by David Gilman
‘You don’t like cabbage?’ said Torellini, seeing what remained.
Henry shook his head.
‘Your father doesn’t care for it either.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
The city of Bergerac trembled when Thomas Blackstone rode in with his men. The burghers and mayor had expected news of the Prince’s arrival, not the sight of rough-hewn men traversing the two-hundred-yard-long narrow causeway across the River Dordogne into the city. Even though few in number, the fact that brigands had ridden ahead of the English vanguard from Bordeaux caused consternation. Were they here to threaten and extort patis? Bergerac had been under English protection since its capture several years before but was that enough to dissuade routiers from extortion? Fear rippled through the burghers. But then Blackstone’s blazon was unfurled and a squire came forward to declare that the King’s Master of War had arrived in the city in advance of the Prince’s arrival to ensure lodgings and to review safety for the royals.
The mayor and his council gushed with relief and took more time than was necessary to introduce themselves because they too were to declare their loyalty to their new Prince of Aquitaine. Other guests, Breton noblemen, had already arrived, they told Blackstone, and the Bishop of Sarlat was due to arrive the next day with Gisbert de Dome. The honour bestowed upon the city had cost the city coffers a great deal of money, a comment quickly recanted in case of any misunderstanding. The honour was worth every coin in their treasury.
‘That’s good information to have,’ said Killbere as they settled into their quarters. ‘If they have enough money to host the wine-swilling nobility and their wives, then if things go wrong with the Prince we can help ourselves to their treasury and be on our way. I’ll take this bed,’ he said, testing the mattress. ‘Anything softer than a floorboard does not suit you.’
Blackstone looked out of the window at the cobbled streets below. ‘We will put men down at the riverbank, Gilbert. The strand is broad and if I was tempted to seize the city I would have barges bring in men from there.’
‘Except there will be no attack, Thomas, because the Prince travels with enough men to have covered our flank at Launac. Our presence here is a market-square puppet show and well you know it.’
‘All the more reason to make it look genuine. We’ll keep the captains with us and the sergeants and their men at strategic places in the city. We are too few to be noticed but it might convince the Prince we are here for his benefit. Let’s get down to the tavern and enjoy what time we have before he gets here. Once the royal circus arrives we will be hard pressed to find time for drink and food.’
‘And women.’ Killbere grinned.
*
Blackstone dragged a drunken Killbere up the stairs and dropped him onto the floor; then he flopped himself onto the mattress that was too soft but which the heavy Gascon wine helped his aching body ignore. He still felt the effects of his wounds. The steep stairs had tugged at his leg – there was still a weakness that might take more weeks to strengthen. At least the bone had knitted: he was thankful that Will Longdon and John Jacob knew as much as any battlefield surgeon and had set the limb – pressing the broken bone back under the torn skin and binding his leg with two wooden shafts – while he lay unconscious before physicians attended him. The fresh breeze through the window carried the sweet scent of hillside grass from the surrounding fields, which brought memories of Christiana as he drifted into sleep.
The sudden banging on his door moments after he closed his eyes startled him. He had slept for six hours.
‘Sir Thomas?’ said John Jacob at the door.
Blackstone was wide awake though Killbere still curled asleep on the floorboards. He nodded, swung his feet free and went to the nightstand where there was a washbowl and jug. He sluiced water over his face and neck, then poured the jug of water over his hair, shaking away the grogginess from the night’s drinking. ‘What is it?’
John Jacob stood back from the door. ‘A rider came in. His horse was dead under him. He’s been travelling for a week.’
‘From where?’
‘He won’t speak to any of us, Sir Thomas, only you. He’s exhausted. I put him at the table and had them feed him.’
Blackstone clattered down the stairs to the tavern below. Men slept on the bottom of the stairs, others under tables. The serving women brushed sawdust around and over them and a dog began defecating and was beaten with the broom. It ran out into the bright sunshine, already hot for that time of the day. John Jacob stepped around the sleeping men. ‘I put him in there. The owner didn’t like it but I gave him no choice.’
