by David Gilman
Guillouic, the bastard son of a cobbler from Croissic in south-eastern Brittany, had spent the better part of his twenty-odd years living by his wits, his blade and his ability to inflict terror. He had served with the French army off and on but preferred the freebooting life of a routier where more profit was to be had and unrestricted pleasure indulged in without the discipline of arrogant French lords. The Breton civil war suited him. Three years ago he had joined Breton brigands. A drunken fight with their leader over pay and the savagery of his victory startled even those among them who had wallowed in blood. The humble cobbler’s son was a force to be reckoned with and the fury of his killing meant the leadership passed to him without challenge.
He and his men had raided south, their actions uncontested. Paid by Charles de Blois, who was backed by the French King, the plunder they seized was a bonus, like the torture and rape that was their reward when the few defenders of the walled towns fell. The Breton civil war promised to last for years and the Bretons’ wave of terror had subdued towns and villages into the Limousin where de Blois held territory. And Guillouic knew that all that he and his men needed to do was to avoid the English who rode throughout France accepting allegiance from French towns and villages. He had the good sense to keep his force small. Never more than sixty or so men, enough to seize towns and scavenge off the land. Days before he and his men had seen the columns of thousands of men make their way northward. They were destined for a great battle but he and his men had kept their distance and avoided being drawn into fighting alongside so many. Better to stay quick on the hoof and to choose their own fights.
He grunted as he rolled tighter into his blanket, the warmth of the fire against his back. By the time summer came around he and his men would have enough plunder and money to see them through the following winter. Sleep proffered him twisted images scattered here and there through his dreams. They made no sense and did not immediately drag him to wakefulness. But somehow a small spark of animal intelligence warned him that the grunting sounds that been snuffling pigs rooting in a forest in the dream was something more. Sudden panic forced him instantly awake. Heart pounding, he saw figures looming out of the darkness. Where were the sentries? he thought instantly, then forgot as he saw the raiders sink their blades into his sleeping men. Their grunts of pain were barely audible. His cry of alarm stuck in his throat. If he alerted his men the intruders would be quickly drawn to him. He rolled clear and lunged into the night but his shoulder caught the legs of one of the attackers. Guillouic’s body was well muscled, corded with sinew, lithe and fast. But the man he rammed barely moved from the impact. He might as well have run into a boulder. His neck snapped back and he saw a bearded face, eyes glaring down at him. A bloodied knife blade slashed down and he turned away just in time; the cut missed his throat and sliced into his shoulder. The wound seared his flesh. And then a huge fist caught the side of his head. It rocked him backwards. A fragment of light exploded in his mind and like a felled beast he slammed into the ground. This had to be a dream from which he would soon awake. The fires must have died down for he was cold. The darkness engulfed him.
* * *
Bodies lay where they had slept, blood-soaked blankets cocooning the dead. Seven routiers had survived into the grey dawn. All were wounded and sat, heads slumped, glancing here and there at their attackers, knowing that no matter how hard they begged the Englishmen who had slipped into their camp would not offer mercy. Most of the fires barely smouldered but Jack Halfpenny and Ralph Tait had gathered dry kindling and some of the fires burst back into life. Englishmen, the dawn chill hunching their shoulders, squatted and warmed themselves and then balanced cooking pots over the flames. They stepped over and around the men they had killed, their interest focused on food after their long night. The dead were going nowhere and those bodies that hampered the Englishmen from getting near the fires were thrown clear.
Guillouic sat with the survivors, his bloodstained shirt sleeve torn back and used to bind his wound. The sour taste of exhaustion and fear coated his mouth. He begged for water.
‘Ask again and I’ll piss on your head,’ said Killbere as he walked past the defeated men.
Ralph Tait’s men had been given responsibility for watching the prisoners.
‘Tait, make sure these bastards aren’t given anything before we hang them,’ Killbere said. He looked back to the bloodied man – ‘You’ll die unshriven, you scum. Hell awaits you and there you’ll know what thirst is’ – and walked off. As he approached Blackstone he saw Meulon hand him what looked to be a scabbard belt.
