The Last Horseman

by David Gilman

  Sir Gilbert looked at the deaf mute whose lopsided jaw dropped his face into the caricature of a fool. The knight turned to the older brother and shook his head. He could see Blackstone was ready to launch himself across the court. Sir Gilbert quietly gripped his arm and, despite the boy’s strength, held him fast. The last thing Sir Gilbert needed was Thomas Blackstone being hacked to death in court for attacking a shit-pit judge.

  ‘Think!’ he whispered urgently. ‘Think of what your father taught you! He was a soldier, for Christ’s sake! Lord Marldon taught your father, your father must have taught you! Think of the Benefit!’

  Panic at his lack of learning gripped Blackstone’s throat. Sir Gilbert had given him a chance of life.

  ‘I pass sentence on both these men,’ the judge ordered.

  Blackstone pulled his arm free from Sir Gilbert. ‘I claim Benefit of Clergy!’ he shouted. Sir Gilbert smiled. Blackstone’s life was now in his own hands.

  A monk or priest accused of a felony could save his life by claiming the Benefit, and a literate man could invoke the same right. The risk was huge. If the accused was unable to read from the open Bible placed in front of him his execution would be uncontested. If acquitted he would be placed in the care of the clergy and tried in the Ecclesiastical courts. It was rumoured that, more often than not, a court asked the accused to read Psalm 51, the Psalm of Contrition. It was Blackstone’s only chance. His father had beaten him with a willow switch until he memorized the verse word for word. But that had been more than three years ago. Now his memory stumbled.

  ‘Thomas Blackstone can read. It is his right to claim,’ said Sir Gilbert.

  The request could not be denied.

  ‘Bring the Bible. Where’s the cleric? Where is he?’ the judge demanded.

  A young, tonsured monk, his black habit released from the pillars’ shadows, stepped forward with a large open Bible, its corners protected by brass fittings. He presented it to the judge who looked at the chosen passage and nodded. The monk stepped forward, held the Bible open in front of Blackstone and waited.

  Blackstone’s eyes fell across the letter-covered vellum, the ornate twist of the first letter caged in a decorative painted tomb. There was nothing recognizable. He could read French. Not Latin. The number next to the Psalm was covered by the monk’s grubby thumb.

  Blackstone begged his mind to remember. His master stonemason had taught him to see the structure of a building in his mind’s eye – to interpret the numbers on his drawings into reality. See it in your mind and it will appear, the grizzled master with a crushed hand had taught him.

  Blackstone pictured the words his father had thrashed into him. His mind cleared of panic – the monk’s thumb moved, revealing the Psalm’s number: 51.

  ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me…’

  Line by line he went on, reciting the contrition with the pace of a man reading from the Good Book. It took a few minutes for his pretence to work. He was convincing enough for the clerk of the court to turn to the judge before committing the death sentence to the trial’s records. Blackstone dared not look at the judge, or the monk who gazed into his face. Had he realized Blackstone had only recited the words from memory? After a pause, and what Blackstone took to be a faint smile, the monk averted his eyes from his and moved back into the shadows.

  ‘The older brother is declared not guilty and committed to the care of the monks at St Edmund’s. The fool will hang,’ said the judge.

  While Blackstone committed Psalm 51 to the court, Sir Gilbert had moved closer to the judge, his actions barely noticed as the words bounced across the granite walls. Sir Gilbert had only to lean forward. His whisper was a cold, unemotional threat.

  ‘Hang this boy and I will slice your cock from your crotch and fry it. You’ll eat it before you die. Give him to the monks at the priory of St Edmund’s.’

  He stepped back and waited.

  The blood drained from the judge’s face. Murder was common coin for some men and Sir Gilbert was not a man to make an idle threat. A poor knight without lands depended on violence to achieve any wealth or influence. The judge had no doubts about the threat. He wiped his face with an expensive linen handkerchief.

  ‘However… the community will be better served if we commit him also to the care of the monks of St Edmund’s, who will render some use of the mute and put him to work in God’s name. Case dismissed.’

