Scourge of Wolves_Master of War

by David Gilman

  ‘We’re caught,’ said Blackstone. ‘We can surrender and the French will hang every one of us. And then our heads will be on poles at the gates of Paris.’ He unslung his shield from its saddle ties and settled it on his arm. Its blazon of a gauntleted fist gripping the cruciform sword beneath its crossguard was decorated with the legend Défiant à la Mort. He looked down to where the youngest archers stood under Halfpenny’s command. Fear etched their faces; their bodies trembled. They had never faced a cavalry charge of armoured knights before. ‘We will attack but if their horsemen get past us then you boys look to Will Longdon and Jack Halfpenny. They will show you courage. Obey their commands and you’ll kill many Frenchmen before they kill us.’ His eyes swept across the extended line of his men. ‘We have danced with death many times.’ He hit the flat of Wolf Sword’s blade across his shield. ‘No surrender!’ he called.

  His men roared and brought down their blades across their shields. Like a crack of lightning the sound echoed across the open ground. ‘NO SURRENDER!’ Fear had been rammed down into their chests and smothered with belligerence that gave them the strength to kill and the courage to face their death.

  Blackstone kicked his heels and let loose the surging horse as the men – little more than a handful – roared their defiance.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Blackstone hunched low over his horse’s withers, shield raised, sword held low ready to make the first upward cutting blow into the nearest enemy’s leg or raised sword arm: mortal wounds that would soon kill. A severed leg or arm flooded blood and seeped bone marrow. In this brutal, unforgiving contest, strength and endurance would be the only thing to keep a man alive; that and the blessing of any angel of war that hovered at his shoulder. The Goddess of the Silver Wheel, Arianrhod, jangled on a leather cord at Blackstone’s throat. She was an archer’s Celtic charm, a pagan spirit who offered protection. When the time came to forsake him she would ease the fighting man’s spirit across the darkening sky. The bowman’s guardian angel pressed close to the small gold crucifix that his wife had given him when they were little more than children. A blessing from her to protect the man she already loved.

  The front line of French horsemen seemed to waver, uncertain what to do as Blackstone’s men hurled themselves forward. Those behind who bore the banners and pennons of the French knights and of the Marshal of France had already turned in retreat. Something was wrong. Blackstone was less than a hundred yards from the front ranks when they too turned their horses. It meant only one thing. The French had drawn in Blackstone and then turned for the forest where they would re-form and outflank him. The killing would be done by those hundreds of horsemen who waited on the hillside. A charge downhill into Blackstone’s ranks would force him back straight onto French swords. Hope lay in Will Longdon’s archers, ready to loose their arrows on those men on the high ground should they attack Blackstone’s flank.

  The French seemed to be in turmoil. Many had already galloped into the woodland. Blackstone dared to glance over his shoulder. Thundering horses, bellowing lungs. His own men snarling. Faces contorted in savage determination. A part of Blackstone’s memory heard the words of his King from a lifetime ago when they faced the enemy host at Crécy. Blackstone, the boy archer, had trembled with fear as King Edward extolled French courage and ferocity – furor franciscus. He had never forgotten those words, nor that Edward assured the English of victory. Now it was Blackstone’s men whose ferocity had turned French ranks. And the horsemen on the rising ground had still not spurred their horses.

  Blackstone’s horse barged a French man-at-arms’ mount as he struggled to heel it away from the English charge. The horseman swung wildly, but Blackstone had struck him on his blind side. The man had no means of delivering a blow. Wolf Sword’s blade almost severed the man’s left leg behind the knee. The razor-sharp edge cut through flesh, bone and tendon and then went on to slash into the horse’s flank. Screams of pain rent the air as Blackstone’s men bludgeoned their way into their enemy.

