Page 7 of The Devils

The Start of a Bad Joke

Balthazar delivered a weighty sigh, but nobody noticed.

His current predicament gave him a great deal to sigh about: the ghastly mattress, the dreadful food, the frigid damp and unspeakable odour of his lodgings, the outrageous denial of clothing, the abominable absence of intelligent conversation, the heart-rending loss of his beautiful, beautiful books. But after long reflection he had come to the conclusion that the very worst thing about being forced to join the Chapel of the Holy Expediency … was the mortifying embarrassment.

That he , Balthazar Sham Ivam Draxi, learned adept of the nine circles, suzerain of the secret keys, conjurer of unearthly powers, the man they dubbed the Terror of Damietta – or at least had dubbed himself the Terror of Damietta in the hope that it would stick – one of the top three necromancers in Europe, mark you – possibly four, depending on your opinion of Sukastra of Bivort, who he personally considered an absolute hack – should have been apprehended by buffoons, tried and condemned by dullards, then pressed into humiliating servitude alongside such abject morons as these.

He glanced sideways with an expression eloquently communicating his utter disgust, but nobody was looking. The ancient vampire, presumably rendered decrepit by being starved of blood, slumped in a chair looking as fashionably bored as a wisp-haired skeleton could. The elf stood, thin as a length of pale wire, face obscured by a shag of unnaturally ashen hair, motionless but for a constant and deeply irritating nervous twitching of her long right forefinger. Their chief jailer, Jakob of Thorn, looked on from the corner with arms tightly folded: a war-worn old knight who appeared to have spent a sizeable portion of his life being crushed in a mangle, an experience that had clearly squeezed all sense of humour out of the man. Then there was the supposed spiritual shepherd of this congregation of the disappointing: Brother Diaz, a perpetually panicked young idiot from a little-known and less-regarded monastic order, who wore the expression of a man who cannot swim on the deck of a rapidly foundering ship.

An ineffectual priest, an enervated knight, a misanthropic elf, and an antique vampire. It sounded like the start of a bad joke to which the tragic punchline was yet to be revealed. One might at least have hoped for an awe-inspiring venue: some sculpture-crusted sanctum whose marble floor was inset with the ideograms of saints and angels. Instead, they got a draughty little box in the guts of the Celestial Palace, whose one window had a view of a nearby wall sporting a muddle of leaky drainpipes.

The choice at Balthazar’s farce of a trial had been atonement for his trespasses through service to Her Holiness or burning at the stake. At the time it had seemed a no-brainer, but he was beginning to suspect that, in the long run, immolation might prove to have been the less painful option.

That he , Balthazar Sham Ivam Draxi, who had made the dead his playthings and the storm his steed, who had forced back the borders of mortality itself and bent the arch-demon Shaxep to his will – or at any rate wheedled a few favours from her and survived – was not only reduced to wretched slavery, but slavery of this intensely banal and brainless variety.

He was preparing a sigh so explosive that someone would be forced to finally acknowledge his discomfort when locks rattled and the door was thrown wide.

A gaggle of acolytes trooped in, each wearing a white habit, a countenance of otherworldly piety, and a prayer-shawl stitched with phrases from the scriptures. One struggled beneath a heavy wooden frame strapped to his back, a giant book held open upon it, a second scattering ink as he strove to follow and write on the towering pages at the same time. A third had a great round wreath of flowers about her neck that almost brushed the floor. A fourth clutched the silver circefix he wore in one hand, a sheaf of prayer-sheets in the other, glassy eyes rolled to the ceiling, lips in ceaseless motion as he burbled an endless orison for the blessings of the Almighty, the Saviour, and all the Saints.

‘Here come the clowns,’ wheezed Baron Rikard, wobbling upright on his cane – if one could use the word ‘upright’ when he remained so hunched his nose was barely above his belt.

