Master of War

by David Gilman

  ‘You understand it?’ de Harcourt asked.

  ‘It’s geometry,’ he answered.

  ‘It’s heresy. The Holy Church bans dissection, but that was done by a Muslim physician before my father was born. Now when you fight a man you think of that and strike accordingly. Keep it to yourself.’ He turned his face away; he had now given the young archer everything he needed to kill effectively.

  ‘Is that leg ready yet to straddle a horse?’ de Harcourt asked.

  ‘I believe so, lord,’ said Blackstone hopefully.

  ‘Then it needs to be tested. It’s time you got out from behind these walls. I’ll have a groom pick out a horse that won’t throw you.’

  Blackstone could barely believe his luck. At last he was being allowed freedom from the castle; not only that but it was to be with the hunt.

  ‘All right, Thomas, go and clean off that filth and change. Take the drawing to your room to study later.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Blackstone said, unable to find any other words to express his gratitude for the Saracen’s drawing and the chance to ride out. ‘But I’ve never used a spear against wild boar – or anything, come to that.’

  ‘You won’t have to. Personal protection is all you’ll need. Bring that sword of yours. You ride with the women and the pageboys.’

  Blackstone’s heart sank. ‘The women? Can’t I hunt with the men?’

  ‘Don’t test my generosity, Thomas. The women need protecting at the rear. You and the pageboys should be able to manage that, don’t you think?’

  And so Blackstone had sluiced the stench of sweat from his body and changed his clothes, but rode behind the ladies as they followed their knights. De Harcourt had found a scabbard for Wolf Sword that now hung from the horse’s pommel. It was the first time he had taken the sword from his quarters and he felt a strange mixture of pride and self-consciousness. Before he slid the pointed blade into its covering he felt a twinge of uncertainty. Sir Gilbert had taught him to keep his sword ready, but this was not combat and to parade the fine weapon was unnecessary. For a few spellbound moments he held its perfect balance, the weight positioned below the crossguard allowing the blade the freedom to do its work. It seemed a shame to hide its beauty, but he slid it into the scabbard.

  Food and drink was carried by the pages and the oldest of them, including the ten-year-old Guillaume, were given the task of laying out the blankets and coverings for the midday refreshment of which the hunters would partake. The day would be short and the light gone within a few hours, but wood was gathered and fires lit for the winter picnic beneath a sapphire-clear sky. A cry went up as a roe deer was flushed from a coppice into an open meadow and the women spurred their horses to surge after their men. The startled creature darted left and right, zigzagging away from the yelling men. The dogs howled but were restrained by their handlers. A deer was an easy kill. The women shouted their encouragement.

  ‘Louis! It’s yours!’ Henri Livay called to de Vitry as the deer gracefully evaded his efforts to spear it.

  Once again the terrified animal veered left and right, skit­tishly unset­tling the horses’ strides. Blackstone kept pace with the women whose gowns and headdresses fluttered behind them. Like angel wings, Blackstone thought as he guided the horse closer to Christiana’s. The look on her face, though, was anything but angelic. Eyes wide, gasping for breath with the excitement of the impending kill, she and Blanche de Harcourt rode side by side, laughing with lust for the deer’s death. Her passion for the hunt caught him unawares and in that moment his own longing for her deepened. A wild thought ran through his head: if he could separate Christiana from the others he’d take her to a glade and lay down a blanket where he would undress her slowly and smother her shivering body with his own. Could there be a better time to slake their lust? he wondered.

  Those thoughts took his attention off the hunt for a few scant seconds, long enough for his horse to veer sharply from a tufted clump of grass for no apparent reason. As the shouts of victory and the baying cry of the speared and dying animal travelled across the field, Blackstone’s foot came free of the stirrup, his balance shifted and his wild grab at the horse’s mane could not save him from tumbling into space. It seemed a long time before he hit the ground that rushed up to greet him, but when he did it felt like a mighty hammer blow that knocked the wind out of him.

  He could hear the hoof beats pounding away, their vibration trembling through the ground into his spine. Richard Blackstone had been able to feel the sound of trumpet and drum, perhaps this was what it was like when his brother died in his silent world, Blackstone thought, as he lay unmoving in silence, his ears flooded with the pulsing of his own blood. He groaned and eased himself up.

