Scourge of Wolves_Master of War

by David Gilman

  Killbere’s pockmarked face scowled as he and Blackstone turned away. ‘Mother of Christ, Thomas. We must choose our own men and not be put upon. I would not be surprised if when the time comes these archers put an arrow in our backs.’

  ‘You’re the one who struck him. Not me.’ Blackstone grinned. ‘I’ll make sure I’m nowhere near you when the fight comes, just in case his aim is off.’

  * * *

  Sir William Felton was getting on in years, thought Blackstone as he attended the gathering of captains. Probably, he guessed, in his fiftieth year, though it made no difference: Killbere was about the same age and as aggressive in a fight now as he had been years ago. Blackstone studied Sir William. He came up to Blackstone’s chest and the two lions of his blazon ranged against a red background on his surcoat seemed to stretch as he drew a deep breath. He scratched grubby fingernails across his weather-beaten face where pig-bristle whiskers sprouted.

  ‘Two days, no more,’ said Felton as he pointed with a stick at the crude model of the landscape that stood between Sir John’s force and the Breton horde. ‘At least two thousand. They’re disciplined. Well fed. And well led. I couldn’t make out whose banner led them but I recognized some who had been at Poitiers. These whoresons will give us the fight of our lives.’

  He looked at the men gathered around him. Louis de Harcourt stood next to Chandos. In contrast to the squat, muscular Felton, de Harcourt was almost as tall as Blackstone, his gaunt, sunken features etched around a hawk-beaked nose. He looked to be the most noble of everyone present and when he spoke it was with a quiet authority, his Norman accent reminding Blackstone of de Harcourt’s uncle, Godfrey, who had abandoned the family to fight for England. It was Louis’s brother Jean who had befriended Blackstone. Seeing de Harcourt lifted the trapdoor to a thousand memories in Blackstone’s mind.

  ‘They come in two columns, half a league apart,’ said de Harcourt. ‘They are organized. Scouts are a league ahead, mounted crossbowmen on each flank – not many, I saw two, perhaps three hundred. Like us the men-at-arms wear no heavy armour. And I saw nothing of their plunder. Sir William?’ he said, deferring to the English knight.

  ‘Aye, they have it. A hundred men or so guard it at the rear. Pack horses mostly and a few carts. Supplies and plunder.’ He looked to Chandos. ‘I recommend we ride hard and get further north of them.’ He pointed to the bits of rock and sticks that represented their proposed route and battleground. ‘There, beyond the mountains on the reverse slope and we’ll secure the heights.’

  The men murmured their approval.

  ‘That’s your decision, William. I depart for Vincennes in the morning. I’ll take fifty men as escort and leave the archers with you.’

  Felton turned to the gathered captains. ‘Order of march. I take the right flank, de Harcourt the left and…’ He glanced at Blackstone. ‘…you’ll take the vanguard.’

  Killbere grinned with anticipation but Blackstone simply nodded. Felton seemed to be waiting for an answer. ‘You make no comment, Sir Thomas?’

  ‘I was wondering why you would race to meet them. We exhaust ourselves and our horses. The land here is already hard going. We have come a long way east and the freezing air spills down from the mountains. We don’t know the ground there but a few miles from here there’s a monastery. It sits high in the land. Its vineyards will be in ruins but there’s a river that feeds a lake and there’s marshy ground that could be to our advantage. The Bretons are looking for a fight and they come straight for us. We hold the vineyard and divide our force and we have them in a pincer. They would have no choice but to attack uphill and try and fight through the terraces. If they wheel away the lake and marshland are on one flank, and the rest of us on the other. They would be forced into a bottleneck. They would have no escape.’

  There was a stunned silence for a few moments. Felton’s face coloured. Blackstone had embarrassed him in front of the captains. He glanced around and saw on the men’s faces that they thought Blackstone’s proposal to be better than his plan.

  ‘I know the monastery,’ said Louis de Harcourt, breaking the awkward moment. ‘It sits above a place known as the Vallée des Soupirs. Blackstone is correct. The vines will have rotted but the stakes will be there and the terraces are steep.’