‘Gilbert, Meulon found this on one of the men.’ Blackstone handed Killbere the belt. It was a strap finished in deep blue velvet with an ornate gilded buckle. Enamelled rosette mounts shaped by a craftsman’s hand adorned its length.
‘A French knight’s belt. These skinners must have ambushed a scouting party. It’s too small for your girth, Meulon, but it might fit me.’
‘Sir Gilbert,’ said Meulon, ‘I will trade it for a barrel of wine and a warm woman in the next town but this was not taken by these men. It was seized when we fought d’Audrehem’s French troops. I saw William Cade loot it.’
‘Then these men have done business with him and ap Madoc,’ said Blackstone. ‘Who had the belt?’
Meulon gestured towards Guillouic. ‘I was about to cut his throat but I saw the belt and clubbed him. The information he has might be worth more than the belt’s value.’
* * *
Guillouic stared as the belligerent pock-faced veteran strode back towards him. The big man with him bore a scar down his face. He was the younger of the two but despite that the Breton could see that the tall Englishman was in command.
‘On your feet,’ Killbere commanded and gave Guillouic a kick.
The wounded man staggered to his feet. The loss of blood had weakened him and he swayed.
‘You,’ said Blackstone, pointing to a less injured man next to him. ‘Hold him up.’
The routier wrapped an arm around Guillouic, taking the man’s weight.
‘The man who gave you this belt. You know him?’ asked Blackstone.
Guillouic shook his head. ‘An Englishman. Traded it for brandy we had taken from a monastery,’ he said weakly.
‘How many men with him?’
Guillioc shrugged. ‘No more than twenty.’
‘No Welshman? Three hundred riders?’ said Killbere.
‘That many and he needn’t have traded, he’d have taken.’
Blackstone turned to Killbere. ‘They’ve split from ap Madoc. He’s riding alone again.’ He addressed Guillouic. ‘Which direction did he go?’
‘I don’t know. South, perhaps. He told us nothing.’
‘How long ago?’ Killbere said.
‘Who knows? Sir knight. I beg you for water,’ he said, avoiding Killbere’s eyes.
Killbere was about to say something but Blackstone spoke first. ‘You shall have water.’ He called to Tait: ‘Have a bucket brought from the stream for these men.’
The veteran knight scowled. ‘You know what these scum did, Thomas.’
‘I know but they can slake their thirst before they die. There’s sufficient agony awaiting them,’ said Blackstone and turned away.
The man who held Guillouic let him fall. ‘Lord,’ he begged, ‘before I die give me brandy and in exchange I will give you information about the Englishman.’
‘Tell it first,’ said Blackstone, ‘and you can be numbed by drink before I put a rope around your neck.’
The routier pointed to the slumped mercenary. ‘This man’s name is Guillouic. He leads us. I heard him speak with the Englishman who said that he had a woman whose name was Felice. And that if we wished to join him, she paid well.’
‘Where is she?’ asked Blackstone.
‘That I don’t know, lord.’
Blackstone glanced down at Guillouic. ‘You?’
The Breton mercenary gave a wheezing laugh. ‘Let me live and I’ll take you.’
‘He’s lying,’ said Killbere. ‘He bargains, is all.’
Blackstone studied the wounded man. ‘Let him drink and then hang him.’
‘Then you will never find him.’ Guillouic spat.
‘I know the woman: Felice Allard. She is the wife of a famed French knight. You have nothing to give me.’
He watched the man’s face fall as he lost his final gamble for life.
Blackstone and Killbere walked back to the men. The scent of herb-laden pottage wafted on the morning breeze, blanketing the stench of death.
‘You know this woman?’ said Killbere.
‘I’ve never heard of her.’
‘What? But… then perhaps he does have information.’
‘No, you were right, Gilbert, he was buying time. I made up her husband’s name and he didn’t challenge me. But we have her name and we will find her.’
* * *
Blackstone’s men went about the business of striking camp. The routiers’ horses had been examined and any beasts in better condition than those serving his men were exchanged. The others were cut loose to roam the countryside. Alain de la Grave dogged Blackstone’s footsteps.
