by David Gilman
Sir Gilbert looked at Blackstone and the men around him – Blackstone’s brother, Longdon and Weston. ‘You heard his lordship. Get inside and open the gates. And don’t take all day.’
The men crawled through the forest until they could slip down the bank unseen and release the boat’s painter. The moat was sixty feet wide and probably as deep. Will Longdon rowed and John Weston moaned. Once they eased along the wall Blackstone palmed the wall until they were below the window, twelve feet or so above them.
‘Can you hold it steady? I don’t want to end up in the fosse. There’s a depth to it and the banks are steep.’
‘We’ll hold it,’ Weston said. ‘Just don’t tip us over. I can’t swim. I’d go down like a stone.’
He and Longdon steadied the boat as Blackstone showed his brother what he wanted. How many times had they reached up into a tree for a wild beehive and scooped out the combs? Speed was the key, and the stings would be few. Blackstone hoped no crossbowmen’s bites awaited him inside. His brother braced his feet and leaned onto the wall. Blackstone climbed from his thigh to his shoulder and balanced. The boat rocked.
‘Steady, you dumb ox,’ Weston muttered as Richard’s weight shifted. Blackstone stretched as high as he could, his fingertips found the mullion, and then his brother took his feet and lifted him higher. The boy’s strength held as Blackstone clambered through the opening.
He tipped into a big room with chestnut beams. The smooth walls were three feet thick, and as he crawled through he saw de Harcourt’s coat of arms, once painted onto damp plaster, but now faded. A cut-stone surround boxed in a soot-laden fireplace. There was a table and chairs turned over, and a worn carpet that lay across the flagstone floor had been pulled back. This had to be a room where the nobility had sat and eaten, but where someone had scavenged. A wooden chest lay on its side, its contents looted, probably silver plate, Blackstone thought as he went to the door and eased it open. Stone steps went up one way to the next storey and on the other turned down into a shadowed passage. He went back to the window and beckoned Longdon and Weston. They tried to climb as Blackstone had done, but it needed two men to hold the boat steady. They came close to tipping.
‘We can’t,’ Will Longdon told him. ‘Come back down, Thomas, we can’t get men inside.’
Blackstone leaned over the sill. He gestured to Richard.
‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ he called down. ‘Wait for me.’
‘Wait?’ John Weston asked. ‘Wait how long? There could be Genoese bastards in there as we speak, hiding in the damned shadows.’
‘If I don’t come back by the time you’ve imagined fashioning a bodkin onto a shaft and fletched it, then tell Sir Gilbert we need more men.’ He ducked out of sight.
‘Now he thinks I’m a damned bowyer and fletcher as well as boatman. Hey, hey…’ he tugged at Richard’s sleeve. ‘Sit down. Down.’ He gestured. ‘And whatever you do, don’t move.’ He smiled at the scowling boy. ‘If you please,’ he added.
Blackstone had already gone from the window. He nocked an arrow and stepped onto the half-landing outside the doors. He decided to climb higher; that way he might have the advantage if armed men waited in ambush below in the castle’s bailey.
Light streamed down from an upper terrace. He tried to remember Lord Marldon’s fortified manor. It did not have the grandeur or scale of this castle but he guessed French nobles would live like their English cousins, who had, after all, inherited much of the results of Norman castle building. He stepped warily, knowing the rising steps would impede his drawing the bow fully.
The steps opened out into a broad walkway with rectangular-cut windows that allowed him to look down across the horseshoe-shaped bailey, which was big enough to hold all of Sir Godfrey’s raiding party twice over and still have room for horses and livestock. But now it held shadows pressed tight against the rough stone walls. The darkened shapes were armed men.
