Cross of Fire

by David Gilman

  Blackstone recovered, shaking his head to clear his blurred vision. He was boxed in. There were now four men behind him and two in front. He urged his horse towards the riverbank and killed the nearest man to his front; then the bastard horse was on firm ground. Blackstone freed himself from the stirrups and planted his feet on the riverbank. He needed an advantage and fighting on foot gave it to him. Not only did the horsemen have to expose their horses as they clambered up the low bank but they would have to bend low to strike him. Blackstone’s agility avoided the first horse whose rider was already sweeping down his sword, but Blackstone was no longer in the same place. Half-turning he spun around before the horse reached him and struck the man’s blind side, thrusting the point of his sword into the man’s buttocks as he leaned forward. The screaming man twisted and fell. A horse’s shoulder caught Blackstone. It threw him to the ground. He rolled, struck upwards and found the beast’s soft belly. It bellowed, stumbled and fell, trapping its rider’s leg. Blackstone ducked from the thrashing hooves and plunged the point of his sword into the man’s throat.

  He wiped an arm across his face to clear the sweat and blood from his eyes. The bastard horse was kicking its hind legs at one horse whose rider was trying to kill the devil’s offspring. The hooves kept the man’s blade at a safe distance and when they connected Blackstone heard the man cry out in pain as they broke his leg. He dropped his sword. His horse veered clear of the thrashing hooves. Despite his pain, rage gave its rider courage and he pulled a fighting axe from his belt.

  The three surviving men steadied their mounts in the river. The man they sought to kill had slain six of their number. They hesitated and then, three abreast, spurred their horses towards him. Blackstone raised his face to the breeze. It cooled him. A sound like a fluttering bird’s wing rippled the air. Blackstone knew it well. It was the sound of goose fletchings travelling fast through the air. Barely a breath separated the two men falling with a yard-long bodkin-tipped arrow shaft through their chests. Two figures on the far bank were already nocking arrows but the surviving horseman yanked his reins and fled. Blackstone raised his sword arm amid the carnage to salute his archers.

  Will Longdon’s laughter echoed across the water.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The two archers carried the unconscious woman and child back to Blackstone’s camp.

  Killbere looked from the survivors to Blackstone, who was now free of his mail as Henry took his jupon and undershirt to dry in the final rays that streaked through the forest. John Jacob attended to honing Wolf Sword. Its hardened steel blade was still sharp enough to sever a man’s arm but even such a blade forged by German master sword makers in Passau needed attention when it had cut into helmets and mail.

  ‘You couldn’t just ride away, I suppose,’ said Killbere as he passed a wineskin.

  ‘Would you?’ said Blackstone before drinking thirstily. Henry brought a length of rough cloth for Blackstone to wipe the sweat from his torso.

  Killbere sighed. ‘Women who need rescuing bring trouble into a man’s life, Thomas. There’s a reason they need rescuing. And that reason can rear up like an adder and bite a man in the balls. Would it have been so difficult to just come back and get help or leave her to her fate?’ He raised a hand to stop Blackstone from answering. ‘I know. You did what you thought was right. God’s blood, how many times has that caused us grief? Whoever those men were you’ve given them a thrashing, so it’s unlikely any more of their friends will come at us tonight. I’ll have Meulon double the pickets just in case.’ He fingered the torn blazon Blackstone had taken from one of the dead men. A boar’s head against a faded yellow background was smeared with dark-stained blood. ‘They weren’t routiers. They’re a lord’s men but I don’t know this device.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said Blackstone and pulled on a clean shirt. ‘I’m hoping she will when she comes around.’ He nodded to the woman, who now lay on a bed of cut ferns and moss, attended by Will Longdon, who supported her head and trickled potion between her lips.

  ‘She’s no serving girl, that’s for certain. Look at her clothes. That’s a fine embroidered linen shift. And that cloak wasn’t bought at a marketplace. She belongs to someone. A man can become agitated if you take his horse or woman.’ He tossed the blazon back to Blackstone. ‘Though a horse has more value.’

  The violence against the woman and child cast them into a fitful slumber. Their fever intensified during the night but Blackstone instructed Henry to lie close to them both and to bathe their foreheads with a soaked cloth. He had a fire built and river stones brought to contain the deep embers. When the woman shivered uncontrollably, they lifted stones with sacking and placed them against her back for warmth. Henry Blackstone attended to his duties without respite unaware that his father, who lay wrapped in his blankets twenty feet away, kept a watchful eye on him.

  When the men awoke as the first light penetrated the forest Blackstone was already checking the camp with John Jacob at his side. His captains Renfred and Meulon had stayed as alert as their pickets throughout the night but neither man showed any sign of tiredness. The years spent with Blackstone had taught them to overcome weariness, especially when it was tempered by duty, and they were as caring for their hobelars as Will Longdon and Jack Halfpenny were for their archers.

  When the woman’s fever broke she awoke to see a scar-faced man kneeling next to her. She recoiled. Henry pressed his hand on hers.