The acolytes parted to reveal two grey-haired women: cardinals, by their crimson sashes and skullcaps, not to mention the jewelled circles they wore on jewelled chains. One was exceedingly tall and graceful, gazing beneficently about like a rich woman come to distribute alms to the poor. The other tended towards the short and solid, with a wrinkled brow and flinty gaze. These, Balthazar deduced, were none other than Cardinals Zizka and Bock, the opposite poles of the leadership of the Church, Heads of the Earthly Curia and of the Celestial Choir. At first glance, he was less than impressed.

‘D’you mind?’ The two old women were elbowed aside by a ten-year-old girl in simple white, who planted her hands on her hips and surveyed the unwilling congregation with a critical cocked eyebrow.

Here she was, then: Benedicta the First, the Child Pope. The election of a new Holy Mother was never without controversy but this particular choice, being decidedly under parenting age, had caused widespread fury and denunciation, the excommunication of three rebellious cardinals and some dozen bishops, and nearly ushered in yet another full schism in the Church, whatever her supposed magical potential.

‘From folly to farce,’ murmured Balthazar under his breath. He had never had much patience for religion. What was it, really, but superstition with money?

‘Sorry, everyone!’ sang Her Holiness, not sounding sorry at all. ‘The Frankish ambassador brought me a bird and it was so funny-looking! What was it called?’

Cardinal Zizka looked almost as humiliated by this pantomime as Balthazar. ‘A peacock, Your Holiness.’

‘Lovely colours. Have you been waiting?’

‘No, Your Holiness.’ Brother Diaz flashed a servile smile and bowed as low as any penitent. ‘No, no, no, no—’

‘Yes,’ drawled Baron Rikard, examining his yellowed fingernails. ‘But what choice do we have?’

Her Holiness only smiled the wider. ‘Well, if you were Pope people might bring you a peacock but you’re a vampire so tough.’

The baron issued a long sigh. ‘Out of the mouths of babes …’

There was a barely audible groan from the corner and the mumbling acolyte tottered, prayer-sheets sliding from his nerveless fingers and flapping across the floor in the draught. He slumped onto his side in a faint and one of his colleagues instantly took over, clasping her hands and rolling her eyes to the ceiling, smiling lips moving in ceaseless prayer. Balthazar was caught where he spent much of his time: somewhere between contempt and envy. He might know it was all flimflam, but to believe a lie was as comforting for the believer as to know the truth. For an instant he could not but wonder – is it truly better to be a woebegone cynic than an ecstatic dupe?

Bock was fanning the insensible acolyte with a sheaf of the fallen prayer-sheets, but one, by chance, had come to rest beside Balthazar’s bare foot. It was scrawled with pieties on one side, but he noted with no small measure of excitement that the other was entirely blank. In the confusion it was a simple matter to slip his foot sideways and cover that scrap of paper. He could not quite keep the triumphant smile from his face as he felt it crackle beneath his sole. He would free himself from this humiliation and extract a vengeance to make the martyrs weep! They would all rue the day they dared cross Balthazar Sham Ivam Draxi!

Zizka cleared her throat as the unconscious acolyte was manhandled into the corridor. ‘Shall we administer the binding, Your Holiness? You have a busy day.’

‘Pffffft,’ snorted Benedicta the First. ‘They’re all busy days. Being Pope’s not half the fun you’d think.’

‘Most things aren’t,’ murmured the elf, which, despite their occupying adjacent cells, more or less doubled the number of words Balthazar had ever heard her utter.

One of the acolytes knelt with a bowl of red ink, into which Her Diminutive Holiness dipped her forefinger, then drew a simple line across the vampire’s wrist. With her middle finger, she did the same to the elf.

The Pope took one more step, and Balthazar looked into the face of the very representative of God on earth. A pale little girl with a large mole above one eyebrow, whose white skullcap struggled to contain a mop of brown curls. Balthazar had heard her described as the greatest arcane power to be birthed into the world for several centuries and been incredulous. He had heard rumours that she was being celebrated as the Second Coming of the Saviour herself and wanted to laugh. Now, looking upon her sacred person with his own eyes, he tended more towards weeping. If this unpromising child was truly the last, best hope of the world then it appeared the world was every bit as doomed as everyone said.

