Scourge of Wolves_Master of War

by David Gilman

  ‘Will, John and I will walk you back to your post, and then we will find a place to keep watch ourselves.’

  As they turned into the main square the bell stopped ringing and an eerie silence settled over the town of Felice. What was it that made Blackstone’s skin crawl? He was no stranger to sensing the spirits of the dead. There had been much cruelty in the town, and its very name had spawned a woman heedless of the suffering she caused, a woman who took delight in seeing men die slowly at her command. Shadows from the braziers might easily be ghosts haunting the dark alleyways, beckoning the living to join them.

  ‘If they come they will come tonight,’ he said quietly. But he was uncertain if he meant the living or the dead.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Killbere had eaten well from the food supplied from the kitchen for him and the Countess. They had teased and tempted one another with innuendo and at times outright suggestive talk. This woman, who enjoyed the pleasures of men at any time of her choosing, kept Killbere’s lust simmering. They had both drunk too much by the time the bell rang for night prayers, three hours after vespers.

  The candles flickered in pools of wax; only the fire that Killbere had fed from the faggots and logs during the day gave the room sufficient light for him to see the Countess’s features. He risked her anger by lifting the sleeve on her dress and exposing her arms. It was a flagrant breach of etiquette that might have earned him a cuff around the head, but she had pressed herself back into her chair and luxuriated in his touch. He stroked her bare skin with the back of his hand, keeping the roughness of his palm and fingers away from her silken limb.

  Her eyes half closed. ‘It is late,’ she said sleepily. ‘It is time… for bed.’

  He kissed the palm of her hand and gently bit the raised part at the base of her thumb, the Mount of Venus.

  She pulled away. ‘I did not give you permission,’ she said without any malice.

  ‘I did not need it, my Lady Catherine.’ Killbere stood and offered his hand. She took it and raised herself so that she stood close to him. Killbere made no move towards her.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘You do not desire me?’

  He smiled. ‘To go further I need permission.’

  ‘And to bathe.’ She stepped away towards her bedchamber’s door and then turned back. ‘Though I do not find your smell disagreeable.’

  ‘It is honest sweat, my lady,’ said Killbere.

  She murmured a soft mewling sound and shrugged. ‘Permission is given.’ She walked past the two stoic bodyguards who had waited against the far wall. Neither man glanced at her or looked at Killbere as he picked up his sword belt wrapped around its scabbard.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed if you hear her cry out,’ he said as he passed them and then closed the bedroom door behind him.

  The sweet scent of beeswax candles mingled with her own fragrance; the room was heavy with desire as they faced each other and undressed in a slow dance of sensuality as each piece of clothing dropped to the floor. When she was naked she lay half propped on her bed and watched as he sluiced the dirt and sweat from his body with water from the bowl on her nightstand. By the time he had dried himself he was aroused and as he approached the bed he nipped the candle wicks until only two remained, bathing her body in a gossamer of shadow and light.

  As the hours passed there was nothing gentle about their coupling and she fought him with a passion that matched his own. When they were spent they fell back into the softness of the feather mattress and rested, and then began again until finally the wine and exertion claimed them both. Killbere was barely awake and close to succumbing to his own exhaustion. As his eyes grew heavy he laughed aloud. The beautiful and sensuous woman beside him curled her body in slumber and snored like a grunting soldier.

  Darkness cloaked the room, the faintest glimmer from the night sky barely showed their shapes in the bed.

  The dull ringing of the church bell for night prayers echoed across the rooftops.

  It was midnight.

  And the killing began.

  * * *

  Silent men, their boots bound with rags to dull the sound of their footsteps, scurried like rats through the darkened streets. They were townsmen who would march as militia in support of the garrison troops when called to war. They were sullen, belligerent men who hated the English and their victory over King John. The traitor William Cade served a purpose for the Countess and whatever sins he had committed as a routier were forgiven when he delivered mercenaries into her hands. Forty men had answered the call of the Countess’s bailiff, men who kept their weapons hidden under floorboards in their homes, men who were urged by their women to kill the invaders who had spilled blood on the streets. It made no difference to them that they had been spared rape and death by a benevolent Englishman; years of bitterness fuelled the hatred coursing through them.

