by David Gilman
Blackstone stood as dumbfounded as his silent brother.
‘But now you must take your own chances in the world, Thomas. Your King needs you. My life will be over soon and I have done my duty. Now you must do yours.’
Blackstone looked at Sir Gilbert again, and this time he nodded. The lord of the manor was dying. His protection would die with him.
‘We’ll serve you loyally, my lord, as my father would have done,’ Blackstone said.
Lord Marldon shook his head. ‘Only you, Thomas. Your brother is of no use in a war. We’ll send him to the monks, they can put him to work and protect him from ridicule.’
‘The Franciscans care for dumb animals,’ Sir Gilbert added.
The younger brother looked startled as Blackstone gripped his arm. ‘He can fight. He’s the best archer in three counties.’
‘And he’s fourteen years old, for Christ’s sake,’ said Sir Gilbert. ‘He’s deaf and dumb!’
Blackstone laid a hand on Richard’s chest, to allay the fear he saw in the boy’s face. ‘He can hear well enough, Sir Gilbert. My lord, he feels the vibrations of drumbeat and the force of trumpets. The air reverberates with shouts and loud voices. He’s worked alongside my father and me since he could walk. No one I know can match his strength. His eyes are as sharp as a bodkin. He looses more arrows a minute than any man I’ve seen draw a bowcord.’
‘Fifteen is the youngest we can send men to war,’ Sir Gilbert said roughly, exasperated by Blackstone’s insistence.
‘I am his guardian, my lord, just as you gave your protection to my father and his sons.’ He knew he was running out of argument. ‘Look at him. Does he look to be the age he is? By the time the harvest is in, he’ll be old enough. He’s big enough to be half his age again. Would any man doubt it?’
Lord Marldon and his man-at-arms fell silent for a moment.
‘There’s not a whisker on his face,’ Sir Gilbert said finally.
‘And he has goose down on his head,’ Blackstone answered. ‘Others will take him as he is. Better he endures the mockery of soldiers and has me at his side, than be whipped by monks for not hoeing their carrot patch to their liking.’
Lord Marldon coughed hard and long. Sir Gilbert quickly poured wine into a goblet and held his master’s shaking hand, easing it to his lips.
‘Sweet Jesus Christ! I wish your father and I could have ended our lives as men should. Not crushed like an ant and eaten alive from within,’ wheezed the old warrior. He steadied his breathing. ‘Wait outside. I’ll make my decision. God bless you, Thomas Blackstone. Always remember who your father was and honour his memory. Go.’
Blackstone bowed his head, his brother did the same.
When the doors closed behind them Lord Marldon wiped the wine-mingled blood from his lip.
‘Chandler wants their land and I doubt I’ll be able to stop him. Do I send the boy with his brother?’
Sir Gilbert poured wine for himself. ‘He’s like a bullock. I doubt the rockfall that killed his father would have done the same to him. And I think he’s got a temper if it’s aroused.’ He took a mouthful and wondered if his lord needed to hear his thoughts about Blackstone. There was little choice. Time dictated honesty. ‘The oaf’s an archer all right, but Blackstone’s a lying shit. I’ve watched from the woods and seen him practise. He’s the better man. He can loose enough arrows to kill a small army.’
Lord Marldon’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘He protects his brother at the cost of his own stature.’
‘If the dumb beast is with him then at least he’ll slaughter his fair share of poxy Frenchmen. I’d let him go. Why not?’ He hesitated. ‘But Blackstone? Loosing arrows at a straw target isn’t a way to take his measure. He’s not a shadow of his father. He has no instinct to kill. He shies away from violence. I doubt he’d manage to kill a suckling pig. There’s a weakness in him. Like his mother corrupted his father. I think he’ll be dead or a deserter after the first battle.’ He swallowed the wine.
Lord Marldon nodded. Henry Blackstone had not beaten the boy enough. Sentiment and love needed to be tempered with unflinching courage in the slaughter of war. How often had he spoken to his sworn man about the boy’s gentle nature? His lordship’s friend had argued that in addition to the skills of war a nobleman was encouraged to appreciate poetry and the finer things in life; why, then, should a common man not have the same attraction?
