‘You feel… well?’
‘Well enough,’ allowed the young man. The quality of his voice had changed, the pestilence leaving it slightly hoarse.
It was the first time the master had ever seen a victim of the plague recover and he could not quite believe that it was possible. ‘It’s a miracle! God be praised!’
The young man turned his dark blue-grey eyes on the master for the first time. ‘God had nothing to do with it,’ he said. Something in his voice sent a shudder down the older man’s spine.
The young man began to walk away slowly, almost hobbling, his limbs emaciated by his illness. But there was a kind of determination in his step, something that convinced the master that he would live.
* * *
‘Panem caelestem accipiam, et nomen Domini invocabo.’ The chaplain took the two pieces of the sacred host in his left hand. ‘Domine, nom sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum die verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.’ He repeated these words three times, striking his breast with his right hand as he did so.
The bell was rung, and Sir John Beaumont and his daughter Beatrice rose and crossed to the altar rail in the small chapel attached to his house on Stone Gate Manor, kneeling down once more.
‘Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam meam in vitam aeternam.’ The chaplain made the sign of the cross. ‘Amen.’
It was two weeks since Beaumont had returned to Stone Gate Manor. The day after visiting Saint Bartholomew’s hospital, he had bought a fine new courser at Smithfield Market for the forthcoming campaign against the French. It cost him the best part of a hundred pounds, but it had been worth every penny: a thoroughbred animal, an Old English Black like his destrier, a fine steed for a knight to ride into battle on. Then he had ridden directly to Sandwich, only to find that the campaign was cancelled, the truce with France extended for another two years. Bitter with disappointment, he had headed for his home in the County of Leicester.
An even greater horror had greeted him on his return. A band of outlaws led by the notorious Folvilles had attacked the village of Knighton in his absence, murdering and raping, stealing the animals and what little grain had been produced by the year’s poor harvest. The under-sheriff of Leicester had persuaded the king to appoint a commission of oyer and terminer to catch and try the outlaws, but they had escaped justice as usual, riding back into their fastness in the Forest of Leicester. The next time the king campaigned overseas, the Folvilles would agree to serve him in return for pardons for their crimes, and would then return to Leicester County to live in peace, untroubled by the law, until such time as they chose to defy it afresh.
As he waited to receive the sacraments, Beaumont turned his thoughts to the future. Since the death of his son-in-law at Crécy, only the war against the French and his hatred of Martin Kemp had kept him going. Now Kemp was dead, and the latest campaign against the French was cancelled. The realisation struck him like a physical blow. Suddenly, he had nothing left to live for. Nothing, except for his daughter and his two-year-old grandson.
The chaplain was picking the crumbs off the sacramental cloth and putting them into the chalice. ‘Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quae retribuit mihi…?’
The door burst open, and Beaumont twisted round to see a tall figure in a voluminous black cloak with a large, loose-fitting cowl. The man strode in, sweeping his cloak back across his left shoulder to reveal a large broadsword hanging in a leather-bound scabbard at his hip.
‘How dare you barge into this house of God bearing that tool of Satan?’ the chaplain demanded. ‘Do you want to burn in hell for eternity?’
‘Hell holds no terrors for me,’ replied the stranger. His voice had a sepulchral tone, as if it had come from the depths of a tomb. ‘I was at Crécy.’
Beatrice stared at him in astonishment. ‘Martin?’
Looking at her for the first time in over two years, Kemp felt a lump choking his throat. The thought of her had sustained him through the horror of the campaigning in France, and now he found that she was even more beautiful than he remembered. ‘Hello, Beatrice,’ he said hoarsely.
Both Beaumont and Beatrice were on their feet now. ‘You!’ exclaimed Beaumont.
Turning his attention back to Beaumont, Kemp bared his teeth in a cruel sneer. ‘Aye.’
‘I’d heard you were dead! Killed by the pestilence…’
‘It takes more than the pestilence to kill me,’ Kemp responded.
‘How dare you burst in here unannounced?’ Beaumont struggled to regain his composure. ‘You should have returned to Knighton over a year ago. You owe me fifteen months’ labour, churl. I shall have you flogged, by God’s flesh.’
