by David Gilman
Bernard de Charité took a couple of quick strides, and grabbed Killbere’s throat. ‘Then perhaps I should take your head now and deliver that to your king!’ he hissed, spittle flecking Killbere’s face.
‘Do it. Send him my head and then by all that is holy you will burn alongside every other wretch in this town. Now take the stench of your dog’s arse breath out of my face.’
De Charité slapped Killbere hard. The blow split his lip, blood spilling onto his beard. The Breton turned on his heel. ‘No more water for him!’
Killbere raised his head and roared in defiance of pain and death. Children scattered as women darted forward to snatch at them. The sooner their lord put him to death the safer they would all feel. The Englishman was possessed.
* * *
Blackstone and his surviving men waited for the mist to clear on the lower slopes of his encampment. The morning sun’s valiant efforts to break through the stubborn shroud were once again defeated. The coldest winter for years froze the droplets of mist onto the bare branches; crystals of light glittered. Men wrapped their rotting boots in torn cloth and bound their hands to keep the skin from splitting and their fingers agile. The muffled sound of approaching horses and the creak of leather filtered through the mist. Will Longdon and the archers had already nocked their arrows. If it was an enemy then many would die in their saddles before Blackstone’s fighters put them to the sword. Indistinct voices complaining of being lost told Blackstone and the others that at least some of the unseen men were English, but it was no reason to lower their guard because there were notorious bands of English mercenaries across France. Men like James Pipe, Robert Knolles: hardened leaders of tough men released from military service, many of whom were felons granted pardons by King Edward to fight in his army, and now the war was won these killers roamed freely across France. Edward did not encourage the brigands, but it had seemed preferable that they harass the French rather than return home and become outlaws on English roads. However, if they threatened Edward’s peace treaty and the towns that now belonged to him they would need to be defeated.
A horse appeared and its rider’s shield bore a gash of red, a downward-pointing diamond blazon.
‘Sir John!’ Blackstone cried out.
The leading horseman, startled by the sudden challenge, pulled up his horse, and like ghosts emerging from a haunted marshland others drew up alongside him. The horseman called out. ‘Thomas? Merciful Christ, you could have killed us.’ He urged his horse forward to where Blackstone and his men-at-arms stood ready to fight. John Jacob took the horse’s reins as the renowned knight and negotiator dismounted. Blackstone eased Wolf Sword into its scabbard as Chandos glanced at the line of bowmen. He extended his gloved hand in greeting. ‘Thomas, a man’s bowels turn to water when suddenly confronted by English bowmen. I praise God I was not born a Frenchman,’ he said, his eyes twinkling with humour. He was ten years older than Blackstone and his grip told of strength forged from a lifetime of swordsmanship.
More of Chandos’s men rode forward into the clear air. Meulon, Perinne and John Jacob ushered them to where their mounts could be corralled within the ruins to one side of the camp.
‘We saw signs of horsemen yesterday; we didn’t know whether they were friendly or not,’ said Blackstone as he escorted Chandos into a makeshift shelter: half-broken walls screened with cut branches and covered with bracken. It served to keep some of the rain and chill out and from a distance afforded a degree of camouflage.
Blackstone bent and put flint to his archer’s knife, sparking the fire that waited to be lit. ‘We went without warmth and food this morning in case whoever it was came upon us was unfriendly. I didn’t want our smoke or the smell of food to bring down an enemy on our heads. Better to have an empty stomach than our throats cut.’
The dry kindling took quickly and Blackstone swung a small cast-iron pot over the flames.
The fire offered little warmth but Chandos pulled free his gloves and held his hands near the flames. ‘It might have been our tracks you saw, Thomas. I swear we have been going round in circles these past days, but there’s a large band of routiers cutting across the Limousin, so perhaps they are closer than I thought. But I have news. You were close to the Harcourt family in Normandy, weren’t you?’
‘I was. When I was wounded at Crécy I was taken there and nursed back to health. Godfrey de Harcourt served Edward and although his nephew Jean de Harcourt fought on the opposite side, he became my closest friend.’
‘And he was slain by the French King because he and the Norman lords were planning treason, and you swore vengeance. Your life was turned upside down because of it.’
