Gate of the Dead

by David Gilman

  ‘We serve the King,’ said Killbere with a weariness born of long service.

  ‘We serve the King,’ repeated Blackstone. After a moment of considering all that such loyalty meant, he intruded again into Killbere’s past. ‘Gilbert, how do you know the Marne and the towns that lie on it? We’ve more than a hard day’s riding and we’re going to be lucky to slither our way through those who can cause us harm.’

  ‘After I went under that horse at Crécy I was nursed and then wandered wherever my sword found employment. I made and lost money. I went east. Local lords fought; routiers pillaged. I covered some ground. When Gaillard mentioned La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, I remembered there was a fine brothel there. At least I think it was at La Ferté. Too many of these French towns have similar names.’

  Killbere stood and extended his arm to Blackstone, who grasped it and pulled himself upright onto his wounded leg. ‘I hope you’re remembering the right brothel, Gilbert. Whatever I do for the King I also do in hope of finding Christiana and my children.’

  They made their way through the trampled undergrowth to where his captains had made their fire. A tantalizing smell of roasting meat caught their nostrils.

  ‘Will Longdon’s snared and cooked something,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘As long as it’s not Gaillard’s balls,’ said Killbere.

  *

  A great heaving mass spilled across the countryside from Paris, its citizen army dressed in their red and blue hoods. With cries of brotherhood and victory they joined forces with the surging hordes that still inflicted their terror. Word had not yet reached them of the defeat of Guillaume Cale at Mello or of his torture and beheading at Clermont. All they knew was that they were now strong enough to storm the Marché and seize the Dauphin’s family.

  ‘He was telling the truth,’ said Blackstone as he and his men watched the horizon quiver with the dark tide of peasants shading the line between sky and land.

  ‘They won’t get there before tomorrow,’ said Killbere. ‘They’ve no horsemen, and they’ll wait until everyone is at the gates, but I’ll wager they won’t breach the walls of the city, never mind the fortress. They’ll be out of food in no time, and empty bellies make for a poor siege.’

  John Jacob and Halfpenny rode towards them with a dozen of the archers. ‘Nothing ahead, Sir Thomas. It seems they’re all where you see them.’

  ‘Let’s hope,’ said Blackstone and spurred the horse on, racing ahead of the gathering storm.

  *

  Blackstone’s men faced the mayor and magistrates as they stood before the city gates. These wealthy burghers controlled the running of Meaux and it would be impossible to gain access without their permission. For so few armed men to attempt to force their way past these officials would be useless; narrow streets and those who lived there would punish them soon enough.

  ‘I am Mayor Jehan de Soulez. The Dauphin’s family are secure in the Marché,’ said the mayor in answer to Blackstone’s question. ‘Wife, and child, protected by Lord de Hangest and a small bodyguard. There are nearly three hundred ladies who have been brought here and twenty knights – men of rank,’ he said, the insult intended and understood. He glanced nervously at the rough-looking men. ‘You understand that your men have no permission to be in the town. That will not be tolerated.’

  ‘We understand,’ said Blackstone. ‘We wish only to enter the fortress.’

  The mayor considered the request a moment longer. ‘Your business?’ he said, his tone changing, daring to take a few steps closer.

  ‘My own,’ said Blackstone.

  The mayor’s hand went to his lips, a small nervous gesture telling Blackstone that he had not yet decided to give them permission. ‘Before he left I promised the Dauphin his wife would be safe. How can I know you do not seek to harm her?’

  ‘You cannot know,’ said Blackstone. ‘But would I commit suicide by trying to harm her inside a fortress, where she has a bodyguard and with other men-at-arms at her side, and then try to escape through your city streets?’

  The mayor saw the sense of it. ‘Our promise has brought us a burdensome responsibility – one that we did not seek.’

  ‘Then you had better prepare to defend your honour and your city. Barricade your gates, mayor, because there’s an army of Jacques several thousand strong a day behind us.’

  The shock registered on the magistrates and the mayor. He turned quickly to confer with his fellow burghers. A decision was quickly made.