Kemp reached inside his cloak and produced a scroll of parchment that he unrolled to show Beaumont. ‘Do you see that seal? That is the seal of the Lord Mayor of London. It testifies that I, Martin Kemp of Knighton, having resided in the Borough of London for a year and a day, have been granted the status of freeman in accordance with the laws of this realm. I don’t owe you a God-damned thing!’ he spat.
Beaumont trembled with rage. ‘Get out of here!’ he snarled. ‘Get out of here at once!’
Kemp shook his head. ‘I’ve come for Beatrice.’
Beatrice blanched. ‘What the devil are you talking about?’
‘Come on. We’re leaving.’
She stared at him in astonishment. ‘Has the moon touched your wits? I’m not going anywhere with you!’
Kemp was confused. Suddenly, the dreams he had treasured for so long seemed to come crashing down around him. ‘But… I thought you loved me!’ he protested petulantly.
She stared at him in mute horror for a moment, and then her face softened and she threw back her head with a peal of laughter. ‘Oh, you poor, sweet, naïve churl. How ridiculous you are.’
He frowned. ‘How so, my lady?’
‘Jackass! Surely you don’t believe that I could ever love you?’
‘But I thought…’
‘It’s not your place to think.’ She looked scornful. ‘Besides, what can a churl like you understand of the nobility of true and genteel love?’
‘I’m as good a man as any noble. A better man than Richard Stamford ever was, aye and like.’
Suddenly Beaumont understood. ‘It was you who slew Richard, wasn’t it?’
‘Aye,’ Kemp admitted absently.
‘God’s love, I ought to…’ He broke off abruptly and moved closer to Kemp, fists clenched to strike him. But Kemp was faster, driving a powerful punch into Beaumont’s stomach. The knight doubled up, gasping in pain and clutching his midriff.
The chaplain moved to intervene. ‘How dare you fight in a house of God…?’
Kemp levelled his sword at the chaplain’s chest. ‘I’ve never killed a holy man, father,’ he said coldly. ‘Do you wish to be the first?’
Ashen-faced, the chaplain backed away. At that moment the door opened and Beatrice’s maid walked in, leading a small, blond-haired, blue-eyed toddler by the hand.
‘No!’ Beatrice screamed a warning to the maid. ‘Don’t bring him in here!’
‘Bring him in, Edith!’ wheezed Beaumont, rising to his feet. ‘Let him see the man who slew his father.’
Kemp stared first at the toddler, and then at Beatrice. ‘Your child?’
‘Aye, mine and Dickon’s,’ she said coldly. Then she turned her back on him, scooping the child up in her arms, and walked out of the chapel, followed by the maid.
The scales fell from Kemp’s eyes. She had betrayed him all along, telling him she loved him while giving herself equally to him and to Stamford. ‘You talk of noble love?’ he snarled after her, seething with rage and humiliation. ‘You’re nothing more than a whore! One day I’ll be a greater man than your father. When that day comes you’ll beg to be my wife. And beg in vain!’
Beatrice’s laughter echoed outside.
‘You can leave now,’ Beaumont told him icily.
Kemp shook his head and seized Beaumont b
y the mantle, dragging him outside. ‘Don’t you believe it. I’ve a score to settle with you.’ He was thinking of a day three years earlier when Beaumont had had him flogged for striking Richard Stamford.
‘Unhand me, you dog!’ protested Beaumont, struggling.
There was no sign of Beatrice, Edith or the child, but the steward was still standing there, unsure of what to do. ‘Treroose!’ shouted Beaumont. ‘For the love of God, aid me!’
‘Get the whip, Treroose,’ Kemp ordered.
The steward hesitated.
‘The whip,’ insisted Kemp. He still had his sword in his free hand, and he held the blade against Beaumont’s throat. ‘Or your master dies.’
The steward nodded, and hurried into the stable.