Blackstone stepped back quickly. He edged to the corner and looked down on the men. They were unmoving. He reasoned they were disciplined but were not de Harcourt’s nephew’s men. They were deserters or mercenaries who wore no collective surcoats or garb. Around to one side he could see a dozen or more bodies. Bloodied, they had been thrown into the corner of the yard. By the look of their dress they were servants. Blackstone calculated that he could kill at least a dozen of the thirty or so men, and then what? He would still be unable to reach the gate and open it and the men would soon co-ordinate an attack and kill him. Best to slip away and report to Sir Godfrey. He pressed against the wall and ran quickly back the way he had come. As he turned in at the door he saw a movement at the turn of the stairs. A hand had moved in the shadow. Blackstone ran down the remaining steps until he reached the join between the walls. It was a narrow chasm in the rough-hewn stone, barely wide enough for a slender child to enter.
‘Help me,’ a girl’s voice whispered.
Blackstone overcame his uncertainty and reached into the gap. His arm felt that of the girl and he pulled her gently towards him. She was scraped and bruised, her cloak covered in lime dust from the walls. She was small, with delicate features, and as she came closer to him he saw that her eyes were green and her hair the colour of a broadleaf in autumn. As she eased into the stairwell, her weakness made her stagger against the wall. But she raised a hand to ward off Blackstone’s help.
‘English?’ she asked quietly, glancing down the stairs, afraid the intruders might hear even a gentle whisper.
Blackstone nodded.
‘I heard Sir Godfrey’s voice. You are with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you take me to him?’
Again she glanced down the stairs and Blackstone extended his arm to her.
‘Let me help you.’
She hesitated, the sight of the dishevelled archer a barrier to overcome. His hand had not wavered but she refused to take it. She shook her head. ‘Show me,’ was all she said.
Blackstone turned away. It was up to her whether she decided to follow him. As he reached the window he sensed she was only a few steps away. She stood in the middle of the room, caught between that which she knew to be fatal behind her and the chance of escape with men who could cause her as much harm.
Blackstone leaned across the sill. The boat was still there.
‘Will,’ he called softly, raising a hand to warn of the danger. Will Longdon and Weston looked up, uncertainty creasing their faces. Richard followed their gaze, a lopsided grin when he saw his brother. ‘Armed men inside,’ Blackstone said. ‘Servants are butchered. There’s a girl. Wait.’ He ducked back from the opening.
Weston wobbled the boat in his anxiety. ‘A girl!’ he hissed. ‘Christ! Tom, leave her!’ But Blackstone had gone from view.
The girl looked at him. She had not moved, deciding which action might be the less fearful. Blackstone once again extended his arm. She shook her head. ‘I cannot swim,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to,’ he assured her. Still she hesitated. ‘I can’t wait. If you want to see Sir Godfrey you have to trust me. And you must stay silent. My brother is in the boat. Don’t let his disfigurement frighten you.’
She took his hand and in a quick movement Blackstone lifted her and swung her across the opening. She clenched her jaw, squeezing her eyes closed, and let him swing her out quickly. Her weight caused him no difficulty and he reached down, lowering her into his brother’s waiting arms as Longdon and a cursing Weston steadied the boat.
The three men stared at her as she sat in the bow. None of them had been so close to a woman with such delicate features or soft-shaded hair. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Weston muttered. ‘My lady…’ he added. For once words failed him.
‘Will!’
They looked up. Blackstone was clambering down and needed his brother’s shoulders. Longdon steadied Richard as Blackstone eased himself down the wall.
John Weston shipped the oars, eager to pull away. ‘How many men?’
‘Tw
o dozen or more,’ Blackstone said.
‘I’d wager a couple more of us in there and we’d have taken them,’ Longdon said, turning back to watch the empty window.
‘Like killing ducks on a pond, Will. But they were too many for one man and they’d have got to me and you’d have been examining the bottom of this moat with your dying gaze,’ Blackstone told him. They bumped into the bank. The men jumped clear, Blackstone’s brother extended his hand to help the girl, but she turned to Blackstone and put out her hand to him.
Her name was Christiana; she was sixteen years old and served her mistress, Countess Blanche de Ponthieu, wife of John V de Harcourt, Sir Godfrey’s nephew.
‘Where is your mistress?’ Godfrey de Harcourt asked her.
‘When she heard the English were trying to cross the Seine she feared for her mother. She’s gone to Noyelles, my lord,’ Christiana answered.
