Gate of the Dead

by David Gilman

  ‘Two peasants attacked us. My son and I killed them.’

  ‘You saw the mob approach then?’ he asked, trying to establish whether she had seen him and his companions.

  ‘No. We were travelling... to... Paris but we were told it was held by the Provost who supports these Jacques. The lord of this manor gave us overnight shelter. When he heard the attack he sent us to the cellar. And we found this tunnel.’

  ‘You saw nothing then?’

  ‘No, we only heard the screams.’

  Von Lienhard looked at his companions. They considered their decision for a moment. Von Groitsch shrugged; Martens nodded and whispered. ‘They can serve as our own safe passage. The nobility won’t let the mob have free rein much longer. They’ll find a way to stop them. Best we should be on the winning side.’

  Von Lienhard looked down at Christiana’s upturned face. There was a beauty to it and she had spirit. A widow young enough to need a man for protection. Who knew – she might even have a dowry or land that might be worth considering? ‘We saw the flames and got here too late, not that we would have been able to save the good knight of this house. We thought to at least secure what silver there might be for the Holy Church. So, my lady, we will escort you on your journey.’

  Christiana knew it was a terrible risk to accept but to refuse meant certain death. ‘Then my children and I are grateful for such honourable men to rescue us,’ she said, and forced a smile of gratitude.

  Von Lienhard put aside his sword and lowered his arm into the hole.

  ‘Then take my hand, Lady de Sainteny. My name is Werner von Lienhard.’

  37

  Two days later, three hours after daylight, as distant church bells rang for terce, Blackstone and his men continued to ride south-east at a steady canter, keeping the weak morning sun behind their left shoulder. They had forded streams and eased their way across rivers that gave them a better direction than roads. Rivers were carved in the landscape forever. There were occasional signs of horsemen on the horizon, but no great body of men had shown themselves and, if routiers still plagued this area, then it seemed they had taken what they could and moved on. Half a dozen hamlets had been burned days, if not weeks, before Blackstone and the men eased their way past the destroyed hovels. Squeezed between grasping landowners and savage raiders there was little wonder the peasants had taken themselves south to join the mob, Blackstone thought, but this understanding of the peasants’ plight was soon dispelled.

  A road curved down into a belly of land, an area rich for crops and livestock, but the meadows were trampled and the vines smashed. What had been chicken and goose pens were torn down and the smouldering, skeletal remains of a manor house bled smoke into the morning air. They halted, watching for any signs of ambush around the distant manor.

  Killbere pointed to the bodies scattered in the manor’s yard. ‘Can’t be more than two days since this happened. I’ll go down.’

  ‘No. I’ll do it,’ said Blackstone.

  Killbere reached out for the horse’s rein. ‘Thomas, there’s a woman and child down there among the dead. Let me go.’

  ‘If it’s them then it makes no difference when I find out,’ he said.

  Will Longdon held back the archers, placing them on the edges of the meadow and ruined vineyards. If any intruders attempted to surprise the men they would be halted far enough away to allow the men to counter-attack. Blackstone and the others eased their horses into the yard. Scavengers had already been at work. The naked men’s flesh was pockmarked with crow pecks, and foxes or feral dogs had gnawed their private parts, tearing off the softest flesh first, then their faces and buttocks. It would not be long before wild boar deep in the forest caught the scent and then muscle and bone would be devoured. Blackstone dismounted and walked towards the child’s broken body. She lay face down, fair hair matted with blood and dirt, arms splayed, showing that she had fallen while running. Close to her was the blood-soaked body of a woman, her blackened throat cut, her face puffed with decay and maggots, making identification impossible. Blackstone slipped his hand beneath the child’s body and tenderly tried to lift it. It was as rigid as a wooden crucifix, but he managed to ease her over. The girl’s eyes were open, opaque, the broken bones disfiguring her beauty. He felt the shudder of relief that it was not Agnes.

  Blackstone eased the child down and turned to where Killbere stood watching. He shook his head. It was not his child.

