by Dan Davis
“And yet,” I said, quickly before their attention wandered. “And yet, they do not suspect you plan to strike against them before spring.”
“Who says we plan such a thing?” Salisbury asked.
I shrugged. “If you are not, then you damned well should be. The towns are well stocked and under-garrisoned. It will be spring or even summer before France’s grand army can be brought to bear on you. If you divide your forces into three or four, each army will be large enough to raid at will. Even to take possession of many places, if you are willing to garrison them. If your armies remain close enough that, if threatened by a royal army of the French, you can withdraw and form together at one of a number of prearranged places.”
They looked at me without speaking and I knew that I had either spoken their own plan to them or else I had outlined a better one. Either way, they seemed quietly impressed.
“He is yours, by law, Robert,” the Prince said to the Earl of Suffolk. “What would you have us do with him?”
Suffolk bowed. “He may be my man by law,” he said, glancing at me, “but we all know that he was only ever your father’s man, Your Grace. Whatever crimes he may or may not have committed these last few years, I believe that the King has looked the other way in greater crimes, over the decades since he gained the Crown.”
“Decades, yes,” the Prince said, turning to look at me with narrowed eyes. “How is it that you continue to avoid the ravages of time, sir? Since I was a child, there has been talk where you are concerned of dark things indeed, though I shall not speak them.”
“I shall,” said Salisbury, looking down his fat nose at me. “I shall damned well speak them, if you will pardon me, Your Grace. It is witchcraft that is spoken of, when men speak Sir Richard’s name. Witchcraft, blood magic, sorcery and demon-worship.”
For a moment I considered remarking that it was cuckoldry that was spoken of when men spoke Salisbury’s name, on account that his first wife had secretly married another before she married him. But I reflected that it was probably best not to mention it.
“I made no pact with the Devil,” I said.
“You will wait to be asked a question before speaking again,” the Prince said, growing angry.
The meeting was getting away from me once again. What could I do but bow and stay silent?
“My father always told me that I could rely on you, Sir Richard,” the Prince said. “No matter how strange you are. No matter how violent your tendencies and how absurdly old-fashioned your manner of speech and style of clothing are, I could always rely on you to get the necessary work done when it comes to matters of war.”
“He is a wise man, Your Grace.”
“Perhaps he is,” the Prince said, “or perhaps he was. Unfortunately for you, he is not here to protect you this time.” He turned to his sergeants and gestured at me. “Take this man and lock him up until we are well gone from this place.”
I forced myself into stillness as three armed soldiers moved to surround me. To resist might mean my death but even if it did not, it would be the end of me in the eyes of the lords of England.
Suffolk cleared his throat and I was pleased to see that he had remembered he was my lord. “What about his men, Your Grace?” he said.
“His men?”
“A score or so of them,” Sir Humphrey Ingham said. “Brutes, the lot of them. The murderers and thieves who have slaughtered their way back and forth across this land for years. They must be taken, too, Your Grace.”
“Must they, indeed?” the Prince said.
“They have slaughtered their way through the King’s enemies, sir,” Suffolk countered.
“And so have blackened the King’s name,” Sir Humphrey replied, sharply. “Their deeds reflect badly upon the English amongst our allies here in Gascony and in France and they should suffer the consequences.”
The Prince raised his chin. “What would they be, Sir Humphrey?”
“That is not for me to say, Your Grace. But if it were, I would hang the lot of them, strike off their heads and stick them on pikes above the walls of Bordeaux.”
“A waste, Your Grace,” Suffolk said, “of their considerable talents and experience. We could use men such as they. Even a score of them.”
“I am sure you are right, Suffolk, but I am yet inclined to hang them.”
I held my tongue but glared at my lord.
Suffolk bowed. “Many of them are from my lands, Your Grace. Let me take them on. If they put a foot wrong, they shall hang.”
“Fine, fine. If you can find Hawkedon’s men, you may use them.” The Prince gestured at me. “But I will have none of your mischief making, Sir Richard. You have caused enough havoc on your own. Take him away.”
I could have fought my way free, perhaps. But to do so would have involved killing Englishmen and perhaps even a great lord or two. And then I would have truly been an outlaw. Any Englishman who saw me could have killed me and indeed they would have sent a large number of soldiers to hunt me down. It was trouble I wished to avoid.
So instead I bowed to the Prince and wished the lords well before I was escorted away from the hall by the sergeants. Suffolk caught my eye and winked, which was encouraging but I also saw Sir Humphrey’s dark looks. He knew, I am sure, that his sister loved me and so Humphrey rejoiced at seeing me disgraced.
Far from the hall, the sergeants courteously asked me to step inside a small room above the armoury on the outside of the eastern wall and then slammed the door behind me.
I have been in worse prisons than the chamber they locked me inside. There was a straw mattress and I even had a slit window with which to look out at the men leaving over the next few days. While I waited, I fretted about my men. Thomas would lead them well, of that I had no doubt, but he was not like them. He did not understand how they thought and if they were pressed hard then I wondered if they would follow his commands.
