by Dan Davis
“More?” he asked, astonished.
I pointed into the trees. “Just a small chest, sir, but we cannot carry it between us,” I jerked a thumb at Walt. “And our wagon cannot travel this road as it is. If you and your two men there would consider sharing the coin between you, we could bring it to Lord de Clermont all together?”
His face lit up at the prospect for enriching himself and bringing his lord a great prize. “Certainly, sir. Certainly.”
I narrowed my eyes and tipped the gems carefully back into their purse. “Only if you swear that your men are trustworthy. I shall have none of it pilfered and so come up short in the final accounting.”
“They are trustworthy,” he said, with greed in his eyes. “I swear it, by God and upon my honour.”
I nodded slowly. “Very well. If you say it, sir, I shall believe it. Come, we are camped not far into the woodland there.”
He followed us, still wary, but his fears suppressed in the hope of easy booty. Perhaps the knight and his squire were intending to kill us when we gave them the gold to carry. Perhaps they were even going to do their duty. Whatever their intentions, I never gave them the chance to act upon them. When we were alone and two dozen yards from the edge of the wood, I threw myself at the knight and dragged him down while Walt bundled the squire to the ground. The little page almost got away but Walt charged him and plucked him from his horse. We had to beat them around rather a lot to get them to be silent. The page pissed himself, poor lad, and I told him to be silent or he would be killed. He nodded, eyes as wide as saucers. The squire remained insensible for some time.
“I have questions for you, sir,” I said to the knight, who sat leaning back against a tree trunk.
He spat blood out and it dangled from his chin and dripped onto his chest. In the distance, men laughed in the darkness. His eyes darted left and right before coming to rest on me again.
“No one will come for you. But answer my questions and you shall go free.”
“You are English,” he said, bitterly. “I knew it.”
“I am looking for the knight with the black banner.”
He glanced at me, suddenly fearful. “I know nothing.”
“And I know that your master is friends with him. Tell me where they are.”
He scoffed and I held up a dagger to his face.
“I have skinned men alive,” I said, which was not true. “I have become very good at it.”
He licked his fat lips. “You are the man who has been searching for him all day.”
“You heard about that? Who told you?”
“My lord was told. Earlier today. In my presence.”
“What did they say?”
“They said that the Englishman Richard of Ashbury was looking for…” he trailed off.
Ashbury, I thought. I had not gone by the name for decades. No man alive knew me by that name, other than my immortals.
And William’s.
“Was the black knight there with him?” He looked away and I grabbed his jaw with my hand and squeezed, staring into him. “Was he there?”
He nodded as best he could. I did not release him.
“Who is he? You saw him? You saw his face? Who is the man you saw? Who is the black knight?”
I pressed my dagger gently to the underside of his eyeball and held it there. His breathing became panting and tears welled in his eyes. He blinked and they flowed down over the point of my blade.
“Charny,” he whispered, so softly it was like the hushing of a mother to a child.
“I did not hear you.”
He gasped and blurted it out. “Geoffrey de Charny.”
I sat back on my arse, staring. “I do not believe it.”
“I swear it.” He rubbed his face and touched his eye to check it was intact. “Sir Geoffrey de Charny. The black knight is Sir Geoffrey de Charny. It is a secret known only to some. To my lord and to the other great men. He uses the black banner to fight where he has been ordered not to by the King, and by the previous king. And so de Charny protects his honour.”
I scoffed, almost disbelieving it still. “He protects his name, not his honour, you fool. Do you know what he is, son? What he truly is?”
The knight frowned. “He wishes to do what is right for the kingdom. For the Crown.”
Oh?
“Not for the King?” I said. “But for the Crown? And what is right for the Crown but not for the King? Come on, out with it. No use holding back now. I truly will take your eye if you hesitate and take them both if you lie.”
“To fight for the Dauphin,” he blurted. “My lord Jean de Clermont and Geoffrey de Charny will help the Dauphin to do what the King cannot. We will push the English from France forever.”
I shook my head. “He wants to put a puppet on the throne and so make a kingdom that my brother can take when he returns.”
The knight frowned. “Your brother?”
Walt coughed. “Kill them now, sir? Have a little drink, like, before heading home to the lads?”
All three of the prisoners looked so weak and pathetic that I was disgusted by them. “We’ll bind them. Gag them. Tie up their horses. Perhaps someone will find the fellows before they die of thirst.”
Walt grumbled that it would be easier to do them in rather than muck about with ropes and whatnot. But after the revelation that Geoffrey de Charny was the black knight, I suddenly did not have the heart for murder. I had a vague sense that Thomas would have disapproved of it and I wanted to act chivalrously. And I thought that, so close to victory, I could afford to be magnanimous.
If I had known what was coming, what I had set in motion with my bull-headed blundering, I would have killed them all. Even the boy. It would have made no difference to the outcome but vengeance is a matter for the heart and the balls, not the head.
“Time to go home now, sir?” Walt asked when the men were trussed up tight. “Catch up with our lads?”