  ‘Praise God and his angels, Thomas,’ the grizzled veteran said with as much kindness as he could muster. ‘Over here,’ he added, turning back to where the charred remains of a man lay like cooked meat in the cinders. ‘The man has good armour on him. Probably the knight, and these were his family. The woman, the girl and a headless corpse of a boy who’s dressed well enough – most likely his son. Bastards must have tormented him first.’

  John Jacob and Meulon had sent the men into the ruins of the burnt-out house. ‘No bodies inside. Everything either went up in flames or was taken. They left a clear enough trail,’ Jacob said.

  Meulon pointed beyond the fields where the trampled ground was signposted with abandoned pieces of pottery and furniture. ‘They couldn’t carry everything.’

  Caprini had clambered beyond the house towards the chapel. He called back, ‘In here, Sir Thomas.’

  Blackstone gestured towards the fallen men and family. ‘Meulon, you and Gaillard go among the dead, have the men drag them together. Not the peasants, only the others,’ he said; then he pushed through the stench of death towards Caprini, with Killbere and Jacob a pace behind.

  When they reached the chapel, Caprini struck a flint and lit a fallen torch, holding it aloft inside the gloom. ‘If there was silver here, it’s gone, but that was the only desecration. There are benches kicked aside. Nothing has been broken. And there is this,’ he said as he led them to the open hole.

  ‘An escape tunnel,’ said Killbere. ‘It’ll lead back to the house. Perhaps someone got out in time.’

  ‘Or lies wounded,’ said Caprini, loosening his cloak and lowering himself down, pushing his shoulders through the narrow passage. Moments later he emerged and clambered free of the claustrophobic space. ‘The end is blocked, masonry and a door brought down by the fire. I saw no blood. And there is none here on this floor,’ he said, sweeping the torch across the stone slabs.

  ‘A manor house with armed men. Far enough away from Paris to be considered safe. Could the Dauphin’s family be those outside?’ Killbere suggested.

  ‘Was his wife pregnant?’ John Jacob asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Blackstone. ‘We’ve all been witness to murder and killing, but this was a torment as bad as the Hungarians in Italy.’

  ‘These weren’t routiers, Sir Thomas,’ said Jacob. ‘You saw how much ground was trampled out there. There weren’t many horses. These were men on foot. Hundreds of them. And some of the bodies – they weren’t fighting men.’

  ‘I know, John. We’ve found the peasant army, or one of them,’ said Blackstone.

  Caprini made the sign of the cross. ‘What you have found is Satan’s host.’

  *

  Blackstone rested the horses, allowing time to feed the men and bury the dead despite his impulse to ride on after the sight of the pregnant woman’s corpse and her murdered children. It pleased Caprini to offer prayers for the dead and he made the failed acolyte, Bertrand, serve penance by dragging more than his fair share of the bodies to their shallow, hastily dug graves. The unknown knight and his family were brought together in one grave and covered with stones gathered from a pile on the border of a tilled field. Blackstone refused to bury the twenty or so scattered peasants’ bodies brought down by crossbow and sword. Even Caprini made no objection to them being left for the beasts.

  Blackstone’s men left the manor behind them, following the trampled ground until it petered out into pebble-strewn riverbanks. There were no mudflats or riverbanks to show where the horde had gone, but John Jacob had taken Meulon a
nd Gaillard ahead as scouts and they had found tracks, half obscured by the water, on a mudbank in the centre of the shallow river. Blackstone led his men onto a broader road towards the fringes of the vast forests that lay across the horizon. It was better to be in the open where they could see others approach rather than enter unknown woodland where horse and man could be easily ambushed. Within hours the torn ground told its own story of hundreds of men and carts having gone before them – although the tracks led not from the burnt manor house but from the opposite direction. Blackstone brought the men to a halt. The open plain would not conceal fifty men, let alone hundreds.

  ‘This is more than sheepherders,’ said Meulon. ‘And we are close on their heels.’

  ‘They’ll be in those woods,’ said Blackstone. ‘There’s nowhere else.’

  They gazed towards the fringed treeline more than a thousand paces away.

  ‘There’s colour there that shouldn’t be,’ said Jack Halfpenny from halfway back in the column where the archers rode behind the hobelars. ‘You see it, Sir Thomas?’