Would they continue to respect the bloodletting schedule I had established? Or would they demand ever more from the servants? If they followed my orders then Walt and Rob would support Thomas and together they would control the others and all would be well.
Surely, they would be quick enough and wily enough to evade any men sent after them. Even though I had faith in them and their abilities, still I watched from the window and listened at all hours, fearing to witness them being dragged into the fortress to face justice.
On the third day, the Prince left. It was with rather more fanfare and general fuss than most nobles might but it was concluded efficiently and when the last of his long train of servants and soldiers had peeled away, I knew it was time for me to leave.
When the old man opened my door later that day with a big cup of wine and a loaf of bread, I stood to receive him. He was as wrinkled as a decrepit shoe and lame, dragging one foot from an old injury but he had a way about him that suggested he had once been a fighting man.
“Step back, sir,” he said, as he had said before. “Stand to the window, sir, if you please.” He pulled the door all the way open and stepped inside. “Go on, sir, if you want your wine, sir.”
This time, however, I did not follow his instructions.
“I am afraid, sir,” I said “that I shall be leaving now.”
He looked alarmed and a darkness descended across his face. I had caught a glimpse of the man he used to be.
“We got guards. Guards. Soldiers on the walls, porters on the gates. You ain’t getting out, sir. Now, what say you just move to the window and I’ll not tell the steward nothing?”
“Do you enjoy your work, man?” I asked him.
“Can’t fight no more,” he said, shrugging. “Ain’t got no family. Better here than dead in a ditch, sir.”
“I am curious,” I said, sliding slowly forward while keeping a reasonable tone, “about whether you can still ride well?”
“Ride?” he asked, confused.
I slid forward while smiling and holding my arms out.
“I could use
a man like you. A trustworthy older man who has seen his share of action. You could help steady my wilder ones.”
He frowned. “But I’m the assistant to the head steward of—”
All of a sudden, he noticed how close I was and he sucked down a huge gulp of air, ready to cry out for help.
My fist connected just under his ear as he turned. I intended to silence him but he collapsed like a sack of mud and his skull bounced hard on the stone floor. I considered tearing his neck open and drinking him dry. But that would have been most unchivalrous. And I thought I could probably do without his aged blood.
Taking the keys on his belt, I locked him in the room and crept carefully to the stairwell. I could have fought my way out, charging from guard to guard, knocking each on his arse. But sometimes, a man simply has to brass it out. I straightened up, brushed myself off and strode down the stairs like I was about official business.
It was clear that the Prince had not been committed to keeping me locked up for long. Perhaps Suffolk, before he left, had advised the garrison to stay away from me. Whatever the reason, I was not accosted. I nodded to servants and called out good day to the soldiers I saw. A few frowned, possibly unsure of who I was, but I simply waved and smiled and nodded my way to the stables. I ordered a boy to prepare a horse and he jumped to it quite smartly. Mounted, I rode out through both gates and crossed the bridge out into the country with the farewells of the bemused porters in my ears.
I rode to find my company. I hoped that they had not turned into wild beasts without me.
We had a grand English raid to join.
***
When I found my company at our agreed meeting place two days later, they were in a state of high agitation.
We stood in a wooded hollow at the edge of a boggy field in the flood plain of the Garonne. It was very cold and they were irritable and hungry from waiting so long for me.
“Suffolk’s men have been searching the valley for us,” Walt said, glancing at Thomas. “Some of our lads want to kill the soldiers, sir. Have a bit of a drink of them, like.”
Hugh edged closer and lowered his voice. “The brutes would not listen to reason, Sir Richard.”
Thomas held his chin up. “I explained that you would prefer them not to.”
I clapped him on the arm. “I am sure that you had to explain it at length. Well done, sir.”
He nodded.
“My lord the Earl of Suffolk,” I told them all, raising my voice, “has been given leave by the Prince to take us under his command.”
They grumbled and cursed but I held my hand up before continuing.
“The Prince’s armies are to undertake a series of raids, all along the border. There will be plunder like you would not believe. We will follow Suffolk’s contingent and keep our heads down. I will take no orders, not from the Earl of Suffolk, and not even from the Prince himself. Not unless they are orders that suit me and suit our search.”
This they cheered and I could see how their faces flushed with the prospect of blood and riches.
“But mark me well, you men.” I waited until their faces dropped and they fell silent. “Mark me that my orders to you shall be obeyed. Every one, without delay or question. The English and the Gascons are off limits. We shall have plunder and, in time, we shall have a battle. But what we need above all is to bring the black knight to us. Wherever we meet him, be it in siege or in skirmish or in open battle, we shall find him and take revenge. That is why we are here. That is the only reason we are here. If any of you forget that, I shall have no more use for you. Do you understand me?”
They swore that they did and I took them at their word.
We joined the great raid.
There were over two thousand English soldiers, all told, and a few hundred Gascons. These men were divided between the various leaders and the leaders assigned planned routes for the march. Salisbury made for Sainte-Foy on the Dordogne River. Prince Edward made his headquarters at Libourne along with Chandos and Ingham. The Earl of Suffolk was directed to Saint-Emilion and my company followed.