Blackstone stepped through to the tavern owner’s room. A bedraggled man, caked in dust and grime, his eyes red from long days in the saddle, bent over a meal of potatoes and mutton. He quaffed wine thirstily. When Blackstone entered he quickly abandoned his breakfast and bent down on one knee. ‘Sir Thomas Blackstone?’
Blackstone nodded. ‘Get up. Eat. You look as though you need it. Who are you?’
The man glanced past Blackstone to John Jacob.
‘You can speak in front of my squire.’
The man chewed rapidly and then wiped his mouth. He pulled aside his jerkin and exposed the French King’s fleur-de-lys blazon. ‘I am a messenger from the Dauphin Charles in Paris, my lord. ’
‘You rode from Paris?’ said Blackstone, surprised at the sight of the French royal crest and that a messenger had travelled such a distance.
The man nodded. ‘Relay horses at towns my King still holds. Twelve, fifteen leagues a day. Two horses died beneath me. First to the Count of Foix where we had been told you were recovering. They told us that you were here awaiting your Prince. There were two of us. One to Bordeaux to reach him and I to find you at Foix. I do not know if the other messenger survived.’
Blackstone sat on the stool opposite the man and poured more wine from the jug for him. ‘All right. Drink and know you have succeeded in reaching me.’
‘I fear I am close to collapse, my lord, so let me relay the message now. Then do with me what you will.’
‘You have served the Dauphin with great determination and courage. You’ll be paid for your effort and given a bed and lodging for as long as you need it.’
‘God bless you, Sir Thomas. I did not expect such courtesy.’
‘From the likes of a man who is your King and Dauphin’s sworn enemy?’ said Blackstone.
‘That was my expectation. I apologize, my lord. Your reputation is fearsome.’
‘Your message?’
‘There is an assassination plot against the English Prince. My lord the Dauphin does not know where but it might be here. His information is that a mercenary has been paid.’
Blackstone watched the man hesitate. ‘Then why send word to me?’
‘Your son is in Avignon.’
Blackstone said nothing. The man nodded, emphasizing the point. ‘The same person who wishes the Prince’s death will also kill your son. It might not be too late. You could save him. It is a choice, Sir Thomas.’
Blackstone pressed his hand on the man’s arm. ‘Rest. You’re safe here. My Prince and I are in your debt.’
‘The Dauphin’s,’ the messenger replied humbly.
‘Without your loyalty and courage he would be as mute as a newborn child. You have given voice to his honour.’
Blackstone left the exhausted man and went out into the street. His men were lodged in rooms and inns in the immediate vicinity of where the royal party would be housed and where the ceremony would take place. ‘Bring the captains, John. We must have a tight noose around here. The Prince is due today and tomorrow he takes the pledges of fealty.’
‘Sir Thomas, what can we do to help Henry?’
Blackstone imagined his son caught in the confines of the city. An assassin’s knife was easily wielded in crowded streets. A paid urchin could deliver the killing blow. If there was a chance of warning him, then he might seek refuge with Father Torellini. Even so, a determined assa
ssin would find a way to kill. But there was no time.
‘Whoever threatens the Prince is trying to draw me away. Henry must face his own danger, John. He has the courage; he needs good fortune. He’s on his own.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Avignon was second only to Paris now that they had rebuilt the walls. Defensively it would be difficult for any of those routiers who passed along the banks of the Rhône to attack the papal city. Though who would wish to even think of attack in the sweltering summer temperatures? The clamour of tradesmen and merchants thronged the thoroughfares. Wine, spices, herbs and freshly baked bread and sweet biscuits fought in the stifling air to overpower each other and the stench of the streets. Poultry trapped in cages squawked and fruit sold quickly before it ruined. Raised voices from stallholders tried to outsell each other. Urchins ran between the jostling crowds offering to carry packages or loads of wood and kindling for the cooking fires that added to the increasing heat. Tempers flared. Fights were common but the marshal was only summoned if someone was killed.
