devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band (28 page)

In contrast to the flamboyant German
landsknechts
, these Greek merchants wore drab, ankle length tunics gathered at the waist by a simple sash. Plain white shirts, knee length breeches and woollen stockings were worn beneath these tunics whilst a long, loose fitting coat was worn over the top. A broad brimmed beret completed the costume and though Greek Christians were forbidden to carry weapons in their native Constantinople, Thomas and his companions equipped themselves with the new rapier swords that were much favoured by Spanish merchants. Where Mistress Kleber had acquired such items was a mystery but their new clothes disguised the men’s identities perfectly and their patron eyed her clients with satisfaction. She even shed a tear when she saw Thomas.

After saying their farewells, the four ‘Greeks’ strode off to spend more of their borrowed gold and their first purchases were the wagon and tents they’d need for themselves and their girls. Being late arrivals these necessities were in short supply but Quintana beat down the extortionate prices by threatening to have Bos and Prometheus beat up the different vendors. When it came to furnishing their travelling temple to Aphrodite, they bought damask silks, oriental carpets, Turkish divans and a pair of ‘marble’ pillars made from wood and plaster. These would form the centrepiece of an erotic masque their harlots would perform to help their customers make their selection.

After a few days hard bargaining, the new bawds had everything they needed except their trollops but they didn’t have to look too far to find them. An outbreak of the Neapolitan pox had forced the burghers of Lyon to close the city’s brothels and whilst dozens of homeless harlots had migrated to the French army’s camp, many pimps had forbidden their girls to consort with soldiers. Despite the rich profits to be made, these whoremasters feared that their strumpets would escape their clutches by marrying some amorous arquebusier or priapic pikeman. Though battle usually cut short such unions, the wayward girls’ freedom endured long after their husband’s death.

Thomas and the others decided to ‘rescue’ some of these fallen angels by offering them better terms than their current employers. As Bos and Prometheus looked too fearsome, and Nagel looked too puny, it fell to Thomas and Quintana to venture into the city and find suitable candidates. At dusk, dressed in black cloaks and feeling
like Romans setting out to abduct Sabine women, the Englishman and the Portugee crossed the bridge over the Saone and entered the old city. As the moon rose, the two men found themselves in a promising alley behind the Basilica of St Martin so they hid in a doorway to await the arrival of Lyon’s nightingales. They didn’t have to wait long. After half an hour four women entered the alley and began to walk aimlessly up and down the cobbles.

Curiously, the women advertised their trade by wearing the most modest Italian attire. Their heads were covered by waist length shawls of virginal white and their voluminous skirts of yellow linen hid any clue to the tempting curves beneath. Had it not been for the bright colours of their costumes, a passer-by could easily have mistaken these acolytes of Venus for Christian nuns. Having satisfied himself they’d be open to offers, Thomas was about to approach the women when a man entered the alley. At first he thought the stranger might be a customer but there was something about the man’s demeanour that suggested otherwise. He had all the grace and refinement of an ox and when the harlots started opening their purses, Thomas guessed he must be their pimp.

The smallest girl, whose name seemed to be Ulla, failed to hand over any cash. She tried to explain she’d been too sick to work but the bovine pimp was in no mood for excuses. He promised to thrash the girl within an inch of her life unless she paid her dues in full and he raised a fist the size and shape of a hambone to add weight to his threat. The girl cowered in fear but the oldest of the harlots came to her rescue.

“God’s Wounds Bruno, how can she earn if you leave her looking like a whipped dog? Ulla’s been ill with fever but she’ll have your money by the end of the week, I swear,” snapped the older harlot, pushing the terrified younger girl behind her.

“Sick? She’s a lying bitch, only yesterday I saw her making cow eyes at a saddler’s apprentice!” roared the pimp. Thomas, watching from the shadows, decided these girls would not hesitate to leave this brute but they’d be no use if they had black eyes and broken teeth. So, before Quintana could stop him, the Englishman stepped into the moonlight.

“Leave off there!” Thomas shouted from across the alley.

“The nightwatch!” cried one of the whores but the pimp ignored her. He paid his bribes regularly so he’d no need to fear Lyon’s constables. Instead he turned to face Thomas.