‘Do what you can. Even the tenderest heart can be turned to war,’ Lord Marldon told him. ‘And if they are to die, let it be with anger in their blood and love for their King in their hearts.’
2
Blackstone and his brother rode with Sir Gilbert and forty other mounted archers wearing Lord Marldon’s livery over their russet brown tunics. The surcoats, of a black hawk on a blue field, were faded and bleached from many years of service, and from being beaten against river stones by the estate’s washerwomen. Faint, speckled stains could still be seen; blood spots from older battles.
The archers’ leather belts held their arrow bags, made of laced waxed linen for protection against moisture – an arrow with wet feathers would not fly straight. The bag was stiffened by withies to keep the arrows separate, which helped protect the goose-feather fletchings. As well as the bag the archers carried a short-bladed bastard sword that cost sixpence in the local town – the cheapest sword men could buy. A long dagger and the archer’s bow, carried snugly in its leather case, were their only other weapons. In a small pouch was a spare hemp bowstring, which Blackstone, as his father had taught him, impregnated with beeswax to ward off the damp. Fine thread was kept for repairing damaged fletchings, a leather guard to protect the fingers of the right hand from the bowstring and a brace to cover the inside of the left forearm, the arm that held the bow. Like all archers, the brothers kept their bows unstrung when travelling to reduce the tension in the wood. Each man carried a small haversack for food. They were the lightest-armed and fastest-moving soldiers on the battlefield; and at sixpence a day they were paid twice as much as archers on foot.
Lord Marldon was contracted by the King to supply forty mounted archers and a dozen men-at-arms, all of whom would come under the command of Sir Reginald Cobham, a veteran whose fifty years made him no less able to lead his men from the front.
The invasion fleet being anchored at Portsmouth meant the roads became increasingly congested as supply carts clogged highways already packed with horsemen and infantry. It was near the end of June and the heat and dust made the going seem even slower than it was. Blackstone had never seen so many people or such a hive of activity in his life. There were thousands on the road. Craftsmen, wagoners and soldiers jostled with knights riding palfreys, their pages leading their master’s destriers, the powerful war stallions whose unpredictable temperament made them kick out at those crowding them from the rear. Squabbles and short-tempered curses flew between those of equal rank, while the nobles and knights kept a haughty disdain for anyone of lesser stature. Banners, denoting the nobles and knights banneret, fluttered in the freshening breeze. Blackstone knew that a poor knight such as Sir Gilbert was not permitted to display a pennon. Instead, he wore his arms painted on his shield, a black sword, like a crucifix, startling in its clarity against an azure field, the same design repeated on his surcoat. He wanted to be noticed by friend and enemy alike.
Sir Gilbert had spoken little since they set out from the manor house, where the county’s archers had gathered. Blackstone knew most of them from the market days and archery competitions. The younger men, gathered from the villages and hamlets, were of mixed humour. Most were ready to serve and take their pay, proud that their lord had provisioned them with horses and weapons. John Nightingale was not much older than Blackstone, and his good humour and stories of a drunken father, a mother who produced a child a year and the girls he had bedded kept the men amused for the day’s journey to the coast.
They were mostly men of eighteen and nineteen years of age, though three or four of the men-at
-arms were in their mid-twenties and had fought in the Low Countries. Some of the young men’s boisterous enthusiasm for the adventure that lay ahead was allowed free rein; the veterans kept to themselves and Sir Gilbert spoke more with them than the others. Blackstone felt the exclusion from their comradeship but did not share the visceral excitement of the younger men. How, he wondered, could he protect his brother in the turmoil that was surely to follow? The quiet, uneventful life they led at home, despite the lack of comfort, gave them a sanctuary of sorts where the world seldom intruded. June was the month for haymaking, a second ploughing and sheep-shearing. Now war had ploughed a deep furrow through their lives.
His brother, by contrast, rode without concern. The sun warmed him and the freshening south-westerly wind played on his face. Released from the daily back- breaking work at the quarry, to him the freedom of riding across the chalk hills with the tantalizing tang of the sea carried on the breeze was elixir. His grunting happiness caused little rebuke from the county men who knew him, but a knight slapped him across the shoulder and told him to stay silent.
