by David Gilman
When the defenders of Chaulion monastery recognized the rider, the gates opened and armed men gathered.
‘Perinne!’ Blackstone called as the long-serving soldier pushed his way through the men. ‘All’s well?’
‘Aye, m’lord. There’s been scum sniffing their way around the crossroads.’
‘Did they approach?’
‘Not here,’ said Perinne, one of the first defenders and wall builders at the monastery who had fought with Blackstone over the last decade. ‘They rode back and forth along the road; they could see they had no choice with the town and us held firm.’
‘Good. Keep the men alert. There’s a war coming our way and I’ll need you.’
A murmur of anticipation went through the men.
‘We’ll be ready, Sir Thomas.’
‘Was there any sign of my family with those men?’
‘None. Have they been taken, lord?’ Perinne asked; the men in the towns knew Blackstone’s family from the time they spent with them.
‘It’s not clear yet,’ he said, turning the horse. ‘I’ll ride to the town. Wait until Guinot sends my orders.’
He did not wait for a reply but spurred his horse down to what had been his and Christiana’s first home together when he had fought for and won Chaulion.
There were five such towns spread across the countryside, unofficial outposts held by Blackstone for the English King, each garrisoned by fifty or more of his men. Each town controlled the immediate area around it, which meant the roads and trading routes could be restricted or harassed. The strongholds provided buffer zones between the mostly undefended villages that lay scattered across the countryside. The English held Brittany and Gascony and Blackstone’s men held towns across Lower Normandy, some as far as the Périgord. Bastions of French noble houses were everywhere between, but offered no serious threat to the superior numbers holding the towns.
As he galloped down the road between town and monastery he kept his eyes on the forest ridge but there was no sign of raiders. Sentries called out his approach as horse and rider were recognized.
A thickset man with cropped grey hair and a face like worn leather grasped his master’s hand in greeting. Another defender led Blackstone’s horse to water.
‘What news, Guinot?’ Blackstone asked, relieved to see his commander again. His eyes scanned the walls, checking that each man was in his place, that the town was properly defended.
‘A trader came through and told us he’d heard Évreux and the citadel at Pont-Audemer are under siege by the King John’s troops. Lisieux may already have fallen. What’s happening?’
‘He’s striking at the Norman barons. He wants retribution, among other things.’
‘And you, Sir Thomas. He’s looking hard for you.’
‘You’ve seen men here?’
‘Aye, a hundred or more of ’em. They travelled the road between here and the monastery but they could see we held the advantage. They stayed through the day and most of the night. They made no attempt to attack. They asked for you. They demanded you go out to them or your family would be killed.’
‘Did they have my family?’ Blackstone asked.
The man shook his head. ‘If they had, Sir Thomas, they would have shown them to us. They were bluffing, but more riders joined them. I’ve kept extra men on the walls just in case the bastards come back.’
Blackstone nodded. Guillaume must have got his family away, but been unable to find a way to reach the safety of the town.
‘I’ll have men ready themselves to join you, my lord.’
‘No, hold the town, Guinot. King John will scourge the countryside. He doesn’t have an army in the field yet, so he won’t lay siege to towns far from Paris. That’s why he’s attacked the more strategic places. He’ll want a buffer between him and Brittany.’
The man grinned. ‘A war, m’lord? If King Edward returns that’s where he’ll come from – the west.’
‘Or through Calais, so John will have enough to do without tying up his men on my towns. That’s why we hold. If Edward comes he’ll need a line of defences in place.’
‘And that’s us,’ Guinot said, his despondency apparent.
Blackstone put a hand on the man’s shoulder. Fighting men profited from war, and to restrain them in peace needed a leader who could rein them in. Blackstone raised his voice so all the men could hear him. He told them what had happened at Rouen and the destruction of his own fortified house and village.
‘War will come and you will be needed. Stand fast and be ready for when I send for you.’