  Sir Gilbert guided the Blackstone brothers out of the court’s stone-chilled air. Richard lifted his face to the sun and uttered a braying groan of pleasure.

  ‘He’s a goddamn donkey in human form. Your father should have let him die,’ Sir Gilbert said as he climbed into the saddle.

  ‘You had that choice too, Sir Gilbert,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘Aye, and much good it would have done me. I had nags brought in anticipation of you using your brain.’

  The monk led two swaybacked palfreys into view. He smiled at Blackstone and handed him the reins to one of them.

  ‘Well recited, Master Blackstone,’ he said and smiled.

  Sir Gilbert turned his palfrey. ‘One with a prodigious memory, the other with a prodigious member. Both mean trouble, but my Lord Marldon wanted them alive. I’ve done my duty. Thank you, Brother Michael. Will you turn them over to my keeping?’

  ‘I will, Sir Gilbert.’

  ‘Then the money shall be at St Edmund’s as promised.’

  He spurred his horse. Blackstone and Richard followed.

  Sir Gilbert was riding for Lord Marldon’s manor.

  *

  The track meandered through the trees: steadfast oaks and great chestnuts. The riders followed the curving river two hundred feet below, turning gently through the bends of the wooded valley. On the far side the grassland on the southern slopes was being harvested by half a dozen men; the occasional shouts of playful insult between them carried up to the riders. Blackstone could not help gauging their distance and the angle of trajectory needed to fly an arrow. It was instinct, something he was blessed with from the early days when his father had given him his first bow. As he grew in strength and ability so the bow became bigger and more difficult to master. His father had taught him the skill of drawing the bowstring by laying his body into the stave; more than an arm’s strength was needed to pull the hundred and sixty pounds draw weight and to do it repeatedly. By the time the royal proclamation was issued prohibiting, under pain of imprisonment, all games that drew men away from the butts, Blackstone had already inherited his father’s cherished war bow. The ideal height for an archer’s lethal weapon, the deadliest killing machine of its age, was four inches taller than the archer, and his father’s bow stood six feet and four inches. Blackstone was the firstborn; it was his right to inherit. And, as his father knew, he was a better archer than his brother. His father had spoken gently and at length to explain that his younger son’s skills were better than any in the county, except those of Thomas. Yet he asked that every time the brothers competed, Thomas would allow Richard the final arrow of victory. It was the only way the deaf-mute child might find acceptance in the community. Father and elder son shared their secret pact with no one.

  Since his father’s death, whenever he notched the hemp string over the bow’s horned nocks, and wrapped his hand around the stave’s four-inch belly, he sensed his father’s energy in the bow. It was made of yew; bonded springy sapwood on its outside, the dark, compressible heartwood facing the archer. His mind’s eye sometimes imagined the battles his father had fought. A shiver would grip his groin, uncertainty that he would ever have his father’s courage if it were demanded. That time now seemed imminent.

  Swathes of meadow flowers quilted the distant fields, leading the eye of the observer to the final turn of the river where the turrets of Lord Marldon’s manor house appeared a
bove the treetops.

  They were in no hurry now and the landscape almost demanded that they slow the horses’ pace to a walk. Sir Gilbert hadn’t spoken since they left the town and Blackstone saw no reason to make idle conversation. The natural beauty of his surroundings touched something deep inside of him – a gentleness that almost suggested a mother’s love. Despite the hardship of their lives his father had always said they were God’s children and that nature was their comforter.

  Sir Gilbert looked at him, as if reading his thoughts. ‘Your mother ruined a good fighting man,’ he said. ‘She sucked the will to fight from him like marrow from a bone. He gave up war and worked every God’s minute to be with her and then raise you and the donkey after she died.’ He saw the flash of anger in Blackstone’s eyes, but noted the boy’s self-control. Once these brothers were sent away from the sanctuary of their own hamlet and surrounding villages, strangers would taunt and Blackstone would have to defend his brother, but he would need a cool head to do it, because the men who would do the taunting knew about killing on a grand scale.

  Blackstone let the insult go. ‘Why did my father do that?’