It was late in the day and Henry was behind in his studies, but he had promised to meet Jocard. He shouldered his way through to one of the squares. There were few open spaces in the city. Citizens, Henry had discovered, held meetings that were both sacred and profane in the cemeteries, much-prized land for those wishing to develop more housing. Those were not places that held an audience for long. Scavenging pigs often rooted up the recently buried dead from their shallow graves. But here in the square there was room to buy a sweet cake and watch the jugglers and the armless woman who could sew and spin with her feet and play dice with her toes. Jocard was not at their meeting place. Henry waited. It was not unusual for the boy to be late for their meetings: trying to negotiate the confined streets in good time was difficult. He watched the entertainers for a while, ate his cake and then went off to find the younger man.
There was no sign of him at his lodgings: Henry ran upstairs to the attic room, knocked, but had no reply. Pushing open the door, he saw the unmade bedding on the cot and a set of books on a small table. The wooden floor creaked and the small open window let in the noise and smells of the city. It would soon be dark and the watchman would blow his trumpet from the Tour de la Gâche on the Pope’s Palace to announce the start of the night watch’s vigil. The city byways would empty and where there had been life death would soon lurk. He hesitated. If there was anything wrong Jocard would go to his mother’s rented house, but that was across the city and he would not make it back to his own room in time. He asked the landlord if he knew where Jocard might be. The toothless man shrugged and continued to pluck the dead chicken on his lap.
‘He said a friend might come looking,’ said the landlord, concentrating on pulling tufts off the chicken.
‘And what? Did he leave a message for me?’
‘Left a message for a friend. How do I know you’re that friend?’
‘My name is Henry de Sainteny.’
The man sneezed. ‘Bless me. Bless this house. Oh yeah? Not Henry Blackstone?’
Henry swallowed hard. The man didn’t seem to know the name. The chicken was more important.
‘No, de Sainteny,’ Henry repeated.
‘Uh-huh. Sounds right. The lad said if his friend Henry came calling to tell him someone approached him. Don’t ask me who: he never said. But the man asked if he was this Henry Blackstone.’
‘That’s the message?’
The man looked up. ‘I’m not a damned scribe. Anything more than that he should have written it down himself.’
Henry realized Jocard must be running scared. How had his name surfaced? The boy had obviously not gone to their meeting on the square, fearful of being followed and leading the stranger to him.
He abandoned the risk of the city at night and, turning away from the old house, headed for the safety of Torellini’s mansion. He did not see the cloaked Gunther von Schwerin standing in the distance watching him.
The boy’s hesitation interested the knight. He stepped across the street. ‘You know that boy?’ he asked the landlord.
The man looked him up and down. The cloak and the scuffed leather boots peeping below it suggested a man of insufficient means to offer a coin for information and the shaved hair above his ears told him he was some kind of monk, one of those hospitallers, and everyone knew they didn’t have two deniers to rub together. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘The merciful Lord would cast His benevolence on you and this house if you tell me.’
‘The merciful Lord saw fit to take my wife and daughter in the plague last year. Why do you think I am doing a woman’s work and plucking the damned chicken? Be off with you.’
Von Schwerin eased aside his cloak enough to show his sword hilt and the knife in his belt. The black cross surcoat loomed ominously. The landlord had a decision to make. The gesture impressed on him that this was a holy warrior asking, who would slit his throat without a moment’s hesitation. He wanted to eat his chicken that night. He recounted what he had told Henry.
Von Schwerin turned away, striding rapidly to the Lady Cateline’s quarters. This might be the contact from the Welshman he had hoped for. To ask for Blackstone by name meant someone had been sent into the city to seek him out; Lady Cateline’s son might have more information and it was possible he had run to his mother. But the German knight knew he would not reach the house before curfew and it was doubtful even he could defeat a determined gang of ten or more if they attacked him. He would go as far as he could and then find a church to wait in. Once the night eased into the early hours of the morning, the danger on the streets would filter away.
