devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band (32 page)

The wind slowly cleared the smoke from the battlefield to reveal the city’s defenders standing on the ramparts and the roofs of their blockhouse, cheering and waving their blood stained blades. De la Pole saw one man holding a tattered battle flag and recognised it at once as the ensign of Francis’ Scottish Guard. The French king’s bodyguard must have been decimated to allow their banner to be lost to the enemy and for a moment the White Rose wondered if Francis was dead but a thunder of hooves to his left announced that the king was alive and still in command of his army. De la Pole watched Francis gallop away with the morning sun
glinting off his armour and his royal blue surcoat, adorned with golden fleur-de-lis, streaming behind him.

By now the attackers were out of range of the defenders’ guns, there was no loss of honour in resuming a more normal mode of march so de la Pole gave the order and his men swiftly turned about. The assault had lasted less than thirty minutes and had cost the lives of more than eight hundred men, including fifty members of the Black Band, but the comforting news for de la Pole was that the Duke of Albany had fared little better in his assault on the eastern breach. Meanwhile, in the French baggage park at Mirabello, the news of the White Rose’s failure to capture the city was greeted with a mixture of dismay and relief.

“If we’d been lucky those imperial
landsknechts
would have done our work for us and we could all have gone home,” said Bos ruefully.

“That wouldn’t have helped, to reap any reward from the death of the last Yorkist de la Pole must be killed by one of us.” said Thomas.

“That’s as maybe but for once I agree with the Frisian. I’m growing tired of playing nursemaid to whores. Face it Thomas, your plan to trap de la Pole has failed and we need to think of something else,” said Prometheus.

“Our harlots are also growing restless. I don’t know what the trouble is but there’s bad blood between Ulla and Magda. They used to be thick as thieves but now they barley exchange a polite word.” added Quintana.

“Who can fathom the mind of a woman? Sometimes I thank God that I never married,” said Nagel shaking his head.

“A surly strumpet is bad for business and if we don’t snap them out of it, I’ll wager it’ll be bad for us all,” said Quintana and his warning proved to be prophetic. The next day the cauldron of discontent between the Ulla and Magda boiled over into open war.

It was Thomas who witnessed the fiasco. He was returning to their tent after fetching the day’s provisions when he saw a Swiss
reisläufer
, his breeches in his hands, running for his life. A moment later, Ulla tumbled out from under the canvas and hurled an earthenware flagon at the fleeing, half naked soldier. The bottle flew past Thomas’ head, missing his face by an inch.

“Get out of here chum, Hell hath no fury like a harlot who wants to be a wife!” the
reisläufer
warned as he ran past. Angered that one of his refined women had been defiled by a common pikeman Thomas reached for his sword to cut the man down but before he could skewer the knave, the man had gone.

“You cheap bastard, you promised to wed me, yet I find you whoring with that diseased trollop!” Ulla shrieked. She was about to continue the chase when Magda sprang from the tent and wrestled her rival to the ground.

“Arsed faced bitch!” spat Ulla as she struggled to free herself from Magda’s grasp.

“Watch your tongue dick sucking slut!” retorted Magda and she slapped Ulla hard across her face.

“At least I don’t have to get a man blind drunk before he’ll lie with me!” Ulla howled and she kicked her opponent in the belly. The warring whores began to roll around in the mud, bellowing curses and trying rake their
nails down each other’s faces. Their shrieks soon brought a large crowd of spectators and the men added their cheers to the pandemonium. Ulla finally managed to wriggle free of her rival’s clutches and a moment later the two women were back on their feet, circling each other like angry tigresses.

“How dare you steal my man, as soon as he’d been paid for flattening this miserable Italian shit pile, we were going to open a tavern together!” Ulla hissed.

“You stupid cow is that what he told you? Don’t you know they all say that just to get up your chatte for nothing! Anyway he promised me I could be his
kampfrau
days ago!” Magda spat back.

“Only because you got him pissed! Look at you, you old mare, what man would prefer you to me? How many bastard brats have sucked on your saggy teats?” Ulla retorted.

“At least I have got something a man likes to get hold of, unlike you, you flat chested witch!” Magda growled and she charged at the younger girl but Ulla neatly sidestepped the attack and as the other woman careered passed, she seized a fistful of Magda’s chemise. The cloth tore to reveal Magda’s magnificent breasts and the crowd roared with delight.

