Gate of the Dead

by David Gilman

  ‘Tell the truth, son,’ Blackstone said quietly. ‘On your honour.’

  Henry felt his father’s strength reach out to him. He turned to the inquisitor.

  ‘I did not see it,’ he said.

  44

  Firelight flickered across the stronghold’s walls as groups of men squatted close to the flames, prodding the embers, worrying the flames with stick or blade. The contest was due to be held the next morning and the hobelars and archers cursed the bastard Germans for their vileness and slaughter that had placed their sworn lord’s woman in mortal danger.

  ‘I overheard the Italian talking to Sir Gilbert,’ said Jack Halfpenny. ‘He says Sir Thomas cannot beat this man.’

  ‘And you believe an Italian?’ said Will Longdon, his face crumpling in disgust.

  ‘Hearing is not believing, Master Longdon, I am simply relating what it was I heard.’

  ‘What you heard, lad, was the utterances of a fool. A man who believes a man’s soul can be saved by pilgrimage, a man who slays a transgressor, a man who has a past as violent as any man’s, I’ve heard. Shit for brains is what you have, Halfpenny. Do not listen to your betters’ tittle-tattle.’

  Gaillard stood by the fireside, his huge frame casting a giant’s shadow. ‘Sir Thomas has a spectre inside him, a torment that gives that sword of his a power of its own,’ he said.

  ‘See,’ said Longdon, ‘even a thick bugger like Gaillard can see that Sir Thomas will slice that bastard up like a roast pig after Lent.’

  ‘A demon can’t be slain, you short-arsed fool, but those Germans are masters of the sword,’ Gaillard said.

  ‘And now you contradict yourself, oaf! Sweet Jesus, where’s your loyalty?’

  ‘Do not question my loyalty to Sir Thomas! I rode with him when he first learnt use of the sword.’

  ‘Well and good, but I served with him when we slaughtered your lot. I can hear their screams now. French bastards.’

  Gaillard bent so quickly that Longdon had no chance to duck. The big fist seized his neck and lifted him. Longdon wriggled, hands to his neck, trying to release the grip.

  Meulon suddenly stepped forward from the edge of the firelight. ‘Leave him, Gaillard. Leave him,’ he said sternly.

  Gaillard would always be subordinate to Meulon, even though they now held equal rank. He released the choking archer.

  ‘You are the centenar, Will, and Gaillard is a captain,’ Meulon said. ‘There is to be no conflict among us. We serve Sir Thomas.’ He flicked his head and Gaillard turned, and then he waited while the big man took his slow-burning anger elsewhere. ‘Whatever happens tomorrow I will never allow Sir Thomas or his lady to die. I will take the shame on myself if I must, but if Sir Thomas goes down, I will kill this German myself.’

  Longdon swilled his mouth and spat wine. ‘You do that and we’re all dead. Trapped in this yard like fish in a barrel.’

  ‘There are not many crossbowmen in the stronghold, and fewer than twenty knights. No more. You think about it. If we have to fight our way out of here we’ll need your archers.’

  Robert Thurgood watched the two captains face each other. ‘Captain, that’s a dangerous game. We would need to have a plan, and Master Jacob and Sir Gilbert would need to be brought in to it.’

  Longdon turned and looked at the dozen men who gathered around the fire. ‘An archer thinks on his feet, Thurgood. If Meulon makes his move we will be with him.’ He faced the Norman. ‘But Thurgood’s right. Sir Gilbert and John Jacob will have no part of it.’

  ‘If it happens, they will,’ said Meulon.

  ‘Christ,’ Longdon muttered. ‘We’re inside a bear pit here. Thousands of peasants out there, and knights of glory in the stronghold. There has to be a better way.’

  ‘Then speak to me when you have thought of it,’ Meulon said. ‘Stand vigil all night – if archers think better on their feet.’ Then he turned away into the shadows.

  *

  The Knight of the Tau sat with his back pressed against the wall next to Blackstone, who fingered a crust of rough brown bread into a bowl of pottage. Caprini was slowly sharpening the blade of his dagger, stroking each side across the whetstone, each silent whisper honing its edge.

