Defiant Unto Death

by David Gilman

  Blackstone hesitated. ‘Then it’s a good thing God never sleeps, because the list is long.’

  ‘De Marcy rides south to Provence,’ the boy said, closing his eyes and bowing his head. ‘There is nothing left here to plunder.’

  Blackstone stepped out of the tent but his way was blocked by a sergeant-at-arms and an escort of ten men.

  ‘Sir Thomas,’ the sergeant said, ‘you will surrender your weapons. On my Prince’s command, you’re under arrest.’

  Blackstone stood before the marshals of the army in Edward’s pavilion. The Prince had bathed and changed; his armour was laid to one side, a table prepared for his meal. No one spoke as the Prince ran a hand carefully along the flat surface of Blackstone’s sword. His sullen mood belied the great victory he had just achieved.

  ‘Your violence is well regarded, Thomas, we value your skills in battle, and our gratitude has been generous, has it not?’

  ‘It has, my lord,’ Blackstone answered.

  ‘We have tolerated much, enduring your impudence with good humour and grace as befits our father’s son. And yet you persist in your disrespect. You defy a King’s surrender, you threaten his son who is under our protection and hospitality! You defy us!’ Prince Edward’s temper broke and he rammed the sword into the ground at Blackstone’s feet. ‘You are still a common man, Thomas, and ever will be. We will not hang you for your disrespect. But we will not tolerate you any further. Our battle is won. The towns you hold in our father’s name will no longer be yours, your plunder from this great victory will be forfeit and you are banished from our King’s realm and our territories in France. Our debt to you from those years ago is paid in full. Take your sword and your defiance elsewhere.’

  Guillaume laid his master’s habergeon across the war horse’s pommel. The mail had been scrubbed clean, as had his jupon, of bloodstains. A day wearing only a linen shirt beneath his leather jerkin would keep the iron links from rasping against the wounds on Blackstone’s back.

  Blackstone fixed his spurs as Killbere blew snot from his nose and then drank more of the wine looted by Will Longdon. ‘A servant saw you go into the boy’s pavilion. We’re getting careless, Thomas.’

  ‘It was a long day, Gilbert, but you’re right, I should have seen him.’

  ‘God spared a King and robbed you of your vengeance. It cannot be argued that Jean le Bon is not favoured – not to win a fight but to live on.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s saved for another day. Revenge is never discarded, Gilbert.’ He looked at his old mentor; words barely necessary. ‘I’ll bide my time,’ said Blackstone with a chilling edge to his voice.

  Killbere’s face creased. What if Blackstone took it upon himself to defy the Prince again and wait for darkness to try and strike at the French King?

  ‘Now, Thomas, let the bastard go. We are fighting men not skulking assassins.’ He grinned and grasped Blackstone’s arm. A restraint behind his meaning, lightness in his words. ‘Ah, what difference does it make now? You never got to de Marcy, Thomas. And you didn’t kill the King. And now both are beyond your reach.’

  ‘De Marcy will cross my path again.’

  Killbere saw that Blackstone was not to be convinced otherwise. ‘It’s a pitiful state of affairs, Thomas. You lost most of your men in the fight; others have looted enough to return to their whores and children. You’ve less than when you started. Serving England has its cost.’

  It was a bitter truth. Blackstone’s hard-won gains over the past ten years had been snatched away by a wave of belligerent defiance. He cared little for the loss of hearth and home – but exile and the death of those loyal to him cut deeply. Comfort now lay in the love of his family and the knowledge that he still had the strength to wield Wolf Sword.

  ‘I’ve a few men left. They can go their own way if they choose. I’ll put it to them. You’ve men-at-arms to ransom, though,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Hardly worth a piss in a pot. Half these Frenchies claim penury. It’ll take years to get anything out of them. Either that or they’ll die from their injuries.’

  ‘We were lucky in the fight though, Gilbert.’

  ‘That we were. Lucky and quicker on our feet. I’ll give Edward that. He took a risk going on the attack. God, but that was a fight, was it not? A fight to end all fights. A good way to end. A good way.’ Killbere gazed across the field of slaughter. ‘We’ll need to move before the wind shifts.’