  As Blackstone’s momentum carried him through the French front ranks, the bastard horse swinging its huge head like a pole hammer, he realized that those Frenchmen who had first retreated into the forest were now slowing those behind them making their own desperate bid to escape. The forest had clawed at the French as surely as ranks of spearmen on the battlefield. There were barely forty men left to fight. A dozen French horsemen scattered; riderless horses from those already slain ran after them. Chaos was Blackstone’s friend as the remaining men-at-arms were killed. Killbere’s flail brought down a young horseman. He quickly got to his knees and threw open his arms in surrender but Perinne was at Killbere’s shoulder and had already swung down with a killing blow. Crazed horses, nostrils flaring from effort and the stench of blood, barged and pushed into each other. John Jacob heeled his horse between Blackstone and a Frenchman who had managed to bring his mount under control. As the man raised himself in the saddle to strike down on Blackstone’s helm, Jacob lunged, his sword point ramming into the man’s exposed thigh and the soft flesh of his buttock. The man’s head threw back, then spasmed as he vomited. He slumped, defenceless, his horse once again out of control as it surged away. The man held on for thirty yards and then fell into the grass. He writhed, wounded leg pulled tightly into his chest, his screams rising above others who were in their death throes.

  One of Blackstone’s men had gone after the wounded horseman and quickly dismounted. Blackstone didn’t recognize him or know his name: it was one of the men gifted by Chandos. The man-at-arms put his foot against the wounded man’s throat and stabbed down into the defenceless man’s other leg. He struck again into the man’s shoulder, ensuring the downed man would know even more pain before he died. Once again he plunged his blade, not yet delivering the killing blow.

  Blackstone spurred his horse forward and as the gloating killer was about to hack again into the downed man struck him across his helmet with the flat of Wolf Sword’s blade. The blow threw the man down and by the time he staggered to his feet Blackstone had dismounted and was standing over him. The man spat blood and cursed and, without thinking, lunged at Blackstone who struck him down again, using the sword’s pommel.

  ‘No man who serves with me tortures another to death,’ snarled Blackstone.

  John Jacob and Killbere reined in as Meulon joined them to stand over Chandos’s man. The fight was over, the dead scattered on the ground, their horses running. Blackstone looked at Meulon and nodded towards the badly wounded Frenchman. Meulon bent and quickly cut his throat, ending his agony and his life.

  ‘Get to your feet,’ Killbere ordered the humiliated man. ‘On your feet, scum, and beg Sir Thomas’s forgiveness.’

  The glowering men were as formidable as any enemy and the man had the good sense to crawl to his knees and lower his head.

  ‘I beg it, freely, Sir Thomas,’ he said.

  ‘He’s one of those put under my command,’ said Meulon. ‘William Cade, pardoned murderer. Him and the nine men-at-arms that came with him. They ride together.’

  Killbere spat. Meulon gestured with his knife. Better to rid themselves of unreliable men. Blackstone shook his head. He looked past them to where the horsemen had finally begun to approach slowly down the hill. ‘We need every man. Back to Will and the others before those men spur their horses on.’ He looked down at Cade. ‘On your feet. You inflict torture on a man ever again and I will kill you myself.’

  He turned his back and mounted. The hundreds of approaching horsemen, who were now less than a half-mile away, had still not surged towards them. Perhaps, Blackstone reasoned, there was no need. They outnumbered Blackstone’s few by so many that the killing could be a leisurely affair. All he could hope for was that his archers would bring down enough of them to give him and the others a chance to quit themselves well. He glanced down the line. Men crossed themselves. All had been shriven by the pot-bellied cleric at Saint-Aubin. All except Blackstone and Killbere. If it was his fate to die this day then i
t caused him little concern. It meant he would rejoin his wife and daughter and that thought caused a warm glow in his chest that dispelled any fear.

  He looked to where Will Longdon and Jack Halfpenny stood with their archers. ‘Will, Jack,’ he called. ‘Those tree stumps are your markers. The first is at eighty paces, the next a hundred and thirty-three and where that small ditch runs is the two-hundred mark. Give them time to get close. Kill them at a hundred and eighty and those that fall will hamper the men behind them.’