  ‘Von Lienhard has fine armour. I suspect it is Milanese. There is virtually nowhere you can press a blade between the plates.’

  Blackstone seemed not to be paying attention. Caprini looked for any sign that he had heard and that he might understand how the conflict which lay ahead was made more difficult by the quality of the German’s arms.

  ‘I suspect the Visconti gave them to him,’ Caprini went on. ‘The cost of armour like that is beyond most knights’ means. You will need to put him on the ground and then find a way to slay him.’ He balanced the knife in his hand, letting the firelight catch its steel. ‘This is slender enough to get between those plates.’

  Blackstone still ignored him, as if concentrating on scooping the remains of the food and seeing in his mind’s eye the fight that would unfold the following day. Caprini said nothing more, but laid the knife between them. It was there if Blackstone wanted it. Blackstone licked the moisture from his fingers and wiped them on his jupon, then pulled his cloak around him.

  ‘You saw him fight at Windsor,’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And he saw me fight the Prince.’

  ‘As did we all,’ agreed Caprini.

  ‘He is a better swordsman than I am, isn’t he?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Then you believe I cannot beat him, having seen us both fight.’

  ‘That is what I believe, yes.’

  Blackstone curled himself into his cloak. ‘Then I have no need of your knife,’ he said, and walked away through the lurching shadows.

  *

  It would be a fight to the death. A judicial contest sanctioned by the authority of both the Captal de Buch and the Count of Foix. If Blackstone faltered then Christiana would be hanged, thrown from the open gallery with a rope around her neck. Her body would be left dangling against the wall until the crows had pecked the flesh from her bones. Her children would be separated; Agnes would go to a nunnery and Henry to a life of servitude as a common man.

  Blackstone made his way into the castle and searched the rooms where the women huddled, doing what they could to make themselves and their children comfortable. Blackstone’s hulking presence caused some of them to avert their eyes. The scar-faced man who strode among them, candle held high, looked fearsome.

  ‘Agnes?’ he called gently. ‘I am looking for my daughter,’ he said to some of the upturned faces. One of the women timidly pointed towards the corner of the room. Blackstone called her name again. ‘I am the child’s father,’ he said. ‘You have heard by now what is to happen tomorrow. I defend you all when I fight. Please tell me – is my daughter here?’

  A fluttering movement caught his attention in the far corner as a young woman lifted her cloak and exposed a sleeping child. Blackstone stepped carefully over the others to reach her.

  ‘I promised Christiana I would keep her with me,’ said the stranger. ‘Shall I wake her?’

  Blackstone reached down and touched the warmth of his sleeping daughter’s face. She was deep in slumber, nestled close to the woman, her own breath rising and falling with her guardian’s. He wanted nothing more than to hold Agnes to him and nuzzle her hair. She would run her finger down his scar, wrap her arms about his neck and the years apart would close behind them. His hand trembled.

  ‘I have asked that they let her see her mother in the morning. Will you keep her with you?’

  The young woman nodded.

  ‘Then let her sleep, and when she awakes, tell her that her father came to her and will see her soon.’

  *

  Following Henry’s testimony, Christiana was escorted to the dungeon. The cells were nothing more than iron cages and the conditions were brutal – rough straw her only warmth other than her cloak against the stone floor and walls
that glistened with damp, but blankets had been given to her on the orders of the Captal. There was no need for her to suffer further, he had instructed. In a further act of benevolence, she was granted a candle for the cell, and another to burn in the passageway outside the caged door, and a mattress so that the daughter of a loyal French knight and the wife of an honoured Englishman might have some comfort. She had already made the unwelcoming cell as comfortable as she could. The mattress and blankets were laid out; the candle burned on a stone plinth.

  ‘You should have stayed silent,’ Blackstone said quietly, holding her close, barely able to stop himself from pressing his hands and mouth against her as his fear for her fought his lust.

  ‘I could not, and you know it. No more than Henry could lie to save me,’ she said, regret tinging her answer.

  Her face pressed into his chest as she tried to control the trembling in her body. Blackstone tightened his embrace. There were too many words dammed up in his heart and mind and he could not find those that would explain his feelings.

  ‘You wrenched my heart from me when you left,’ he said.