  Blackstone eased into the saddle. ‘Edward’s for Bordeaux now. He’s sailing for Plymouth, taking back the prize of prizes,’ he said as he took up the reins, the bastard horse fighting the bit.

  ‘And you’re for Provence?’ said Killbere.

  ‘Yes, Avignon. My family,’ Blackstone said, easing the reins through his fingers. ‘I need to see to their welfare now.’

  ‘Aye. South. A good thought. De Marcy is south,’ Killbere said.

  Blackstone stayed silent. His eyes shifted across to the horizon. The Savage Priest was out there somewhere and there would only be justice when he was found and killed. But first he must attend to Christiana and the children. ‘And you?’

  ‘I was thinking of Lombardy,’ Killbere said. ‘There are those who offer good contracts for the likes of me. They need soldiers. Lots of small wars. This town hates that town; this city wants that city. Nothing too dangerous. Good money. So I’m told by a Frenchman who went across the Alps and did some work there. Bought himself an estate from it. Warmer there too. And good wine. I think their women smell but they say it’s a pleasant odour and makes a man salivate with desire.’

  ‘You’ll travel past Avignon, then.’

  ‘So I was thinking.’

  Blackstone smiled and nodded, then turned and looked at his men who still followed him: Guillaume, Meulon, Gaillard and Perinne, their wounds dressed, their weapons cleaned. There was no question of them being anywhere other than where their sworn lord led. Blackstone urged the horse forward.

  ‘It was good to see you again, Thomas,’ Killbere called.

  ‘And you,’ Blackstone answered.

  As Blackstone and his men skirted the battlefield, monks were loading the bodies of fallen knights for burial in the abbey’s cemetery. Elfred and Will Longdon, along with a dozen archers, pulled arrows from the dead that still lay in their thousands. Bundles of bloodied, damaged shafts were gathered like sheaves of wheat on the back of a cart.

  ‘Did you call the roll of your men, Elfred?’

  Elfred wiped his bloodied hands across his jerkin. ‘Aye, I lost damned near eighty of ’em. Half of those that are left won’t see the winter through. I’m paying them off so they can feed themselves and their families. I’ve a dozen good men left. Except for him, mind,’ he said looking at Will Longdon.

  Longdon grinned: ‘They were good lads Master Elfred lost, but it’s a greater share of the plunder for the rest of us.’

  Blackstone looked at the arrows. ‘You’ll salvage maybe half of those, Elfred. Most did their work too well to be saved.’

  ‘We’ll repair ’em,’ Longdon said. ‘We’ll need ’em if Sir Gilbert’s plan is a good’un.’

  ‘You’re going with him?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘We’ve no choice, Thomas, if we’re to earn a crust,’ Elfred said. ‘You was right in what you said. France is finished now and I’ve no desire to go back home and be a poor man again. Aye, we’ll follow the mad bastard awhile; see what becomes of us.’

  ‘You lost your lieutenant – whatsisname – the Gascon,’ Longdon said.

  ‘Guinot. Yes. He went down at the end,’ Blackstone answered.

  ‘Aye, him. Your men said as much,’ Longdon said, tilting his head towards a group of horsemen who waited a few hundred yards away in the trees.

  ‘You’ve forty-odd men who’ve nowhere to go, Thomas, except wherever it is you’re going. They’ve a mind to stay with you,’ Elfred said.

  ‘You know more about my business than I do,’ Blackstone answered.

  ‘Fighting men talk to ea
ch other. Worse’n gossipin’ washerwomen, some of them,’ Elfred said.

  Blackstone turned in the saddle and looked back to the distant figure of Killbere walking his horse towards them. ‘You’ll be following on then,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘Dare say we will,’ Elfred answered.

  ‘You know where?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Our route takes us past Avignon,’ said Will Longdon – and grinned.

