by David Gilman
‘No. She will stay with me,’ Christiana told him and extended her hand so that the man could help her clamber up the muddy bank as the other quickly lifted Agnes up onto the track. ‘I am no stranger to danger,’ she told the man, as if convincing herself that she would confront whatever lay beyond the curve of the road.
He cupped his hand for her to step up into the saddle, its low pommel allowing him to lift Agnes into her lap. She gathered the reins in one hand and held Agnes to her with the other.
‘My lady, I have no doubt of your courage. We all know who you are,’ said the soldier.
Is that what was known of her? she wondered. Did her estranged husband’s reputation still confer respect and protection on her despite his selling his fighting skills to Florentine bankers? Was he now any different from the brigands who tore France apart and opened the gates to a peasant uprising? She had abandoned her marriage, but it had not yet released her.
‘Does my son still serve your lord?’ she asked.
‘He does, my lady.’
‘Then take me to him,’ she commanded.
*
Smoke from burning houses and great estates plumed on the horizon. The advancing peasant army crept its way across the landscape without any fixed goal, twisting this way and that like a river. As soon as they slaughtered one noble family they moved on to the next. The route Christiana’s escort took bore them away from those tell-tale signs of destruction and as they rode closer to their lord’s demesne, the countryside seemed as it should. Crops and meadows were undamaged and livestock grazed. Her arms ached from holding Agnes to her, but she made no effort to ease the burden of the sleeping child. It would not be long before they were all safe, although a nagging uncertainty refused to leave her and she could not place what it was that teased her mind. Everything was as it should be here; perhaps the mob had swept across the horizon, leaving de Lorris unscathed.
Relief flooded through her when they turned along the track and she saw the manor house. Palisades were pulled aside as the men escorted her past more armed men into Sir Marcel’s courtyard, where she was warmly welcomed by the armoured knight and his pregnant wife, Marguerite.
‘Christiana, thank God you were found. The blessed Virgin has seen fit to cloak you in her protection,’ said de Lorris. ‘Take the child to a bedchamber. Bathe and feed her,’ he instructed his steward.
The servant reached up and took the sleeping Agnes. Christiana struggled to ease herself from the saddle. They had ridden hard, her escort relentless in their desire to return to the safety of their master’s fortified manor. She saw that, as well as the four riders who had accompanied her, there were another six men-at-arms, and a half-dozen crossbowmen who manned the low walls. There was no sign of Henry.
Christiana could barely keep herself from leaning into the knight’s arms, in gratitude not only for her rescue but also that her son had been sent to this devout man as a page and under whose tutelage he would soon be a squire. ‘Where is my son? Is he safe?’
Marguerite de Lorris put her arm around Christiana. ‘He is. He works in the tunnel to clear it for our escape should we need it,’ she said. ‘Come now, let me find you clothes and have a bath drawn for you.’
Christiana eased herself from the woman’s embrace. Her hair was twisted and matted from mud and water, her skin caked with dirt. She was as bedraggled as a peasant woman. ‘A tunnel? Are we not safe here?’ she asked.
‘We have no idea how many are out there,’ said de Lorris. ‘The tunnel leads to the chapel. No one violates the sanctuary of the church. It will be a final refuge should we need to abandon the house.’
Christiana nodded, trying to grasp through her exhaustion how desperate their situation was. ‘Is there no news at all?’ she asked.
De Lorris glanced quickly at his wife, uncertain how much he should tell a woman who had barely managed to escape with her life.
‘The Dauphin faces insurrection in Paris,’ said Marguerite, making the decision for him. ‘Tell her, my lord – we all need to know how things stand.’
De Lorris eased the two women towards the door, out of earshot of his men. ‘The last we heard was that the Provost, who is against the Dauphin, has seized the moment to urge the peasants to rise up south of the city. If they cut off all the routes into Paris who knows what might befall us.’
‘Then we have nowhere to go,’ said Christiana, her mind chasing possibilities of further escape.