  Sir Gilbert snorted and spat out a globule of phlegm. ‘Because he loved her more than any man should love a woman.’

  The road opened before them, the manor’s gates came into view. Sir Gilbert spurred his horse.

  Blackstone hoped their bad luck was behind them.

  Misery was yet to unsheath her infected claws.

  *

  Once through the huge, arched entrance gates they dismounted and handed their horses’ reins to an ostler. The courtyard seemed alive with servants coming and going as Sir Gilbert went ahead and spoke to Chandler, who gestured them towards the great hall. Blackstone had helped repair its walls and Lord Marldon’s bridges, but had never been inside the manor house.

  The brothers gazed up at the oak timbers that curved high to the apex of the ceiling. Banners and tapestries hung from the walls and freshly gathered reeds covered the cut stone floor. Two wolfhounds and half a dozen assorted other dogs raised themselves from the front of the massive fireplace where logs burned despite the heat of the day outside. They growled and barked, Sir Gilbert ignored them and they sniffed and settled. Lord Marldon sat close to the fire, his cloak gathered around him, his face gaunt from twenty years of living in pain seldom dulled by the rich red wine from his holdings in Gascony.

  Blackstone bowed his head in respect; his brother, a pace behind him, did the same. His lordship gazed at them for a few moments and Blackstone could not help but look at the half-leg that rested on a cushioned support. All that anyone knew was that Lord Marldon had fought in the Scottish wars and a battleaxe had severed his leg at the knee joint. That he had survived was a miracle. The injury had never stopped him riding across his estates, with the half-leg secured to the stirrup straps to keep his balance. Once or twice over the years Blackstone had seen Lord Marldon ride past the Blackstone land and speak quietly to his father.

  ‘You saved them from the hangman, then, Sir Gilbert.’

  ‘He did it himself at the end of the day, my lord.’

  Despite being a free man, Blackstone knew Lord Marldon still carried the authority and influence to affect his life. It would do no harm to pay more respect than was obligatory. ‘My lord, it is you who saved our lives today. Sir Gilbert told me that you had told my father the value of learning the Psalm of Contrition.’

  Lord Marldon laughed. ‘Your father was right to devote himself to your well-being. You’ve intelligence and wit and there’s something of your mother’s beauty. A boy as good-looking as you are should never pay a woman for her pleasures. Your father would have beaten you. Perhaps I should for the trouble you’ve caused me.’

  ‘I apologize, my lord. It was not my intention to be arrested,’ Blackstone said, and then, risking a rebuke, added, ‘and I have never paid, my lord.’

  Lord Marldon laughed again. ‘I miss your father. Perhaps I should have made myself better acquainted with his son.’ The smile gave way to a look of what Blackstone thought to be sadness as he turned his gaze onto his brother. ‘At least one who could humour me and answer when spoken to.’

  Sir Gilbert had moved away from the fire and stood stroking one of the hounds that sat at his side. Blackstone glanced quickly at him, uncertain how to respond to the remark, but Sir Gilbert showed no expression to indicate that the boy should answer. Blackstone felt he was being tested.

  ‘My lord, my brother is strong, and works long hours, so there is benefit for his lordship in his being without speech. For he labours without complaint.’

  ‘A good answer – but the constant searching of his eyes disturbs me.’

  Blackstone touched his brother’s shoulder. The boy turned and looked at him and Blackstone raised a finger and touched below his own eye and spread his hand in a calming sign. The boy nodded and remained still.

  ‘You’re going to war, Blackstone. King Edward raises an army. Commissioners of array are moving through the land, contracts are being made between knights and men-at-arms and free men must go and serve their King. Sir Gilbert will muster the men from my estates and you will wear my livery.’

  The straightforwardness of his lordship’s comments took Blackstone by surprise. His whole world was about to change. ‘Who will we fight?’ was his stumbling response.

  ‘If you paid more attention to the proclamations posted by the sheriff in town you’d know well enough. The King and Parliament have asserted that the French seek to deny him his right of lands in France. War has not yet been declared, but it’ll be the French. It always is.’