‘Who’s the new boy?’ She cocked her head as she looked up at Balthazar, putting her skullcap in imminent danger of falling off entirely. One of her acolytes hovered nervously, perhaps in hopes of catching it.

Brother Diaz cleared his throat. ‘This is Balthazar … er …’

Balthazar’s sigh of disgust bordered on a full groan. ‘Sham … Ivam … Draxi.’

‘A sorcerer—’

‘ Magician ,’ he corrected, biting off each syllable. It might have come with greater gravitas had he not been wearing only a threadbare nightshirt provided for the interview, but he did his best to appear formidably mysterious even so, lifting one eyebrow to its full magisterial height and regarding the supreme leader of the Church down his nose, which was not difficult since she barely reached his stomach.

She tried to snap her fingers but she did not have the trick of it and made no more than a soft thwup . ‘Wait! You’re the one who makes corpses dance? A whole opera, I heard!’

‘Well … only a first act, in truth. I was making amendments to the libretto when the Witch Hunters descended and, if I am entirely honest, I still cannot get the cadavers to sing. Certainly not in a manner that would please a connoisseur. More of a tuneful groan—’

‘I’d love to see that!’ cried Her Holiness, clapping her hands, and Balthazar had to admit her childish enthusiasm was rather charming.

‘It would delight me to put on a performance—’

‘Perhaps another time,’ said Cardinal Zizka, drily.

Her Holiness rolled her eyes. ‘God forbid we should have any fun around here.’ And she dipped the tip of her little finger in the ink and drew it across Balthazar’s extended wrist, by all appearances exceedingly pleased with her handiwork. ‘There!’

He waited expectantly for the rest. But there was no rest. That, it appeared, was the entire inscribed element of the enchantment. A line. Not even a straight line. Not even an even line. The blob of ink had at one side become a drip that was gradually sliding down his wrist. No circles within circles, no runes of the highest and lowest, no spiral of Sogaigontung with the sacred passages inscribed at the correct angle at each of the fifteen corners. A child’s finger painting, quite literally. Balthazar could hardly decide whether to feel delighted at how easily he would shrug free of this pathetic effort, or affronted that anyone might imagine it could contain a practitioner of his potency.

The prepubescent Pontiff had stepped back to consider the risible congregation of the Chapel of the Holy Expediency, one red fingertip pressed to her lips where it left a noticeable stain. She leaned towards Cardinal Bock. ‘What should I say?’

The Conductor of the Celestial Choir smiled upon her like an indulgent grandmother. ‘I don’t suppose it matters much …’ It was the most Balthazar could do to stop his jaw falling open. This woman was supposed to rank among the most learned magicians in Europe! Now it turned out she was a worse hack than Sukastra of bloody Bivort. ‘But perhaps something like …’ She took up the jewelled circle she wore around her neck and began to absently polish it on her sleeve, squinting to the ceiling as though she was only at that moment considering it. Balthazar outwardly goggled, inwardly boggled. The old bitch was making up the verbals on the fly! The wording of a solemn binding! The Papal binding, no less! He struggled to imagine what his competitors, rivals, and outright enemies in the arcane fraternity would make of this when he told them. ‘I require you to conduct Princess Alexia to Troy … to obey the instructions of Brother Diaz … and to see her enthroned as Empress of the East.’

On the words Princess Alexia , she waved towards a young woman trying to hide behind the acolyte with the book. Balthazar narrowed his eyes at her as he swiftly assembled the sorry pieces of this unedifying puzzle. This resolutely unglamorous waif, with the starved and sickly air of a stray dog and the shifty eyes of a low-class pimp, was the long-lost Princess Alexia Pyrogennetos, daughter of Irene, now to be installed on the Serpent Throne of Troy as a papal puppet?

‘From farce to fantasy,’ he murmured in disbelief.