  Felton ground his teeth but he held back the curse that festered on his tongue. Such radaillons had proved successful in battle before. The contours of those ancient terraces had helped funnel the French onto English swords at Crécy. Is that what Blackstone remembered? One great victory. One day’s slaughter? If that was all Blackstone could offer by way of a military strategy then his reputation as a successful war leader was undeserved.

  ‘It is a plan that has no guarantee of success,’ said Felton. ‘My route puts us directly in their path. It will be done with once and for all. It serves our King’s wishes to destroy these Bretons. It will take Charles de Blois another two years at least to gather such a fighting force again.’

  ‘I will guarantee they will turn onto the road and have no choice but to face us,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘Guarantee?’ Felton scoffed. ‘There is no guarantee in war.’

  ‘Only that a wrong decision will lead to defeat. I know this place and I know how to force their hand. Half a day’s ride instead of two and onto ground that will give us victory.’ He glanced at Louis de Harcourt. ‘“The nature of the ground is often of more consequence than courage.”’

  De Harcourt guffawed. ‘Vegetius! The precious book my brother loved. He taught you well!’ He laughed again, and nodded, ‘Yes,’ remembering his own studies and quoted further from the ancient book of war: ‘“And if your forces are few in comparison to your enemy then cover your flanks with a city, the sea or… a river.”’

  The men looked at Sir William Felton. He had been defeated. He glowered at Blackstone. ‘Your name will be tarnished for ever if we are defeated.’

  ‘And yours will be praised when we win,’ said Blackstone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Winter sun crept across the landscape just as a fawn might ease itself into the open from the depths of the forest, cautious and unwilling to challenge the chill air that persisted beyond the trees. There was insufficient cover for men to hide in ambush close to the forest’s edge so Will Longdon was obliged to settle his archers forty paces back into the trees. It would mean a muscle-cramping night. No fires would be lit for their smoke would linger in the high branches, which would be spotted several miles away. But there would be no complaint, or at least none spoken aloud. The men’s curses would be reserved for the men-at-arms who slept beneath their blankets sheltered from the wind by the craggy ground behind them. No doubt the damned knights would have fires. The wind favoured them, blowing the smoke away downwind from any approaching enemy. Bastard hobelars, bastard knights, bastard noblemen, every bastard man-at-arms who waited to kill those that the archers would force onto their blades.

  Will Longdon had left Jack Halfpenny with his twenty archers on the slopes with Killbere where they would face the initial assault when the Bretons charged uphill. Halfpenny’s men were in the safest position. Down here in the forest Longdon was not content to let the archers sit in what little comfort was offered by the leaf mould blanketing the forest floor. A thousand years had softened the ground and, despite the damp, it was a bed that offered some comfort. ‘Off your arses,’ Longdon told them. ‘We put ourselves at risk being here. There are enough horsemen to turn and ride through us once we shoot into them.’

  Longdon and Quenell set their men to sharpening stakes thirty paces back from the forest edge. The archers would be able to step forward of them and hold their ground but if a charge came their way then they could sprint behind the sharpened stakes, which would be hidden from view until it was too late for the riders to see them. The slender boughs dug in at an angle would pierce a horse’s chest and the archers would set on the fallen riders with knife and sword. They could not dig pits to entrap the horses forward
of the treeline as that would have given the ambush site away. The archers were few in number, but they could loose several hundred arrows in the first minute. The shock of sudden and near silent death from the sky would throw the mounted troops into disarray. Some would charge forward towards the high ground where the English and Gascon men waited; others would surely turn and charge the archers. The risk was how many Bretons would be courageous enough to attack. Will Longdon nursed the fear in his stomach. His archers would have a chance if only a hundred or so charged into the trees. Thirty or more would go down on the stakes, the rest would hurtle after them and that’s when the lightly armed bowmen needed help. It would be a lung-rasping run to the other end of the forest into the clearing and then they would need to steady their breathing and turn to face the Bretons. Will Longdon prayed that Perinne’s men had placed the extra sheaves of arrows there for them. And that Perinne had not spotted any more buzzards circling. The raptors had faced a hard winter and scoured the land for food, but today they would abandon their hunt and be calling up men’s souls. Longdon glanced up at the rising ground. There was no sign of movement except from crows in the sky. Nothing seemed untoward. Nothing suspicious that would alert the Breton mercenaries. With luck the killing would be efficient and his own losses few. He blew snot from his nostrils and wiped the sweat from his face as he sharpened another stake.