The Gascon held the horse’s bridle as Blackstone climbed into the saddle. He knew there was little point in suggesting Blackstone take rest and food, but that there was great danger was apparent.
‘Reconsider, Sir Thomas. You need men with you. Let me put some horsemen on the road as escort. If you’re being hunted you’ll need help.’
Blackstone shook his head. ‘I’ll be less noticed and can move faster on my own. Guillaume and my family won’t go any further to the east. If these roads were blocked by King John’s men then he’ll know he can’t get through to any of the other towns. He’ll be in hiding or he’ll push south. The further he goes the better chance he has of meeting up with the vanguard of Prince Edward’s army.’
‘They’re hundreds of miles away,’ the man said. ‘More than a week’s hard riding.’
‘Hope is spurred by desperation,’ Blackstone answered. ‘Send word to Meulon and Gaillard; let them know that the lord they once served, Count de Harcourt, has been butchered by the King. Have the men in the towns ready for my orders. The killing has only just begun.’
24
Blackstone rode for three days and nights and on the fourth day crossed a high ridge as he watched a hundred horsemen or more on the road in the valley below. They were routiers and when they reached a crossroads they separated into groups of half a dozen or more men. They were widening their search. Whichever way he went he was going to run into some of the widely scattered enemy who hunted him. He gazed across the horizon searching out anything that might help him decide on which direction to take next.
He could see reflected light from a river several miles away and remembered journeys he and Christiana had taken across these limestone mountains far from home. There were few towns or villages west of where he stood. Christiana might have remembered and taken the children away from the dense woodlands. There was greater safety in the chestnut forests, but his family’s speed of escape would be hampered and they’d need food and shelter. If she and Guillaume had gone down onto the plains they could seek safety from a nobleman who shared the same animosity towards the French King. There were many small towns and bastides, held by independent captains in allegiance to King Edward, whose walls might offer protection, but there were also as many garrisons held by those loyal to the French Crown. Would Guillaume have risked travelling through disputed territory or would he seek out a stronghold that might withstand an assault from rapacious routiers who would have no siege weapons, preferring to attack less defensible villages? Blackstone remembered a monastery that stood on a rocky outcrop overlooking a river. Perhaps the half-dozen men who rode towards the river knew of it, and would lie in wait for anyone approaching it. Blackstone’s options were getting fewer by the day and, unless good fortune continued to favour him, the scattered groups of men might sooner or later stumble upon him or his family. Blackstone touched the silver image of the goddess at his neck and asked for her protection. And then he asked God as well.
He occasionally lost sight of the men he followed as he was forced to change his route across the jagged gorges, but their movement gave them away and he waited patiently, silently watching as they stopped to eat and drink, hearing only voices being carried faintly on the wind. He heard no mention of his family or what the men’s intentions were. They rode on without diversion, neither searching forest trails that were little more than animal tracks, nor turning off from the route that wou
ld eventually bring them to the crossroads that commanded the roads into the monastery. The day wore on until murky twilight settled and the men finally rode through a forest of alder and ash, close to the river’s edge, and disappeared from view once more.
Blackstone eased his horse off the track into the soft undergrowth. As he reached the forest edge he dismounted and tied the reins. He waited, his stillness reassuring the horse, and his hand across its muzzle ensuring its silence. Then, stepping quietly and slowly, he eased through copses of alder saplings, his footfalls muffled by the rustling trees and swaying bulrushes.
The six men gathered around a smoking fire, squatting upwind from the drifting smoke, their backs to their tethered horses. Thirty yards away, his image broken by trees, Blackstone eased through the smoke’s veil, its movement blurring his own. The horses would not pick up his scent, and the men, one or two already unsteady from drink, were gazing into the fire, fussing and worrying it. As the breeze funnelled down the river it veered into the bank and swirled for a moment before continuing its journey. The men swore as smoke smothered them. They edged around to change position and paid no attention to a whinnying horse that finally caught the smell of the stranger who was now only a few yards away, using the twisting, choking smoke to hide his attack.