  ‘Ride through at the walk, do not stop at any tavern and do not cause damage or distress to our townspeople. The fortress is across the river. There is a gate each side of the bridge. The first will be opened for you, the second on the far side must be opened by those willing to welcome you,’ he commanded tersely and then turned back with his councilmen into the city.

  Blackstone urged his horse forward into another city that smothered a man’s soul. Its confines closed in on him as he took in its threat. These people were surrounded by filth, and contagion could take hold in a man’s mind as well as his body. When a threat loomed the city’s closed gates sealed its citizens into a tomb of their own making. If a drinking well became polluted sickness would follow, and when rumours took in the threat beyond the walls then panic would grip the city. Fear and claustrophobia were an enemy’s greatest weapons against those trapped within. Shared cookfires, cellars and rooms were all any of these people could expect, living in a city. They existed with each other’s stench and when pestilence struck they could not avoid its agony. Blackstone shuddered and yearned for sight of a horizon.

  By the time he and his men had made their slow passage through the narrow, teeming streets, the sun had begun to dip behind the high fortress walls. Every man’s eyes took in its strength. An assault would need thirty-foot ladders to scale their ramparts, but with the river encircling the walls the only point of attack would be across the bridge. That was its weakness. Put enough flaming tar barrels there and the portcullis and the gates behind it would yield. Then there would be no escape from within and although the long summer night was a blessing that held the day’s warmth and light longer, that same light allowed the mob to get closer, and it was unlikely they would be stopping to pray when the bell for vespers rang.

  Blackstone led his column of men across the stone bridge, Killbere and Caprini at either shoulder. He glanced behind him and saw that Will Longdon and his archers were gauging the distance between the walls and the edge of the town across the river. Fighting in the town would make it difficult to use bows, but a broad expanse across the river could give them targets in the open should they need them. Blackstone counted the stanchions.

  ‘Will? What do you make of it?’

  ‘Two hundred and forty-three paces end to end and another thirty or so for the open square on the town side,’ the centenar answered.

  ‘Aye!’ confirmed a few of the others.

  Somewhere in the confines of the castle a guard commander barked out an order to raise the portcullis. A vast yard opened up before them. This citadel lacked any of the sophistication of the great castles of France, but there was no denying that it could withstand a siege provided its well did not run dry and there was enough food. And that depended how many had by now sought shelter from the uprising. Stable-hands and servants went about their duties, some running from the commands of a steward, others keeping their heads down, pitching hay in the open-fronted stalls that lay along one side of the castle walls.

  ‘You there! Sir knight!’ a voice beckoned.

  Blackstone turned to see who called him and saw an older man hurrying over. Fingers of white flecked through his hair and beard, his cloak was trimmed with fur and his quilted jacket sufficiently embroidered to proclaim his status according to the sumptuary laws that dictated how a man might dress according to his rank.

  ‘My lord?’ answered Blackstone.

  ‘No room at the inn!’ he bellowed, but then guffawed at his own quip. ‘Stables are full, man. You can see that f
or yourself. Have your men use the tethering rings on the walls; we’ve hay enough to feed the horses – for now! You and your two companions,’ he said, waving a finger at Caprini and Killbere, ‘inside with you.’

  Without another word the older man turned on his heel, then halted and called back. ‘Archers eh? Mercenaries? Brigands? Don’t get any ideas in this place.’

  ‘English,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘Same thing!’ the man said. ‘We need men and in here you’ll behave yourselves or we’ll throw you to the dogs – before we’re forced to eat them!’ He guffawed again and strode across the yard, shouting once or twice to amend a steward’s orders, cursing the fact that the fortress was becoming little more than a dormitory.

  ‘Whoever he is, he seems to be in charge,’ said Killbere, easing himself from the saddle. ‘I can smell food; perhaps they’ve hot water to bathe. My arse aches and my beard crawls’ – he tugged his helm free – ‘and I swear I’ve more lice than Jacques on my head.’

  Blackstone ordered his captains to secure the horses and to roll out their blankets next to the wall; there would be no accommodation inside for them. They were English archers, despised and feared, and no one wanted them close.

