by David Gilman
Blackstone raised himself in the saddle and waved Wolf Sword above his head. ‘Stop him!’ he bellowed and then gestured with his sword towards the retreating figure.
Renfred was already in pursuit and another three quickly followed but their horses balked at the steep, uneven ground. Renfred’s horse stumbled, almost throwing him. Meulon spurred his horse along the road to try and cut off the horseman but it soon became clear that he had escaped. The big Norman spearman and the others turned back to the grassland as Will Longdon led his men down to the dead and wounded. While Jack Halfpenny’s men tugged free their bodkin-tipped arrows from the flesh of man and horse, Quenell’s archers killed the badly wounded routiers and drove spikes into dying horses’ skulls, putting them quickly out of their pain. The blood-slicked grassland upset some of Tait’s horses, causing them to fight their reins. Some of the mounts tried to bolt, cursed at by their riders, until finally they settled and were brought back to where Blackstone gathered the men. Three of his own men were dead, as were two of the Gascons. William Cade’s routiers were experienced and had fought hard. Thirty-seven men lay dead across the open ground, two more on the road.
‘Is Cade among the dead?’ Blackstone called to those going among the bodies.
‘He’s not here,’ came Meulon’s reply.
‘We must push on, Thomas,’ said Killbere, wiping his blade clean. ‘That man will ride like the devil’s chasing him and warn the town. I pray to God that the lad and Perinne have started their journey back because if they are still there when he returns then Cade will know he has been tricked.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’
‘Thomas, no plan is ever foolproof,’ said Killbere. ‘The bastard was lucky and it looked as though he knew the ground.’
Blackstone gathered his reins and spurred the bastard horse towards the road. It was a race now to try and reach Felice before the escaping horseman raised the alarm. The two-faced god of war had been on Blackstone’s side but could as soon turn away and give his blessing to a man’s enemy. The lumbering horse settled into its uneven stride. More horses pounded behind him. The heavy thud of their hooves were as war drums beating out their urgency.
CHAPTER FORTY
Perinne had been fed and then ignored. A monk wandering through the lower rooms and passageways of the château was no cause for alarm. Perinne was already worried they had not been allowed to leave Felice. The message had been delivered and there was no reason for them to be kept in the town. If Blackstone launched an assault while they were still inside they would be the first to die. He glanced up at the sky but the buzzard was not in sight. He searched for a safe place to hide for himself and the boy and for any means of escape. As he had sat in the kitchen he’d eaten slowly, so that he could listen to any gossip. The fireplace was tall enough for a grown man to stand upright in; it burned logs three feet long and the meat that turned on the spit told him that the Countess did not believe in eating sparingly. A sawtoothed rack supported an iron kettle that simmered with hot water. His clothing made it impossible for him to secrete a weapon but he had identified where the knives and meat cleavers were kept. Moving around afterwards without challenge he observed where the garrison troops were in force and where Cade’s men were billeted. He made his way to where he last saw Alain and William Cade disappearing into the château’s main hall. When he asked where his brother monk was, the men smirked and sent him on his way. Their behaviour was enough to tell him that either the lad was inside with the Countess or William Cade was questioning him, suspicious, perhaps, that he recognized him. If violence was going to be inflicted then he reasoned that it would be this very day, should Alain be unmasked. Failing that Blackstone would be at the walls by that night.
* * *
Serving women had filled a wooden bathtub and then left Alain in a room that was heated by the rising steam and the seasoned logs burning with a deep glow in the stone fireplace. Food had been brought, and the Countess had watched him eat sitting self-consciously away from her at the small table. She remained silent as she continued her sewing but her eyes seldom left him. He ate delicately, small mouthfuls at a time, wiping his mouth with the napkin, barely able to stomach the food. Anxiety made his hands tremble. The woman’s scent was as delicate as a spring flower and he found it almost impossible not to watch her – as she watched him. When she asked if the food was to his liking he kept his eyes down and muttered his gratitude. The urgency to leave and return to Blackstone was stifled by his desire to be near this woman. When he had finished eating she called for the serving women to show him where to bathe.
The deep, hot water lulled him. The exhaustion from the journey and the burden of fear soaked away. He suddenly snapped awake. How long had he slept? The water was only warm. The door opened and one of the serving women came in and asked if he needed more water. He declined and asked for his habit but she told him the washerwomen were boiling the dirt out of it. She lifted an embroidered robe. The Countess had sent this. Once the woman had left the overwhelming desire to escape seized him. He climbed out of the wooden tub and padded naked across the stone floor. The door was locked. He went to the window and stood on a footstool and saw that the sheer drop ended on the rocks far below. Panic began to crush him and the curse of self-pity gnawed at him once again. For a moment it seemed this weakness would drown him but, as before, he found his resolve. He must find Perinne. The veteran would know how to escape. He heard women’s voices beyond the door, followed by the turning of a handle. What he had taken to be a garderobe covered with a heavy curtain proved to conceal a door. This opened and the Countess stepped into view. Her head was bare, dark hair loosened. The robe she wore was sheer and the darkness of her nipples pressed against the flimsy material.