Blackstone ran forward and swung Wolf Sword. Two men died before they saw their silent attacker. Sudden cries of alarm gave impetus to the others’ desperate scramble. A third stumbled in his haste to draw his sword from the scabbard; a distant memory of being told to abandon a scabbard when going into battle flashed through Blackstone’s mind. But these men were caught completely unawares. For them there was no threat and no expectation that a single man, the hunted, would become the hunter. The man fell beneath Blackstone’s sword stroke and for a moment he was disadvantaged, withdrawing the blade as the others found their weapons and attacked. Their grunting curses spurred them on, but Blackstone easily sidestepped the first man, who stumbled past him and sprawled across the fire. He plunged the blade into the other, turned to the one who had stumbled and kicked him hard in the face, feeling the man’s cheekbones break. As the man rolled away in agony Blackstone drew the blade across the back of the man’s legs, hamstringing him. There would be no escape from the vengeance. The last of the men hesitated, turned to run, tripped and lost his sword. He scrambled to his feet with the scar-faced knight only paces behind him. He got as far as the shallows, but the power of his pursuer meant he had only seconds to live. He half turned, about to beg for mercy, but the blade swung down and a bloodied pool seeped down into the marsh as the broken bulrush stems caught his body.
Blackstone walked back to the half-conscious man who was trying to hold his shattered jaw in place. Blackstone knelt next to him and grabbed a handful of hair. ‘Who leads you? Who is the King paying?’
The man, his mouth filled with blood, tried to splutter an answer. The force of Blackstone’s blow had rendered him incapable of speech. But a single whispered word was forming through the broken teeth. Blackstone twisted the man’s hair into a tighter grip and lowered his face to hear more clearly. It sounded like the word priest. Then the man laughed and spat blood into his face. Blackstone killed him quickly.
Tiredness and hunger were beginning to take their toll. Blackstone brought his horse forward, then separated the dead men’s horses, tying them in pairs around the perimeter of where he would spend the night. No matter from what direction anyone might approach, the horses would raise the alarm. He kept his own horse close to him. He rebuilt the fire and pushed river stones closer into the ash bed. The men had enough food in their packs, so he ate and drank, and then lay, sword in hand, with his back to the warm boulders. Tomorrow, he promised himself, he would find his family.
The rustling leaves taunted him with their ghostly whispers until he finally surrendered to a fitful sleep.
He awoke before dawn, stiff from the damp night. Mist smothered the land in an eerie half-light, dressing the stiffened bodies in gossamer shrouds. The horse raised its head as he approached. It would be a long, slow day’s ride with the added danger of meeting more horsemen without warning. Once he had cut the dead men’s horses loose, he oriented himself, trying to keep the unseen river to one side, letting his memory guide him. Years earlier he and Christiana had travelled these forests and valleys. There were many places where the limestone mountains were cut by gorges. They had swum naked in cool pools and made love beneath the shade of the broad-leafed trees. He knew the river meandered to the sea and that the monastery was built up on the edge of the escarpment at a place where the waterway’s deep waters curved gently. The monks had been there for centuries, the river serving them for trade. If Guillaume had been forced to travel this far south Christiana might have remembered the monastery and sought sanctuary within its stout walls. Where else could they hide for days without food and water? The scattered villages and bastides of the area were loyal to King John, and they in turn would give shelter to the killers. If Blackstone’s family attempted to reach one of the fortified towns garrisoned by loyal Gascons they would be hard pressed to get through those hamlets without being seen. The forests and mountains offered their greatest chance of concealment, but also the greatest danger of stumbling upon King John’s marauders.