Years of family tension gnawed away at de Harcourt. For the first time Blackstone saw him ease his lame leg. ‘Courage was never her problem. My nephew married a headstrong woman, there’s no denying that. And these men?’
‘Villagers came and asked us for protection. It was a trick. When we opened the gates they attacked. They killed everyone. There are more bodies this young archer never saw. I have been hiding for two days.’
Sir Godfrey showed a tenderness towards the girl that no man under his command would ever experience. ‘We will take you to the English. For now you are safe. What about my brother and my nephew?’
‘They took their men-at-arms and joined the King’s forces. More than a week ago.’
‘At Rouen?’
She nodded.
‘Is there a crossing?’
‘How would I know, my lord? I am only in service to my lady,’ Christiana answered.
‘Of course,’ said de Harcourt. Her unwavering voice made it clear that if she knew of such a crossing she would not betray it to the English, or those fighting with them, even though they now offered her sanctuary. He acknowledged Blackstone.
‘You did well. Stay with her.’
‘My lord.’ Obeying Sir Godfrey he ushered Christiana into the forest where the horses were tethered as the other men were called forward by Sir Gilbert. He settled her on dry bracken and found her wine and bread with salted cod. She had not eaten since hiding from the killers, but she ate carefully and without haste. Blackstone knew that he would have been like a ravening wolf. He sat in the dappled shade, watching her whenever she looked away. This was one fight he was happy to miss. Minutes later Elfred and the archers filtered back into the trees.
‘You lucky bastard,’ Will Longdon said as he unsheathed his bow. ‘We’ve to be awake in the treeline and kill these scum while you snuggle up to the princess here.’
‘You make sure your bow stays sheathed,’ John Weston said, with a toothless grin.
Elfred walked through the trees. ‘Thomas, you’re to stay with the girl. Shall I leave Richard with you?’
Blackstone hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Keep him at your shoulder, Elfred. He trusts you.’
‘He don’t want his baby brother hanging around here tonight, do you, my lad?’ Weston said, leering at the girl who was facing the other way.
‘John, I hope your eyes stop watering before you have to draw your bow. I’ll think of you sitting cramped with your arse in nettles while I’m tucked up here, protecting the lady,’ Blackstone told him with a grin.
‘Sod me if he isn’t going to do exactly what I said he was,’ Weston muttered.
The men moved away. Blackstone took his blanket and gave it to Christiana. ‘The forest gets chilled at night,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about the men. You’re under Sir Godfrey’s protection.’
‘And yours?’ she asked, taking the blanket and tucking it around her.
‘And mine,’ he answered, feeling suddenly awkward and foolish.
Godfrey de Harcourt and his handful of men-at-arms rode once again to the end of the bridge. Dusk was falling and the grey light crept across the silent castle.
‘Madame!’ de Harcourt shouted. ‘I apologize for my earlier threat. I know you must be fearful because the English are close, but I implore you once again to open the gates. I am here, as I promised, to give you the gold for my brother’s ransom!’
He turned to Sir Gilbert who rode at his side.
‘You think they’ll know I fight with Edward?’
‘I think, my lord, they are arse-sucking scum who would be as confused as many others about your family entanglements,’ Sir Gilbert answered. ‘I am orphan born and orphan I shall die.’
De Harcourt grunted. ‘Count yourself fortunate.’
He raised himself in the stirrups as if to add volume to his bellowing.
‘Good lady! I have only six men-at-arms as escort. It is dangerous for me to linger, but we will camp here, where you can see us, until the morning. But then I leave and I take my gold with me. He is your husband, for pity’s sake, and a fine knight. Let us give the English that which they demand.’
He turned his horse. ‘Flies would be less likely to settle on a dung heap than for them to ignore the chance of gold.’
Sir Godfrey and the men-at-arms tethered their horses, built a fire in full view and settled beneath their cloaks for the night. Huddled around the flames, they offered themselves as bait. Within the forest edge Elfred and the archers waited while Blackstone sat a few feet from the sleeping girl. Moonlight came and went beneath scattering clouds, and when the soft light filtered through the branches he could see her sleeping like a child, hair against her face, her lips slightly parted. He felt that, if he were sleeping, this would be a dream of finding a beautiful forest child, abandoned by Mother Nature.
