thomas who was sitting forlornly in a corner of the cage. His face was the colour of ash, and he was both shivering and sweating with fever, but there was also a look of grim determination in his eyes.

“Don’t worry about me, if I have to crawl through all nine circles of Hell to revenge myself on Richard de la Pole I’ll do it,” he said hoarsely.

“Good, because we can’t wait for morning when our gaolers will see what we’ve done to their nice shiny cage,” said Quintana and without a second thought he leapt into empty space. For a heartbeat there was silence then a faint splash announced the Portugee had reached the water.

“He’s a madman!” said Prometheus leaning through the gap in the bars to watch Quintana’s fall.

“Mad or not we must follow,” said Bos and he gave the Nubian a hefty shove. Taken by surprise, Prometheus lost his grip on the bars, toppled forwards and fell. His arms whirled like windmills, and his feet flailed as if he was trying to run up invisible stairs, before he too disappeared into the water.

“Are you sure you can make this leap Englishman?” said the Frisian. Thomas nodded but in truth he was nearing the end of his strength.

“We’ll jump together and I’ll use Nagel’s cord to pull you to the island,” said Bos and before Thomas could protest, the Frisian had tied the cord around their wrists. As soon as he’d done this, he climbed through the gap in the bars and balanced on the iron beam that formed the outside edge of the cage’s floor. Summoning the last of his strength, Thomas forced his quaking limbs to follow. With both men standing precariously on one side of the cage, it tipped alarmingly and before they could change their minds they’d been pitched into the night.

For a brief moment, the cold air rushed against Thomas’ naked skin then the suffocating waters close over his head like the lid of a coffin. As the muddy river filled his mouth and nostrils for the second time in a month, he thought he was back in the sinking
Hippocamp
, yet the memory only served to remind him that if he could survive one drowning he could survive another. He felt a tug on his wrist as the cord tightened and he kicked his legs. Together, the two men clawed their way to the surface and managed to seize a lungful of precious air before the powerful current caught them.

The weight of water sent the men tumbling down river, tossing them around like a terrier playing with two dead rabbits. Somehow Bos managed to keep them both afloat and in his delirium Thomas prayed to any god who would listen to guide these poor sinners to dry land. After what seemed like an eternity, his prayers were answered. An eddy pushed the two half-drowned fugitives towards the shallow water around the Isle of Ghosts and Thomas felt mud under his bare feet. Though still half submerged, he managed to crawl into the reeds at the water’s edge but here his strength gave out.

“I can make it,” Thomas insisted but Bos had to drag the exhausted Englishman through the reeds and overhanging trees into a muddy clearing where they lay on the wet, spongy ground gasping for breath. Fortune had at least guided them to their destination, and the trees hid them from the eyes of the sentries on the city’s bridges, but a voice from the darkness made Bos sit up with a start.

“Frisian, is that you? It’s me, Quintana, and I’ve caught the biggest, blackest fish you ever saw!” said the Portugee and he crawled into the boggy glade closely followed by Prometheus. They were both dripping wet, and covered in cuts and bruises, but even though it was only the Nubian’s pride that had been seriously hurt, Prometheus was not in a forgiving mood.

“You stupid, murderous, bastard son of Japheth, what d’you mean by pushing me into the river? I’m a prince not a pike fish, I could’ve drowned!” Prometheus hissed.

“You ungrateful son of Ham, I saved your life, if I’d left you in the cage you’d be dead by nightfall,” said Bos
indignantly. Both men struggled to their feet and they would have come to blows had not Quintana quickly placed himself between them.

“Perhaps we’re already dead and we’ve passed into Hell but if we’d crossed rivers of burning brimstone we’d all feel a lot warmer than we do now,” he said but Bos and Prometheus continued to threaten each other with extreme violence until the Portugee pointed out they were risking certain capture unless they put as much distance as possible between themselves and the city of Metz before sunrise. Reluctantly the two men admitted the folly of fighting each other and, with peace restored, they began to discuss what to do next.