devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band (35 page)

Lodi stood at the eastern end of a triangle formed by Milan twenty miles to the north and Pavia twenty miles to the south. With Milan in French hands, and the imperial garrison at Pavia besieged by Francis’ army, Lodi was the largest city in Lombardy still loyal to Charles V’s Holy Roman Empire and it’s walls were defended by 15,000 imperial mercenaries.

These
landsknechts
included the rump of the failed invasion force led by the French rebel the Duke of Bourbon and the Flemish prince the Count of Lannoy. Bourbon had taken much of the blame for the debacle at Marseilles so Lannoy had remained Imperial Viceroy of Naples and Commander in Chief of the Holy Roman Emperor’s Italian armies but his men were demoralised and desertions were rife. Realising the fate of Italy could be decided at
Pavia the emperor had promised to send reinforcements to Lannoy as soon as possible and the core of this new army would be 12,000
landsknechts
under the command of the celebrated mercenary colonel Georg von Frundsberg.

Added to Frundsberg’s Germans would be fresh contingents raised from the emperor’s Spanish and Italian territories so, in a few weeks, Lannoy would be able to lead an army of more than 30,000 men in a lightning campaign to relieve the 10,000 imperials trapped in Pavia and drive the French back over the Alps. As disease and desertion had also reduced the French army’s strength to less than 25,000 men, an imperial victory would be all but certain, provided Pavia’s garrison could hold out until Frundsberg arrived.

On the first day of December, Lannoy received news that Frundsberg had left his camp in Bavaria and was making a forced march over the Brenner pass. Later that day, whilst Lannoy’s chaplain said Mass for the beginning of Advent, the imperial marshal prayed that the old campaigner his soldiers called
Father of Landsknechts
would survive making such a perilous trip in the depths of winter.

Whilst Lannoy waited patiently for Frundsberg, Thomas and his companions spent a miserable week travelling to Lodi. The sun, when it did bother to shine, was as weak as a faithless husband’s excuses whilst the rain lashed them longer and harder than any sergeant’s cane. The worst of the storms broke whilst the men were trudging wearily over the flat plain to the south of Lodi. This squall was so violent the men were forced to shelter in a goatherd’s hut even though they were barely a mile from
the city’s gates. Exhausted by their trip, the men had fallen onto the heap of mouldering straw they’d found inside and were soon fast asleep.

How long they’d slept they didn’t know but they were roused by strange sounds coming from outside the shack. Fleeting shadows interrupted the sunlight streaming through the gaps in the wooden planking and the men inside heard the whispered sounds of a guttural language that sounded like German. As Thomas and the others sat up and felt for their swords, the hovel’s flimsy door crashed open to reveal a huge soldier dressed in the colourful slashed doublet and striped hose of an imperial
landsknecht
. He was holding an arquebus with a smouldering match in its serpent and Thomas had no doubt the gun was loaded with small, sharp pebbles that would be lethal if fired into this confined space.

“Don’t shoot we’re simple travellers on our way to Lodi,” Thomas cried in German but their visitor was staring at Prometheus who sitting in the straw like an enormous Rumpelstiltskin.

“By all the saints in heaven, you don’t see many blackamoors in Lombardy so who in the name of St Maurice’s big black arse are you?” said the
landsknecht
but before Prometheus could answer, the handgunner realised that all four travellers were dressed entirely in black.

“St Jude’s balls! You’re wearing the livery of the Black Band!” he exclaimed and he shouted to his comrades to come and help him take charge of the
landsknechts’
hated enemies. Seconds later he was joined by two other men who were also armed with handguns.

“These cowardly scum must have legged it from the French siege works at Pavia,” said the second
landsknecht
, staring at the stolen clothing Thomas and the others had neglected to change.

“On your feet you garlic chewing cocksuckers and keep your hands where we can see them or you’ll get a barrel full of hot stones up your arse. You’re either deserters or spies but one way or another way Frundsberg will have you all dangling from the end of a rope before sunset!”

“Wait, it’s true we’ve come from Pavia and we are spies but we don’t serve the French or the Black Band. We’ve been sent in secret by Henry Octavius, King of England to gather information that may be useful to the emperor,” Thomas lied.