  A thousand yards and the lad saw a colour in the dark scratch that etched the skyline. Blackstone’s archer’s eye sought it out but failed. ‘Where, Jack? I’m damned if I can see it.’

  ‘A fistmeil left from the forest’s edge,’ said Halfpenny.

  Blackstone and the others clenched a fist and extended a thumb. A dab, little more than a bird’s speckled feathers, moved in the darkened treeline.

  ‘I have it,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘No peasant, then,’ said John Jacob. ‘Knights most likely.’

  ‘And not routiers. Holy Mother of God, it’s likely to be a gaggle of Frenchmen hunting while their neighbours burn,’ said Killbere, turning in the saddle to Blackstone. ‘Christ, you don’t think it’s the Dauphin and his army, do you, Thomas? Then we’d have a fight on our hands.’ He grinned, relishing the thought of slaughtering more of his sworn enemy.

  ‘I hope not; we’re caught in the open here and a hundred of us fighting an army is a distraction I can ill afford, despite your wishes, Gilbert – though we might exhaust them on the run.’ Blackstone raised himself in the stirrups. ‘Not that there’s anywhere to run or hide. They hold the advantage, whoever they are.’

  ‘We might soon find out, Sir Thomas,’ said Gaillard. ‘Some of them are riding towards us.’

  ‘Scouting party,’ said Killbere. ‘Fifteen, twenty perhaps.’

  Blackstone saw the flutter of pennons and the spread of horsemen. ‘Eighteen men. Knights or squires?’ he said.

  ‘Sniffing us out, Sir Thomas. Shall we knock a few from their perches?’ said Will Longdon. The archers followed his lead and pulled their war bows from the waxed linen carrying bags.

  ‘Not yet, Will, there’s no need to antagonize a swarm if there’s only a couple of bees buzzing. Meulon, you and Gaillard take ten men, ride ahead a couple of miles, see that there’s no one coming from our flank.’

  The two Normans turned their horses, calling for the men they named to follow.

  ‘Shall we ride out to them?’ asked Killbere. ‘If there’s a horde of the bastards in those trees and we’ve to outrun them, it would be better to test their intentions sooner. A few insulting words should see to it.’

  ‘Let’s do that,’ said Blackstone and turned to Jacob. ‘John, hold back. If there’s trouble ride for that gap between the two forests. Will! Ready yourself and six others to cover our arses if we run into trouble. Fra Stefano, this isn’t your fight, so choose your own ground.’

  ‘It has been chosen for me,’ said Caprini and spurred his horse forward with Blackstone and Killbere.

  *

  As they approached the horsemen drew rein, but made no sign of aggression as Blackstone slowed the eager horse until they halted thirty paces from the waiting men, who wore a mixture of mail and armour and were confident in their numbers. These three men who had ridden towards them could pose no threat.

  One of the eighteen urged his horse forward and halved the distance. He could not yet see the men’s shields slung on the side of their horses, though to him these three horsemen looked like routiers with their mud-splattered jupons and cloaks, yet their manner was confident, which made him doubt this first impression.

  ‘I am Louis Mézières, squire to my lord, Sir Philippe de Guisay,’ he said with the haughtiness that French nobility carried like a banner for all to see. A declaration of superiority.

  Blackstone said nothing, and leaned against the saddle’s pommel. He let his eyes wander over the other squires, who seemed to bristle, making their horses edgy. It was an act of indifferent insolence on Blackstone’s part.

  Killbere hawked and spat. ‘You look like peacocks on a lawn. You and your friends are dressed up for a tournament. Is there a party somewhere?’

  Mézières recoiled as if he had been struck with a gauntlet.

  ‘I hope you will excuse Sir Gilbert Killbere,’ said Blackstone. ‘His last squire bled to death from his tongue-lashing,’ he added, letting the squires knows they were in the company of a knight.

  Mézières looked confused. The man who spoke to him showed as little respect as the English knight at his side. ‘You are not his squire?’

  ‘I am not sufficiently trained to serve as a squire,’ answered Blackstone.

  The Frenchman looked from one man to the other. The third man in the black cloak, darker in skin and beard, had remained silent. ‘With respect, Sir Gilbert, your man is as impertinent as a stable-hand.’

