devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band by richard anderton Page A

summoned,” the woman cackled and she tossed a dried white rose into the straw at the bottom of Thomas’ cart.
    “None of that mother, we can’t have you passing flowers to prisoners, especially ones accused of treachery and witchcraft. Now be off with you or you’ll find yourself dangling from the gallows alongside your lover boy,” said the court yeoman and he threw the flower into the mud. The crone questioned the sergeant’s parentage but she wisely withdrew into the safety of the crowd leaving Thomas to wonder if their meeting had been coincidence or something more meaningful.
    The guards may have chased off the crone but they couldn’t prevent the huge crowd from following the cart all the way to Westminster. At intervals Lord Rich would poke his head from between his litter’s silk curtains to threaten the mob with all manner of painful punishment but Thomas’ growing band of supporters steadfastly refused to disperse. Instead they started to sing scurrilous songs accusing Cardinal Wolsey and his servants of all manner of unnatural practices.
    Thomas happily led the crowd in their singing and gave a speech urging his followers to resist the tyranny of corrupt clergymen, though he was careful not to say anything that might be considered treason against the king. By the time the cart reached the gateway to the Palace of Westminster, the procession looked like a Bartholomew’s Day Fair. Street vendors sold ale to the crowd, acrobats performed tricks and cutpurses silently relieved the richer spectators of their cash. The sentries that guarded the entrance to the palace stared incredulously at the throng that approached them until an exasperated Lord Rich bawled at the captain of the guard.
    “Captain, disperse these riotous peasants immediately!” cried the red faced Rich, “The king’s justice must not be mocked in this way!”
    “At once My Lord,” said the captain who lost no time in summoning the rest of his company from the guardroom. The captain’s men formed a hedge of steel halberds in front of the palace’s gatehouse. This manoeuvre was greeted by howls of protest from the crowd and for a moment, Thomas thought the mob might snatch him from the cart and carry him away to safety. Then someone took a step back and one by one Thomas’s supporters drifted away, like pieces of chaff carried off by the wind. As soon as his fickle followers had abandoned their hero, the cart was allowed into the oldest and most derelict of King Henry’s palaces.
    A few years ago a fire had burned the royal apartments to the ground so the king now preferred to live in his new palace at Greenwich, but the clerics and clerks thatcarried on the business of government were still lodged at Westminster. The teeth-numbing squeaks of the cart’s wooden wheels rattling over the courtyard’s cobblestones, only served to remind Thomas that once he’d been welcomed into all Henry’s palace by lutes and minstrels. Yet even though he’d returned to Westminster as prisoner he refused to be disheartened by the reversal of his fortunes. He damned Wolsey for a knave and resolved to face his accusers with the defiance and dignity that marked a true Englishman.
    The cart stopped outside Westminster Hall, which stood between Edward the Confessor’s great abbey church and the river Thames. The medieval hall was home to the highest law courts in England and the steps in front of the entrance were filled with petitioners and pettifoggers busily preparing their cases. Despite the previous crowd’s interest in Thomas’ procession through the streets, this gaggle of lawyers and their clients were too concerned with their own affairs to pay him any notice.
    “Bring the prisoner inside at once, His Eminence does not like to sit in judgement beyond eleven of the clock and it is already past nine,” Rich barked to the escort.
    “I would hate to inconvenience My Lord Wolsey so I’ll gladly take my leave and call another day, now if you