  ‘My lady, this is my father, Sir Thomas Blackstone, who saved you from those men at the river.’

  Hearing Blackstone’s name caused the woman to be more fearful. Bewildered, she squirmed away from the blankets covering her until her back pushed up against a tree. Looking around at her unfamiliar surroundings she saw ghostly figures of rough-looking men moving silently through the dappled light and campfire smoke. Henry’s look of consternation did nothing to calm her. She crossed herself; her lips muttered a prayer. Eyes wide, she searched for her child.

  ‘My daughter. Where is she?’

  ‘She is alive,’ said Blackstone, his gentle voice belying his rough demeanour. ‘One of my men is with her. We have a potion of herbs that will give her strength. She is safe. Be calm. You are not in danger here.’

  Blackstone nodded to where a crude woodland shelter had been constructed a few feet away. The child lay on a soft bed of vegetation. A figure crouched over her. His leather skull cap and the brace on his forearm told her he was a bowman.

  ‘I beg you – do not harm my daughter. Do what you must with me but do not harm her.’

  ‘We did not rescue you to cause you further harm or distress. The men who held you are dead,’ said Blackstone.

  The woman clambered to her feet, forcing Henry to move quickly aside as she went to her child. Will Longdon was kneeling next to the unconscious girl but saw Blackstone’s gesture telling him to move away so the mother could reach her.

  She scooped her into her arms and paced this way and that, looking desperately for a means of escape. Men stood watching her. She was trapped. Any of these men could stride forward and snatch her.

  One man stood eating an apple, one hand resting on the sword hilt in his belt. ‘Calm yourself, woman, for pity’s sake,’ said Killbere. ‘You were saved. Get down on your knees and thank God that it was by an Englishman. That scab-ridden archer tended your child as if she were a newborn lamb. We are fighting men but we have some understanding of herbs and medicines. A woman not unlike yourself gave us the knowledge.’ Killbere took a pace and half-turned as if giving her a clear path. ‘Run if you like, but the men who attacked you will have companions. We saw their tracks. If you run your girl will die.’

  She was frozen with fear and uncertainty. No one had made any attempt to reach her, or stop her. They stood back respectfully.

  She raised a dirt-ingrained hand to wipe tears from her face; then she tenderly lifted the sweat-soaked hair from her daughter’s forehead.

  She saw the archer’s stubbled face crease as he smiled at h
er and pointed to the shelter. ‘Had one of the lads build it for her. Keep the dew and the smoke off the child. Gives a bit of warmth on these chill nights and that’s my own horse blanket I put over her so there’re no lice to cause her distress. You’d best think of y’self an’ daughter, my lady. Thomas Blackstone is a good man who fought hard to rescue you, and me and Jack Halfpenny, we killed two of them ourselves. They died slow with a broadhead-tipped hunting arrow tearing their chests apart.’ Longdon frowned as if he had spoken out of turn. ‘Thought knowing that might give you some comfort.’

  ‘Stay with her until you are both strong enough to go where it is you want,’ said Killbere. He nodded towards Henry. ‘The lad there has food ready for you. We’ll give you what we have, then you can be on your way.’

  She was less fearful as she faced the man who had saved her. ‘We were on our way south and we were resting in an abandoned village. Men came to the gates and demanded those inside surrender. One declared himself to be the Englishman Thomas Blackstone.’ She fixed her gaze on Blackstone.

  ‘He was an imposter,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘And how do I know you are not?’

  ‘How well did the man fight?’ asked Killbere.

  ‘Badly,’ she told him.

  ‘There’s your answer,’ Killbere said, tossing aside the apple core as he stepped closer to her. Her courage had returned, and she did not flinch. Killbere brushed a hand across his jupon as if it would have made a difference to the grime that covered the stitched image of its blazon. ‘This declares who he is. Given by a royal prince, honoured by a king and feared by their enemies.’

  She looked at Blackstone. ‘He has my son,’ she answered.

  ‘Who?’ said Blackstone.

  ‘Lord Mael Babeneaux de Pontivy. When the brigand declared himself Lord Mael said he had sworn to kill you. They broke every bone in the man’s body and then hanged him so that he strangled to death. If you are who you say you are,’ she said, ‘then Lord Mael would be aggrieved to know that you are still alive.’

  ‘And who are you to this Breton lord?’ said Blackstone.

  ‘I am his wife, Lady Cateline Babeneaux.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the hours it took for the feverish child to recover Blackstone and a handful of his men backtracked to where the churned earth showed the Breton lord’s ride for home from the abandoned village. They followed the meandering river that snaked in and out of the forest from the point where they had avoided the tracks to where the scarred ground led them through a broad path on the far reaches of the woodland. The ground broadened into an undulating expanse of meadows, a forest copse and a distant village. Sheep were penned near the muddy track and the low walls of the rough stone-built houses supported a pitched roof whose moss-laden thatch spoke of a wet and cold prevailing westerly wind. A single door allowed man and beast to share the same quarters. Blackstone knew only too well the stench inside such a hut. He and his men had kicked down many a leather-hinged door to root out an enemy. A tanned goatskin covered a window opening but even that would keep the inside oppressively gloomy. Blackstone knew the thatch would be hard to torch if they needed to attack and destroy the village, but the dry hay and straw kept in the loft for the animals would burn quickly enough and that would engulf the crucked timbers. Then the smoke from the smouldering thatch could blind and choke enemy soldiers. Everything needed to be considered when facing determined men who wanted your head on a pole.

