Margriet ran her knobby fingers over them. They were steel, with little brass gadlings on the knuckles in the shapes of beasts.
“What are these?” Margriet asked, running a fingertip over them.
“They’re to protect your hand, mainly. They’re called gadlings. Usually they are just little knobs or bits of steel. Sometimes they make them in shapes, animals and whatnot. A bit showy, aren’t they?”
“They aren’t even real beasts. This one is a leopard or something with wings. This bird—well, I’ve never seen any bird like this.”
“Are you saying you want me to steal you gauntlets with gadlings that resemble the courtyard chickens of Bruges, or some other animal with which your vast experience has made you familiar?”
That seemed to quiet her, for a moment at least. Margriet put the gauntlets on slowly and stretched out her fingers in them.
“They fit well,” she said. “They looked far too big but they fit rather well.”
Claude had been sure at first that Margriet’s message was at least part lie, and then on the road he had begun to remember things like the hot cake, and to wonder. Although even if Margriet were dying, he did not know what she wanted him for. But truth be told, he was curious, and Italy would wait.
Of all the things he had thought Margriet might tell them, he had never considered it might be a plan to raid Hell. And now they were sitting on the floor drawing disguises, like monks drawing monsters in the margins of books.
He looked down at the scratched drawing of a stick figure with a cauldron on its head, and grimaced.
“It’ll be a bear to wear, unless we can make it lighter than it looks,” Claude said. “Talking of beards has given me an idea. Have you seen some of the animal chimeras? If I can get some fur and fix it on my face and hands, and wear my mail and aketon—”
“Not strange enough,” said Margriet.
“I don’t know if you have forgotten, but we do not actually have access to the forges of Hell,” Claude snapped.
“We have brains,” Margriet snapped back. “What could you wear on your head other than a helmet?”
“What about horns?” asked Gertrude. “There are two drinking horns in the little church across the field. I am sure even now they are in the sacristy.”
“You would steal from a church?” Beatrix asked.
“Not steal. Borrow. I know the priest. Or I did, when we were young.” Gertrude smiled, and Margriet raised her eyebrows. “They have silver work but only on the edges, and I think it could be hidden.”
“All right,” Claude said. If Gertrude got talking about her romances, they would be here an hour. “Then where shall I put them? If I can get a leather coif, we could make two holes and poke them through.”
“But how will you affix the fur?” Beatrix asked. “We don’t have pitch in spirits.”
“I have some birdlime,” Gertrude said. “Perhaps—”
Claude shook his head. He had tried birdlime, with his first false beard, at fourteen. It had been a messy business, and the hair had come off when he sweated. “I should be able to get pitch in spirits in Ypres, at the apothecary.”
“In Ypres?” Margriet asked.
Claude nodded. “I won’t be long, and can get anything else we need, while two of you fetch the horns. I’ll need money, or something to trade.”
“Have your food first,” said Gertrude.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Chatelaine stood and everyone else in Hell’s great Hall stood as well, if they had legs to stand upon.
“Let us eat and drink, and give thanks for our victories,” she said.
The chimeras cheered, if they had mouths to cheer with. The revenants flitted around the edges of the Hall; they required no food but it was night and they were restless. She had called them home. They all looked at nothing, their faces blank. There were Willem and Baltazar; she would have liked to give them some reward, not because it would mean anything to them, but because it would remind Chaerephon how close they had come to losing, and what they had lost by winning.
A woman, small-bodied, knelt before her. Her torso was a piece of wood, the sides undulating voluptuously. Three strings and a bar of wood ran down her middle.
Beside her stood a tall man with a long pipe where his nose ought to be, running down to his waist, and another sticking out his back from between his shoulder blades. As he breathed, his chest wheezed, his abdomen puffing and collapsing like an enormous bladder.
“Fresh from the smithy, I see,” the Chatelaine said. “You’re the two who wanted to play music.”
The woman nodded. Little mouse. They had both been rotted in the lungs when they came to her, and near death. Small good she would have been in battle anyway. It was an annoyance that the Hell-forges would not work on unwilling subjects, but perhaps there was a wisdom in it.
“Go ahead and play for me, then,” the Chatelaine said, waving her hand. “Be good for something, before you die.”
A Monkey-man ran around the room as they played a quick tune, wheezy and uneven. He was too conscious of himself. He was hoping to be made her Fool, but what need had she for another fool? She was surrounded by them and she was disinclined to laugh.
Monoceros came and knelt at her side.
“I am sorry for being late,” he said. “I was bringing in the last of the grotesques from Bruges. There may be a few strays about the countryside but the good ones, the sound ones, are all in. We could leave now any time.”
“Oh, could we?” she said sweetly. “Could we leave? Do you give your consent?”
Monoceros knew better than to say anything. He tried to bow his head, giving only a hint of a movement before he checked himself, and kept his head high so as not to gore her. Even on his knee he was as tall as she was sitting in her great chair made of the carved bones of extinct beasts, the chair that had belonged to her husband.
She pitied Monoceros a little, the first and most loyal of all her creatures.
“I am peevish,” she said. “Here, sit next to me and I’ll tell you the reason.”
Monoceros took his chair, an ordinary wooden chair with its bars and finials and roundels painted blue and red, like you might find in any chateau. He leaned close to her.
“The Beast will not move,” she said softly, holding a goblet in front of her mouth. “It refuses. It has laid eggs.”
“Eggs?” He raised his eyebrow, making the horn shudder.
“Chaerephon did not want me to smash them but I am not so sure. I do not trust him, Monoceros. He is not mine, you see.”
“I am,” he said. “You know that I am.”
“Yes,” she said. “You are my very first. And best, still.”
She reached her hand out and patted his huge shoulder, his skin like smooth and burnished bronze. She almost expected him to purr like his great cat.
“I need more chimeras and better,” she said. “Chaerephon is getting me black powder. I need you to find me some people who want to be weapons. Strong young people.”
He nodded.
“And Monoceros—”
“Yes?”
He leaned closer, understanding that this was a secret. She swallowed and spoke as quietly as she could, holding out a small iron key.
“Go into my chamber. I have kept everything that came from Willem de Vos there in a chest. Open it and take the counterfeit mace. Destroy it.”
He nodded.
Claude then went in search of what he needed. Margriet had given him some of the contents of her dwindling purse.
He bought a bit of pitch-in-spirits from an apothecary, and three skinny rabbits from a hunter. Fur, and meat. It was not a market day, but the ragman had some bits of leather and wire that might come in handy when making their disguises. He even had the beak of a giant bird, and a long bit of metal that looked like a bone. The people of Ypres were doing a brisk trade in chimera fashion.