“Henry who?” said the handgunner looking at his captives in bewilderment. Thomas sighed and patiently explained that king of England was not only the emperor’s ally, he was Charles V’s uncle and it was English gold that paid the imperial army’s wages. They should therefore be welcomed as friends and comrades-in-arms not treated as prisoners.

The
landsknechts
looked puzzled. They didn’t know or care who was king of a fog bound rock lying at the edge of the world but they did know that Sir John Russell, the English king’s ambassador to the imperial court, had recently arrived in Lodi with a chest full of gold and a pay parade had been called for the following day. The fact that one of the strangers spoke his German with an English accent was enough to make them hold their fire but it was the bounty of four guilders apiece paid on spies and
deserters that persuaded them to take these renegades to their camp.

“If you’re friends you’ll hand over your swords and come to the camp peaceable,” said the third
landsknecht
suspiciously. Quintana began to protest that he’d had enough of being treated like a dog that had eaten it’s master’s lunch but Thomas assured him that this was precisely what they’d hoped would happen.

“We left Pavia seeking the protection of the imperial army, well we seemed to have found it,” he said happily and he handed over his sword.

The others did likewise and a moment later they all stepped into the empty sunshine of an Italian winter’s day. Once outside, the four men stood blinking in wonderment at the sight before them. Where last night there’d been nothing but muddy fields and herds of mangy goats, a new tented city had sprouted like a forest of giant mushrooms.

“By the par boiled flesh of Saint Vitus are we following these armies or are these armies following us!” cried Bos.

The host that had arrived during the night were Frundsberg’s reinforcements for Lannoy’s army but, as Lodi was already full of Spanish and Italian troops, the Germans had been forced to camp outside the city. As was their custom the
landsknechts
had built a wagon-fort, which was almost identical to that of the Black Band, but Bos and the others had been so exhausted they’d slept through the din of tent pegs being hammered into the ground and the clatter of carts being chained together. Their escort was a foraging party, sent to find any stray rabbits or chickens,
and whilst Thomas was happy to be taken inside, the others’ misgivings returned as they reached the wagon-fort.

“Why are we letting these slow witted sausage chewers do this to us?” Quintana whispered.

“There’re only three of them, we could take them easily,” added Prometheus.

“He that hath no sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one,” said Bos feeling his empty sword belt.

“That’s exactly what I plan to do! We said we’d need an army to get close to the White Rose, well… why not an army of imperial
landsknechts
?” Thomas said cryptically.

Bos replied that he thought they’d all agreed to abandon their careers as assassins and make an honourable living slaughtering godless Turks in Hungary but their escort ordered them to keep quiet. Ten minutes later, they were inside the wagon-fort listening to the
landsknechts
explain to their captain how they’d caught four French hens trying to fly their coop.

“Search them, they may be spies or assassins,” the captain ordered.

“Of course we’re spies and assassins, I keep telling you, we’re
your
spies and assassins, pay no heed to these clothes, I’m an English gentleman in the service of the emperor’s ally King Henry Tudor,” Thomas insisted.

“Chewed her what?” said the mystified captain. The man’s shameless ignorance was enough to persuade Thomas that he needed a firmer approach and he rounded on the captain angrily.

“Impudent knave! Insult my king a second time and I’ll have your tongue cut out! Now I will say this only
more, I bring vital information about the French army for Colonel Frundsberg and I demand to taken to him immediately,” he snapped.

“You know Frundsberg?” said the captain whose face had grown visibly paler at the mention of the colonel’s name.

“Of course I know him, do you think I’m here to plough your pig faced sister? And as Frundsberg pays you with English gold you’d better tell him I’ve arrived and look sharp about it,” said Thomas.

Despite his confident invocation of the name, Thomas had never heard of Georg von Frundsberg until he’d overheard the colonel mentioned by one of the foraging party who’d taken them prisoner. However, he did know that a threat to their pay was the about only thing that interested a
landsknecht
and the bluff worked better than he’d hoped. The captain ordered his men to take the English spies, if that’s what they were, to the colonel without further delay.