“Give us a squeeze!” cried one admiring onlooker.

“I’ll squeeze your foul head back between your mother’s shit-stained legs!” bellowed the bare breasted trollop and again the two girls began to grapple. Ulla managed to hook her leg around Magda’s ankle and whip her rival’s feet from under her. As she lay sprawled in the mud, Ulla
sat astride Magda’s naked chest, slapping and pummelling her defeated foe like a baker kneading bread.

Thomas realised he had to intervene or Magda wouldn’t be able to work for days, perhaps weeks. He was about to step in and break up the fight when he noticed a face in the crowd. He couldn’t be sure but he thought it was Georg Langenmantel, de la Pole’s chief captain, whom he’d last seen at the Castle of Haute Pierre. His heart missed a beat. Even disguised as a Greek there was a chance he’d be recognised and, at the very least, the White Rose would be put on his guard. Thomas cursed his luck but just as was about to retreat into the crowd the camp provosts arrived.

“Scatter, here come the
rumormeisters
!” said a voice as the two burly watchmen, each carrying the stout wooden truncheons nicknamed ‘argument settlers’, pushed their way through the throng.

“Hey, you two, cut it out or we’ll send you both to the Provost Marshal and he’ll kick you out of camp,” bellowed one of the watchmen but the battling women seemed oblivious to the watchman’s threat and they continued to scratch and claw at each other’s faces.

“You’ve been warned!” said the other watchman and the two constables began to beat the women with their clubs. The trollops howled and screamed with frustrated rage but only Ulla had the good sense to scurry away. The crowd, who had no love authority military or civilian, were happy to cover Ulla’s escape but even though she’d driven her rival from the field, Magda refused to surrender.

“Beat a woman would you? You cowardly bastards! Wouldn’t your mothers be proud to see you thrash a poor defenceless girl?” cried the aggrieved Magda, picking up a handful of pebbles. She threw the stones at the nearest watchman and one struck him on the cheek.

“You ungrateful cow, we stopped you from getting a real beating, that harlot was tearing you to shreds!” he cried.

“Sod this for a laugh,” growled the other watchman and he swung his club at Magda’s midriff. She crumpled as the wind was knocked out of her and whilst she writhed in pain the watchmen seized her by her hair.

“I’m with child! If it’s stillborn I’ll name you as murderer!” Magda wailed.

“Quiet you lying bitch, even if you are about to whelp, which I doubt, we don’t need any more brats round here.” growled the watchman

The two constables began to drag the shrieking Magda off to the Provost Marshal and, with no more entertainment, the crowd began to drift away. Thomas looked round for Langenmantel but de la Pole’s captain had disappeared and Ulla too had vanished. Thomas was relieved but he was also furious. Now the whole camp knew his girls had been consorting with common soldiers in the hope of luring one into marriage. Their reputation as high-class whores was ruined and they’d never see another noble customer, let alone the pretender to the throne of England.

Cursing his luck, Thomas hurried off to find the others and tell them the bad news and, just as he feared, they too weren’t pleased.

“So Magda’s been kicked out and Ulla’s run off with a pikeman, perhaps she was impressed by the length of his weapon,” said Quintana but no one laughed.

“We’re finished, thanks to those ungrateful sluts no one will come near us now,” said Prometheus but Thomas was more hopeful.

“There’s still time to salvage something, if de la Pole won’t come to our whores why don’t we take our whores to him?” He suggested.

“Have you lost your wits Englishman? We’ll be recognised at once. The whole point of our charade was to make de la Pole came to us so he’d not be on his guard,” protested Bos

“The time for caution has passed and if we escort the girls disguised as Turkish eunuchs, with turbans on our heads and veils over our faces, no one will know who we are. Besides he won’t be expecting us as we were all eaten by a dragon in Metz, or had you forgotten?” Thomas said.

“Perhaps the Englishman is right, all we have to do is say our girls are gifts from the French king and once we’re inside de la Pole’s tent we can run him through and be away before anyone knows he’s dead,” said Prometheus considering the merits of Thomas plan.