‘My King and my Prince forgave me.’
‘Aye, well, be that as it may, Jean de Harcourt’s brother, Louis, has come over to us. He’s helping us seize towns and stop the routiers.’
Blackstone kept his surprise to himself. Louis de Harcourt was Lieutenant of Normandy and in the years before had refused every request from his uncle, Godfrey, to fight for the English. ‘If that’s true then more French noblemen will join him. They’ll realize at last that France has lost its power.’
‘That and the fact that half of them have been promised lands in England. But I am glad of their help. There are thousands of these damn routiers to stop. I wish to God Edward and the Prince had left the army intact to fight them. But that costs money and the last campaign took much out of the King’s purse.’ Chandos scratched a crude map of France into the dirt and pointed with the stick. ‘They swarm, Thomas, and we face an ongoing contest between them and us.’ He drew a zigzag on the bottom of the map. ‘These are the Pyrenees. The routiers were due to go and fight in Spain.’ He circled two areas. ‘But here the Princes of Aragon and Castile have forged a truce in their private war and that has stopped the routiers from crossing over. A French army has been raised by taxes in the south; they’re going to try and slow them but we are to block any escape further into the heartland of France. Once the routiers reach the central massif they’ll find shelter and the riches of Burgundy will feed them. Now, though, they have no food or supplies and have turned back into Provence to lay waste to the Languedoc. Between them in the south, and war in Brittany here in the north, we might be caught between the two. The Bretons are the immediate problem, Thomas. They are gathering in ever greater numbers and they pay no heed to Edward’s demands because they fight on behalf of King John over the disputed territory.’
‘And we are supposed to stop them?’
‘Aye, before we deal with the other brigands, but we also have to take back the towns that have been ceded in the treaty. Some of these towns, however, are proving stubborn.’
Blackstone stirred the pot. He had been commissioned by the King to retrieve, with Chandos, the towns agreed in the peace treaty, but there was still a frisson of rancour between the two men. During Edward’s last campaign they had fought together to seize a town and Chandos had wanted the town’s nobleman taken for ransom, but, realizing that the citizens lived in fear of the tyrant, Blackstone had slain him. If a ransom had been paid the harsh ruler would have returned to terrorize the town afresh. Blackstone’s actions gave the town its freedom and secured its loyalty to Edward. Nothing had been said about the incident when Chandos and Blackstone were thrown together by King Edward after the signing of the treaty but it had not been forgotten – and now Blackstone needed Chandos’s help to seize Saint-Aubin.
‘Where’s Sir Gilbert?’ said Chandos as the scent of herbs reached his nostrils from the pottage being slowly cooked.
‘Sir John, I lost half my men and Gilbert might be dead for all I know. Bernard de Charité in Saint-Aubin reneged on the treaty deal. He has the money we paid for the release of the town but he ambushed my men. Twenty archers and twenty men-at-arms.’
Sir John grimaced. He and Blackstone had done their King’s bidding for several months and this was the first time a town had turned on them. Most had been relieved the fighting was over and that
the routiers would be brought to heel. Chandos or Blackstone would arrive at the gates of a town where the French King’s letters were read out commanding his subjects to offer their allegiance to the English Crown. The gates would be opened, the keys handed over and then in the town square a garrison commander appointed. Once the arms of King Edward III were painted above the town gates then Edward’s men would ride on to the next town. ‘Breton bastard,’ said Chandos. ‘See what I mean, Thomas? The damned war in Brittany reaches here where we least need it. All right, I can leave you ten archers and the same number of men-at-arms.’
‘If Gilbert is alive then I want to get him out.’
‘How? Saint-Aubin is a fortified town. Two hundred burghers and at least forty fighting men inside the walls. You’ll lose the other half of your men. No, Thomas, Gilbert’s fate is his own. We cannot risk more men: we have too much to achieve. I am gathering troops for an assault on the routiers. I have near enough a thousand encamped with de Harcourt and Sir William Felton. He’s been made Seneschal of Poitou. They’ll hold and wait for my return, and I expect your men to join mine. I’ll have a hundred and sixty men after those I leave with you but we need hundreds more. The further south I can go before swinging east the more I’ll recruit. The Prince of Wales will soon be given Aquitaine to govern and as always the Gascons have pledged their support.’