‘I wish to kill him,’ said the young Frenchman when he learnt that it was the wounded Guillouic who had led the routiers that murdered his family so brutally.
‘No, the man will hang,’ said Blackstone.
Alain’s face crumpled with hate. ‘I beg you, Sir Thomas, let me injure him as he injured my mother and father.’
‘I said, no,’ Blackstone repeated. ‘Your hatred has been vented on those you killed in the night.’
‘They slept. I want to see his eyes when I strike him. I want to hear him scream.’
‘No, he will hang.’
Tears of frustration formed in the young man’s eyes. His head shook from side to side. ‘It is not enough,’ he said in a whisper. He turned away to join the men saddling their mounts and securing the plunder that had been stripped from the dead routiers.
Killbere gave Blackstone a quizzical look and turned away.
‘What confuses you, Gilbert?’
Killbere raised a dismissive hand. ‘Nothing.’
‘Spit it out.’
‘You have a short memory, Thomas. When the assassin killed your wife and child you brought him down with an arrow and then trampled him to death beneath the hooves of your horse. You stood by and heard him scream for mercy, you heard every bone crack and you watched him die. What is so different between that and what the boy wants?’
‘He’s a boy. He has a chance to learn the skill of war. If I let him kill Guillouic in cold blood it will poison him for ever. You were there when I told him that if his blood-lust cools and his mind guides his hand, then he has a chance to become a fighter. This isn’t the way.’
Killbere spat. ‘For God’s sake, Thomas. Who among us has not stepped into hell? He’s French and you deny him revenge. He’ll turn against you.’
‘My order stands,’ said Blackstone and walked to where the surviving routiers were being led to the hanging tree. The man granted brandy in exchange for information staggered but leered, happy in his befuddled state that the reality of his death was being tempered. Guillouic was aided by one of his men. The nooses were set and the ropes quickly hauled. The kicking, choking men swung wildly for a few moments. Blackstone’s men stopped breaking camp and watched them die, then, when the bodies’ shudders ceased, went back to readying their departure.
Blackstone looked across to where Alain de la Grave stared at the corpses swaying gently in the breeze. Blackstone thought of his own son’s courage, which was untainted by a thirst for revenge. Henry Blackstone bore the goodness of his mother and the defiance of his father in his heart. It was that thought and the memory of meeting a brave man struck down with leprosy, abandoned by his family, who wished nothing more than for his son to live, that made Blackstone want to give this boy a chance at life without the bitter desire to kill in cold blood. It was a poor inheritance. Blackstone was no stranger to it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The woman lay naked across a sable bed covering. The fire in the bedchamber’s grate burned brightly, its glow shading the contours of her body. Her long dark hair feathered her breasts. She lay with her arm outstretched, sweat from lovemaking glistening on her aroused nipples as her breathing settled. She stretched her legs from the pleasure as William Cade, breathless from his exertion, rolled off her and then eased onto his side, pulling his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.
He grinned. ‘Each time I return your lust exhausts me.’
Unperturbed she slid from the bed and trod lightly across animal-skin rugs that cushioned the fresh reed floor covering. She poured water from a jug into a bowl, wiped down her body and rid herself of his seed. ‘Then perhaps you should find yourself an old crone,’ she said without turning to face him, knowing her rebuke would sting. She could almost feel him flinch.
‘You’re a bitch on heat, nothing more,’ he said, enjoying the malice of his words. He reached for the bottle of wine on the stool next to the bed, which was fit for a queen. The embroidered canopy kept the flies and spiders away and the feather mattress was thick and firm enough to support the weight of two rutting bodies without sagging. The bolster had a quilted cover as a headrest so soft it near suffocated a sleeping man. Linen sheets cooled the body after exertion but comforted the skin during the night. It was the most luxurious bedchamber he had ever slept in, fit for any fighting man who had gold in his purse and a willing whore beneath him. And if rumour were to be believed this ornately decorated bed had once graced a royal palace and a royal mistress. How it came to be here was a story yet to be told. Unless, of course, Cade thought, the bitch had been the mistress.