  The advancing horsemen came on at the walk in a wedge formation, their leader astride a sturdy cob, ideal for travelling over rough terrain. These weren’t cavalrymen on war horses, they were men who roamed far and wide and had strong, uncomplaining mounts. Their leader was too big for his horse. His feet dangled, his massive frame seemingly broader than the animal beneath him. His chest was as large as a barrel and the long grey hair and beard obscured much of his face. The open bascinet showed two glaring eyes. Blackstone kept his gaze locked on the man. He seemed fearless as he drew up his men on the limit of an arrow’s range. There were still English and Welsh bowmen who could arch their backs and whip their bodies forward to gain those extra yards, yet the man stayed unmoving. Was he, Blackstone wondered, tempting his archers to risk using their arrows to little effect? The two groups of fighting men waited in silence. The three hundred bore no pennons or banners; nor were they clad in armour but dressed in leather and mail with a cloak for warmth and a shield without blazon.

  ‘Routiers,’ said Killbere quietly. ‘French are using them as well as trying to stop them.’

  ‘What are they waiting for?’ asked Perinne.

  ‘Wanting us to break and run,’ said John Jacob.

  ‘Or piss us off so that we charge,’ said Meulon.

  The routiers’ leader raised a hand and called across the divide. ‘I will approach,’ he called. ‘Keep those bastard archers’ fingers off their bow cords.’

  ‘He’s heard of you,’ said Killbere, turning to look down the line at Will Longdon.

  ‘Aye, and he had better not be my father because then he’s a dead man anyway,’ he answered.

  A ripple of amusement rose from the men. Death might be moments away but contempt of any kind cheered them.

  ‘Come forward!’ Blackstone called.

  The rider heeled the shaggy-coated horse. The closer he got the more Blackstone sensed he knew the man. He carried a spear rather than a pike. A simple killing weapon also favoured by Meulon: a pole eight feet long with a sharpened twelve-inch blade at its tip. Good for close-quarter fighting in the hands of an expert like Meulon.

  ‘I know this man,’ said Blackstone quietly.

  Killbere glanced at him. ‘I hope to Christ he’s not your father as well, Thomas, otherwise there’s going to be a death in the family today.’

  ‘I’m looking for Thomas Blackstone, a boy archer rewarded as a knight and a farting old bastard by the name of Gilbert Killbere who should be lying dead beneath a horse on the battlefield of Crécy fifteen years back.’

  ‘By all that’s holy. It’s him,’ said Killbere and raised himself in the saddle. ‘You ugly, broken-toothed whoreson! It’s you who should be rotting in the mud at Crécy!’ he guffawed. ‘It’s Gruffydd ap Madoc!’ he said to Blackstone, whose memory opened the door to the time he was an archer with his first command and had been protected by the giant Welshman when aggressive spearmen questioned Blackstone’s right to wear a Welsh archers’ goddess at his neck.

  Gruffydd ap Madoc pulled up his horse at fifty paces. ‘Well? Do you intend to fight and die or invite me to eat?’

  ‘You ride with the French?’ Killbere shouted, knowing the routiers could be in the King of France’s pay and that there was still enough time to charge their lines. It would take only minutes for the hundreds to kill Blackstone’s few men.

  Blackstone gathered the reins and urged the bastard horse forward before the Welshman had time to answer. ‘No, Gilbert. The French took fright when they saw them. They thought they were with us.’

  Killbere spurred his horse to join Blackstone as the scar-faced knight reached the mercenary leader.

  ‘God’s tears, Gruffydd, the last time I saw you, you and Gilbert went down beneath a horse. You with a spear in your hand and him trying to kill its rider.’

  Gruffydd ap Madoc beamed and cuffed Blackstone on the shoulder. Blackstone remembered him doing exactly the same thing all those years before and, like then, damn near failed to hide the grimace of pain.

  ‘And you were hacked near to death from what I saw. And your men still look as rough as a thistle-eating hog’s arse. Nothing has changed!’ said the Welshman.

  Killbere drew up alongside him and extended his hand. ‘I thought you dead all these years.’

  ‘And I you. I should have guessed you were too belligerent to kill that day.’

  ‘I was dragged from beneath that horse, but you?’

  ‘The good Lord alone knows how I got away. I was hurt but I crawled through the mud and woke up two days later among the dead on the battlefield with a scavenging peasant trying to steal my knife, so I rammed it down his throat. Good days, Killbere. Days when we knew who we fought and why. Since then I have sold my sword. North-east. Up near the German border.’