Blackstone was uncertain what to do. The man had seniority and Blackstone had no rights to challenge him, but felt compelled to offer some kind of defence for his brother.
‘He cannot hear you so when you strike him he has no understanding.’
‘Then perhaps I should strike him harder to give him whatever understanding he needs. Get him to stop that snuffling grunt. It’s worse than having a pig on the end of a rope. Though a pig would at least serve a purpose.’
Blackstone could not afford to antagonize a war veteran of senior rank and the nervousness in the pit of his stomach halted any immediate response. Sir Gilbert was riding ahead but he turned on the saddle and looked at Blackstone. It seemed he was waiting to see what Blackstone would dare to say in response.
‘His value lies not in his deafness or with him being mute, but in the strength of his bow arm. He will be of great use to a knight on foot facing heavy cavalry.’ Blackstone paused and then said respectfully, ‘My lord.’
Sir Gilbert nodded and turned away. The boy’s father must have told him how, when knights and men-at-arms stood shoulder to shoulder as common infantry in the Scottish wars, facing their enemy’s cavalry charge, the English and Welsh archers had slaughtered the Scots. The English army had learnt its lessons from its defeats; bloody experience had taught them the value of the war bow and cloth-yard long arrows with their armour-piercing bodkin heads. It was men like Blackstone’s father who had saved men like the arrogant knight in past battles. And similar men who would do so again.
The knight spurred his horse forward. ‘Your men border on the insolent, Gilbert.’
‘I taught them myself,’ Sir Gilbert answered. The disgruntled knight rode on. In that moment Sir Gilbert had spoken for his men; defended them to an outsider. A simple lesson in leadership. Blackstone felt a surge of loyalty towards the impoverished man-at-arms.
As the long day’s light began to fade the horsemen crested the high ground behind Portsmouth. Thousands of small fires burned across the hillsides, their smoke drifting on the wind. The lantern-lit armada nestled in the care of the protective harbour. Blackstone had never seen the sea – a vast field of dark water spreading to the horizon. The last of the daylight reflected on the bay showed up the black hulls of hundreds of ships bobbing on the tide. Blackstone drew level with Sir Gilbert who had reined his horse to a halt.
‘Sweet Jesus, we must be going to Gascony,’ Sir Gilbert said.
Blackstone looked at him, not understanding the significance.
‘It’s before your eyes, Thomas. Our King must be going to secure his lands in south-west France. There must be five hundred ships down there.’
Blackstone had already quartered the harbour in his mind’s eye, broken the scene into accurate measurements – a mason’s skill, second nature now. ‘More like eight hundred,’ he said without thinking that he was contradicting Sir Gilbert, who turned to him, saw his unblinking gaze. Sir Gilbert acknowledged Blackstone’s calculation.
‘Then eight hundred it is.’
He nudged his horse forward, past some of the thousands of men settling down for the night, towards one banner among the many, a black and white ermine-patterned lion with several small crosses on a red field, that of Sir Reginald Cobham.
An old armourer stood outside the knight’s tent beating a steady rhythm with his hammer against a breastplate curved onto an anvil.
‘My lord keeps you busy as always, Wilfred,’ Sir Gilbert said to the armourer.
‘Aye, that he does, Sir Gilbert. How many times have I advised him that the iron from the Weald of Kent is not as strong as that from the Forest of Dean, but he says he likes it well enough and doesn’t want to spend the extra money. It’s cheaper to have me beatin’ out his dents.’
‘It’s more unusual that any man lives long enough to lay a blade against his armour. Is he inside?’
‘That he is,’ said the armourer and went back to his work.
The brothers lay on the trampled grass with the other archers in their company. The sea’s chill would cramp them by morning, but nothing could dampen their spirits. As Lord Marldon’s men cooked their pottage and ate the dried fish issued by one of Sir Reginald’s captains, Sir Gilbert beckoned Blackstone and his brother to follow him.
‘I’m to talk to the men, make sure we don’t have any deserters in the night. Promise them they’ll be paid. Warn them who’s to fight alongside them.’
‘Warn them?’ asked Blackstone, keeping up with Sir Gilbert.
‘Aye.’ He gave no further explanation.
‘Then what am I and my brother to do?’