  ‘He is worse on his bad days,’ said Killbere. ‘If he doesn’t kill three or four men a day he gets very irritable. He favours French blood.’

  Mézières’s jaw opened and closed a couple of times. He glanced back towards his companions before, in a vain attempt to establish some authority, facing the three men again. ‘We are required to question you. And your intentions in riding here.’

  ‘On whose authority?’ said Blackstone, straightening himself in the saddle. The inflection in his voice left no doubt that he was to be answered. It made Mézières suppress his irritation – it was obvious he could not be dismissive of this man.

  ‘My Lord Charles, King of Navarre, leads troops against the peasant uprising.’

  Navarre. The great liar and manipulator who plagued the royal houses of both England and France. Blackstone had no intention of being caught up in the usurper’s show of strength to impress the nobles. It was likely to be little more than posturing to gain support in his bid for the crown.

  ‘How many men do you have?’ said Blackstone.

  ‘There has been a coming-together of several hundred noble lords and knights to halt the vile slaughter,’ Mézières said, showing sufficient respect. ‘May I ask your name?’

  If they weren’t to be hindered in their journey Blackstone had to identify himself. ‘I am Thomas Blackstone,’ he answered and pushed his knee against the shield strapped to his saddle, turning it enough for the squire to see its blazon.

  The man licked his lips. Blackstone’s name was known well enough among the knights of France. Rumours of brutality and murder curdled stories of his exploits like sour milk. Blackstone – the Englishman who had tried to kill Jean le Bon, King of France, at Poitiers. The very crown that Navarre now sought. He was an ally.

  ‘My lord,’ said Mézières, dipping his head. ‘I am honoured. I am certain you and your men will be made most welcome. Our army rests in the forest behind me.’

  ‘Barely an army. More like a midsummer dance,’ said Killbere.

  Blackstone leaned to Killbere and whispered: ‘If Navarre learns we are to secure the Dauphin’s family, he’ll set the dogs on us. They’re our prize, not his.’ He eased the horse forward, closer to Mézières. ‘And the Dauphin? Where is he?’

  ‘Burgundy. Far from here, trying to raise an army. It is a futile effort, Sir Thomas. Once we inflict justice on the mob we will take Paris. There will be no resistance from the citizens once the uprising is put down,’ said the squire confi
dently, as if fired by a quest to find the Holy Grail.

  ‘Master Mézières, you say your lord, Navarre, has several hundred men?’

  ‘Six... seven hundred,’ the squire answered. ‘Enough to defeat the rabble.’

  ‘I have heard they number in their thousands,’ said Blackstone. ‘Unless you can find small groups of them in their hundreds, your army will be pulled from their saddles and their own weapons used against them. I am on... family business. Give your lord my best wishes, Master Mézières.’

  With that Blackstone heeled the horse around and turned back. He had gathered useful information. The Dauphin was in Burgundy and Charles of Navarre was playing at being a general. If the mob did not lie before him and had not breached the city walls then the road to Meaux beckoned.

  He could see Will Longdon and his archers standing ready with bows strung and a half-dozen arrows per man stuck into the ground in front of them. Bodkins, Blackstone thought to himself, barely able to suppress a smile. Goose-feathered shafts a yard long that would whisper through the air, causing it to shudder as they fell, pinning man to horse, piercing plate, driving their pile through any armour a nobleman’s wealth could buy.

  A part of him wished those behind him would try to exert their authority so that he might hear the war bow’s song again.

  38

  Thousands of men moving across the countryside did more than leave trampled meadows and their burnt-out victims: they left a stench of excrement. No latrines were dug; those on the march stepped a few paces from where they slept and squatted.

  ‘There is shit from here and beyond,’ said Perinne when he returned with a scouting party. He and his men had found two peasants, abandoned by the others because they had collapsed in a stupor, drunk from a nobleman’s looted wine. They were foul to the eye as well as the nostrils. ‘And these two must have rolled in most of it.’

  ‘Keep them well back,’ said Killbere, gesturing the men to haul the two unfortunates further back. Their wrists were bound with a length of rope and they had been forced to keep up or be dragged by the horsemen. By the look of them they had not kept up too well.