  They had used their knowledge of the labyrinthine vaults that lay beneath the château and released William Cade from his cell. Cade forgot any thoughts of escape now that the citizens of Felice had risen up. There was still a handful of Cade’s men imprisoned and they were released by the blacksmith who opened the lock that secured their prison. They were soon armed and took command of the townsmen. They would overwhelm Sir Thomas Blackstone’s men.

  William Cade knew exactly how to defeat Blackstone’s outnumbered troop. Whispered commands passed from man to man as they approached the town square, an attack of two columns, each down a side street left and right, who would storm the walls and kill the archers first. Once their threat had been removed, half of the force who had remained in the courtyard near the château would kill Blackstone’s men who were billeted nearby. Then those of Blackstone’s men who remained would be caught between those who attacked from the town square and others who would act like beaters on a day’s hunt and drive Blackstone’s men onto the attackers’ swords. Cade would once again take his place in the whore’s bed.

  He cursed. The damned bell kept clanging. It would wake the dead. The tolling of the hour was also an arranged call to arms but the idiot on the end of the rope needed to stop before its insistence awoke Blackstone’s men sooner than was needed. He turned to one of the townsmen who ran at his side.

  ‘The church! Tell them to stop.’

  The man grunted an answer and turned away. Despite the darkness he knew exactly which side street led to the church. Hadn’t he been born and raised in Felice and never left except to help kill those who threatened the valley? He’d known the old Count, had carted wood up to the château – still did – since he was a boy of seven with his father. The long-handled axe he carried would be cutting down more than trees this night. He slowed, placed a rough palm on the stone wall that he knew would guide him into the square and the church where the slow-witted Marcel would be heaving on the rope. He was soon across the open ground and pushing into the ancient church. A candle burned near the figure who heaved on the rope. A bundle of clothing lay on the stone floor near the bell ringer. It meant nothing.

  ‘Marcel! Cade says to stop. Damn you.’

  The man let go of the rope but by the time he turned the axeman had realized that they were not rags that littered the dark floor. He swung back his axe. The bell ringer seemed to move so quickly that by the time the axeman was ready to strike the man was an arm’s length from him and the sudden pain in his heart pierced the darkness of the church as a lightning bolt seared through his brain.

  Renfred stepped over the dead woodsman.

  Everything that Blackstone had predicted was already taking place.

  * * *

  William Cade led the mixed force of garrison troops and militia into the town square past the gallows, as a garrison sergeant-at-arms, with his men who had been released, pounded into the far side from the other street. A wind had picked up, funnelled along the valley and striking the village and walled town. It smelled of rain: a gathering storm that would soon hurl itself against those who fought in the narrow confines of Felice. Men wo
uld falter once the rain chilled their muscles, but if luck was on their side they would beat the storm before it reached them. Cinders and sparks flew from the braziers in the square as the wind whipped their flames. Cade gestured left and right for the men to scale the steps that led up to the walkway. The crenellations obscured any archer’s silhouette against the night sky but as his men ran along the walls there was no sound of assault. No body fell, no man cried out.

  Cade stopped beneath the gallows. Men broke the silence and shouted that the walls had been abandoned. It made no sense to the mercenary. Would Blackstone have stood down his prized archers from guarding the walls? Were they sleeping? Did he think that walls did not need defending? Before he could satisfy himself with an answer he heard the sudden clash of a fight near the château. Men’s voices were raised in fear and anger. What had happened? If the other half of his force had trapped Blackstone’s men between them then his plan had worked. No matter that the archers were not at their posts; perhaps they already lay dead in their beds, betrayed by the cooks like the rest of Blackstone’s men. In his mind’s eye he saw that those of Blackstone’s troop who had survived being knifed in their beds were now trapped beneath the château’s walls. ‘Turn back!’ he bellowed. ‘The courtyard. We have them!’