  Blackstone was aware of the rumours over the past months, and of the King’s men purchasing grain and livestock, but the thought that he’d be taken and sent to fight had never occurred to him. His daily life was already one of survival.

  ‘You should know, Blackstone, about your father. I gave his family my protection. That was the debt I owed him, and that was all he asked. When that axe took my leg he tied the tourniquet that saved my life. He carried me miles to safety. I was barely conscious. It was he who poured burning pitch on the stump to seal the wound. And I loved him for it. I doubt there was a more loyal sworn man in the realm.’

  Blackstone found his voice. ‘He never told me.’

  ‘You did not know because he was sworn to silence. To have it known that I favoured your family would have caused greater resentment than that already shown against your brother.’

  Blackstone’s heart beat harder – it felt like panic – like the time a quarryman ran to tell him of the rockfall. Wild thoughts and terrifying images of his father lying crushed under rock crowded his mind. ‘He always honoured you, my lord. He always offered prayers for your safety and long life,’ Blackstone replied, feeling the burden of loyalty increasing its weight.

  Lord Marldon nodded, his voice softened with genuine affection. ‘And I honoured him as I have no other. I made him a free man and whenever the King called his veterans to war I paid his quittance. By arranging a good price for your father’s wool I found a way for him to pay for your apprenticeship. When the rockfall took him in the quarry I continued my promise to him and shielded his sons from those who would have their land.’

  Blackstone stood as dumbfounded as his silent brother.

  ‘But now you must take your own chances in the world, Thomas. Your King needs you. My life will be over soon and I have done my duty. Now you must do yours.’

  Blackstone looked at Sir Gilbert again, and this time he nodded. The lord of the manor was dying. His protection would die with him.

  ‘We’ll serve you loyally, my lord, as my father would have done,’ Blackstone said.

  Lord Marldon shook his head. ‘Only you, Thomas. Your brother is of no use in a war. We’ll send him to the monks, they can put him to work and protect him from ridicule.’

  ‘The Franciscans care for dumb animals,’ Sir Gilbert added.

  The younger brother looked start
led as Blackstone gripped his arm. ‘He can fight. He’s the best archer in three counties.’

  ‘And he’s fourteen years old, for Christ’s sake,’ said Sir Gilbert. ‘He’s deaf and dumb!’

  Blackstone laid a hand on Richard’s chest, to allay the fear he saw in the boy’s face. ‘He can hear well enough, Sir Gilbert. My lord, he feels the vibrations of drumbeat and the force of trumpets. The air reverberates with shouts and loud voices. He’s worked alongside my father and me since he could walk. No one I know can match his strength. His eyes are as sharp as a bodkin. He looses more arrows a minute than any man I’ve seen draw a bowcord.’

  ‘Fifteen is the youngest we can send men to war,’ Sir Gilbert said roughly, exasperated by Blackstone’s insistence.

  ‘I am his guardian, my lord, just as you gave your protection to my father and his sons.’ He knew he was running out of argument. ‘Look at him. Does he look to be the age he is? By the time the harvest is in, he’ll be old enough. He’s big enough to be half his age again. Would any man doubt it?’

  Lord Marldon and his man-at-arms fell silent for a moment.

  ‘There’s not a whisker on his face,’ Sir Gilbert said finally.

  ‘And he has goose down on his head,’ Blackstone answered. ‘Others will take him as he is. Better he endures the mockery of soldiers and has me at his side, than be whipped by monks for not hoeing their carrot patch to their liking.’

  Lord Marldon coughed hard and long. Sir Gilbert quickly poured wine into a goblet and held his master’s shaking hand, easing it to his lips.

  ‘Sweet Jesus Christ! I wish your father and I could have ended our lives as men should. Not crushed like an ant and eaten alive from within,’ wheezed the old warrior. He steadied his breathing. ‘Wait outside. I’ll make my decision. God bless you, Thomas Blackstone. Always remember who your father was and honour his memory. Go.’

  Blackstone bowed his head, his brother did the same.

  When the doors closed behind them Lord Marldon wiped the wine-mingled blood from his lip.