Master of War

by David Gilman

  ‘I gladly accept the privilege, sire,’ de Harcourt answered.

  ‘Good,’ the King said, ‘we need brave Englishmen in France.’

  The burning windmill threw long shadows across the battlefield. A cowled priest went among the dead and dying. He seemed to be offering comfort as he went to each fallen nobleman. Weary soldiers thought nothing of it. They did not see the sack at his waist or the binding on his hand that covered a missing finger.

  Twisted bodies of men and horses haunted the hillside in a macabre embrace. The fog clung to the battlefield for another day as the English waited for further attacks. None came. The French armies were beaten, their lances impaling Crécy mud instead of English and Welsh muscle. King Edward sent heralds into the stench of the battlefield to retrieve the surcoats of the fallen knights and noblemen so they might be identified and given a Christian burial with all due honour and respect paid. Peasants from the surrounding villages were rounded up and made to dig mass graves, into which the dead from both sides were tumbled and buried. Richard Blackstone’s dismembered body was only one of thousands.

  Godfrey de Harcourt had Blackstone carried on a bier back to the castle at Noyelles, several miles to the army’s rear. Countess Blanche’s indignation at having the English archer brought into her mother’s home once again was softened by the evidence that Thomas Blackstone had tried to help the wounded French knight to whom she had given refuge. The pageboy’s testimony and the blood-soaked jupon that Blackstone had used to staunch the knight’s wound proved his compassion.

  Christiana almost fell faint with grief when she saw his shattered body. He was unrecognizable. Her mistress turned her away from the sight as they carried him to one of the rooms.

  ‘Christiana,’ she said softly, ‘you’re a woman in the house of de Harcourt. If you cannot attend to him then we will find you duties elsewhere.’

  Christiana shook her head. ‘I’ll care for him,’ she said, ‘just as you care for your husband.’

  The countess’s husband, Jean, had already been brought from Crécy with wounds far less severe than those suffered by Blackstone but, like many battle injuries, they were life-threatening. Hours earlier the two men had fought on opposing sides without knowing of the other’s existence; now they were to be nursed beneath the same roof. The women took control and ushered Sir Godfrey out, to return to his army’s march towards Calais. The castle gates of Noyelles were barred. The young Englishman was safe in the house of his enemy’s family until he either recovered or died.

  War had dealt the young archer a hand that was to change his destiny.

  Part 2

  Wolf Sword

  12

  Death hovered in the shadows, like a raven waiting to pluck the soul of the wounded Blackstone.

  In that timeless place of misery he fought the rearing demons that swirled from the battlefield in his mind. His haunting screams reverberated through the corridors of Noyelles until, finally, he fell silent and they thought him dead.

  Christiana could feel no pulse in his body. She called for a servant to rouse the sleeping physician, shouting to hurry the fool along until her threats carried him away into the darkness with a flickering torch to guide back the only man who could save the wounded archer. Her cries of alarm echoed down the passageways and roused servants from where they lay next to the kitchen hearth, or in doorways close to their mistress. Torches flared, doors slammed open as feet scuffed their way across stone floors. Blanche de Harcourt gathered her gown about her and urged the servant who walked a step ahead with the spluttering flame to move more quickly.

  Master Jordan of Canterbury, roused by his attendants, berated them loudly for interrupting his sleep. He recanted, keep­ing his curses to himself, when told of the urgency and the young archer’s lack of breath in his body. Why his great King had suffered him to attend to this broken boy was beyond his comprehension. In the name of God, he was Edward of England’s personal physician who attended him in the splendour of Windsor Castle, where gold-spun tapestries hung next to the paintings of great Italian artists. The privies had running water, there was warmth and comfort, and even on a war expedition the King of England dined as a monarch should. Not so here. Not so the simple platters of meat and rough-grain bread – not a decent piece of well-milled white loaf to be had. But now he, Jordan of Canterbury, who, lest anyone forget, also attended the King’s mother, Isabella, at Hertford Castle – so great was his standing within the royal family – was now obliged to stay in a Norman castle. These bare timber and stone walls held the cold like a corpse fished from the river in winter. These sur­round­ings mocked the concept of noble luxury. He shivered in his misery and yearned for King Edward’s hearth. When he arrived, breathless from the steps that led up to Blackstone’s room, he was forced to wait a moment before lowering his face to that of his patient. His own heart needed to ease its pounding before he could determine if Blackstone’s had been taken by the Almighty. He felt the archer’s cold skin for any sign of fever or warmth that might indicate life. There was none.