Blackstone kept his simmering anger under control but the edge in his voice was enough to alert Chandos. ‘Sir John, I have known Sir Gilbert since I was a boy. He took me and my brother to war in ’46. I will not leave him to rot – alive or dead.’
‘You will obey your King, Thomas, and I am his voice here. If Gilbert is alive de Charité will ask for ransom. We will negotiate. Saint-Aubin needs to be in our hands by whatever means possible.’
‘It can be ours if we storm the place and kill the treacherous bastard. I need your help.’
‘No!’ Chandos turned his back and paced, trying to calm his own temper. ‘Thomas, he and your men are casualties of war. There might be a peace treaty in place but we both know the fighting goes on. The civil war in Brittany pits us against those backed by the French and the Bretons who swarm across the land. There are few enough of us doing our King’s bidding but we must do it with the resources we have.’ He took a breath and gazed at Blackstone, who had not moved from stirring the pot. ‘I forbid it,’ he said and then, knowing Blackstone’s reputation: ‘Do not defy me on this.’
Blackstone remained silent. He ladled pottage onto a tin plate and handed it to Chandos. ‘No friend of mine dies abandoned, Sir John. Do you want salt?’
CHAPTER FOUR
Within hours the mist had lifted from the valley floor and Sir John Chandos, belly full but heart clutched with anger, took his leave of Blackstone’s camp. Their parting words barely disguised each man’s antagonism. Blackstone was needed in ten days further east to stop the advance of the routiers who defied King John and made claim to the disputed Breton territory in the Limousin. Men like de Charité who would ignore a treaty and disobey a king. But these Bretons were gathering in strength and the handful of trusted men who rode with Blackstone would be useful reinforcements for Chandos. If Blackstone did not arrive in time then Chandos would know that he and the rest of his men were dead.
By the time Chandos and his soldiers had gone from sight Blackstone had gathered his captains. They squatted around the same fire that had warmed the King’s negotiator, but the crude scratch in the dirt that was France had been scuffed away. In its place were pieces of stone laid out in an irregular fashion to denote the walls of Saint-Aubin. The gatehouse, the kitchen, the pantry, buttery and the walkways were shown with pieces of twig. Spilled water soaked into the dirt became the lake and handfuls of torn grass the forest from where Blackstone and his men would launch their attack.
‘Across the ice?’ said Will Longdon.
‘The night watch are on the other walls. No one will expect an attack from that side. It’s their blind spot.’
‘With good reason,’ insisted Longdon.
‘If we get across the lake how do we scale the walls?’ asked John Jacob.
‘We don’t,’ said Blackstone. ‘Grappling hooks will alert them. We need one scaling ladder twenty feet long. We go through the kitchen window.’
‘One at a time? That’s asking for trouble,’ said Meulon. ‘The servants will be sleeping there and I don’t know if either of us can fit through.’
Will Longdon grinned. ‘I can see you stuck like a swollen cork in a bottle, Thomas, but trying to fit Meulon’s shoulders in there might be like trying to push through a barrel of lard. If he gets stuck even a prod up his arse with a spear won’t shift him.’
‘Perhaps we should ram a spear in your skinny arse and shove you up the latrine tower. You’d smell sweeter,’ countered Meulon.
Blackstone raised a hand to silence them. ‘Whoever goes through that window first kills the servants. You heard what Jack said: they mutilated our friends; they deserve no mercy. Perinne? You can fit through, so can Renfred and John here.’
John Jacob looked at Jack Halfpenny. ‘How many servants in there?’
‘Six or seven.’
Blackstone’s squire nodded. ‘Three of us can deal with them.’
‘And in the main building? The hall, the chambers? What, another ten or twelve?’
‘Aye, but they’ll either be in the stables or sleeping in any doorway they can find,’ said Will Longdon.