I looked around at the crow-black woodland. The sky above the trees was cloudy and there were no stars. Walt’s immortal night vision was better than mine but I did not wish to go staggering about all the hours of darkness looking for our tiny company amongst ten thousand soldiers.
“In the morning. We know that Geoffrey de Charny is our enemy. And now he can hide no longer.”
But hiding was not what that monster had in mind.
***
The French were everywhere even before dawn, creeping through the trees collecting firewood, looking for somewhere to shit, or to take a woman. There were plenty being dragged along with the armies, willingly or otherwise.
We walked our horses through the darkness in the general direction of the English army. As the morning grew brighter I noticed that some of the trees were already beginning to change into their autumn colours, mottling like rust on an old blade. Spiderwebs hung with glistening dew across every path, some with black spiders waiting in the centre for the flies to wake and come blundering to their doom.
The French voices all around us thinned and soon we heard Englishmen shouting insults, in the way that friends do.
I discovered that the Prince was still at Chatellerault and so our army had not moved. Three days, he had waited, hoping to strengthen his army with the men who could give him the edge in the coming battle.
It was not to be.
Lancaster could not make the meeting place. His two thousand veteran soldiers were stopped at every turn by guarded crossings and fortresses filled with large garrisons. And King John in the meantime, sent his army well in front of us to the south.
It took us all morning to pick our way beneath the trees, across fields and through two villages. My company was still encamped in the little wood where I had left them. Acorns crunched beneath my horse’s hooves as we rode up toward the group of my men, all standing and watching me approach.
“Thank God, sir,” Rob said
“Where is Thomas?” I asked, aghast that he had abandoned our brutes to themselves. Although,
they seemed to be behaving themselves. If anything, they were a bit pensive. “What is it, Rob?”
“Letter came, sir. First thing this morning.” He held it out to me. “From a bloody Frenchman, sir.”
I yanked it from his hand and read it aloud to Walt, my heart racing ever more as I did so.
“To my brother knight Sir Richard of Hawkedon. After many years of searching, by the grace of God, I have finally discovered the identity of the knight of the black banner. This man fought in disguise at the battle at Crecy and his men also stole a shield from me bearing my coat of arms. Although I am certain of the truth of it, I cannot divulge this to you in writing. If you still wish to find this man, I shall be at the chapel in Liniers at midday today.” I looked at Walt. “It is from Sir Geoffrey de Charny.”
Walt looked at the sun above us as I screwed up the letter in my fist.
“Thomas said he had to go meet him,” Rob said, backing up from me a step. “Took Hugh with him. Told us to give you that if you came back. Only been gone a little while, sir.”
“It is from Geoffrey de Charny,” I repeated to Rob, who nodded, fearful of my boiling rage. The rest of the men drifted toward me. “Listen, all of you. This is a ruse. A bloody trap. This bastard de Charny is the black knight. Do you hear, men? Thomas and Hugh have gone to meet the black knight but they do not know it. Mount your horses. Weapons and helms. We will kill de Charny and all who ride with him, do you hear me?”
My heart was in my mouth as we rode south through the woodland. My horse was sweating and exhausted but I pushed him harder.
Thoughts revolved in my head as I cursed myself to the rhythm of my horse’s movement.
I was a fool. A damned fool. I had been so close and I had ruined everything. I had shown myself to my enemy by barking the words black banner knight up and down the French army.
Of course it had gotten back to him. Someone saw me, perhaps one of his own immortal squires. Someone who knew my true name. And then Geoffrey de Charny had set a trap for me.
A trap I would have walked into if not for finding Lord de Clermont’s man. Perhaps I would have suspected the truth but Thomas thought he recognised in de Charny a truly chivalrous knight. An honourable man who brought forth the righteousness and decency in those he fought with.
Please, Thomas. Please, do not trust him.
We charged into the tiny village of Limiers. It was hardly more than a hamlet, with a smattering of cottages and gardens about a small wooden chapel.
The ground was much chewed up by hooves but there were no horses outside the building.
The chapel door stood flung open. A black chasm leading into emptiness within.
“Maybe Tom and Hugh chased after them?” Walt ventured, pointing along the road through the village which disappeared beyond hedgerows and hills. “Can you hear them horses galloping?”
Rob ordered some of the men to pursue the riders and others to stay with me.
I ignored them all and rushed through the open door.
The taste of blood filled the air. It was a small, dark place, with a square window high up over the shrine to some unknown local saint.
Thomas’ body lay on the floor in a pool of blood. It flowed still from the tattered flesh across his neck.
My friend’s head lay against the far wall next to the altar, with sunlight falling full on his anguished face. I stepped closer and saw how his expression in death was fixed in surprise and outrage.
“Sir!” Walt called from behind me, drawing my attention to our other dear companion. “I’ll see if I can find a priest.”
Hugh lay against the side wall, eyes wide and flicking about while his mouth worked in silence. His throat trickling blood from a great gash across the front of his neck.
Both of his arms had been cut off between the hand and elbow.
