Read Son of the Morning for Free Online Page A

er, grace.’
    Osbert kneeled.
    The mob above were crying out.
    ‘Not upstairs!’
    ‘This door’s locked.’
    ‘Break it in.’
    ‘Hang on a minute, this is the priest’s house!’
    ‘It can’t be, look at the state of it!’
    ‘I tell you it is. You can’t go smashing up the priest’s house. You’ll hang!’
    The door above rattled and Osbert fell to his knees.
    ‘Holy father, I am a sinner, but not guilty of the sin for which I am pursued. Please, use your word to protect me from this mob. Intercede for me here.’
    ‘I’m afraid I can’t.’
    The door rattled again.
    ‘I can pick that lock, we’ve no need to break it.’
    ‘He’s not going to be in a locked room, is he?’
    ‘Well, we’ve looked everywhere else.’
    Osbert put his hands together in prayer. ‘I will live a devout life henceforth, I swear it.’
    ‘I would like to help you but, as I say, I can’t. I’m stuck here.’
    ‘How stuck?’
    ‘The sorcerer who owns this house has enchanted me. I can’t move. He’s got me stuck in this circle. It’s dark magic that can hold a holy man like me.’
    Osbert looked down at the man’s feet. Sure enough, there was a circle in chalk on the floor. It wasn’t too dissimilar to the sort of thing he sold every day, though more carefully drawn.
    ‘I’ve never seen such a thing,’ he said. It was a good idea to profess ignorance of charms in front of a cardinal.
    ‘No, well, neither had I.’
    ‘It’s open. The door’s open.’
    ‘It’s black as the devil’s sooty nutsack down there,’ said a voice.
    ‘Get a light!’
    Men were thumping down the stairs, blundering about as if blind.
    Osbert’s heart was pounding; he didn’t have time to think how strange it was that he could see the cardinal with the lantern as clear as day while the men above complained of darkness.
    ‘I will release you. If I do, will you swear to protect me?’
    ‘I swear.’
    Osbert scuttled forward and rubbed out part of the chalk.
    ‘Thank you,’ said the cardinal, ‘now let me intercede for you.’
    He stepped out of the circle. Osbert noticed the strangest thing. The cardinal’s skin didn’t meet all the way round at the back of his head and was laced tight there, as through the eyelets of a shoe. The cardinal opened the lantern and took out the lighted candle. Then he put it into his mouth, swallowing it whole. There was an enormous belch from the cardinal, a roar of fire from his mouth and a great billow of smoke, and Osbert, along with all his pursuers, fell to the floor.

4
    Paris was beautiful in the autumn morning; a low mist lit by the sun clung to the river and the light caught the windows of the great towers of Notre Dame, splitting in shafts of gold and red. People had gathered for miles along the bank to see the flotilla of handsome cogs and hulks that was making its way east on a kind wind. The boats flew the pennants of Philip, King of Navarre, though it was his wife Joan who was coming to the capital in as much pomp as her land could provide.
    The country people were flocking out in their church best to gawp at her as she made her way down the river. Not so long ago she had been their princess, and a popular one. She was generous and she was pious, it was said. Plenty among them regarded her son as their rightful king, being old fashioned enough to see nothing wrong with inheritance through the female line.
    As the boats neared the city, merchants began to appear in the crowd, rattling pots and pans, displaying cloths and shaking tunics in the latest buttoned styles towards the ships. Bareheaded women wearing red and green striped hoods on their backs stroked their hair and called out to the sailors, telling them they must want a bed and someone to warm it after such a long voyage.
    On the scaffold-built forecastle of the leading and largest ship on the river stood a woman dressed in finery to rival that of the cathedral. Her dress was cloth of gold, her red cloak trimmed with ermine and