Blackstone nodded. The main force of arms would more likely be billeted away from the main building with quick access to the main gate and square. Once he and his men breached the walls they could be contained and killed. ‘Meulon, pick three men-at-arms to go through behind them. Each man with sixty feet of rope to lower from the ramparts for the rest of us. Will, I need you and at least three of your archers on the walls with them before the rest of your men join them. You’ll fit through that window. Choose two more.’ He pointed to where the walls angled away from what he hoped would be the blind side of the defences. ‘Each corner, left and right. If the night watch sees us you have to kill them quickly. Once we are inside the walls, I will go through the great hall with John and Perinne to find de Charité, Meulon will secure the square, archers will take the walls. Their crossbowmen’s billets will be by the main gate. Renfred and six men seize the gatehouse and its chapel.’
The men grunted their approval. A gatehouse chapel served two purposes. It gave succour to the ruling lord needing the solace of prayer but also, being at the entrance of a town, was believed to keep ill fortune at bay. A belief soon to be dispelled by Blackstone’s men.
‘We don’t know where Sir Gilbert is,’ said Jack Halfpenny. ‘If he’s still alive then they’ll kill him the moment the alarm is raised.’
Blackstone nodded. ‘It’s a risk but if he’s alive I’m hoping they’ll use him as hostage. They’ll try and buy their lives with his.’ He looked from man to man. ‘Any questions?’
‘There’s no moon if these clouds don’t blow over,’ said Perinne. ‘It will be blacker than putting your head up a nun’s habit.’
‘He’s right,’ said Longdon. ‘It’ll be pitch black out there even with the ice on the lake.’
Blackstone thought for a moment. The frozen lake would reflect what light there might be but forty-odd men trying to negotiate across it in the darkness would be slow going. To have them scattered with the risk of going through the ice would put an end to the attack. ‘All right,’ he said finally, pointing the twig at Longdon. ‘Will, have the men cut pieces of the linen we use for bandages. A square of it to be stitched onto the back of every man’s collar. I will lead the way, ladder men behind me, and then the others; we follow the white patch of the man in front.’
The men murmured their agreement. The white cloth would show up sufficiently for them not to get separated and be able to follow a straight line to beneath the window.
‘Anything else?’ said Blackstone.
The attack w
ould be fraught with danger. If the kitchen servants were not silenced quickly then the alarm would be raised before any of Blackstone’s men could get inside. It could all go wrong in those first, vital moments. Providing they simply didn’t fall through the ice first. The men shook their heads to answer his question.
Blackstone snapped the twig. ‘We attack before dawn.’
* * *
Blackstone’s captains took their men to the crude model that represented Saint-Aubin. The place had once been nothing more than a fortified keep surrounded by peasants’ hovels. A hundred years of change had made it a high-walled town with a gatehouse and a population of two hundred. Small by comparison to many but a stronghold that had proved itself valuable to whoever held it. The surrounding area was rich in agriculture and the town was self-sufficient. It had escaped the ravages of King Edward’s war. No army would bog itself down with a siege for such a place. And that is why the people of Saint-Aubin thought themselves immune from attack. They were safe behind the walls and they were protected by a knight renowned for his fighting skills.
Each captain outlined Blackstone’s plan and the few questions asked were answered; then they prepared themselves for the attack. They had to return twelve miles to the safety of the forest where a long night lay ahead. Muscles would stiffen and there would be no hot food or fires to comfort them. They ate whatever food remained in their cooking pots and prepared to break camp. Men-at-arms cast aside their scabbards and slid their swords into a simple ring on their belt. They tore strips of cloth and tied them to their bridles to deaden the sound of their approach, in case Bernard de Charité had scouts beyond his walls. Will Longdon’s archers cut and sewed strips of linen onto the collars of men’s jupons. He went among the archers given to them by Chandos. Of the ten men he knew that no more than four had seen any serious fighting. Their chaff and banter told him so. The others were youngsters. Strong lads who had been arrayed and brought under Chandos’s command but who looked nervous. When they tried to join in with the veterans’ talk of killing fields they were mostly scorned and driven back to silence. One of them diligently stitched a white patch but Longdon saw his fingers were trembling. He knelt next to him and without a word eased the cloth and the needle from his fingers.