“Who in a pig’s arse are you?” said the pimp.

“The man who is going to take away your whores and give them a better life,” Thomas replied.

“Is that so and how’s a long streak of piss like you going to take my girls?” snorted the pimp.

“In one of two ways, I’ll pay you a florin apiece, for fair exchange is no robbery, and take them peaceably or I’ll kill you and take them for nothing. Make your choice,” said Thomas nonchalantly.

“Then you’ll have to kill me ‘cos I make no bargains with fancy talking bastards!” sneered the pimp.

“Excellent! I heartily agree with your decision, for I hate parting with money,” said Thomas and the pimp suddenly
realised the stranger was deadly serious. His dullard’s face contorted into a brutish mask and he retrieved the heavy cudgel he always carried beneath his filthy cloak.

“I’ll smash you,” he said and started to swing the club menacingly. His opponent merely smiled and flicked back his own cloak as if he were about to do nothing more dangerous than relieve himself. The whores gasped as Thomas revealed his own weapon, the long, thin rapier he’d purchased from Mistress Kleber earlier that day. It was almost too easy, yet Thomas delighted in putting on a show of his swordsmanship to impress the girls. The pimp, bellowing like an ogre, hurled himself at Thomas who stepped to one side and slashed at the man’s rump. With a gentle whisper, the whip-like Toledo steel sliced through the pimp’s beeches and cut a deep gash in his flabby buttocks.

“My final offer is half a florin for each girl or you die,” said Thomas.

“Bastard!” screamed the pimp as the pain from his lacerated backside finally penetrated his thick skull. He charged again, holding his cudgel high above his head as if he were about to drive a fence post into the earth. In reply, Thomas casually aimed his rapier at his opponent’s throat and lunged. Blinded by pain, rage and the darkness, the pimp ran onto the sword’s point and the combined the impetus of his charge and Thomas’ thrust pushed the rapier clean through the man’s neck. The dying pimp fell to his knees and clawed weakly at the three feet of steel sticking out of his throat. Thomas spat in the man’s face, placed a foot on his chest and heaved the weapon free. The
death rattle sounded in the pimp’s throat and he fell, face-first, into the alleyway’s stinking mud.

“Is he dead?” said one of the girls hopefully.

“As dead as a nun’s dreams of marriage,” said Thomas wiping his sword on the dead man’s cloak. As soon as he’d said the words the whores surrounded the corpse and started to rain spittle, kicks and curses onto Bruno’s lifeless head.

“Bastard… cuckold… sodomite… Spaniard!” They chorused. Thomas let the women vent their fury on the dead pimp and called to Quintana who’d remained in the doorway watching the spectacle.

“You didn’t think to assist me?” he said as the Portugee joined him.

“My crippled grandmother could beat that clumsy oaf, besides I thought you needed the practice,” replied Quintana watching the whores desecrate their late pimp’s cadaver and feeling a chill of fear run down his spine at their viciousness. It was fully five minutes before the harlot’s mouths were dry, and their lexicon of curses exhausted, and only then did they turn their attention to their rescuers.

“So who in the name of St Nicholas are you two?” said the oldest of the whores to Quintana, who was looking at her in the same way a man looks at a horse he’s about to buy. The woman was in her late twenties but she still had her looks and Quintana reckoned she had perhaps three or four good years left before her customers went in search of firmer flesh. The three other girls also looked handsome enough to secure a loyal band of high paying regulars and
the Portugee began to think they might even make a profit from their venture.

“I am Luis Quintana, a gentleman of Lisbon, and this is Thomas Devilstone, a gentleman of England. There are two more in our company, a Frisian and a Nubian, who are also good Christian men as vigorous and as honourable as us, your humble servants,” said the Portugee with a polite bow.

“We’re here to make you an offer, my friends and I plan to assemble a caravan of the best courtesans and earn a fine fortune following Francis’ army,” added Thomas.

“You mean you’ll get rich whilst we endure the attention of drunken bakers with tiny cocks and blacksmiths with bad breath?” said the older whore suspiciously.

“By no means, you shall entertain only young and wealthy gentlemen of quality and we propose to divide all profits equally. In return for our shares, my friends and I offer you both our protection and our promise you shall be well treated,” replied Thomas.