‘Nothing. I want these scab-pickers to see who you are and who you’re with. I’m doing Lord Marldon’s bidding, Blackstone, I can’t wet nurse you once we’re off those boats.’
They made their way through the campfires until they were close enough to the water’s edge. Sir Gilbert turned and faced the men who would share the danger of battle.
‘I am your captain, Sir Gilbert Killbere. Some may know of me, those who do not can ask their neighbour.’
A voice called from a group of men somewhere in the distance.
‘I was with you at Morlaix, Sir Gilbert! We kicked their arses and slit their bellies then!’
‘An archer?’ Sir Gilbert called back to the unseen man.
‘Will Longdon of Shropshire.’
‘I remember you, Will Longdon of Shropshire! I thought the pox had taken you when you deserted with that French whore. Should I warn the men not to share the same spoon in the cooking pot?’
The men laughed.
‘Can you still draw a bowcord or is your arm exhausted from self-abuse?’ Sir Gilbert asked.
There was more laughter and jeers.
‘That and more, Sir Gilbert. Enough to squeeze a French whore’s tit.’
‘Then, we shall oblige you, Will Longdon – and you know I am a man of my word.’
‘I do, sir.’
‘Good, because what I tell you now is as if it comes from the King’s own lips. Courage will be rewarded, victory will bring more than honour. Your lord, Sir Reginald Cobham, needs no tales embroidered about him. There is no finer nobleman on the field of battle. He’s our commander and we will fight with the Prince’s division. Us, the Earl of Northampton, Godfrey de Harcourt, marshal of the army, and the Earl of Warwick. We’re the vanguard, lads! We’ll get to the French bastards first and we’ll wallow in their blood!’
There was a raucous cheer. ‘And the plunder!’ one of the men shouted.
‘That’s right!’ Sir Gilbert shouted back. ‘The French like their finery, and they hoard coin like a moneylender. When you come home you’ll be living like kings! Though you’ll still stink like sons of whores born in a piggery!’
The men laughed and cheered. Ale and a full belly helped, though the food was little more than oats, barley or beans boiled with wild garlic and herbs. Nutritious
and light to carry, it was a staple diet. Bread was for those who could afford it and meat only for the nobles.
‘There are two men standing with me,’ Sir Gilbert said. ‘They are archers and I would wager there are few men here who have the strength to draw their bows. This one…’ he half turned and pulled Blackstone to his side, ‘… is Thomas Blackstone who carries his father’s war bow. He is guardian of a dumb creature, his brother.’ He tugged Richard forward so that now all three men stood shoulder to shoulder in the firelight. Richard’s size loomed over them both. ‘A creature that God in his wisdom chose to suffer this imperfect creation in silence. Let it be known that these are my sworn men. Any act against them is an act against me.’
The men fell silent. No one jeered or called out against the lumbering, crooked-jawed boy.
‘Then it is settled and no more need be said.’ He waited a moment before speaking again. ‘But one more thing. There’s a few thousand spearmen on the other side of that hill. They’re to be with us.’ He paused, to lend more weight to his words. ‘Welsh spearmen.’
Men shouted insults and swore in disapproval.
He raised a hand to settle the men’s taunts. ‘And I’m told they wouldn’t leave home until they’d been paid in full. Let’s not forget we’re Englishmen. Those bog rats will steal your boots without you knowing it. And if you bend to take them off they’ll mount you as if you were black-faced sheep.’ The taunt lessened the men’s animosity.
‘Where are we going, Sir Gilbert?’ one of the men called.
‘Does it matter?’ Sir Gilbert replied. ‘You’re paid to kill the enemies of the realm. It’s at your King’s pleasure. I don’t know, lads, but I look at the fodder being loaded; I see hundreds of sacks of grain and all the sheaves of arrows and that tells me we are in for a long campaign. I hear there’s good, strong wine in Gascony!’
A hard-looking man pulled off his leather cap and rubbed the sweat from his scalp.
‘All well and good, Sir Gilbert, but I was in the Low Countries with the King six years ago and his treasury was empty then. He had to borrow money from the locals to pay us archers; he even sent the horses back home to be fed. You think this time will be any different?’ he said.