‘If too many come here then you and Marguerite will be guided through the tunnel while I and my men hold back the mob as long as we can. Christiana, none of us is safe as long as this murder continues.’
Christiana felt the hollowness of despair. ‘Why don’t we leave now?’ she asked, looking towards the soldiers who manned the walls. What had seemed to be a stronghold moments before now seemed to be completely inadequate. ‘Surely we should go to a town? Any town. They will resist. We need higher walls than these.’
Sir Marcel’s lips tightened. The lands he held extended for miles around and she had drawn comfort from the fact that those who worked the estate had not risen up against him. And then she realized that there had been no sight of anyone in the fields. No smoke from the hovels, no barking of dogs or cries of children. The land was empty. This had been the unrecognized discomfort she had felt when they first approached.
‘Your villeins have run off and joined the mob, haven’t they?’
‘Yes. I can only pray they remember that we did not rule them with anything other than a harsh word.’
Panic quivered in her stomach and chest. She forced it away. The mob would come, she was sure of it. Now she had to think clearly. Her son and daughter must survive even if she did not.
‘Will you take me to Henry?’ she asked.
*
Beyond the entrance hall an iron-studded door gave way to steps that led down to the cellar. Its chilled darkness held haunches of smoke-darkened venison and the cleft carcass of a pig hung in two halves, a meat-hook piercing its thick skin. The room was large enough for wine and foodstuffs to be kept cool and beyond it was a low door that allowed flickering torchlight to seep into the cellar.
The steward who had led her below the house went ahead with a burning torch. ‘My lord’s father once used this passage to meet his mistress in the chapel. He did not respect his family or the church, as his son does. Sir Marcel thought it wise that it be cleared and readied...’ He caught himself and quickly assured her: ‘...should it be needed.’
Christiana saw that pieces of old armour and moth-eaten, threadbare carpets and tapestries had been stacked against one of the cellar’s walls. Cobwebs sizzled in the torch’s flame as he led her deeper into the gloom, to where a candle burned in a copper holder hooked onto the wall.
‘Be careful, my lady,’ said the steward, half turning towards her, as he pointed out the uneven ground beneath their feet.
She muttered her thanks, but there was a question that needed to be answered. If the mob came those in the house could buy their lives by betraying the whereabouts of the tunnel. ‘Why have you stayed?’ she asked.
The man faltered, hesitating before he took another step. ‘I am a Christian man who has served his master since childhood. If there is a more devout knight then I have not heard of him. My lord has shown kindness and humbled himself before his King and God. It would be wrong for me to abandon him in his hour of need. Death will come when God sends that dark angel. Who am I to run from it?’
She saw the glimmer of a smile in the torchlight, one of resignation and sadness that his death might be imminent. Christiana reached out and took the candle from the wall. ‘Go back to your master. I can find my way,’ she said and, without waiting for his answer, pushed past him. She was not willing to let death’s angel go unchallenged.
*
The air was heavy, veiled with smoke from the steward’s flaring torch. She thought she had gone about a hundred yards, one hand outstretched to help guide her against the rock wall,
when she felt the fetid atmosphere lighten and the coolness of fresh air touch her skin.
A shadow fell across her path as a figure scuffed the ground and she almost dropped the candle as a knife blade caught the light. She had not seen her son for more than a year and the figure of the boy – only three months short of his eleventh birthday – was still as she remembered him, but he had grown and she could see strength had gone into his limbs. She called his name.
The boy faltered. My God, he looked like his father, she thought, as he suddenly smiled at the sound of her voice. He stepped forward and lifted her hand to his lips.
‘You’re safe! And Agnes?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded, eyes stinging, ‘with me. She’s sleeping.’
The candlelight exposed her streaked and torn clothes and through the grime on her face the tracks made by her tears. Without embarrassment he palmed them away. ‘My lord said his men would find you.’ And then guilt crept into his voice. ‘I wanted to go, but I’m only his page, so I had to obey him.’
‘And he sent you here so that you could ready our escape.’