Beaumont continued to struggle, so Kemp sheathed his sword and punched him in the stomach. Winded, Beaumont was unable to resist as Kemp tied his wrists to the tailboard of the cart that stood there. Then he tore open Beaumont’s robes to bare his back. The steward emerged from the stables and, as soon as Kemp had taken the whip from him, he fled into the manor house.
‘I’ll see you burn in hell for this, Kemp!’ screamed Beaumont.
‘Your squire once said exactly the same thing to me,’ Kemp replied. ‘I dare say his soul awaits mine there even now.’ He lashed the whip across Beaumont’s back, and as the first bloody weal was raised, the knight howled in agony.
On the seventh lash, Beaumont fainted.
‘Stop it!’ Beatrice had emerged from the house and was running down the wooden steps into the courtyard. ‘For pity’s sake, stop it! Can’t you see he’s suffered enough?’
‘No,’ Kemp said tightly, lashing Beaumont’s back once more. The fact that Beaumont could no longer feel it only angered Kemp further and he lashed even harder.
Beatrice tried to grab him by the arm but he pulled free and struck her in the face with his other hand, knocking her to the ground. She lay there, sobbing, as Kemp delivered the last four lashes. Then he coiled up the whip and tossed it down beside Beatrice. He turned away, and paused, unlooping the coverchief she had given him all those months ago from around his neck. Screwing it up into a tight wad, he dropped it on top of her before swinging himself back into the saddle of his horse and riding out of the courtyard, back in the direction of Knighton.
* * *
Kemp’s mother was buried in the graveyard of the church of Saint Mary Magdalen in Knighton. The markers at nearby plots showed the last resting places of other villagers. ‘It were a band of brigands,’ Kemp’s eldest brother, Michael, explained grimly. ‘They rampaged through the village, stealing everything they could find of value, raping the women…’
‘What about Beaumont? Didn’t he try to protect you?’
‘He were away at the time. Looking for you,’ Michael added, looking significantly at his brother. ‘Not that he could have done much if he had been here. They took us by surprise. Simkin, Croft and some of the others tried to put up a defence with their bows, but they were no match for these men. They tortured Hayward Forester to death – they were convinced he must have had a cache of gold somewheres, and nowt anyone could say would convince them otherwise. A few were spared. I only escaped by hiding down by the river…’
‘I can well imagine,’ Kemp snorted.
‘What would you have had me do? I’m a farmer, not a warrior. These were hard men, Martin, veterans of Crécy. Trained killers…’
‘Men like me, you mean,’ Kemp observed.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t have to.’
The two of them stared at the grave markers in hostile silence for a few moments.
‘What about Nicholay?’ Kemp asked finally. Nicholas Kemp was the middle brother, who had gone to study at Oxford.
‘He’s well – at least, he were the last time I saw him. He visited the village during the summer. He came top of his class at college and won a bursary to study at the Sorbonne College in Paris. He seemed pleased at the prospect.’ Michael tried to put warmth into his voice.
Kemp said nothing.
‘I know the future looks bleak, but things will be different now that you’re back,’ Michael continued. ‘We can start afresh…’
Kemp was not listening. He stared down at his mother’s grave. He should be feeling something more than this… this emptiness, he thought to himself. ‘I’d like to be alone for a little while,’ he told his brother.
‘Of course.’ Michael moved away, walking to the lych gate where Kemp had tied his horse. He watched as his brother stared at the various grave markers. Then, after a pause, he saw Kemp rise to his feet and tilt his face to the heavens.
‘Why not me?’ he roared in anguish.
Michael shuddered. This was not the little brother who had left Knighton so long ago.
Martin Kemp was still standing with his back towards the lych gate. Michael could not see what he was doing, but his shoulders shook as if he were sobbing. Then he walked back to the gate, unfastening the hackney’s halter.
Michael looked at him uncertainly. ‘Things will be better now, you’ll see,’ he persisted. ‘We must be strong. We have our whole lives ahead of us.’
‘Aye,’ Kemp agreed grimly. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ He swung himself up into the saddle.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m not staying, Michael. There’s nothing for me here now.’
‘But where will you go? What will you do?’