“What if we refuse?” said the chief whore.

“Then we’ll have to tell the nightwatch we saw you kill your pimp. I’ve no doubt the wretch deserved to die, nevertheless murder is a crime and you’ll all be swinging from a gibbet by next eventide,” said Quintana sternly. The whores gasped in horror and clutched their dainty throats.

“You bastards! What if we say different? It’ll be our word against yours!” said the older whore.

“Who’d believe a harlot, even four harlots, against the testimony of two gentleman such as we?” said Thomas,
“But ladies, we don’t wish our bargain to be sealed by threats. We offer you the best of futures, a life in the fresh, free air of the countryside away from the foul stench of the city. Come now, would you rather live as creatures of the night, until your looks desert you or the pox sends you to an early grave? Or would you rather join us and make your fortunes entertaining wealthy, well born warriors just as Briseis entertained Achilles?”

“Remember how we all wanted to go to the camp but Bruno wouldn’t let us,” whispered Ulla.

“I don’t care who rides me are so long as they pay well, said the third trollop.

“But no cripples, I can’t abide cripples,” said the fourth. Thomas and Quintana repeated their promise that the girls’ customers would all be strong, young noblemen, all as skilled in the arts of love as the arts of war, but the older whore insisted on one last condition.

“We’ll join you but you must agree that any of us may leave your service whenever we wish. We may be whores but we’ll not be slaves,” she said.

“We agree gladly, now ladies may we be permitted to know your names?” said Thomas sweeping the hat of his head and bowing low like an Italian courtier. The younger whores giggled as the oldest of them introduced herself as Magda and her companions as Ulla, Maria and Helene. With their bargain sealed, Thomas and Quintana dumped Bruno’s corpse in a dark corner of the alley and covered it with refuse. The girls had been living in a shack nearby so they returned to their hovel to retrieve their few possessions and wait for the city’s gates to be opened at dawn.

16

MILAN

T
hough Thomas and Quintana were certain no one would miss the dead pimp, at least until they were all safe in the king’s camp across the river, the girls feared that the city’s guild of thieves and beggars had already started searching for Bruno’s murderers. Unfortunately for the harlots, their fears would not open Lyon’s gates any sooner and so the girls spent an anxious few hours waiting for the curfew to be lifted at dawn. To calm their nerves, Quintana invited the girls tell their stories and Magda, the oldest, was only too happy to oblige.

Married at fourteen, and widowed before she was twenty five, Magda been too old to find another husband and had quickly found herself on the streets. Maria and Helene were sisters who’d run away from a drunken father whilst the youngest, Ulla, had been sold into a life of slavery by her peasant father who had too many female mouths to feed. All four of the girls had the raven hair, almond eyes and olive skin of the south and once dressed
in fine muslins and silks, they could easily pass for exotic Turkish houris.

At last the sun rose, the morning bells began to ring and the city’s gates were opened. Just as Thomas had predicted Bruno’s violent death had gone unreported and no one stopped them from leaving the city. The strange company crossed over the Rhone in high spirits but when they arrived at the camp they found the sutlers’ tents and pavilions being dismantled and loaded onto wagons. Thomas and Quintana pushed through the crowds of captains and sergeants searching frantically for missing men and arrived at their tent to find Prometheus and Bos had already started packing their gear. Nagel had gone to Mistress Kleber, to find out what was going on, and whilst Thomas was making the introductions the trumpet player returned.

“It seems we’ve gathered our golden geese not a moment too soon, the king has given orders to march and we must leave within the hour,” said Nagel.

By late afternoon, the thirty thousand men of the French king’s army were snaking down the Rhone valley like a giant serpent from an ancient myth. The
argoulets
, the light horsemen who scouted the way ahead, darted between coppices and thickets like the serpent’s tongue and these were followed by the body of the beast which was made up of four vast pike squares. Though their heavy weapons were carried in the carts of the baggage train, the foot soldiers marched in their battle formations and each square contained more than five thousand pikemen, arquebusiers and halberdiers. Behind the squares came the
sakers
,
bombards
and
culverins
of
Francis’ train of artillery and these valuable pieces were protected by squadrons of armoured knights and mounted men-at-arms, riding in two flanking columns each almost three thousand strong.