‘Did you fuck the King?’ he asked, eyes closed, concentrating on the bottle tilting to his lips. He drank deeply. There was no answer. He felt her next to him and then the tip of a knife kept his chin tilted and the wine spilled down his chest onto the sheets. Wide-eyed he stared at her. At any other time her nipples pressing against him would be arousing but now whatever heat had been in his groin had cooled. ‘Christ, woman, what are you doing?’ he spluttered. Her free hand grasped his hair and pulled his head back further as the blade levelled across his windpipe. He was uncertain whether the wetness he felt was blood or wine, but he dared not move.
‘I use you, don’t ever forget that. You are my pleasure, not the other way around. The moment you no longer satisfy my need is when you will find yourself in the courtyard below with the other routier scum.’ She put her lips closer to his ear. And whispered: ‘I take pleasure in killing. Always remember that. And do not ever forget your place here.’
The blade tightened against his taut throat. He could see the fire glow in her eyes. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I understand.’ A slight tug on his hair prompted the good manners that had been abandoned by his impertinence. ‘Countess,’ he added.
* * *
Freed from her threat he gathered his clothes and then – telling himself that she was a mad bitch of a widow but at least she paid him well for the prisoners he delivered to her every once in a while – he dressed in the poorly lit passageway. She was a source of income that he could not afford to abandon, nor was he prepared to lose the opportunity of sharing her bed. She might be high born, but to him she was little more than a common whore – albeit, he had to admit, a dangerous one. The thrill of their sexual coupling outweighed any fear that she might carry out her threat.
William Cade had recruited more men to ride with him. They were a disparate group of brigands, men who rode in small groups that he had convinced to join him and his band. The extra men numbered no more than fourteen: three Englishmen, seven French, a German, a Hungarian and two Spanish who had travelled north to find more prosperous territory. They had been fighting for the Spanish Princes in a quest for plunder, and had been sorely disappointed when the warring parties had agreed a truce. There would soon be a surge of mercenaries f
rom Aragon and Castile that would add to the roving bands that scoured the southern provinces of France. William Cade had given his new recruits a dozen gold pieces. All of them had gladly thrown in their lot with the Englishman.
And died an agonizing death.
He clattered down the staircase into the courtyard where his men were eating their breakfast. His men slept alongside their horses in the stables, watched from a distance by the Countess’s men, all of them French soldiers who greatly outnumbered the routiers. He plunged his head into a horse trough and glanced at his followers. None dared offer any comment on his good fortune in being taken to the woman’s bed.
It was two weeks since he had returned with his hapless victims and now four of the routiers he had enticed to join him swung from a gibbet. An Englishman had died first, grateful for the rope after torture had been inflicted on him. Wooden cages held the others. The Spanish had sworn and threatened when seized, their sword skills mortally wounding four of the Countess’s men. They were hamstrung by their guards as the Hungarian made a run for it. The garrison troops had strict orders only to maim, not to kill, and two crossbow bolts in his legs brought him down and rendered him helpless. The bloodied bolts still protruded from his legs, denying him any chance of comfort in the cage. The German had proved the most difficult to capture. He had wheeled his horse the moment they entered through the town gates – some deep-embedded instinct had alerted him that a trap was about to be sprung. It took several pikemen to kill his horse but even then he fought with such ferocity that he killed four of those who attacked him. By the time he was brought down the Countess had decided that such courage deserved a long agonizing death.
It was the French prisoners who had begged the loudest for mercy. Battle-hardened men who had fought for the King, they protested they had served loyally.
‘And now you slaughter at will,’ the Countess had said. ‘And there is a price to pay for the road you have chosen to travel.’
Two of them had been dragged out of the cage and taken through the gates to a nearby river. Hands bound, they were secured with ropes and tossed into the current. As they dipped below the surface, twisting their faces away from the surging water, Cade’s men hauled the ropes and played them like fish until finally they drowned.