  She lifted her face to his. ‘And the thoughts of my father... froze mine,’ she said. She spoke without bitterness, but her sadness could not be disguised.

  Blackstone felt the moment hold them. War had cast them together and its cruelty had caused them both harm. Despite his love, despite the need for her, the last eighteen months had haunted him. Her lips touched his own, her finger tracing the scar on his face.

  He knew that she needed to release the clawing thought of her father falling beneath the Englishman’s arrow but he could not stop himself from feeding his own uncertainty.

  ‘The child,’ he whispered. ‘Where is the bastard? Did it live?’

  Her body stiffened. He almost choked on his own crass demand, but he had to know. He held her, preventing her from stepping away from him. ‘Christiana,’ he implored her.

  She nodded, and raised her face so that he could see without doubt that she would defy him if he pressed her to abandon all thoughts of looking after the child. ‘When the Jacques came we ran. I could not travel with him and Agnes, so I paid the nuns to care for him until I return. I paid them well.’

  It lived. He could not halt the squirming twist in his stomach trying to reach up into his chest. He wished it was not there, begged his mind to discard the thought. But it stayed lodged like the broad head of an arrow. All he could do was nod.

  ‘I could not forsake the child,’ she said.

  ‘Does Henry know?’

  She shook her head. ‘He was already serving with Sir Marcel when it was born.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It was a boy. As yet unnamed; unchristened. There you have it.’

  Blackstone tried to find words to cover his feelings, knowing they were unjust, but they still persisted. He lifted the hair from her face and whispered close to her ear. ‘You’re headstrong enough to ruin a man’s heart and cause more grief than a thousand cuts.’

  Christiana would not allow him to leave her without an answer. She had abandoned him once, had forged her own way with her daughter and illegitimate infant, and had survived. Now her life was in jeopardy and in her husband’s hands.

  ‘Then what’s to become of us, Thomas Blackstone?’

  Had anything changed over the time since she told him of the rape? He had hoped the pain would have seeped away, but it lingered, an unhealed wound like that on his leg. It had to be ignored.

  ‘Much will become of us. Let us be gentle with each other and soothe away the images in our minds,’ he said tenderly.

  Tears welled in her eyes. There was no sob of release as he kissed the tear on her cheek.

  ‘Our lives seem bound by danger,’ she said. ‘You rescued me from the German horsemen once before.’

  ‘And damned near drowned doing it,’ he said, remembering the time when they had clung together as they forded the crossing at Blanchetaque. That was before the murderous battle claimed his brother, and cut his own body and face with wounds that took him to the feet of the angels. ‘Had it not been for all that pain, I would not have you,’ he went on, and felt the tension ease from her body.

  The candle’s glow shaded her dark copper hair as he eased her down onto the mattress. He kissed the halfpenny necklace on her neck, felt her heart beating against her breasts. The other half of the penny lay embossed in Wolf Sword’s pommel. His voice was barely a whisper. His throat almost choked with his love for her. ‘We cannot be denied each other, Christiana. We are bound by fate. Why else am I here? What circumstance brought me from across the mountains, from another country, to be summoned by a Queen and pardoned by a King to send me into this mayhem and through slaughter to find you and my children? My God, I cannot extinguish a love that lights my way.’

  ‘Agnes,’ she said, suddenly remembering.

  He soothed the worry from her. ‘She is with the young woman who cares for her. She’s sleeping. You will see her tomorrow. We both will. This night is for us,’ he whispered.

  She half turned, allowing his fingers to undo the laces at the back of her dress. She shuddered with tears of joy at his touch. His rough-skinned hands stroked her with a tenderness that released her lust, denied since they had last slept together. No man had been near her since her rape, and she had never desired any other but her husband. Her dress fell and took with it the years of passion that had been held in check. As his mouth found her nipples they fought each other with a rage of urgency that demanded satisfaction.

  By the time the candle flickered in its own pool of melted heat, Thomas and Christiana’s lovemaking had renewed their vows and, like two newly found lovers, they lay, embraced in sleep.

  45

  Too soon, the summer night gave way.