‘You must rest now, Brother Alain, and let me attend to you,’ she said, her tone as natural as if he were a welcome guest. He had not yet raised his eyes from her breasts but as she extended her hand he walked, dreamlike, towards her, unaware that he still wore no clothing. She took his hand and led him into her bedchamber. The room flickered with dim light from beeswax candles and more scent. The sheets on the canopied bed had been turned back. And as he faltered, quivering with the promise being offered, she turned and cupped his face and gently, like a mother with a child, touched his lips with her own. His chest pressed against her silky arousal and then he was lost to a drunken state that made him nearly weep with desire. The only words he heard as they settled on the bed were her whispers. Slowly, slowly.
* * *
The alarm was raised hours later as church bells pealed. Perinne heard the clamour first and thought for a moment that it was a call to prayer and that the last thing he wanted was to be dragged into reciting psalms, prayers or blessings as a monk. He hoped his dullard character would excuse him. And then the cries overtook the bells, rising above their clanging. By the time they stopped he had made his way to where he had determined would be the safest place to hide. No matter how dark and narrow some of the streets were, if a hue and cry were raised then every man, woman and child would seek him out. A door led from the kitchens into the solar, the two great fireplaces back to back divided by the chimney’s shared wall. The solar was unoccupied; the Countess’s rooms were elsewhere and he suspected that was where Alain would be. As the cooks and servants ran outside he went quickly through the kitchen, lifted a carving knife and a cleaver and then closed the adjoining door between the two rooms behind him. The solar’s grate was cold but there was warmth coming through from the kitchen fire on the other side of the wall. He stepped into the fireplace and then raised his hands until they touched what seemed to be a ledge which was the inner beam of the fireplace’s hefty mantel. It was wide enough for him to lie on. He would stay concealed for as long as it took for the fighting to start and then he would lower himself and kill as many as he could before he was overwhelmed. The young Frenchman, Alain, was abandoned to his own fate.
* * *
William Cade’s voic
e echoed in the chill passageway and at once Countess Catherine’s guards banged on her chamber’s door and told her that only a single survivor had returned from the sortie. The seductress called for her servants to dress her and looked at the boy who had given her pleasure. Alain de la Grave, as defenceless as a newborn child, was standing before her, still without any clothes.
‘Stay here until I call for you. You’ll be safe. No one will dare pass my guards. Understand?’
He nodded.
‘I will have the laundress return your clothing.’
There was nothing he could do other than to get back into the bed and cover his nudity with the sheets that still bore her scent and the musk smell of sex. The raised voices cleared away any headiness from the indulgence of the previous hours. What was important now was not to panic and to brazen out his story. After the Countess left the room he opened and closed trunks searching for any men’s clothing. Rather than wait for William Cade to convince the Countess that he, Alain, had misled them and caused the death of Cade’s men, he would try and find Perinne, and if he couldn’t do that then at least he would get out of this room that was his prison. His search for clothing proved fruitless. One of the bodyguards opened the door and threw his habit at him.
‘Get dressed,’ he commanded and waited, the door still open behind him; the second bodyguard was nowhere to be seen. Alain supposed the man had accompanied the Countess. Whatever else he felt, fear and anxiety aside, he knew he was not the same person he had been hours before. He pulled the habit over his head and tightened its rope around his waist. The sandal straps rubbed against the nicks and blisters but he ignored their bite.
‘Follow me,’ said the guard.
‘The Countess told me to stay here.’
‘She wants you outside.’
He hesitated. If Cade had convinced this man to seize him then he might soon be dead. His hesitation caused the guard to step forward and fling him from the room. ‘Outside, you crow bastard.’
As he was pushed down the passageway he heard the clamour of raised voices and the sound of running feet. He stepped outside and saw people running for their houses, while others were being ushered from outside through the town’s gates. He saw William Cade on the walls organizing men, and the Countess walking the parapet ahead of him, her cloak gathered around her, the second guard who had once stood at her door shadowing her. There was no sign of Perinne. Had he been killed or captured or gone into hiding?
