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are of a different faith from us,’ said Edwin. ‘Or rather, their faith is differently put. The boy is a Luciferian. He believes it is Lucifer who was betrayed by God, that God is the usurper. Satan, he would say, is God’s servant – a gaoler charged with keeping Lucifer locked away.’
    ‘The Devil is two people?’ said Pole. ‘This is too much for my Yorkshire head.’
    ‘They say so,’ said Edwin. ‘It’s up to you if you believe them.’
    ‘Damned right it’s up to me. A thief and a devil worshipper?’ said Pole, ‘and we suffer him to live?’
    ‘For the moment,’ said Edwin.
    The boy’s eyes moved from face to face. He was shivering, beaten and was half starved but he was not cowed. He held his head up.
    Pole walked closer to the boy and studied him. Small and very slightly built, he had a clever face which bore an expression of fearful insolence. Pole knew his sort. He had whipped enough boys like that for their presumption. ‘Bow, boy, in deference to my nobility.’ Pole spoke in English.
    ‘He doesn’t understand English too well,’ said Edwin. ‘If you use big words you’ll lose him.’
    ‘What does he understand then? French? Don’t tell me he’s a courtier down there in the West!’ Pole laughed, but his laughter was like a spark to wet grass and it died where it had begun.
    ‘Cornish,’ said Edwin, ‘as they do in Cornwall.’
    Pole detected a touch of condescension in the priest’s voice. He knew men like Edwin as well – men who supposed their cleverness placed them above those who had been born their betters. He’d whipped enough men like that too.
    ‘Make him bow. Doesn’t he bow when he greets his superiors?’
    ‘I should imagine he guts them when he gets the chance,’ said Edwin. ‘Luciferism is a religion of revolution. He would upend God’s order, place poor men above kings.’
    ‘Then you should take him from here and have him hanged,’ said Pole.
    ‘That would bring all our schemes to nothing,’ said Bardi.
    ‘Why so?’
    ‘Because,’ said Edwin, ‘while I can wheedle devils through the postern gates of Hell, or call spirits who were trapped in this realm at The Fall, he can open the main gates.’
    ‘And what does that mean, Bardi?’
    ‘The enemy of my friend is my friend, dear Pole.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘If you want to know how to deal with angels ask someone with experience of fighting them. We’re going to talk to a demon.’

3
    ‘I have a diagram and amulet against evil death, another against being struck by lightning! Laminas guaranteeing good fortune – made by master monks! All illnesses cured, all worries removed!’
    Osbert the pardoner had suffered a flat morning selling forgiveness for sins in the Leadenhall marketplace and so was turning to his second line of trade – that of magical cures, charms and writings. The trade was not strictly legal but the number of secrets the pardoner knew – a market constable asking for an indulgence for fornication here, a London city official wanting clemency for embezzlement there – meant he went about his business unmolested.
    He’d chosen a position between a stall selling poultry – rows of neat white geese gazing blankly down from their hooks at him – and one selling mainly pork. A pig’s head stared out into the seething marketplace as if wondering what bad choices it had made that led it to the butcher’s table.
    The pardoner felt a spark of pity. The pig had done nothing but be born to seal its fate. He, by contrast, had started life with many advantages but had thrown them away to finish where he was now, among the flies, the offal and the stink of the marketplace selling penny indulgences that were supposed to guarantee Heaven’s favour.
    A merchant walked past in rich robes, his pretty daughter walking behind him. Osbert smiled at the girl but she turned her head away at the sight of a man so far beneath her. Had it not been for women, he himself might have walked along like that,