  Blackstone studied the bear of a man. Fifteen years was a long time in a fighting man’s life. What drove them to fight for their King was behind them once they had been released from their service. The brusque man before him had championed Blackstone back then against antagonistic Welsh spearmen. But now? The hundreds of men behind him were battle-hardened, there was no doubt about that, and they looked ready to hurl themselves forward at the slightest gesture from their leader.

  ‘How is it that you appear on our flank,’ said Blackstone, ‘as if you have been following our trail? Why have you travelled so far from the German border?’

  The Welshman laughed, exposing his broken teeth through the thickness of his beard. ‘To kill you.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  King John II pulled his ermine-lined cloak around his neck as he walked across the vast raised courtyard of the royal manor at Vincennes. He and the immediate members of his council had moved the four miles south-east of Paris to what had once been his ancestors’ hunting lodge in the Vincennes forest, but which over two hundred years had become a fortified château and retreat for French royalty. It also offered John and his family safety from the claustrophobic streets of Paris, now suffering from the pestilence, where a hundred people a day were dying. Legend and superstition said that the name of St Roch should be invoked to cure the plague, but if this failed it meant that the supplicant had grown too wicked and that God intended their end. A few miles along the Seine at Argenteuil only fifty survived from the population of eighteen hundred. To John’s mind the curse of the English and the foulness of the pestilence went hand in hand. And St Roch was deaf to those who prayed.

  ‘Sire,’ said his son, the Dauphin, ‘we do not wish to impose more discomfort on your grieving heart that we know mourns for France, but Blackstone’s continuing presence stabs at us like a dagger point wielded by the English King. It is Edward’s doing that Blackstone secures the towns ceded in the treaty. Does he intend to inflict this torment on us for ever? Blackstone has destroyed Saint-Aubin-la-Fère. That was not in the agreement. Nor was the death of Bernard de Charité. His head was sent to Paris.’

  The King turned away from the gaggle of counsellors. He had spent four years in captivity after being captured at Poitiers by the Prince of Wales and escaping death by mere yards at the hands of Thomas Blackstone. The King’s courage in battle was readily acknowledged, but the whispers, even of those close to him, were that had he even half as much political wisdom as bravery on the battlefield the nation would have survived. John had alienated Norman nobles and they in turn had plotted against him and joined forces with his son-in-law Charles of Navarre. Such conspiracies, John had decided when being forced to surrender at Poitiers,
had been as if the stars had aligned themselves against him. Not even a divine king could alter the fate cast by the heavens. And then after captivity he had returned to a scarred land, torn apart by routiers and civil war. The north of France was plagued by bands of English, German, Breton and Navarrese mercenaries. Charles of Navarre still harboured ambitions to seize John’s crown and it seemed the English King was unconcerned because such disruption kept the French monarchy at bay and less able to control events. And there was a private war being waged by Count de Vaudémont, the Royal Lieutenant in Champagne, against the German princes the Duke of Lorraine and the Count of Bar: a bitter struggle beyond France’s eastern frontier fought by routier armies. At every turn King John faced lament from his subjects. More than 120 castles were still held by his old enemies in Normandy alone, castles that English and Gascons refused to leave in accordance with the treaty. Peasant farms and great estates alike were stripped bare by foraging mercenaries. Churches had been pillaged, stripped of everything so that services could not be undertaken – the wind gusting through windows bereft of glass blew out the candles. What manner of men stole glass from a church? Of what use could it be to them?

  Days had passed into weeks and then months while he tried to bring unity and wellbeing to his country, and in the end a part of him had begun to yearn for the years spent in England, despite the guilt that crept alongside such thoughts like a witch’s daemon. How could he not hanker after that time? He had been living in luxury, more a guest than a prisoner of the English King, not suffering like the French people. Along with other noblemen held after the battle and whose ransoms were still being raised, he had enjoyed great comfort, even gifts. Living in the Savoy Palace he had attended balls and tournaments and enjoyed the gaiety of the victorious English court. When King Edward’s mother, Queen Isabelle, had attended her last tournament on St George’s Day at Windsor Castle he had joined the English royal family and suppressed the humiliation of watching English knights beat those who came from across Europe.