  Part 3

  Cruel Justice

  31

  The Savage Priest had escaped just in time. He rode south-east from the battlefield leaving the Dauphin and his uncle, the Duke of Orléans, to make their way back to Paris. It was not a lack of courage that lost the French the battle, but that King John had been a fool for entrusting his troops to his bewildered and uncertain son and his own brother, Orléans. The English could have been defeated. When the Dauphin’s standard had fallen and it seemed that his battalion would be slaughtered, de Marcy had realized that the King’s son and his brother, who commanded the forward battalions, had ignored the experienced marshals’ advice. The English had moved quickly, their trumpets and flags signalling their troops to reinforce each other. And Edward had more competent commanders. The Prince’s raids had obviously not inflamed God’s anger otherwise he would have lost.

  The Savage Priest had tried to kill the Englishman, but the fates seemed always on the scar-faced knight’s side. They should have slain him when the lone knight rode out and challenged the King. De Marcy had urged John to strike him down there and then. He had refused, clinging to the honour demanded in battle that a champion was there to challenge the enemy’s army, not to be slain. To John’s fury, de Marcy had had the impudence to curse the King’s naivety. The Savage Priest had waited with the standard and the Oriflamme as Thomas Blackstone rode back to the English lines with the French armoured cavalry at his heels. By the time the Dauphin’s attack had failed, de Marcy knew the English would prevail. The King had seen the danger of his inexperienced son falling to the English and Gascon army and ordered him from the field. Perhaps there was still a use for the Savage Priest. The killer had shielded his son when they had reached the English lines and struck forward to try and slay Thomas Blackstone.

  ‘Take my son to safety and you’ll be paid in gold,’ John cried above the tumult.

  De Marcy seized the opportunity. The offer allowed him to run. A worthless King offering money he did not have.

  ‘No payment, sire,’ he said, wheeling his horse. Let the King of France make his desperate bid to subdue the English; de Marcy would benefit by forgiving the debt and gain the gratitude of the Dauphin. Sooner or later the feeble son would become King and remember de Marcy’s service to the Crown. The benefit was twofold: as France bled to death on its own soil there would be no force capable of stopping de Marcy’s routiers. Towards the southern coast, the rivers and the ports bustled with Mediterranean trade. The towns and monasteries would be fat with plunder. It was time to take the killing further south.

  More than twenty years before either Blackstone or de Marcy was born a conflict of authority arose between King Philip of France and the Italian Pope, whom he accused of heresy, sodomy and consorting with a pet demon. The Pope threatened him with excommunication, whereupon the King tried to kidnap the Holy Father. Italian outrage increased when, after the assault, the Pope suffered a fatal heart attack and a Frenchman was, through the King’s influence, elected as his successor. Fear of Italian reprisals convinced the Pope to move his See to Avignon, which, although a fiefdom of the Kingdom of Naples, was within the French sphere of influence.

  The following six French Popes built not only fortress-like walls at Avignon but a profitable business selling church offices. It became a financial empire. Pardons, indulgences and absolution were to be had for a price – everything was for sale. The papacy took a percentage of every offering made at every altar, but one of the most lucrative sources of papal income was the selling of benefices. Several hundred bishops’ sees and hundreds of thousands of lower offices were sold. And forgiveness for heinous crimes was granted – at a price.

  The most extreme measure the Church could command – the threat of excommunication – was used to squeeze further income into the coffers. A sliding scale of fees was in place and the vast wealth was handled by Italian bankers. Travellers told how counting coin, raked like ears of wheat, was a common sight in the papal palace at Avignon. That which was spiritual became temporal – and venal. It was this place of power and authority that would offer sanctuary to Blackstone’s family.

  The bargeman brought Christiana’s party ashore after four days. They travelled across country until they crested the high ground that revealed the mighty River Rhône curving beneath the fortified city of Avignon, its walls built on the cliffs that rose up from the riverbank. The sergeant had never been this far south before and was dependent upon the priest to guide them through the city towards the jumble of crenellated walls, formidable but still meagre compared to the soaring towers and battlements of the papal palace that rose behind them. As they rode closer he could see that although the fifteen-foot-thick walls would make a strong fortification against assault, other parts of the walls were in disrepair and being rebuilt. Any defence was only as strong as its weakest part. The rock face would give enough purchase for men to clamber and escalade ladders would take attackers across those first low ramparts. His soldier’s instincts told him that, if he were assaulting this city, that was where he would put the main force. Once inside the walls the townsmen would die in their homes, and the Pope, for all his power, would succumb to fire and slaughter.