He sounded relieved. ‘Yes. And I’ve made it safe for Lady Marguerite and the children. And now for you and Agnes.’ His eyes searched her face and clothing. ‘Has it been terrible?’
‘More than I imagined,’ she admitted. He was no longer a child; there was no need to hide the truth.
He gently pulled her another few steps forward. A sturdy chestnut beam lay against the end wall, crosspieces nailed across its length. He pointed upwards. A flush of air came from the space above. ‘That hole leads into the chapel. I’ve already put two wineskins and a satchel of food up there. There are blankets and clothes for the children. We shall be safe. I can push the stone in the floor across it. Did you know that my lord’s father used this for...’ He bit back the word. ‘...fornicating.’
‘I know what it was used for,’ she said, and smiled. A boy training to be a squire heard soldiers talk and, no matter how devout his master, those around him would speak about the rougher aspects of the world. It would do him no harm, she thought; the world would test him soon enough.
She suddenly felt tired and leaned against the wall. He reached out for her.
‘Mother, you’re exhausted. Let me take you to the house.’
‘Are your duties done?’
‘Yes. More clothes and food perhaps, but I can do that afterwards.’
She eased herself free from him. ‘No. Finish what you must do. Our lives may depend on it. I’ll go back to Agnes; come to us when Sir Marcel gives you permission. He has trusted you with the responsibility for us and his family.’
Henry nodded. ‘I thought it was a lowly task because of being a page.’
‘No. He honours you and expects you not to fail him.’
He looked older now. His chin lifted. ‘You don’t have to worry. We’ll be all right. You’ll see.’
In another life, before he was born, she heard the echo of another young man she had nursed back to life – whose strength had become hers. Together they had survived, bound in a fate that carried them across a great river, clinging to each other as an enemy chased them down. She had known terror before and Thomas had killed the man who inflicted it. But her husband was not here now. Henry was his father’s son, but he was not yet his father.
‘Get a rope, make it fast to something in the chapel,’ she told him.
‘I have this ladder for the ladies and the children—’
‘It’s not for us,’ she interrupted. ‘If we have to escape through here then they might try to seize us from this passage. You will use the beam to block the door from the cellar. The rope is for you to climb into the chapel. Henry, you will be the last one down here.’
He swallowed hard. The mob had so far been a distant problem, but now these past eighteen months’ weapons training with his lord and his squires would imminently be needed. His mother’s appearance had shocked him and the reality of the looming danger dried his mouth. ‘Then... they will come,’ he said, trying to disguise his fear with a half-hearted smile.
Henry wore a sheathed dagger in his belt. It had once belonged to her husband’s squire and he had given it to Henry before he was brutally killed. She tugged it free and tucked it into her waistband.
‘They will come.’ She reached out and touched his face, drew it to her and tenderly kissed his forehead. ‘Be ready, my son. We will have to fight for our lives.’
*
Werner von Lienhard had left Windsor with his tail between his legs, shamed that he had not been permitted to face Thomas Blackstone in single combat. But reason subdued his despair. It had been his skill and practicality that made him a captain of men with the Visconti. He would wait. The time would present itself again – revenge should burn long and slow like an Italian vendetta. It was still a matter of honour to kill the man who carried his brother’s sword, but now it would be on von Lienhard’s terms and the grievance would never be relinquished. Perhaps back in Italy, when Blackstone returned, a public trial might be contrived – an appeal to the Signori that he had the right. The Visconti would like that. They would relish the thought of seeing the Englishman beaten on their own territory. It was all he wanted – to swear the oath publicly before bishop and lord that his cause was right and just before God.
Now, he contented himself with the knowledge that he had the skill to beat Blackstone when the time came. He and the two other knights who rode with him from Windsor had made their way from the French coast towards the city of Senlis. On the way they witnessed the surging mass of peasants, a thousand or more, who swept over a knight’s abode. Watching from high ground and partly hidden by trees, they saw the family slaughtered, falling under the frenzied attack of scythes and woodcutters’ axes. The Jacques threw the small child screaming into the air and then impaled her on their pitchforks. After the men raped the knight’s wife their women hacked her limb from limb. And then the horde stripped the house like a plague of locusts.