  ‘I’ll sniff out the kitchens, see what I can find,’ said Will Longdon.

  ‘No thieving and no trouble, Will. I’ll see to the food. Stay here with the horses. See to them first.’

  Longdon made a pained gesture, shoulders raised and arms open.

  ‘Will, we’re caught in this place as surely as are prisoners in a gaol. We cannot fight our way out, not with the town at our back and these men inside. I want no trouble. And keep Bertrand away from any women – not that I’ve seen one yet.’

  The fortress’s servants would likely be men, in kitchen, chamber and yard, but if there were so many ladies sheltering, then there would be female servants with them – and a lascivious monk, even a failed one, could cause a conflict that would be certain to end in violence. Bad enough that the noblewomen had been brought here to avoid dishonour; to have it happen within these walls would spell disaster. Perhaps he should have the grinning idiot tethered with the horses.

  The three knights walked across the yard. It was cobbled in places, paved in others. This was no poor knight’s stronghold: money had been spent on it. Workshops and feed stores leaned against the far wall. Men patrolled the ramparts.

  ‘If the Dauphin’s family are in here, Thomas, then our work is done,’ said Killbere.

  ‘Let’s see it to be true,’ said Blackstone. ‘Every refugee here will have information – perhaps they will know of Christiana.’

  Killbere and Caprini kept their thoughts to themselves. Finding Blackstone’s family amid the turmoil of a ravaged land would be nothing less than a miracle.

  42

  As they clambered up the steps that led to the galleried loggia and chambers, Blackstone recognized one of the pennons among the flags: five scallops set against a black cross, the arms of Jean de Grailly, the Captal de Buch.

  ‘Beyard must be here!’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Who?’ Killbere asked.

  ‘De Grailly’s man at the alpine pass. He saw us safely across France,’ Blackstone told him and turned towards a pair of heavy wooden doors from behind which he could hear voices. Before he got halfway, the doors opened and the older man from the courtyard stepped out.

  ‘Come, man! Hurry. Did I not tell you to come to the great hall?’

  ‘No, my lord,’ said Blackstone, conscious that the stairs had pulled his leg wound and that he limped more than he would have liked.

  ‘Then I should have done,’ he said, without it sounding like an apology.

  As the three men followed him into the room a squire on the other side of the doors closed them. Blackstone’s attention was held by the two knights who stood looking at a rolled-out map spread across a planked table. The huge granite hearth behind them was stacked with wood, but remained unlit. The men’s cloaks lay where they had been tossed and Blackstone immediately recognized one of them. It was not Beyard, but his sworn lord, the Captal de Buch himself.

  ‘Sir Thomas,’ said de Grailly. ‘Fate brings us together again.’

  The circumstances did not negate the fact that a high lord such as Jean de Grailly would not normally conduct an audience with someone of Blackstone’s lower rank – that he did meant either that Blackstone was there under sufferance on the word of the older knight or that the Captal had seen him arrive and had broken protocol out of respect for the Englishman.

  ‘I saw you ride in,’ he said, honouring Blackstone. ‘And asked my Lord de Hangest to bring you here right away.’

  Blackstone bowed his head, and then introduced Killbere and Caprini.

  ‘I know of you, Sir Gilbert. You have a ferocious reputation. Always in the vanguard,’ said the Gascon.

  ‘I am greatly honoured, my Lord de Grailly,’ said Killbere.

  ‘And although I am familiar with the great work of the Knights of the Tau, I do not know Fra Caprini. Let us hope these unfortunate circumstances allow us to better acquaint ourselves.’

  Caprini, gaunt and monk-like, barely showed any sign of being honoured and acknowledged. As ever his dark eyes expressed no flare of emotion, and as ever, Blackstone wondered what turmoil and violence lay cloaked beneath the sign of the Tau. The two other knights in the room were robust-looking men, their cloaks concealing their blazons. One of them, squat and pug-faced, betrayed an arrogant disregard for those of lesser status, the eyes of the other, younger by a few years, quickly assessed Blackstone, as one fighting man does another.