  ‘A bowl and water! Here!’ he commanded one of his attendants.

  The room’s confinement seemed doubly crowded as the shadows of those present jostled one another. He turned to Christiana, who stood in the doorway, gaunt with despair, as Blanche de Harcourt comforted her with an arm around her shoulder. The countess’s feelings about the common archer were well known.

  ‘My lady, it might be that God has released both the de Harcourt family and me from our onerous duty,’ he said.

  His smile of feigned sympathy and shared aggrievement was met with her snapping response. ‘My lord and husband lies in his bed, still sleeping from the draught that eases the pain of his own wounds. I serve him and his commands as you serve your King, Master Jordan. Is his command onerous?’

  The physician bowed his head, chastised, and hoped that his remark would not filter back to the King through his attendants’ gossip.

  He was saved from further embarrassment by the servant return­ing with a half-filled bowl of water. Master Jordan took it and then balanced it carefully on Blackstone’s chest. They waited in the flickering light, peering at the smooth surface for any sign of vibration from the heart. There was nothing. The physician turned away to go back to his warm bed, his duty done.

  Thomas Blackstone was dead.

  Deep within himself the wounded archer felt a soft embrace and comfort, a gentle warmth he had never before experienced. It was a place of safety so temptingly close. All he had to do was yield to its seductive embrace. He slid further into its comfort and the soft glow of oblivion. But the animal instinct within him clawed at his mind. To turn away from that place meant a return to the bear pit of pain. The warmth was death, the pain meant life. Like a fragment of broken spearhead, his mind thrust back into the entanglement of despair.

  ‘My lord!’ the attendant called.

  There was the faintest of ripples across the water’s surface.

  Noyelles was safe for the time being. The English had moved north to besiege Calais, and ironically, Blackstone’s presence had guaran­teed the de Harcourts’ safety. For three days Christiana and Master Jordan had attended to Blackstone. With the help of servants they had cut away his blood-soaked clothes and bathed his naked body until the wounds could be laid bare. Fever had gripped him and as the furnace threatened to consume him they tied his wrists and ankles to the bed’s frame so that in his delirium he would not aggravate his wounds. Christiana had followed the physician’s instructions, swabbing the gaping wounds with a mixture of egg yolks, rose oil and turpentine, lay­ing a thick poultice of the mixture down the leg whose muscle lay slashed. Now the leg wound was cleansed but still malleable for closing.

  The physician prepared to stitch and bind the gaping wounds. ‘I cannot save his face. It will be disfigured when the muscles tighten against the stitching. ’Tis a pity, I can see he had strong features.’ He eased away the poultice from the leg wound and from a bowl of wine wit
hdrew a yard of gut, stripped from a pig’s intestine. His assistant threaded it into a curved needle.

  Christiana regarded it uncertainly; curved like a fisherman’s awl, it looped the stitches, piercing Blackstone’s leg wound. Blanche de Harcourt eased her away. ‘Let Master Jordan do his work, child.’

  ‘The leg muscle needs to be held tight,’ Christiana said, ‘but if they use that on his face he’ll look grotesque.’

  She stepped back into the room. ‘Sir, if you seal his wounds will you allow me to attend to his face? I mean no disrespect to you, Master Jordan, but a smaller hand that can hem a silk gown with barely a noticeable stitch might cause less disfigurement.’

  For a moment the King’s physician looked uncertainly at her. No woman he had known had ever attended battlefield wounds. It was unseemly.