  Narrow twisting streets, crammed with buildings, trapped the fetid air that rose from the teeming humanity confined in the labyrinth. It was a spectacle none of the riders other than Father Niccolò had witnessed before. He barely gave a glance to the heaving crowds who infested the alleyways and passages. Merchants jostled each other; artisans plied their trades; astrologers’ painted boards with moons and stars swung from poles as prostitutes loitered outside Italian banking houses. Circus-like sideshows gathered crowds; an armless woman showed how she could sew and spin wool, and toss a ball and throw dice with her toes. The babble of human voices – shouting, talking, enticing – echoed up the stone buildings. Beggars stretched out filthy hands to the riders, but Torellini used a switch to strike them away from his robes. The soldiers ignored them, or turned an ankle, raking those too slow to move with a spur.

  Sergeant Jacob raised his voice to clear the way. When the iron-shod hooves clattered onto cobblestones the press of bodies in the narrow streets was forced to part – those that could not move aside were pushed and crushed by the weight of the horses, as boats pushed aside the water.

  A large public square was blocked on the far side by massive gates that led into the papal palace. It was a place where the faithful could gather to view His Holiness Pope Innocent VI crossing in hypocritical humility on a white donkey, as his gold-embroidered robes were lifted from the dirt by retainers. He rode beneath a canopy followed by equerries carrying the white wool band worn by the pontiff on his shoulders as a symbol of authority and might. Father Niccolò slowed their advance as a procession of cardinals in their wide red hats walked without haste, accompanied by servants, across the vast square, parading as if they were royalty.

  He approached the guards at the palace gates, and then returned to John Jacob. ‘You and your men will not be allowed to travel any further into the city. I will see that Lady Christiana and the children are held safely until Sir Thomas arrives.’ He handed Jacob a purse of gold coin. ‘As agreed,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t they come with us?’ Christiana asked. She had barely spoken since the assault on the barge. Henry had stayed with the men, listening to Sergeant Jacob tell stories about England, his village, the wars he had fought – and about Henry’s father and those who would follow him if his cause was their persuasion, or if the purse was large enough. Christiana had stayed silent and h
eld Agnes close to her for the final days of their journey. She maintained a quiet dignity despite her features being more drawn and sallow, but her mask of bravery hid the greater shame of the rape and the despair of knowing that her son had witnessed it. How long would it be before Blackstone found them and father and son spoke of the journey to Avignon?

  Father Niccolò offered her reassurance. ‘My lady, I have property behind these walls. There are gardens with cool fountains and fragrant herbs that please the air. My benefactor Rodolfo Bardi owns them, and they are at your disposal. But common soldiers armed for war are not permitted. Sergeant Jacob and his men have fulfilled their duty both to their King and to your husband.’

  ‘Go with him, my lady,’ Jacob told her. ‘I’ll wait with my men in one of the taverns until we hear of what’s happened to Prince Edward. That’s as much as I can do to give you peace of mind.’

  Torellini saw sense in the sergeant and his men staying for a few more days. The political intrigues of the papal city might force the expulsion of Blackstone’s family if Prince Edward were triumphant against King John. A banker considers the risks, and a priest calls upon God, but Father Niccolò was close to both. If Blackstone had not reached the Prince in time and been told that he could sue for peace if that meant his safe return to England, then the English might have been defeated and Edward held for ransom. That would enforce the Pope’s strength across Europe and ensure the authority that King John had vested in him. The gates swung open.

  ‘Look for the sign of the three horseshoes. They’ll stable the horses in their yard and offer beds and food. You’ve money enough,’ Father Niccolò told Jacob.

  ‘Aye, we’ve been well paid, and we’ll sell Rudd’s horse,’ Jacob answered, and then turned to Christiana, whose expression was that of someone on a drifting boat in a fast-flowing river. ‘We’re close by, my lady, and Sir Thomas will come for you,’ he told her.