  ‘This good knight is Loys de Chamby,’ said de Grailly, indicating the squash-faced knight, ‘and with him Bascot de Mauléon, who rode with us on crusade.’ They nodded a curt acknowledgement of the introduction. Blackstone did not recognize the fourth knight in the room, but it was clear by his clothing and his manner that he too held high rank.

  ‘This gentle knight,’ said de Grailly, turning towards his companion, ‘is our cousin, Gaston Phoebus, Count of Foix.’ Blackstone knew that de Grailly was two years or so younger than his own twenty-eight years and the nobleman seemed more or less the same age. Reputations preceded men and these two were known across Christendom, de Grailly for his loyalty and fighting skills given to Edward, and Phoebus for his family’s loyalty to the French Crown. Gaston Phoebus, though, had parlayed with the Prince of Wales during his great raid before the Battle of Poitiers that rendered France inconsolable, bereft of its monarch and vulnerable to the violence that had swept across it since. He was a great feudal lord of two Pyrenean principalities whose father had been a staunch supporter of the Valois King. The son, though, wanted independence for his territories and his antagonism towards the French Crown was well known.

  ‘The Captal has told me of your daring, Sir Thomas. You once delivered up a valuable stronghold to him.’

  ‘Some years back now, my lord.’

  ‘Not in the telling of it. He relates it as if it were yesterday,’ said the Count, his charming manner easily camouflaging his reputation for ferocity in war.

  The pleasantries over, the Captal nodded to the squire, who quickly brought beakers of wine. ‘You and your men will have food as soon as we hear of what you have seen.’

  Killbere and Caprini drank as Blackstone ignored his thirst and looked at the map drawn of the surrounding suburbs and countryside. Blackstone let his finger trace from where he thought his route had brought him.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘further north at Clermont, Navarre destroyed two or three thousand peasants. Their leader is dead but he told me that the Parisians have sent men to bolster the Jacques.’

  ‘Navarre will block them,’ said the Count of Foix confidently.

  ‘No, he won’t,’ Blackstone told him bluntly. ‘He pursued survivors from Clermont, but has now gone back to Paris to try to secure the city. He’ll change sides again, my lord, you know Navarre. He’ll strike a bargain with the Provost,
even at the risk of losing the nobles’ support.’

  There was no disagreement around the table about the reality that they and the few men they had were all that stood between the Jacquerie and a slaughter of the innocents.

  Blackstone curved a track on the map. ‘We came down this route here, and there’re probably several thousand Jacques heading this way.’

  ‘Then we must pray that the Dauphin, although our sworn opponent in all matters royal, returns with his army from Burgundy,’ said Jean de Grailly.

  De Hangest tapped the table. ‘Do not forget yourself, my lord. I serve him and his family,’ he said robustly. ‘And I’ve no great affection for the English. I led the cavalry against Walter Bentley and his troops in ’52 and we bled beneath their Lucifer arrows. Archers are on the dark side of creation.’ The older man looked directly at Blackstone, who held his gaze defiantly. ‘But times dictate with whom we must fight, and which devils we embrace!’ de Hangest added, teeth bared in a grin.

  ‘Our differences are already set aside,’ the Count of Foix acknowledged. ‘There is a mutual agreement to save these women and children.’

  Blackstone sipped wine, and cautiously ventured a question. ‘Then you will not be here in support of the Dauphin, but rather with Charles of Navarre.’

  The Count of Foix looked shocked at the suggestion that he aligned himself with the house of Valois. The Captal smiled. ‘Thomas, you tease a feudal lord. We were returning from a crusade in Prussia with the Teutonic Knights when we heard of these noble ladies’ plight and that they were undefended except for my Lord Jean de Hangest’s bodyguard.’

  The old man had remained silent. These young lords and knights were the strength he needed to protect the royal family. His own efforts had sufficed so far but if the townspeople failed in their duty, then his would become impossible to honour.

  ‘Can you get your bowmen on the walls?’ he asked. ‘We need to defend the Marché if it comes to it.’