  ‘This is not work for you. It is best suited to a barber-surgeon on a battlefield. I am here at my lord’s request.’

  Christiana bristled, but was conscious of the authority the King of England’s physician held. She lowered her eyes momentarily in a small gesture to acknowledge the fact, and then faced him, determined that her reasoning should be considered.

  ‘My sensibilities will not be harmed, sir, I have already helped bathe him and wash the congealed blood from those wounds. His body is not a mystery to me. I have attended him these past three days with barely a moment’s sleep. I have never left his side. I owe this boy my life as does your Prince. It’s a paltry request to try to save him from having the twisted, half-blind face of an ogre. Should King Edward and his son see the boy again, let his features not repel them. I have fine silk thread that will bind the skin tightly.’

  Master Jordan looked at her and then to Blanche de Harcourt. ‘This girl is in your care, my lady. Is she normally so forward?’

  ‘I fear she is, but it can do no harm, surely?’

  ‘Surely,’ the physician was obliged to agree with a nod of his head. ‘Very well, I will instruct you, and if you save his face from looking like a split, overripe plum, I shall, of course, take the credit.’

  ‘And if I fail, sir, I will declare that I did it without your know­ledge,’ Christiana answered.

  ‘Then we are in agreement. And if he lives I should hope this boy comes to realize how blessed he is – having a King and a beautiful young woman care so much for his well-being.’

  As the hours wore on she watched the physician knit the wounds together as a suckling pig’s belly would be threaded with cord for roasting. It was crude, but efficient work. When the King’s doctor had finished she was left alone with Master Jordan’s apothecary, and helped him administer a trickle of hemlock and mandrake between Blackstone’s lips to ease the pain.

  Christiana then carefully pulled together the slash on his face. The gall rose into her throat but she spat onto the reed floor and steadied her hands and then, slowly and with great deliberation, pressed the needle into his skin.

  After attending to Blackstone’s wounds Master Jordan returned to the English army besieging Calais. Sir Godfrey arranged an armed escort to take his nephew, Jean de Harcourt, along with his family and a few men of his retinue who had survived the slaughter, further south to Castle de Harcourt, where the family with­drew behind the safety of its walls. French honour and hospital­ity dictated that Count Jean de Harcourt, the surviving son and now head of the family, have his household treat Thomas Blackstone with respect. He was no longer a yeoman archer from a shire in England; he had been knighted by a King’s son. The honour conferred by royal hand for courage on the field of battle held greater status than any other merit. Sir Godfrey, Jean’s uncle, may have fought against his own family when he sided with the English, but Jean’s loyalty to his own father at the battle of Crécy was simply that: honour for his father’s sake.

  ‘Why is the boy not quartered closer to us?’ de Harcourt asked nearly a month later. His own wounds were healing and he now walked unaided.

  His wife looked up from her needlepoint; the dogs dozing by the fire ran to their master as he entered the great hall. He ignored them and repeated the question, his irritation noticeable, before she could answer.

  ‘He’s a common man, Jean. We cannot have him in our com­pany,’ she said quickly, not wishing to risk his displeasure.

  ‘I am master of this house, and head of this family, Blanche. I have been charged with this boy’s welfare by Godfrey, and he in turn by the English King. Where is he?’

  ‘He’s in the north tower, my lord.’

  De Harcourt turned his back and did not close the big doors behind him. The draught could blow through the room for all he cared. Autumn was already upon them.

  Jean de Harcourt limped along the corridor that led to the unheated room where Blackstone had been quartered. The room was empty, the bed had not been slept in. He peered out of the narrow window. In the courtyard Christiana walked slowly alongside a horse, holding it by its halter. On the other side Blackstone gripped the horse’s mane with one hand, to support himself as he limped painfully, forcing his injured leg to bear more weight each day. In less than a month Blackstone had fought the pain of his injuries and punished himself back almost to strength.