  It was time to kill the scar-faced knight and claim the glory and the reward of the French King and the gratitude of the Countess, who by now would have killed Sir Gilbert Killbere.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Countess Catherine had allowed herself to sleep after the vigorous lovemaking with the veteran knight. He had shown no lack of stamina and she concluded that the gratification that she had received had been worth the time she had spent drawing in this man who was clearly senior to Blackstone and who would have taken control of her town. Keeping Killbere in her quarters had left the younger Englishman to organize his men. And from what the veteran told her over the hours that he had sat at her feet by the fireside, Blackstone was doing only what Killbere had instructed. Blackstone was a man who yearned for command but whom Killbere kept in check. When the veteran knight had left the room to relieve himself in the garderobe she had instructed her bailiff and the two bodyguards when to strike.

  As the night bell rang she opened her eyes and then nudged her back against the weight of the man lying next to her. He did not awake. She counted the first ten chimes so that her mind was clear and then, easing her dagger from beneath the mattress, rolled quickly, plunging its blade into where Killbere’s head would rest on the pillow next to her. The moment the knife struck home she cried out. No gristle or bone met the blade. Only a pillow. His body had been replaced with the heavy bolster. Kneeling up, breasts free from the entwining sheet, her mouth gaped as the doors burst open. The outer room’s fire glow threw the heavy shadows of the two armed bodyguards over her as a naked figure stepped behind the first man and plunged a sword between his shoulder blades; when he fell the second man turned, but the quick-moving Killbere had a dagger in his other hand that swept upwards, catching the man in the throat. He went down, hands clutching his gurgling wound. The shock of the attack and her failure to kill Killbere momentarily stunned her.

  Killbere, ignoring the dead men, stepped quickly towards her and she recovered. She spat at him and screamed a curse, jabbing with the knife. He easily stepped aside and swung his blood-smeared hand across the side of her head. She fell heavily. Killbere threw her knife far enough away and strode through to the other room where Tait and his men were trying to force the door that had been barricaded by the bodyguards. He tossed aside the heavy chair and pulled away the table that had been pushed beneath the door handles. He opened the doors. Tait and his men gawped at the naked figure of Sir Gilbert Killbere in the firelight, bloodstained sword in hand.

  ‘Don’t just stand there looking like a damned virgin who’s seen her first cock. Get down to the fight,’ he barked.

  * * *

  At the top of the town Blackstone stood with John Jacob, Meulon and Renfred and their men, backs against the high walls at the base of the château. In front of them lay twenty or more dead or dying militia and garrison troops. Earlier, during curfew, Blackstone’s men had moved away from their billet. They had waited silently, unmoving in the blackness, watching the militia gathering their force, releasing the garrison troops and hurriedly and quietly organizing their strike into the town. While Blackstone and his men knelt behind their shields, merging their dark forms into the depth of the archways that spanned the base of the walls, the town force had split into two, and the garrison men had gone quickly into the billet to kill. They had swiftly emerged again, uncertain and disorganized, after finding the room empty, and been instantly attacked by Meulon and his men from one angle and Blackstone head on. They had raised no battle cry. It was the garrison men who bellowed in fear. They fought where they stood. And died.

  There looked to be more than a hundred garrison soldiers and town militia who tried to fight their way clear. Four of Meulon’s men fell: a slight cost because of the efficiency of their killing.