  The dogs could barely be restrained by their handlers as the deer’s throat was cut by one of the runners, its blood spurting from its dying heartbeat. De Vitry’s spear was yanked from the carcass and the servants set about gutting the animal before its eyes had even glazed in death. They would be given the heart and liver as a special Christmas treat and the lungs would go to the dogs when the hunt returned home. By the time Blackstone noted all of this his horse had been caught by one of the men, and the group’s attention turned back to where he staggered to his feet. The laughter that greeted his hobbling stance felt like a barrage of arrow shafts flying across the meadow.

  He saw one of the squires holding his horse and then de Harcourt’s gestures indicated that Christiana was to take the horse back to Blackstone. Clearly the men thought Blackstone deserved the additional humiliation of having his mount returned by a woman. He smiled foolishly as she got closer, and then laughed as she pulled the horse up sharply. She was scowling so much that plumes of breath funnelled from her nostrils.

  ‘You think this is funny?’ she said angrily.

  ‘You look so ferocious, Christiana, like a snorting devil,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong? Didn’t you join everyone else to laugh at my misfortune?’

  She threw down his reins. ‘Can my embarrassment get any worse? You were thrashed this morning by Count de Vitry and now you fall from a docile palfrey? These people are laughing at you, Thomas. You’re not an English peasant any longer; you’re in the company of men of rank. Riding a horse is the least skill demanded of you.’

  Blackstone took the reins and steadied the horse and spoke to her as if he were already her lord and husband. ‘Don’t act like a child. I had the better of de Vitry. Those barons are masters of hypocrisy, Christiana. They play a game of divided loyalties and one day either my King or yours will make them pay. They’re a squirming nest of adders and I wouldn’t trust any of them. Are they your kind of people?’

  ‘I’m my father’s only child and he served his lord faithfully and sent me here for safekeeping!’

  ‘That doesn’t make you one of them! Are you embarrassed or ashamed? There’s a difference.’

  His challenge confused her, which made her angrier still. She wheeled her horse and rode back to where the hunting party waited for her. Blackstone pulled himself into the saddle, wishing more than anything that he was back with his own kind. How far was it to Calais? he wondered.

  The day grew shorter, with only a few hours remaining before the sun dipped below the treetops. The clear sky would have made a glorious day for falconry, but none had been taken out, the sole purpose of today’s hunt being to provide meat from the forest, especially boar, for the Christmas table. Blackstone had meandered with the women, some of whom were beginning to complain about the cold as the shafts of light narrowed, taking what little warmth remained with them. Now that they moved through the forest Blackstone’s senses sharpened and he stayed vigilant. He quietly guided the horse through saplings and mature trees, remembering another forest across the river at Blanchetaque when he pulled Christiana to freedom away from the Bohemian soldiers. It was easy to hide in woodland; if a man stayed still it was almost impossible for him to be seen. Even slow movement was masked by the trees and now he feared outlaws who might run
from a thicket and pull him from his horse. Then those he protected would be vulnerable and he would have failed in his duty. Turning the horse in and out between the trees he kept the splashes of colour from the women’s garments and the shadows of the pages who diligently followed them in sight. The women’s chatter still carried so that when his eyes looked through the forest, tree to tree, yard by yard, penetrating the woodland, his ears placed their whereabouts.

  The men’s distant voices were muffled by the trees as they called to each other. They had obviously split up and their shouts told others where each man was, or thought they were. Henri Livay was lost, and as he called Blackstone heard a distant shout that sounded like Guy de Ruymont telling him where to ride. Then silence fell again, leaving only the crunch of horse’s hooves on the forest floor and the calls of birds going to roost.

  They passed through clearings, treeless islands where foresters had once camped. Luxuriant ferns blanketed the ground where deer had not grazed. Bramble thickets crept into these places, as did the failing sun, but Blackstone saw no sign of habitation, no cold embers of fires long past, and if men still used this part of the forest they would have camped here for the warmth the sunlight offered and a soft bed of ferns. As he turned the horse into the clearing a scream shattered the quiet as dogs yelped and barked, then fell silent. The women quickly reined in their startled horses, their own cries of alarm stifled as the man’s scream intensified. Men’s distant voices cried out, desperately seeking the location of the terrifying sounds.