‘Up there,’ said the guard and put a hand in his back to urge him towards the stone steps that rose to the parapet. As he reached the top of the walls Cade turned and saw him approaching. He took a couple of strides, grabbed a handful of his loose habit and slapped him hard. Alain went down on his knees, his ears ringing. He tasted blood.
‘Enough!’ the Countess called, but the look on her face told Alain that she no longer cared if more pain was inflicted on him.
Cade dragged him to his feet and hauled him to the Countess.
‘Did you lie on purpose?’ she asked. ‘About the routiers at the monastery? Only one man returned. He said they were ambushed by hundreds of men.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, realizing that Blackstone had inflicted a defeat on their men and that someone had survived. Bad news had brought the possibility of retribution against him.
‘Thomas Blackstone swore revenge,’ said Cade. ‘How the fuck did he discover where I was? How has he brought hundreds here?’
Alain’s confusion was genuine. How could there be an army at Blackstone’s back? Then it dawned on him that the survivor had exaggerated, perhaps to stave off any punishment from being defeated by a small force.
‘I did not lie. I saw less than twenty men. I did not know the man’s name. Prior Albert gave me the message and I delivered it faithfully, my lady,’ he said, bowing his head, knowing that what had gone on between him and the Countess had been nothing more than fleeting hours of intense sexual gratification with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and who had captured his heart at first sight. How foolish that all felt now as she gazed at him with a look of regret.
‘Perhaps,’ she said. She looked at Cade. ‘He’s yours.’
‘No,’ he cried out. ‘I beg you, Countess. Please!’
Cade snatched at him. ‘I told you what would happen and now I will keep my promise. And before you die you’ll tell me where I’ve seen you before.’
Alain twisted free, squirmed for freedom but Cade’s fist clubbed him unconscious to the ground.
Cade looked at the Countess. ‘We man the walls and bring every villager inside. No one sleeps. Light braziers and torches. I’ll order the men to bring hot pitch and rocks. If he tries to scale the walls the crossbowmen will kill enough of them.’ He grinned with anticipated success. ‘Your husband chose well. Felice cannot be taken. Thomas Blackstone will die in his attempt. And when I take his head to the Dauphin I will have reward enough to buy you and this château.’
He kicked Alain’s limp body down to the yard twenty feet below. It landed heavily. A leg twisted and broke. Cade called down to his men below: ‘Take him to the cellar.’
The Countess looked out across the empty countryside that might soon be filled with an army ready to try and seize her home and inheritance. She turned to Cade.
‘You had better make sure this Thomas Blackstone does not breach the walls, William. It is you he comes to kill.’
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Blackstone and his men approached the broken ground that lay several hundred yards away from the high walls. They had made good time and had sight of the château just as the sky eased into darkness. Using the rising ground to conceal themselves they peered across as the red glow from the burning torches and braziers illuminated the ramparts.
‘Well, they’re expecting us,’ said Killbere. ‘Not that they have too much to worry about. I doubt I’ve ever seen a more impregnable stronghold. You could spend a month building ladders and still not reach the top. Besides, we’d all be dead by the time we got halfway.’
Blackstone studied the defences. There was no apparent sign of vulnerability and to try and attack across the causeway bridge and burn down the iron-studded gates would probably kill every man who tried. ‘Every place has its weakness, Gilbert,’ he insisted.
‘We don’t know how many men serve the garrison or what numbers William Cade has,’ said Will Longdon. ‘I would need my archers on those walls to shoot down into them and then we would all have to fight our way up to that château.’
‘The wind is at our back,’ said Meulon, pointing a finger towards the wisps of smoke from the town’s chimneys. ‘They’ll have stables close to the outer courtyard near their guards’ quarters. We could use those braziers and torches to burn them out, then the smoke would smother the houses and streets. We’ve done that before. And horses running loose will add to the chaos. If we fight through in small groups, then we would have a chance to get up there because a killer like Cade will be in the safest place there is. In the château. All we have to do is get inside.’ As he spoke Meulon winced at his own suggestion. The assault still seemed impossible.
‘Alain and Perinne are most likely dead by now,’ said Renfred. ‘If they aren’t then they’re either imprisoned or in hiding. If we find a way in then they might be able to get us into the château.’
The men fell silent. No one had a good enough idea of how to breach the high walls.
‘William Cade could die of old age in there,’ said Jack Halfpenny. ‘I’ll wager most of the people of Felice are already under their blankets and sleeping soundly, knowing we cannot reach them.’
Blackstone raised himself a little more and gazed into the darkness. ‘Perhaps not. Look at the château. I can see candle- and firelight flickering in most of those rooms. But down here? Nothing. The village is deserted. They’ve taken everyone inside.’