The day wore on at an agonizingly slow pace, but he could still smell the salt tang drifting from the brackish water of the distant river. The freshening breeze swirled the fog and, as the road turned up into the foothills, he soon lost his bearings. The midday sun burned the high ground free of the mist and he caught glimpses of trees, their tips piercing the stubborn blanket that still lay across the low ground. He reined in the horse frequently and sat listening for the jingle of a bridle or the creak of a saddle. He thought the other groups would, like the men he had killed the previous night, be camped, waiting for the wind to clear the mist. They would not search for him or his family until they could see the lie of the land. There seemed no respite from the clinging damp – and then he heard men’s laughter and sensed that they were close: a hundred paces or less, he thought. However, there was no smell of a fire and no movement from horses. Six or sixty men might be paces from him. The scuff of a hoof might be enough to tempt the killers from their camp, so he eased his horse away, climbing higher across the sound-deadening bracken. The old wounds in his left arm complained and, as they often did, turned his thoughts back to the slaughter of Crécy, and those final minutes of rage and terror in the mêlée of battle. During the past ten years there had seldom been a day when his mind did not see or hear his brother’s death. There were nights when Christiana backed away in fear, rousing him from the nightmare. He had struck out once and hurt her and had never forgiven himself. Since then they had not spoken of the incident or the pain of his brother’s death-cries that haunted him. And now a vile King had butchered an enemy who had become his friend, sending a twisted creature to torture and kill. That same taste of bile he had known back then soured his mouth now.
Blackstone ignored the cold night air and, although the mist had lifted slightly, he remained wary. The road ahead disappeared into a narrow passageway between twenty-foot walls of rock where trees’ talon roots clung to its flanks and their spreading boughs overhung the track like vultures’ wings. It seemed a place of evil, and if men were encamped further along in the undergrowth, a fallen tree across the narrow path would give them the perfect ambush. Night creatures of this world and the next crept and scuttled through the tangled undergrowth. Blackstone eased the horse backwards, keeping his eyes on the malignant passage that surely led to the devil’s lair. He made the sign of the cross, then brought Arianrhod to his lips – superstition and instinctive fear should never be denied. Then a movement caught his eye. Had it not been for the darkened road ahead he might never have seen the brief flicker of light high in the rocky outcrops; it was a smudge of red bleeding into the soft veil that crept across the mountainside. He let his gaze settle and waited, and once again saw the blood-spot of
light. It was as if someone had opened and closed a door, shielding a fire. Perhaps it was a woodcutter’s hovel, or a shepherd’s hut. If it were horsemen camped for the night then there must have been another path further back that he had missed. He dismounted and led the horse upwards, sweating from the strenuous climb and grateful for the coolness of the night. Rain fell, blurring his vision, but it made no difference; there was no further sign of firelight. He was five hundred paces from where he believed the camp to be, but no matter how intently he stared into the darkness, there was no further glimmer, or any sign of men. Tethering his horse he picked his way through the rocks, looking back every ten paces to remember his route. Along the hillside a great shoulder of rock jutted out; it would be there that anyone wishing to shelter would be. A narrow animal track cut through fern and bracken and he followed its twisting route until he could step behind the slab of rock and ease himself around to the dark passage where the light flickered dimly. It was a cave entrance covered in a makeshift willow gate, laid with cut ferns. The caves were large enough for men and horses, and he reasoned there might even be tunnels offering another way in and out. There was no sound. No sentry. The men would be sleeping, secure in their mountain lair. A sudden, unexpected attack would kill at least half a dozen of them. If escape was needed he could retreat around the jagged shoulder, down the track and back into the trees. He had a clear picture in his mind of his approach, which would serve him just as well on his return. His left hand guided him along the rock face, his sword held ready to strike. Smoke seeped from behind the dense screen. The men inside would need to shift the wicker now and again to let the smoke escape. That was why he had seen the brief glimpse of fire glow. At least one man would be awake inside. As his hand reached out to rip the screen away the deep shadow moved in the fissure he had just passed. Too late, he felt the trickle of blood from the point of a sword blade at his neck. The men were better prepared than he had given them credit for.