He turned to the two knights who had watched in grim horror as members of their own class were slaughtered.
‘There is nothing we can do to stop this killing. If we are seen we would be overwhelmed. And I will not die at the hands of scum,’ he told them. He had seen enough slaughter in Italy to know that a peasant was little more than a dog: soulless, ignorant and incapable of rational thought.
Conrad von Groitsch turned his face away from the slaughter. He crossed himself and spat. ‘To see such a good, fine lady and her child butchered by a rabid mob sickens me,’ he said.
The other murmured in agreement, but all three kept their eyes on the murderous horde. Von Lienhard watched the retreating villeins swarm away from their attack, carrying the goods they had found. The house was set ablaze and the smoke from this funeral pyre swirled and was carried by the breeze, fluttering like a battle standard. The peasant uprising had its own flag of war.
‘There were a couple of men-at-arms who rode with them. You saw it?’ he asked, passing a wineskin to his companion.
The third man, Siegfried Mertens, swilled wine around his mouth and spat it free. ‘And they took no part in the slaughter, but they helped themselves to the silver,’ he said to von Lienhard. ‘If we’re to cross France back to Lombardy, we could make the journey more prosperous. Silverware and riches are wasted on peasants.’
‘I want no part of, it’ said von Groitsch. ‘Killing peasants is one thing, slaughtering our own is quite another. I’m no pagan.’
The three men looked out from their vantage point. The horde had changed direction. A cry went up and the ravening mass looked up towards them. One of the mounted men-at-arms had caught sight of the colours on the Germans’ shields.
‘Christ’s blood,’ said von Groitsch. ‘Let’s get away from here.’
‘Wait,’ said von Lienhard. ‘We’re German. They have no quarrel with us.’
‘We’re knights, Werner; for Christ’s sake, see what’s coming towards us. They mean to kil
l us,’ said von Groitsch.
Von Lienhard pulled himself into the saddle. ‘If we want silver and plate we’ll ride to them, raise a hand in greeting and offer to show them how to fight like soldiers instead of the shit-legged scum they are.’
His companions winced at this foolishness, but von Lienhard had always been one to seize an opportunity and – as the fair-haired knight spurred his horse forward, helmet free, sword still in its scabbard and with a hand raised in greeting to the first of the horsemen who galloped towards him – they heard him laugh.
‘These villeins are a festering rabble of rats!’ he called to the men-at-arms. ‘But I can show them how to fight when the time comes!’
The horsemen pulled up and twisted in the saddle, checking the labouring mob swarming three hundred paces behind. ‘As do we!’ one of them said.
‘Better to catch the devil’s tail than his fangs,’ answered von Lienhard. ‘We split them and lead them. What do you say? More booty for us all. They can have the fine furnishings,’ he said, and grinned.
It was the moment of truth as the horde came within fifty paces. The first horseman nodded. Having another three knights at their backs would give them a better sense of security, even if it were a false one. The man-at-arms wore his colours as brazenly as a tournament knight and turned his horse to face the villagers and townsmen who wielded an assortment of weapons behind him.
‘They’re with us!’ he called. ‘Good men who hate these fat landowners!’
The mob of peasants were so caught up in their own heady success that they roared their cheers and then wheeled like an army, skirting the horsemen, their rampage not yet sated.
‘Pig-shit stupid,’ said von Lienhard.
‘Aye,’ said the horseman. ‘And we are glad of it, otherwise we’d be taken ourselves. But they’re learning. They fashion swords from scythes and billhooks and there’s one from Picardy who can read and write.’
‘He’s here?’ von Lienhard asked.
The man-at-arms shook his head and made a vague gesture towards the horizon beyond the forests. ‘Thousands of them out there. He’s with them. Name’s Cale. Bastard must fancy himself as a peasant king.’