  De Harcourt noticed the sword that had accompanied the wounded archer leaning against the wall and picked it up, feeling its fine balance against his palm, its delicate weight tipping slightly. It was the work of a master swordmaker and in the right hands would kill and maim with an efficiency that any man-at-arms would admire. He wielded it quickly left and right, the cutting edge rippling the air. It was one of the finest swords he had seen, and despite the fact that it was a weapon that only a wealthy and accomplished knight could afford Sir Godfrey had told him that Blackstone had taken it from such a knight and then slaughtered him with it – a brutal, unforgiving act, when a ransom could have been claimed despite no quarter being offered by either side at Crécy. A chance of wealth denied no matter the circumstances. And yet he knew that before the great battle, when Sir Godfrey had visited the castle at Noyelles, Blackstone had saved the life of a young page, and tried to help the boy’s wounded master. A bewildering contradiction: compassion and brutality were seldom brothers-in-arms. And now this barbarian archer was in the care of his family. He replaced the sword and looked down to where Christiana turned the horse. Now he could see Blackstone more clearly; there was grim determination set upon the boy’s battered features, the wound’s livid welt discolouring half his face into a blackened and yellowing mass. Blackstone’s hair was matted with sweat from the effort of hauling himself along. He wore only a long undershirt, the bandaging on his wounded leg not yet allowing breeches or hose. He heard Christiana’s voice echo across the courtyard.

  ‘That’s enough for today, Thomas. You must rest now and let me attend to your leg.’

  Blackstone shook his head. ‘Once more. There and back. Across the yard,’ he told her. Despite her protestations Blackstone urged the horse to walk on, and despite his pain stayed silent, forcing the leg muscles to challenge the wound.

  De Harcourt gazed at the boy, one of the thousands who had faced him at Crécy; the English archers who had rained death on him and the cream of French chivalry. Their savage killing of wounded knights thrown down in that hailstorm was renowned and the thought of their brutal tactics made his gorge rise. His own wounds were nothing compared to Blackstone’s, but they had confined him to his rooms for weeks, until he now felt strong enough to appear before his family and retainers again.

  It was time to meet his enemy.

  Blackstone sat on a small barrel in the stables as Christiana unwound the sticky bandage from his leg. From a linen bag she pulled out a roll of narrow cloth and a pot of salve. The long slice of wound that ran down his thigh was puckered and oozing pus from where the stitches held it. Using a small-bladed knife she began to pick at the wound, suddenly alarmed when she felt his leg wince.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, reaching up for his hand.

  He smiled. ‘It’s n
othing – it’s tender where the flesh is still raw, that’s all. It’s healing and that’s good.’

  A shadow filled the doorway and Christiana quickly got to her feet as de Harcourt stood in the entrance.

  ‘My lord,’ she said.

  Blackstone did not move for a moment but then hauled himself to his feet, not once taking his eyes off the man who might well control his life or death.

  ‘Christiana, there are servants who can attend to that,’ de Harcourt said.

  ‘It’s delicate, my lord, I would prefer to do it myself. I have to pluck the maggots from the wound.’

  De Harcourt knew of using maggots to eat away the poisoned flesh, but had never taken such action himself. ‘You do this each day?’

  Christiana nodded. ‘The servants bring in rabbits and crows; they gut them and when they are infested we take the maggots and put them into Thomas’s wound. That and the salve that Master Jordan’s apothecary left with us.’

  De Harcourt nodded, but all the while in his questioning of her he held Blackstone’s gaze. Blackstone saw a man of about thirty years, wiry with a taut, knotted body. He was shorter than Blackstone by five or six inches and wisps of grey were evident in his beard; his hair grew long into the nape of his neck. His hands showed criss-crossed white lines, old scars from fighting. Now he limped, leaning on a gnarled hand-cut stick, but despite that, Blackstone realized, he was undiminished in stature.

  ‘Do that later,’ he said to Christiana.

  For a moment she hesitated, the two men opposite each other, de Harcourt the stronger of the two, with the lesser wounds and a knife at his belt. Christiana turned away with barely a glance at Blackstone. De Harcourt waited a moment and then eased himself onto an upright sack of grain.