  After the sudden impact of his surprise attack Blackstone had retreated with the men back to the wall where they braced themselves for the counter-attack that would soon come once the survivors had gathered themselves. Blackstone had chosen his ground and put all of his men in one killing area. The smaller courtyard beneath the château’s walls favoured his outnumbered men. It obliged the greater force to funnel into a tight arena where they could be contained and slain. Men would jostle each other trying to reach Blackstone’s men; their ability to fight effectively would be diminished. Will Longdon, Halfpenny and Quenell stood unseen above the men in the yard, having earlier run from the walls onto the road that curved high up to the château, which eventually became the vast terrace that looked down across the town; from there the archers had watched that first conflict below as Blackstone and his men seemed to appear from nowhere to kill the unsuspecting Felice troops.

  William Cade pushed his way into the disordered men as they jostled at the mouth of the courtyard.

  ‘Move forward! Forward!’ he yelled. He addressed two of his men close by who had fought in the confined space. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Blackstone?’

  The men turned contorted faces on him. ‘We should get out while we can,’ one of them said, trying to push past Cade, who snatched at him. Cade’s grip and ferocious snarl were sufficient to stop the panicked routier.

  ‘What’s happened here? I ask again: Where is Blackstone?’

  ‘His men are back against the wall. We can’t see them. There aren’t that many but…’

  ‘We outnumber them!’ Cade spat.

  ‘Aye, but we have garrison troops and militia at our backs,’ the man bleated.

  ‘With me,’ Cade insisted as he shouldered his way through the gaggle of men into the courtyard. Too frightened to disobey, the man and his companion turned back with Cade.

  Cade edged closer to the perimeter of the courtyard. It was so dark he could only make out that the dark lumps on the ground were men’s bodies.

  ‘If their men have their backs against the wall then they have no escape. We have blocked the streets down into the town. They are caught like rats in a trap.’

  ‘Aye, but not one man here wants to go forward into the dark.’

  ‘Then fetch torches,’ said Cade. He shouted to the gaggle of men that choked the entrances to the streets: ‘Fetch torches!’

  Men pushed their way into houses and soon re-emerged carrying lanterns and flaming reed bundles. Cade snatched one of the torches and stepped forward. He took a few more tentative steps, the flames held high allowing him to see the dead. Beyond them, backs pressed against the arched wall, Blackstone’s men’s dismembered faces glared at him like gargoyles from above their shields.

  Cade turned back to the ranks of men who waited ready to attack. ‘See how few they are! They have no escape. Take back your town. Kill these men and hang their bodies for the crows!’

  E
ncouraged by how few men faced them the militia and garrison troops raised their voices and their weapons. Their ragged line surged forward, jumping and stumbling over their dead in the flickering torchlight. Blackstone’s men did not move. A savage cry rose up from the attackers. They would slaughter Blackstone’s men where they stood. As they reached halfway across the courtyard a different sound came from the darkness above: a rippling of the air whose significance could not be determined by those who heard it above the cacophony. A sudden and terrifying force struck them down. A mighty hand had hurled a death storm of bodkin-tipped arrows into them, tearing flesh and muscle, felling a score of men who writhed among the abandoned torches that sparked and spluttered as men’s bodies rolled across them in their death throes.

  Screams rent the night air as another flight of arrows whispered and hit with a sickening thud. Cade had crouched, then fallen as arrows found their mark in men next to him. An arrow struck the ground close by, its impact making the yard-long shaft quiver. Cade scrambled to his knees as Blackstone’s men suddenly ran forward into the disarray.

  Cade’s mind raced through his fear. Every man that Blackstone had under his command was either in this courtyard or on the terrace above them. If the townsmen retreated they would be pursued but there were still enough of them to slow Blackstone’s men. And that would give him time to escape.

  Two of his own men had survived. Wide-eyed with fear they too crouched, using the dead as shields.

  ‘The stables!’ Cade shouted to them.

  * * *

  Killbere had bound the unconscious Countess with torn sheets and locked her bedchamber door, then hurriedly dressed and run down to where Tait and his men stood at the main door where Perinne held his post. The injured man wore only breeches and shirt, its linen cloth stained from his unhealed back wound. There seemed little chance that the townsmen would attack up the snaking roadway now that the archers had slain so many.