“And if we succeed, how shall we prove to Henry Tudor that we’ve sent his sworn enemy to The Devil?” said Bos.

“The White Rose wears a ring decorated with the badge of his house. That ring will be enough to convince Henry that the last Yorkist is in his grave. Now if we act
before any rumours reach de la Pole we may succeed after all,” said Thomas and he went off to find their two remaining girls.

Curiously Marie and Helene seemed not to care about the fate of the two other women. They greeted the news that one had been driven from the camp and the other had disappeared with nothing more than a shrug. On the other hand, they accepted their new commission eagerly. To entertain a king, even a king in exile, was the pinnacle of any courtesan’s career and they spent the rest of the day bathing and scenting themselves. Once the sun had set behind the French siege lines, and the slow steady boom of cannon had ceased for the night, Thomas and the others donned their disguises, escorted the giggling girls to a covered mule cart and set off for de la Pole’s camp.

18

THE PORTA REPENTINA

A
fter the failure of the French assault on Pavia the Duke of Albany had been sent to besiege the imperial city of Naples, in the hope this would force the emperor to abandon Lombardy entirely in order to defend the capital of his Italian territories. Much to de la Pole’s relief, he and the Black Band had been kept at Pavia and ordered to occupy a new camp closer to the king’s own quarters inside the deer park. As soon as Albany had left for the south, de la Pole ‘s men had obediently moved their tents to a spot by the deer park’s north western gate called the
Porta Repentina
.

Though de la Pole’s new camp was only a mile and a half from the main French baggage park at Castel Mirabello, the walk was quite long enough for the assassin’s veils and long robes to become soaked with the sweat of fear. The last time they’d been in the presence of the White Rose he’d condemned them all to death and they couldn’t forget the suffering and miserable humiliation of their
torture. Yet, strangely, once they’d arrived at the Black Band’s camp the dread that had gripped their bowels was replaced by a steely determination to kill their persecutor or die in the attempt.

Unlike the tented city around Castel Mirabello, the Black Band’s camp was a more military affair. De la Pole had learned the highly effective tactic of laagering his wagons when in enemy territory so they formed a protective wall around the army’s tents. Once lashed together, the wagons turned de la Pole’s camp into a fortress, especially as some of the carts had been specially adapted for such use. These wagons had high sides, pierced by loopholes for arquebuses and crossbows, and served as turrets in the camp’s wooden wall. To complete this wagon-fort’s defences, its only entrance was closed off by a spiked rail, guarded by four mulish members of the Black Band.

“What do you stinking Saracen bastards want?” growled one of the sentries, who was trying to warm himself in front of a glowing brazier.

“We come with a gift for the English noble lord who calls himself the White Rose,” said Prometheus bowing low and touching his hand to his chest, chin and forehead in the oriental manner of greeting.

“Hey I know you,” said the sentry and the visitors’ hearts all missed a beat. “Aren’t you the Saracen whoremasters everyone’s talking about? The story is you’ve lost your girls - that was a bit careless of you wasn’t it? Take my advice when you catch ‘em, give ‘em a good thrashing. You know the saying, a woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be!”

“Is it that sod Pieter? Let me get my hands on him, I’ve been pissing hot coals for weeks thanks to his pox ridden harlots,” said a voice from the gloom and a second sentry stepped into the brazier’s light.

“No it’s not Pieter it’s the ones who save their girls for dick-less French dukes,” said the first guard.

“Our girls are clean, which is why the king himself has given me the honour of presenting the English Lord with his evening’s entertainment,” said Prometheus and he signalled to Thomas and Quintana who opened the cart’s canvas covers to reveal Marie and Helene. The girls, wearing their veils and revealing costumes, smiled and waved coquettishly at the sentries.

“His Most Catholic Majesty has heard of the great bravery and courage of the English Lord so he has sent this rare and exotic gift by way of thanks,” added Prometheus.

“So in return for his assault on the breaches these sluts get to assault his breeches is that it? Lucky English bastard,” grumbled the witty if long suffering sentry.

“You’ll find his tent in the centre of the camp, you can’t miss it,” said the other sentry and he helped his comrade move the spiked barrier. The sentries stood back as the cart and its escort trundled into the wagon-fort and once inside the men could see that de la Pole was taking no chances.