  ‘My lord,’ said the turnkey who waited respectfully along the passage as Blackstone and Christiana dressed. ‘If you please.’

  Blackstone nodded at the man and held Christiana at arm’s length. ‘We will be together before they ring the bell for nones.’ He turned away from the woman he had loved since he was a boy sent to war. She waited for him to turn back. A glance. A smile. But in all his life Thomas Blackstone had never looked back.

  The sun had not yet risen high enough to cast its warmth over the high walls as John Jacob helped Blackstone dress for the impending duel. The shadows were deep and still held a chilled dampness, and a quietness seemed to have settled over the yard. Fires smouldered where soldiers had slept; Blackstone’s men came and went to the latrines and washed at the well. Horses whinnied, their weight shifting at their tethering rings; stable-hands filled feedbags and fussed them over the horse’s heads.

  ‘Who’s attending to my horse?’ Blackstone asked as Jacob tightened the leather strap on his lord’s shoulder plate.

  ‘Who else but Brother Bertrand?’

  Blackstone grunted. The promiscuous monk had a strange calming effect on the aggressive horse that allowed him to attend it without injury.

  ‘Good for something then,’ Blackstone admitted, shifting his shoulders to allow the armour to fit more comfortably.

  Killbere bit into an apple, grimaced at its sourness and spat the pulp from his mouth. ‘Damned food will be getting scarce and these bastard townsmen are hoarding for themselves.’ He lifted a wineskin and drank thirstily, and then allowed himself a low, slow belch. ‘You’ll wear full plate; arm and leg protection is not enough, Thomas. He’d cut through mail and with your injured leg you’re already at a disadvantage.’

  Killbere propped himself against the wall as Blackstone ignored him.

  ‘Make sure Bertrand finds the best oats for all our horses,’ said Blackstone. ‘If the Captal has good fodder then we must get our hands on it as well. Have Will and some of the men steal it if we must.’

  ‘Sir Thomas,’ Jacob said, standing before the man who had once trusted him with his family’s safety. ‘You must—’

  ‘No armour, John. Open helm, arms and legs only. I’ll not fall face do
wn in a damned iron coffin. I’ll move faster than him this way. That’s my advantage.’

  Blackstone saw the look on his friend’s face as he glanced at Killbere.

  ‘Ah. No advantage, Thomas,’ said Killbere. ‘Judicial rules of combat. Both men equally dressed and armed. You’re to wear armour. This is how gentlemen fight, not like a tavern brawl or a raid across the hills. Tournament rules! Time you accepted them. Bind his leg tight, John.’ Sir Gilbert then scrubbed a hand across his stubble. ‘I need a piss.’

  Blackstone watched the old fighter saunter across towards the latrines as Jacob readied the heavy plate.

  ‘Sir Thomas, if anything happens, I swear to you I will save Lady Christiana.’

  Blackstone gazed up at the open gallery that ran along one side of the wall. It would not be long before Christiana would be brought out ready to be hanged should he fail.

  ‘Don’t let her hang, John. I don’t want her choking and kicking her life away. There will be no time to reach her. Have Will put an arrow into her, and then protect yourselves.’

  John Jacob nodded. It seemed Blackstone understood how poor his chances were against von Lienhard. ‘You’ll beat him, Sir Thomas,’ he said. ‘You and that Wolf Sword have cleaved many a man from this life and that bastard deserves no less. Now, let’s get this plate on you.’

  Before Jacob could begin dressing him in armour both men heard the low rumble of what sounded like bees trapped in a barrel. They drummed and hummed until one sound rose louder than the others – a trumpet blared, and then another. Discordant and irregular, the hum became a roar and then one of the sentries cried out in alarm.

  ‘The Jacques!’

  The impossible had happened and the warning took a moment to sink in.

  ‘Get the men and horses! Archers to me!’ Blackstone commanded and ran for the ramparts. By the time he reached the narrow parapet he could see in the far distance beyond the city a dust cloud stirred up by thousands of shuffling feet. Closer, though, were angry voices echoing through the narrow streets, rising up against the stronghold walls. Beneath the town’s overhanging buildings the darkness heaved back and forth and then spilled out like a burst gut, spewing armed men and women into the clearing across the river.