‘I think that’ll do it,’ mused Bock, breathing on her circefix before giving it another polish. ‘Anyone else have any thoughts? Cardinal Zizka?’

The Head of the Earthly Curia sourly worked her mouth, then sourly shook her head, as if she had a very great number of thoughts but forbore to give them voice.

‘Here I go, then.’ The Pope bunched her fists and squinted as she concentrated on the words. ‘I require you to conduct Princess Alexia to Troy, to obey the instructions of Brother Diaz, and to see her enthroned as Empress of the East!’ She clapped her hands. ‘I got it in one!’

‘Wonderful!’ said Bock.

‘Wonderful!’ said the Pope, clapping again. ‘And then come straight back, of course.’

‘Good point, Your Holiness,’ said Bock. ‘Well remembered.’

The Pope’s face turned suddenly grave. ‘If you don’t give it your best, I expect you’ll feel very sick. And —’ she wagged a stern finger at each of them in turn ‘—be nice to each other on the way. Because being nice … is nice . Is it lunch yet?’ she asked, turning towards the door.

‘Soon, Your Holiness,’ said Zizka. ‘You must first apply the binding to the … missing member of the flock.’

‘Oh, I love Vigga! You think she’ll let me ride on her shoulders again?’ The Pope departed with a bouncing gait that bordered on skipping. ‘Then lunch?’

‘As soon as you have given audience to that delegation of bishops from the Hanseatic League. They desire a ruling over the relationship between God, Saints, and Saviour—’

Her Holiness gave a long groan. ‘Boring!’ And she was gone into the corridor, her acolytes trailing behind, one still praying, one still desperately trying to scribble in the giant book, one frowning furiously as she attempted to manoeuvre her huge wreath sideways through the door. The world’s most disappointing princess gave everyone in the room one last worried glance, then skulked after.

Balthazar rubbed gently at the red mark on his wrist. ‘That …’ he could not help saying, ‘is all?’

‘That’s all,’ said Bock, simply. ‘You’ll leave tomorrow morning, with an escort of Papal Guard.’ She waved one hand in a vague benediction. ‘May God bless your endeavour and so on.’

The baron flopped back into his chair, looking up from beneath his drooping lids. ‘Can God really bless such devils as we are, Cardinal?’

‘In his hands, they say all tools are righteous.’ Bock pushed her skullcap down towards her eyebrows so she could scratch the back of her head. ‘You know, I have always found it a paradox: there is nothing more freeing than being bound to a common purpose.’ She gave Balthazar an oddly enigmatic smile, settled her cap again, slightly skewed, and left.

It was the most he could do to suppress an incredulous chuckle. A set of extremely dangerous fools, entirely incapable of working together, undertaking a journey of a thousand miles or more with the utterly impossible aim of installing that sulking milksop on the Serpent Throne of Troy? Thanks all the same, but Her Infant Holiness could count him out. He would shrug off this tissue of a binding and be gone on the wings of the wind before anyone knew it!

He had to swallow a sudden, acrid burp, no doubt the result of the indigestible slop they fed him here. He entertained himself by imagining the moronic look on the moronic face of that smirking bitch Baptiste when she learned of his escape. When she realised she would be looking over her shoulder every moment of her life for his inevitable vengeance. He wondered what form of occult retribution would give him the greatest satisfaction, provide the most appropriate warning to others and the best metaphor for the humiliation he had suffered at her hands. This dunce of a princess could find her own way to—

—had Balthazar been punched in the stomach he could not have given vent to a more forceful fountain of vomit. It hit the floor perhaps four strides away, producing a crooked line of spatters all the way to his bare feet, and ended in an agonised, shuddering wheeze. He was left slightly bent over, tongue out, eyes watering, strings of drool hanging from his nose and his cupped hands full of his own sick.

‘That’s the binding.’ The elf had turned to regard him expressionlessly with those huge, unblinking eyes. ‘Works better than you’d think.’