  A narrow stream, no wider than a man’s stride and as deep as his calf, curled this way and that from the riverbed: water that would supply the village. The beginning of winter would be upon the villeins in another few weeks and if they were fortunate enough to keep enough mutton, then the meat would supplement the mounds of turnips piled outside one of the barns. The faint sound of chickens being disturbed reached the men, and then a woman’s voice carried on the wind. The breeze flattened the angry voice of an old crone waving a stick who came around one of the huts to chase a girl moving swiftly away with a haltered goat. It was a scene re-enacted a dozen times a week in any village. A goat breaks free, eats a neighbour’s cabbages and the youngest girl in the family is sent to retrieve the miscreant. No other threat appeared to lurk in the huddled village; the threat lay further afield on a turret that rose above the distant forest. The flag wavering in the stiff breeze displayed a boar’s head.

  Killbere scratched his beard. ‘Thomas, that castle is not part of the King’s treaty. We have no need to strike at it or this bastard Breton lord. The man who survived the fight will have warned him of us, and it’s a domestic affair anyway. Let’s get about our business.’

  ‘Did I say anything?’

  ‘Your thoughts are louder than a village preacher’s voice condemning the damned and I reckon that is what we will be if you try to take that castle. If we can see the tower over those trees you can be certain it will have broad walls and high parapets as well.’

  Blackstone grunted by way of an answer, but kept his eyes on the landscape.

  ‘Burn the village, use its smoke,’ said Gilbert. ‘Is that it?’

  Blackstone smiled.

  ‘You see! God’s tears! You can draw the bastard out and we can kill them but for what reason? The man hates you. That’s not reason enough. I swear there were times over the years when I could have done more than kick your arse myself.’

  ‘Gilbert, he threw his wife and child to his men.’

  Killbere sighed. ‘It’s not our business. When a Lord of a manor turns his wife over to his men, then she’s been rutting with others or he’s got himself a mistress. I’ll wager she was not meant to survive the assault in the forest. Perhaps the man’s blazon tells us all we need to know. He’s got his snout in some other woman’s trough.’

  ‘Why keep the son and not the daughter?’ said Blackstone, gauging the shifting breeze, not wanting it to carry their scent towards the village from where they sat in the shadows. A villein had a keen a nose as a feral dog alert for danger and if they were loyal peasants, then a messenger might already be running to warn of Blackstone’s party and gain favour with Lord Mael.

  ‘Girls need a lot of attention, Thomas. Nurses and a governess, someone to dress and feed them. They can put boys to work, give them rough clothing and teach them something useful like how to fight.’

  ‘But in time a girl would have value. Such a man could arrange a marriage, buy himself status or a treaty with an enemy,’ Blackstone answered.

  ‘A son will inherit his father’s estates one day and carry on his name. A man’s name is worth more than a dowry for a girl.’

  Blackstone didn’t answer. He was studying the ground. If they moved closer to the distant forest and were caught in the open by any of Lord Mael’s men returning from patrol, then they needed to use the terrain to their advantage.

  Killbere read his mind. ‘You’re not thinking of riding over there, are you? We’d be as exposed as a mastiff’s bollocks. Why are we even here? If Babeneaux has sworn to kill you, then you have probably slain someone he knows. I’ll wager he has bastards running over half of France, Thomas, and you’re bound to have despatched one of them to meet the devil.’

  Blackstone turned in the saddle and looked at the men waiting. Richard Quenell, like Jack Halfpenny, was both archer and ventenar to the few bowmen under his command. He had fought well against the Bretons earlier that year when he joined Blackstone’s men. Blackstone knew he had spent time in Brittany and the Limousin where the Breton lords held sway over vast tracts of land.

  ‘Quenell,’ Blackstone called.

  The archer drew his horse alongside Blackstone. ‘My lord?’

  ‘This Babeneaux, did you come across him?’

  Quenell shook his head. ‘Heard the name but never had the pleasure of putting a yard of ash into his chest. I saw his banner when we fought at le Garet.’

  ‘Then we didn’t kill him when we had the chance,’ said Killbere. ‘More’s the pity. We’d have less to concern our
selves with now and we could be on our way.’

  ‘There was a family further north. A sister married to a Breton knight,’ said Quenell.

  ‘What name?’ said Blackstone.

  Quenell searched his memory. ‘It was an unusual name to my ear… It was… Regard or Beauregard… No, it was Sagard, Rolf de Sagard. Aye, that was it.

  ‘Merciful Christ,’ said Killbere. ‘The past haunts us like forest ghosts. De Sagard. How long ago was that, Thomas? Five, six years back?’