He pulled back from the illusion. She served a countess. There was no point yielding to the feelings that confused and bedevilled him. He returned his gaze to the shadows and the faint movement of the branches where the archers stayed out of sight. If he were the men inside he would wait until first light, when the fire had sunk to embers and the morning chill kept men, aching in their armour, curled for a few moments more of warmth beneath their cloaks.
And that is what the killers did.
7
One of the gates eased open to let twenty men creep as quietly as they could across the wooden bridge. In the clearing, less than fifty paces beyond the bridge, the sleeping men-at-arms had not stirred. Wisps of smoke from dying embers curled in the dawn’s still air. A horse snuffled, another whinnied, but still the sleeping men did not move. The killers’ confidence increased. They raced forward, unconcerned about the sound of their footfalls. The men on the ground would be dead in seconds.
In the grey light one of the attackers faltered. He had seen something inexplicable. The treeline, a hundred paces away, shivered. The forest moved. Before the first sword strike could be delivered, a hum, as bowstrings released, resonated from the trees and a hissing wind swept the sky.
Blackstone sat crouched from his vantage point and watched as the attackers fell under the archers’ volley. They died to a man twenty paces from Sir Godfrey and his men, who threw back their cloaks and ran onto the bridge. No words were uttered, no battle cry shouted; all that could be heard was the pounding of hooves as the lone figure of Sir Gilbert charged from the trees to secure the gate’s opening. As the defenders shouldered the iron-clad doors his sword swept down and blood sprayed the gates. He hacked his way past the desperate men who shouted their warnings to others inside, but the ferocity of the attack and the sudden rush of the men-at-arms caught them off-guard. They were expecting half their number to return with a knight’s ransom; instead they were cut down where they stood.
Blackstone watched the efficient killing. It was only when the screams of men being slaughtered reached the forest that Christiana jerked awake.
‘It’s all right,’ he told her.
She gathered her cloak about her and went to where he stood watching the attack. Elfred’s archers moved from
the treeline down the gentle slope towards the clearing to recover whatever arrows could be reused and to slit the throats of the wounded.
Christiana flinched but did not turn away.
Within an hour the dead had been dragged to a ditch filled with dry kindling and branches ready to be burned. Four of the mercenaries were wounded and knelt before Sir Godfrey, their arms tied behind their backs. They whimpered in pain and begged for mercy. The lame knight had not been as quick to reach the castle gates as his more able-bodied men, but he had done his share of killing. He beckoned Christiana forward. Blackstone stayed with the archers who stood idly waiting for the executions to be done with.
‘These men killed my family’s servants and villagers who sought my brother’s protection. What shall we do with these who live? I leave their fate to you.’
A couple of the men raised their heads and implored Christiana for their lives. They were as young as Blackstone. Christiana had tears in her eyes as she looked down on the men. Blackstone quietly cursed de Harcourt for making her face those who had wreaked havoc.
One of them smiled up at her.
‘My lady, your tears are well spent. I went with these men because I was afraid of the battle. Save me, I beg you, and I will serve you for the rest of my life.’
Christiana wiped her tears and turned to Sir Godfrey.
‘I weep for those loyal in my lady’s house and the atrocity these men committed on them. Do what justice demands, my lord.’
She walked away. The archers parted to let her through. Any thoughts of a vulnerable girl subdued by her emotions were as defeated as the kneeling men. Swords swung down and heads thudded onto the ground. A final scream and cry for mercy was cut short. The bodies were dragged from the blood-soaked ground and thrown onto the pyre.
Godfrey de Harcourt’s men dug a communal grave and laid the dead servants and villagers to rest. He spoke a prayer in Latin and then turned his men towards their mission at the river. Christiana rode behind Blackstone with no choice but to wrap her arms around him. The gibes and taunts from the men would be saved for later, when Blackstone was alone.