  * * *

  The narrow valley would lead the Bretons towards those who waited on the higher slopes where a small lake fed into a river. The ever-resourceful Benedictine monks – now absent, having abandoned the monastery during the winter when the routiers came through – had created the catchment area from the mountain run-off that fed down onto the lower hills. It served as a reservoir that gave them fish to eat and its cleanliness was assured because it was the river below the monastery that carried away offal from the animals butchered in their kitchens and ordure from their latrines. In order to control the water level they had built a sluice that released the excessive winter snow melt.

  The reservoir was the length every peasant used to measure his field – 220 yards – but unlike the ploughman’s acre the dam was as broad as it was long. The monks had used the natural saddle of the land to trap the water by building a stone wall between the rock face that jutted forward on either side to secure the sluice gate. The irrigation channels for their crops and vines were controlled by small wooden gates barely as wide as a man’s spread hand. If the monks did not control the winter flow of water then the dam would overspill, the irrigation ditches would founder and the retaining wall crumble beneath the water’s pressure. At the base of the sluice gate a small opening allowed a steady stream of water to pass. This fed down into the river and served to keep the water level fairly constant.

  ‘You’re certain you can do this?’ said Louis de Harcourt as he stood with Blackstone and Killbere on the high ground, looking down across the lake and the flowing river. Will Longdon’s archers were a long way below in the forest. If the Bretons were trapped between the trees and a sudden fast-flowing river then their choice would be to try and turn into the forest and face an unknown number of archers or to surge upwards and assault the men-at-arms who held the high ground. Blackstone knew it was a gamble which the enemy might choose. If all went as planned the Bretons would be split: some on one side of the river; others beyond it. Whatever happened, his plan would disrupt the larger force. But Felton was correct – there were no guarantees.

  ‘It can be done. I have already been down there. Once we open that sluice gate the Bretons will be trapped. The river will flood and the marshland beyond the turn in the road will be swamped after they bring their horses across the ford. It’s shallow enough now but not when the water reaches it. We will trap many of them this side. Those in the rear will be slow to turn with the supply wagons and pack horses. We take those after the fight.’

  Blackstone’s eyes were on the fighting ground. He was taking a risk and if he got it wrong then his men would die and Sir William Felton would make certain all the blame for the failure of destroying the Breton horde fell squarely on his shoulders. De Harcourt studied the younger man. He couldn’t remember whether he had ever seen him at Castle de Harcourt many years ago during those days when the family was split between serving France and England. A time when his brother Jean de Harcourt had taught Blackstone the skills of the sword after his bow arm had been broken. He shook his head, knowing he had not. Blackstone glanced at him.

  ‘You doubt me?’

  ‘No, I was thinking of something else.’

  Blackstone nodded, accepting the explanation, his concentration back on the small lake and the sluice gate. Timing was everything.

  ‘You cannot turn the sluice gate wheel. The handle is missing,’ said de Harcourt.

  ‘I go in the water and haul on the chain.’

  ‘That’s too much for one man, even a man as strong as you. It cannot be done.’

  Blackstone grinned and gestured towards Meulon, who was organizing the hobelars into their battle positions. ‘Meulon will be in the water with me. Two of us can do it.’

  Louis de Harcourt knew that Meulon had been a sworn man to his brother but when the French King had executed him for treason then Meulon had sworn allegiance to Blackstone.

  ‘Our families are still linked, even by the men who fight. All right,’ said de Harcourt, accepting that there was no more to be discussed. ‘I will be on Killbere’s left. I pray you do not freeze to death in there and that when you open the sluice that the water does not take you with it.’