It was a good time to pray and offer thanks for what might be a chance to track down Gruffydd ap Madoc.
*
The night’s heat clawed into the skin and inflamed passions. In overcrowded buildings short-tempered fights broke out between men and their wives. Wolfram von Plauen felt the heat suck the life out of him. For the past few days the only coolness came from Lady Cateline. He had watched the overtures from the rich merchants. He knew the day would come when someone would ask for her hand. She had touched something more in him than the fear of the devil, unlocking an overwhelming tenderness he never knew existed. It was destroying him. And now he was facing her final rejection. Nothing in any battle had brought him to his knees as had these feelings: a turbulence more violent than the crashing cross-currents of the River Rhône that only three years before had surged and torn down part of the city walls. For months von Plauen had been her shadow and now his protection was no longer required. She was releasing him from his pledge. It crushed him. He begged, implored and debased himself, expressing his love, promising her his life, vowing to keep her… but she had no need of him. She had recently been granted legal rights to her domain. And that had brought a proposal of marriage from a wealthy merchant. Her status was assured, as was the well-being of her children.
She gazed at him. Pity swept over her. She was not cold-hearted and tried to calm his distress, understanding the man’s wounded pride.
Thunder rumbled as the pressure built in the night sky. A great storm was gathering. Tears stung his eyes as he trembled. She backed away from him. He reached for her, murmuring his impassioned pleas, embracing her too tightly. She struggled. His hand held her face as he forced his lips on hers. She squirmed, struck him. Blood seeped not from his split lip but from somewhere behind his eyes. It flooded his thoughts, blinding him. He did not remember striking her. He remembered a startled scream and then silence. The roof shook from a thunderclap, which snapped him back to his violent act. She lay sprawled on the floor. The window shutters rattled, banging repeatedly; rain splattered into the room as the rolling storm struck. He knew she was dead. The neck he had pressed his lips to, a place he breathed her perfume, was twisted. Her eyes stared at him.
A sound startled him. The servant, Melita, stood in the doorway in her nightdress, clutching Cateline’s daughter, who was terrified by the storm. Melita
gazed at her dead mistress. Von Plauen stepped towards her, not in anger but wishing in that desperate moment to explain. Before he could find the words she turned and ran down the corridor. He went after her and as she turned for the stairs he heard her scream. From the landing he saw the two crumpled bodies at the bottom of the stone-hard chestnut stairs.
Von Plauen took the steps three at a time and bent to find a heartbeat but Melita’s broken skull and the crushed child beneath her told him both were dead. He stumbled to the door that had been blown open. Somewhere through the noise of the heavy rain and the insistent thunder he heard a lone church bell calling him to prayer. He stepped into the storm.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Henry found Lady Cateline’s son at Torellini’s house. Jocard had run, confused and frightened, not knowing what to do. Once there, he confessed that it was he who had revealed Henry’s name by pretending to be him when he fought an older bully a couple of weeks before and compounded the lie by threatening to send his father Thomas Blackstone to confront the aggressive student. Somehow that slip of the tongue had found its way into the hands of those who sought a reward for such information. Father Torellini confined the two boys to his house.
He questioned Jocard relentlessly until tears spilled down the boy’s face, swearing he had told no one except his mother what he had done. That was the link that Torellini sought. Now he would reach into the heart of Avignon’s society. Further investigation among Lady Cateline’s circle of pampered women acquaintances would reveal which of them would benefit from knowing Henry Blackstone’s real identity. His enquiries had already discovered that a Lady de Sagard was in the city. The name was familiar to him but he could not recall a link between the woman and Thomas Blackstone. If the connection was something to do with Blackstone’s past then, like him, she might be gathering information in this city of whispers. The servants took the boys to the guest bedrooms.