Frundsberg’s bright red tent was smaller than de la Pole’s but it boasted a more impressive array of banners and flags by its entrance. The mercenary colonel’s personal standard, quartered yellow and black with a silver heron in the black squares and stylised mountains in the yellow, was planted next to a white flag emblazoned with the red crossed swords of an imperial marshal. A pair of yellow imperial battle flags, decorated with the Hapsburg’s double-headed eagle, completed the display.

The middle-aged Frundsberg was sat at a folding table that had been placed outside his tent so he could enjoy the rare winter sunshine. Even seated, it was evident that the
Father of Landsknechts
was still a powerful, ruthless man and his thick, square cut beard contrasted the thinning hair on his head. As befitting his rank, the colonel wore three quarter armour and a short cape of orange cloth around his shoulders. A silken red sash, another imperial badge of command, was tied across his polished steel breastplate and his distinctive roman-style helmet, decorated with a plume of red feathers, was placed on the table to one side of the papers he was studying.

Thirty years earlier the colonel had helped the previous Emperor Maximilian create the
landsknechts
to counter the threat of the Swiss mercenary armies employed by the Hapsburg’s numerous enemies. Under Frundsberg’s command, the emperor’s elite body of pikemen, halberdiers, handgunners and swordsmen had quickly surpassed their hated
reisläufer
rivals, in both skill and reputation, and when they weren’t in imperial service Frundsberg hired his men to anyone with enough gold to pay them, providing they weren’t French or Swiss. After three decades of almost uninterrupted victories, the
landsknechts
had become the most sought after mercenaries in Western Christendom and their name had become a byword for the worst excesses of war.

Having spent more than half of his fifty years in Maximilian’s service, the ageing colonel had tried to retire to his Bavarian estates once the old emperor had died but, like Cincinnatus, his devotion to the Holy Roman Empire had brought him back to the battlefield each time the new emperor Charles V had summoned him. Most recently, Charles had bestowed the title of
Highest Field Captain of the Entire German Nation
on Frundsberg and charged him with raising the reinforcements for Lannoy’s beleaguered army in Lombardy. Despite the onset of winter, Frundsberg had quickly recruited more than 12,000 veterans to his banner and had crossed the Alps in record time.

There was another man seated at the table in front of the tent, who might have been Frundsberg’s slightly younger brother. He too had a full white beard and the tired expression of a man who’d served many powerful masters but instead of armour he was dressed in the long black cloak and square cap, which marked him as a man of letters. Around his neck he wore a heavy gold chain, decorated with red enamel badges displaying three golden lions, alternated with the combined red and white rose of the Tudors. Thomas recognised the man at once. It was Sir John Russell, one of king Henry’s most trusted ambassadors and a staunch ally of Cardinal Wolsey.

In his dirty and dishevelled state, Thomas reckoned there was no chance that the ambassador, who’d spent many years at the imperial courts in Spain and Austria, would recognise him as the lowly astrologer whom Wolsey had condemned to death. Nevertheless, he tried to avoid Russell’s quizzical stare and concentrated his attention on Frundsberg. Unfortunately, he found little comfort in the colonel’s cold expression, there was something of the wolf in Frundsberg’s yellowish eyes and Thomas realised this was a man who’d raised himself high by climbing a tower of dead men’s bones.

“Who are you and what do you want? Captain Schreiber says you have important news so speak up before
I have you flogged,” growled Frundsberg without looking up from his papers. Thomas was about to introduce himself as the man who held the keys to Pavia but Lord Russell spoke first.

“I know this man, he’s a rogue and a trickster whose name is Sir Thomas Devilstone and though His Majesty bestowed a knighthood on this scoundrel, he’s no gentleman. Why, back in England he’s under sentence of death for witchcraft!” Sir John cried and at last Frundsberg looked at his visitor.

“You’re Thomas Devilstone? They say Satan himself carried you over the walls of London’s Tower and took you to Metz where you were devoured by your own dragon. Is it really you that stands before me or some infernal
doppelgänger
sent to haunt me for my many sins?” Frundsberg asked.