Hugh’s eyes swam with tears and agony.
“Sir,” he was trying to say. “Sir.”
Blood issued from his lips and he coughed, spraying
I knelt in his blood and took his head in one hand. “Drink from me.”
Shaking his head, he mouthed in despair. “No, no.”
He held up the ruin of his arms before his eyes, staring at the space where his hands had been.
He preferred to die than live so disfigured.
I shook my head. “Forgive me, Hugh.”
“De Charny,” he said in a wet whisper, blood filling his mouth.
“I know,” I said. “I know de Charny is the black knight. I swear to you I shall kill him. That’s enough now, son.”
“And… and…” He coughed, causing blood to spray up and the gash in his neck flapped open. I placed my hand over it, feeling the hot blood pump out beneath my palm to soak my hands in it.
“Rest easy now, good Hugh. Go to God, son. You have always done your duty. You fought well all your life. You lived with honour. Go to God. Go to God.”
He closed his eyes. In a few moments, he was gone.
I looked up at the men of my company. Their faces reflected the misery and the anguish and the anger that boiled in my breast.
We buried them in the village
And I went to make a battle.
22. Poitiers
Prince Edward led his army south through the woodland with the intention of getting in front of the French army on the road to Poitiers as they crossed the Vienne. The forest was dense and dark and filled the land between two valleys.
It was a hard march. Forcing horses and wagons through dense woodland is difficult enough and doing it quickly was taxing in the extreme. Even so, the men managed to cover over twenty miles that day using the woodland tracks.
And the route kept our army hidden from the French scouts. They knew we were somewhere close by but they had no idea how close we were to them. In truth, neither did we, for our foremost groups stumbled upon the French rearguard quite suddenly and fought a sharp action. They were more surprised than our men, though, and seven-hundred French men-at-arms routed as the sun went down. Our army pulled back into the black shadows of the woodland.
It was safe within but we were between two rivers and there were no springs to be found in the wood from which to water the men and horses.
Before daybreak, we were already moving west, toward Poitiers, hoping to get away from the French army that we knew were nearby.
But the French were already drawn up in battle order on the plain before the city.
“By God, sir,” Rob said as we observed them from the shelter of the woods. “Look at the bastards.”
There were eighty-seven banners held aloft over the French army. Eighty-seven bannerets with their companies and God alone knew how many ordinary knights. Thousands of men-at-arms, plus infantry and crossbowmen.
“There will be no escape now,” I said to Rob.
“Bloody hope so,” said Walt.
“Won’t the Prince try to flee anyway? We are outnumbered and outmatched.”
“Our route to Gascony is blocked. We have nowhere else to go. And this is good battlefield territory.”
It was good land to live on, too. Low hills covered with woods and green pasture. Miles and miles of abundant vineyards in every direction. A place made beautiful by the generations that had lived there since the days of the Romans. It would soon become a place for death.
The Prince conferred with his lords and led the army to a hilltop just north of a village named Nouaille. The French were about a mile away, just beyond the brow of another hill. And our army established itself in battle order.
Warwick and Oxford commanded the vanguard on the left, his far wing where the ground fell away into marshland toward the river. Salisbury commanded the right and Edward took the centre. We had about two thousand archers, three thousand men-at-arms and a few Gascons.
This would be our battleground.
Behind us, the wood of Nouaille gave us somewhere to retreat into, if we were overrun. In front was a thick hawthorn hedge which ran right across the hillside
. Here and there were copses and scrub and everywhere across the hills were rows and rows of vines. On our right flank, where there were no natural defences, the archers dug deep trenches and pits to protect themselves from a mounted charge.
It was a good place to fight.
But the English were afraid. Fear was in the air. At Crecy, we had been as confident as an army could be.
On that hillside outside Poitiers, there was a sense of impending doom.
Every man was hungry but even worse was the thirst. After the twenty mile march the day before and the hundreds of hard miles before that, legs and arses were like jelly and thighs raw.
All the men knew we were outnumbered, with at least two of them for every one of us. Many were shaken by the fact we had missed meeting up with Lancaster. Those two thousand men were on everyone’s minds and some were even convinced they would come to our rescue in time, no matter how much it was explained that was impossible.
Also missed, desperately, were the thousands we had left behind to guard Gascony. All of them sitting warm and dry for months, eating all the food, drinking the wine and bedding the women, while we stood shivering and thirsty waiting to die on a French hillside.
The French sent their priests and envoys out into the fields between the two armies.
Prince Edward and the leading nobles rode a little way forward toward them and they came closer to meet him.
I jumped on my horse.
“Sir?” Walt said.
“Stay here.”
I rode out after the Prince and the great lords, feeling the eyes of the army on me. I was disgraced, an outcast, practically a criminal.
Ever since I had escaped my half-hearted imprisonment in Gascony, I had kept well away from the lords of the army. My presence was barely tolerated within the mass of the general soldiery but still, I rode out alone behind the great lords and their retinues and lurked where they could not see me without turning. No one else came to stop me. I knew none would dare.