Kemp shrugged. ‘I’ll follow the trade I’ve learned.’ He patted the hilt of his broadsword.
‘Fighting?’ Michael looked disgusted. ‘What kind of a life will that be?’
‘Life is for the living,’ Kemp told him softly. ‘And I died a long time ago. Maybe it was on a beach in Normandy, maybe it was in a city called Caen, or maybe it was in a field in Picardy. But my last rites are long overdue.’
Michael furrowed his brow. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t understand.’
‘Goodbye, Michael.’ Kemp dug his heels into his hackney’s flanks, chucked the reins, and rode out of the village heading south, towards Broughton Manor in the County of Buckingham and a knight who wore a white silk patch over one eye.
* * *
A few weeks after Valois’ visit to the castle at Saint-Omer, Sir Geoffroi de Chargny sat at the table in his chamber, scratching away at a roll of parchment with a practised hand as he wrote another of his treatises on chivalry. Periodically he would dip the nib of his quill into the ink-horn, and sometimes he paused to lean back in his chair, staring through the narrow lancet window at the fields of Artois beyond the town walls. He did not see the countryside, however, but another walled town twenty-five miles to the north-west, a town that was a slur on French honour for as long as it was allowed to remain in the hands of the English.
He stared at the last words he had written:
If a man lays claim to a town, does he earn the greatest dishonour in failing to win it, or is there a greater dishonour in declining a challenge to battle in the field during the siege?
He dipped his quill in the ink-horn, drained off the excess ink, and held the nib poised above the next line. There was a knock on the door: Guilbert’s familiar, heavy rap. ‘Enter.’ De Chargny did not turn, nor even pause in his writing.
‘There’s a messenger arrived, Sir Geoffroi.’
‘Where from?’ de Chargny asked evenly.
‘From the king, sir. He brings a gift for you.’
The nib of de Chargny’s quill halted in mid-word. After the briefest pause, he finished the sentence he had been writing and laid his quill aside. Rising to his feet, he turned to face Guilbert. ‘What manner of gift?’ he asked, his curiosity piqued.
‘I don’t know, sir. The messenger brought it in a chest on the back of a packhorse.’
De Chargny stood contemplating Guilbert for a moment, and then gave the tiniest shrug. ‘Let us find out, then.’ He led the way downstairs, to where the messenger was unfastening a
large coffer tied to the back of his packhorse. A troop of men-at-arms sat astride their horses nearby. They were obviously an escort for the gift, indicating that it must be something of great value. Seeing de Chargny approach, the messenger stopped what he was doing to turn and bow obsequiously, before handing the knight a sealed envelope. De Chargny checked the wax seal, and saw the familiar mark of Philip of Valois. Without further ado, he broke it open and read the letter within.
My dear Sir Geoffroi,
Please receive my gift as a reward for the good service you have done me in the past, and in anticipation of greater service in future. To what use you see fit to put my gift I leave entirely to your discretion, for I know you will use it wisely.
Valois
‘What is it, Father?’ De Chargny’s son descended the wooden steps leading from the main entrance of the keep.
‘Let us see, shall we?’ De Chargny turned to the messenger. ‘Have it carried inside.’
The messenger grimaced. ‘Begging your pardon, your lordship, but it’s a bit heavy… If I could have a little assistance, the job would be done the sooner, I reckon.’
De Chargny sighed. ‘Guilbert!’
The squire bent, seized one of the handles on the side of the coffer, and with a single movement hefted it on to one shoulder as if it were empty, carrying it unaided up the stairs. The messenger stared at Guilbert in outright disbelief.
De Chargny and his son followed Guilbert into the keep, where the squire was waiting for them in the great hall. ‘Do you want me to put it down here?’ he asked, nodding to the table.
‘No. Bring it up to my chamber.’
The three of them made their way up to the chamber, where Guilbert put the coffer down on the oak chest at the foot of the massive four-poster bed. De Chargny inserted the small brass key the messenger had given him into the lock and turned it, pushing back the lid.
Twenty thousand gold coins glinted back at them, glistering in the flickering light of the brand which burned in a nearby wall-bracket.
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