  ‘Into the clearing! Now!’ Blackstone yelled, driving the horse forward, forcing the women into the open space. Blanche de Harcourt’s spirited courser veered away violently from the mêlée as the women whipped and reined their horses into the middle of the open ground. Blackstone’s injured leg crushed against its flank, but he ignored the pain and grabbed her bridle, his strength forcing the horse to behave.

  ‘Encircle! Arm yourselves!’ he shouted to the pages who, despite their youth, showed no sign of panic as they obeyed his command. The screaming became louder and then suddenly stopped. In that chilling moment of silence, barely a heartbeat passed before the disparate voices, closer than before, called again, and were muffled as a horse’s anguished whinnying screeched from the depth of the forest. Blackstone had heard those death throes on the battlefield when the English lanced and disembowelled the French war horses.

  ‘Help me! Here!’ a man’s voice begged. And again: ‘Here!’

  ‘That’s Jean!’ Blanche de Harcourt cried, pulling the reins towards the cry.

  ‘Stay here!’ Blackstone shouted at her without any regard for her rank, cuffing her horse’s head, forcing it back into the throng of riders as he spurred his horse forward. It was pure instinct that forced him on through the trees, bending low across the horse’s withers as branches whipped at him. The old palfrey served him well, fearlessly pushing through the forest as Blackstone yanked him this way and that to avoid the trees.

  Sunlight splintered the woodland where it had been coppiced and the unmistakable metallic taste of spilt blood caught at the back of his throat. His horse fought the reins as he broke through the saplings into an oasis of light, not unlike the clearing he had just left. What lay before him was a gladiatorial arena of gore-splattered ferns. A man’s torso lay ripped apart, his gaunt death mask hinged on a broken neck, arms akimbo as his fists curled into the fern stems. Much of the area was trampled. The dead man was one of de Harcourt’s dog handlers and two of the hounds lay dead with him. Less than fifty paces away a dense bramble thicket as high as a horse blanketed the far side of the clearing. Here and there new tree growth had pushed its way through the ferns and Jean de Harcourt lay pinned beneath a horse so badly injured it could barely raise its head.

  Standing off the corpses and the entrapped man was a wild boar slaked in blood from a spear wound to its neck, its flanks heaving from exertion. When they were growing up Blackstone and his brother had run through Lord Marldon’s forests, snaring rabbits and squirrels for the pot, and watched the hunt from their hiding places, but the nobles had never killed a boar bigger than a growing boy or one that stood higher than a man’s knee. This creature was more frightening than any sword-wielding man. The cornered beast had defended itself and its malevolent eyes showed nothing more than an animal in fear of its life as they fastened onto the intruder. Blackstone fought the frightened horse, which pushed him against a tree, the lower branches scratching at his face. Easing himself onto the ground he let the horse run from its terror, his own mouth dry from fear, the only comfort was his hand squeezing the sword’s grip so tightly that his knuckles ached. What use was a damned sword, he thought, killing it would be easy if I could draw a bow. I’d nock a broadhead arrow and the beast would be shot through. No one need get hurt. But there was no bow, no archer’s arm to hold it. The day could end badly and it could end in the next couple of minutes.

  The boar must have been more than twice Blackstone’s weight, at least four hundred pounds, and stood higher than a cloth-yard arrow, taller than a man’s hip. Judging from the sprawled remains of the dead man the boar was longer than six feet. Its tusks and snout were smothered in flesh and blood from its victims, but other than the slight movement of its head as it watched Blackstone edge closer to de Harcourt, it remained motionless. Blackstone prayed that by moving slowly he would allow the boar to escape and either turn back into the bramble thicket to hide or run through the saplings that lay behind his right shoulder.

  De Harcourt lay still, face turned to watch the Englishman’s wary approach.

  ‘Is your leg broken?’ Blackstone asked, in what seemed barely a whisper.

  ‘No. Trapped. I wounded him. He went to ground in the thicket. I swear it ambushed us,’ he said quietly.