  ‘You and Sir William stay hidden until Gilbert calls for you, my lord. That way the Bretons will see only him and his few men. They’ll think the heights are lightly defended. Then, when you break cover, stand fast with Sir Gilbert. Meulon and I will join you once we are out of the water. Gilbert has men ready to hold us with ropes we will tie about us.’ Blackstone grinned. ‘What could go wrong?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Renfred sat astride his horse two miles from where Blackstone and the men waited. The wind whispered up the valley and swept around forest and ancient vines. It was, Renfred realized, a sigh rather than a ghostly moan. And the valley had rightly earned its name. He kept his cloak tight around him, grimacing at the thought of another winter in France and hoping that Blackstone would take them south, perhaps even back to Italy. For summer at least. Winter everywhere was the bane of a fighting man’s life and Blackstone fought throughout the year. Renfred’s eyes glistened from the snap of wind but he was thankful that the rainclouds seemed to falter in their journey towards him and settled across the distant mountains. The forests shimmered in the wind but so too did the horizon at the end of the valley road. He wiped his eyes, turned his head slightly to one side to settle his vision and then looked again. Had it been the height of summer he might have considered the wavering body of men that appeared to be an illusion created by heat haze. The enemy were in sight. The two columns of Breton routiers had come together across a broad front and rode steadily towards him. If Sir William and Louis de Harcourt had been correct in guessing their number then of the two thousand at least several hundred breasted the valley. And given the breadth of the valley that meant that they would ride ahead in three waves one behind the other. Renfred grinned. As the valley narrowed and the river flooded they would be forced to merge ever tighter. Knee to knee on horseback. Cursing and berating horse and man. Forced to do Thomas Blackstone’s bidding.

  He turned his horse and spurred it away.

  * * *

  John Jacob stood at Killbere’s side. ‘There,’ he said, pointing to where Renfred signalled.

  ‘I see him,’ said Killbere. ‘They’ve entered the valley,’ he called and looked across to where Jack Halfpenny’s men crouched on the other side of the lake. The hurdles that Blackstone and Killbere had ordered built nestled against the old vine supports on the top three terraces. Anyone looking up onto the rising ground would see nothing more than overgrown and abando
ned vines but as many men as possible crouched behind the hurdles. The others waited on the reverse slope where the horses were tethered, out of sight.

  ‘Thomas, make ready,’ he said to Blackstone and Meulon. Stripped down to shirt and hose, Blackstone and Meulon eased into the dam, gasping with the pain of the icy water.

  ‘Mother of Christ,’ wheezed Meulon.

  For a moment Blackstone could not speak. Chest-deep the ice-melt strangled him. Despite each man’s layered muscle both felt the water’s vice-like grip and the pain it caused in their joints. A sudden fear gripped Blackstone, as frightening as the prospect of not being able to accomplish their task. Even if they succeeded would they be able to fight afterwards?

  ‘My balls have taken refuge somewhere behind my lungs,’ Meulon said, forcing a laugh as they struck out for the sluice gate.

  ‘At least you still have yours,’ gasped Blackstone. ‘I think mine have shrivelled and dropped off.’

  Heaving for breath, they reached the wooden gate and the chain, as thick as a man’s wrist, that cranked it open. The windlass was long gone but as Blackstone gripped the slimy metal and heaved on it he felt a satisfying give in the tension. Meulon moved to his side and readied himself to put his hands above Blackstone’s on the chain.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Blackstone. He peered over the low stone wall and tried to stop himself shivering long enough to gauge where the enemy had reached. Another half-mile and the Breton front ranks would be close enough. Once they saw the water pour down the slope into the river there would be no time for those first two rows of men to wheel their horses and retreat. Those who rode in the third rank might have time to start but they would be caught by the flooding river and be bogged down in the marshland. Blackstone’s body tensed; his mind fought the urge to yield to the uncontrollable shivering that would strip them of their strength. The rope tied beneath their armpits was already chafing. ‘We count to fifty and then open the gate,’ said Blackstone.