  All Blackstone wanted to do was to get out of the boar’s way and give it a clear run past him. He had no interest in killing it and he sensed that if he moved slowly it would give them all a chance of life, but as he shuffled carefully through the ferns that snagged at his ankles, he looped the leather thong around his wrist from the sword’s crossguard. If the boar charged it would take all his strength to keep hold of the sword and the blood knot would give him a second chance should it be yanked from his grip.

  ‘Christ Jesus, Thomas… use the spear,’ de Harcourt hissed. ‘You’ll never stop it if it charges.’

  Blackstone saw the spear shaft lying a dozen feet away, half tangled in the ferns. He shook his head. ‘Too far. It’ll be on me as soon as I give it a chance.’ Each thud of his heart pounded through his brain like the hammer on a bell. It rang out the moments before death was surely upon him. He eased further away, barely daring to look at the wounded boar. Had the spear thrust weakened it or enraged it? For an animal that grubbed roots and worms it seemed more dangerous than a carnivorous wolf.

  Four more heartbeats and Blackstone thought he had moved far enough away but then the crashing sound of a horse pushing through the undergrowth changed everything. A horseman forced his way through the forest’s edge and the startled boar charged straight at Blackstone, who still stood in the way of its escape. It came at him head down, tusks ready to slash. Black­stone’s heart banged against his ribs so hard he could barely breathe. Thoughts flashed through his mind, telling him his leg might not allow a quick pivot to one side, and if he fell there would be no defence. There was no time even to consider what action to take. All the lessons he had endured disappeared from his mind as he instinctively raised the sword with a double-handed grip, his crooked left arm bent at the elbow, the blade held high across his shoulder.

  He could smell the wild pig’s laboured breath, which billowed into the chill air. Like a premonition he knew, right at that moment, that a strike from this high guard could not save him. Choose your ground! There was a mound pushing up the ferns, several paces ahead, and he realized it was a fallen tree, rotten, barely knee high and long consumed by the foliage. Perhaps it had even been responsible for Harcourt’s horse goi
ng down. Blackstone leapt forward, straight at the charging boar. If it didn’t veer away from the attack it would have to jump across the tree. He dropped to one knee, buried his fist and the sword’s pommel into the ground and took the boar full on as its forelegs rose up. The speed and weight of the charge threw him backwards, and the mighty boar trampled over him. A sudden, blurred image of the vicious yellow tusks passed close to his face, as he felt his chest and arm muscles wrenched from the impact as the blood knot tightened on his wrist. Pulling himself in like a hedgehog he gathered the blade to him, hugging it as a drowning man in a violent sea cradles a lifesaving piece of wood.

  The stench of foul liquid spurted over him. He rolled clear and got to one knee, telling himself he was still alive and that if the tusks had cut him he didn’t yet feel the pain. The boar went on for another three yards, then crumpled, snout first into the deep ferns, its back legs kicking for purchase, a pitiful, grunting scream coming from its gaping jaws. Blackstone’s sword had taken it in the chest, its momentum burying the honed steel deeper into its innards.

  Blackstone stepped forward, swung down the blade in a high, sweeping arc and severed the head.

  He stood over the slain beast for a moment, and then dropped a hand to his tunic and breeches. The gore and liquid were not his. His hands began to shake as he sank to his knees and wiped the blade against the foliage, staying hunched down to let the moment pass.

  It had been William de Fossat who had crashed through the trees and watched helplessly as the young Englishman took the boar’s charge. He had dismounted the moment Blackstone killed the boar and dispatched his friend’s horse with a knife thrust, and then eased de Harcourt from under the dead animal. Others soon arrived. Louis de Vitry dismounted and saw that there was nothing more to be done, the carnage told its own story and there was no need for explanation. Blanche de Harcourt forced her unwilling horse, skittish from the smell of death, into the clearing. Thanks to God were uttered as husband and wife embraced. Blackstone got to his feet and, without thinking, raised the talisman to his lips and kissed the Celtic goddess in thanks for her protection. Perhaps, he thought, God allowed angels and goddesses to share His kingdom so they might shadow the likes of him who constantly sinned through lack of prayer and who harboured doubt about His existence. The smeared blade cleaned easily, and as he undid the blood knot and turned his wrist the mark of the running wolf below the crossguard seemed to move, as if leaping after its prey. He ran his fingers through his matted hair, which stuck to the blood on his face, and then wiped his hand.