From places of strength, each commander sent raiding companies outward as they advanced, to widen the frontiers of the destruction and to pull more lands into what was effectively English dominion. The poor French on the Gascon border had never known an assault like it.
Our columns pushed eastward into the Agenais. Warwick invaded the Lot Valley and took fortified monasteries and important bridges. A force led by Chandos and Ingham marched right up the Garonne and captured forts and castles all along the valley. The largest contingent was led by Suffolk, Oxford and Salisbury. Charging along the fertile and wealthy Dordogne we stormed fortresses in the barony of Turenne, taking Souillac and Beaulieu and many more.
It was ideal land for those who could fight like routiers and after the main forces moved on, that land became infested with bandits for almost two years.
Through it all, my company kept apart from the mortal men, making camp away from the others and keeping to ourselves. And when it was time to fight, we did as we wished, taking a village or a fortress whether another group had claimed it first or not.
The soldiers under Suffolk learned to keep away from us.
For a time, our detachment made as if we were going to assault the great town of Poitiers but then we swung south away from it, rode like the devil and assaulted the walls of Perigueux during the dark of the night. While we held the town, the French reinforced the castle and held it, so that both sides warred unceasingly and the townsfolk, caught in between, suffered greatly from the arrows, fire, and fury.
All of the great French lords of the border regions, whose duty it was to protect their people from the aggression of the English and Gascons, did nothing. The cowards cried that they could not act against us until King John’s mighty army, yet assembling at Paris, arrived in the southwest.
What weakness they displayed. What a betrayal of their obligations. It would have been far better for their people and the lords’ immortal souls if they had fought and died.
“What is the point of a lord saving his own life,” Thomas asked me, “if he does not do his duty?”
Our assaults had taken eleven towns and seventeen castles in just a few weeks. It was nothing, perhaps, compared to the vastness of all France but still the local lords saw who was strong and who was weak. The Prince sent a stream of messages and bribes to the lords of the bordering regions until by spring a number of them transferred their allegiance from John King of France to Edward Lord of Gascony and future King of England. These lords brought almost fifty more towns and castles under English authority.
Prince Edward’s successes in turn encouraged King Edward back in London to prepare his own invasion force so that he could assault from the north while the Prince of Wales attacked from the south. The Duke of Lancaster prepared for an invasion of Brittany.
The freezing weather finally passed and, in April, a detachment including my company raided deep in Quercy and laid siege to the fortified village of Fons and its royal garrison, and to the massive fortress of Cardaillac.
I recalled the name and realised it had once belonged to a knight named Bertrand I had travelled with from Constantinople to Karakorum. Sir Bertrand had been turned by William into an immortal and I had killed him in the entrance hall to a house in Baghdad. A sordid, low death for a mean bastard of a knight. And then the descendants of his cousins ruled Cardaillac, high on its cliff, until we came and assaulted it without warning. The locals put up a spirited defence but their spirit was not enough and we killed them almost to a man, ransoming the few survivors off to their families.
Local order collapsed following the raids and the country all about fell to banditry. The land there was so rich with crops and vineyards, it was as close to an Eden as one can get outside of England. Robbing the country blind and burning what could not be taken was as disgusting as it was delightful. Captain after captain peeled off from our main army and began taking places of their own
while our companies raided deeper and deeper.
The locals despaired. Our soldiers were become depraved through decades of war and they, surrounded by abundance and safety until then, were like innocent lambs to the slaughter.
The southern parts of Poitou fell entirely into English and Gascon hands and the cities that remained free, like Poitiers itself and the ancient castle of Lusignan, turned inward to shore up their own defence and abandoned the other cities to their fate. And so, with France in great disunity, we picked them off one by one.
My own company even rode through the dilapidated walls of Poitiers and seized goods and men, including the Mayor of Poitiers himself who we stole away and then ransomed. It was so daring that we deserved everlasting fame for the act but the land was in such chaos, such an orgy of theft and destruction, that it was lost amongst a thousand other stories.
Still, we knew through it all that the French would come eventually. That there would be a reckoning for all the destruction. That fact led it all an even greater sense of urgency and madness.
All the while, in the north, the French army grew.
King John had summoned all those lords holding noble fiefs to join the army with a retinue and equipment appropriate to their status. The same was commanded from the towns who had to supply equipped infantry and crossbowmen.
Lancaster gathered an army of two-and-a-half thousand in Normandy from the garrisons of Brittany. It was a terribly small army but they were all veterans, all were mounted and two-thirds of them were our savage, brilliant archers. Moving swiftly, they plundered great riches in Normandy, took thousands of fine horses, and caused havoc before withdrawing for safety. King John offered battle and Lancaster declined, for his job had been to draw the French to him and in this, he had succeeded.
While in the southwest, our main army moved north toward the Loire. The Prince unfurled his great banner, quartered in red and blue with the arms of England of France.
And we began to burn.
We assaulted and looted abbeys. We crept across the county of La Marche like a plague, sacking town after town in the lands owned by the great Bourbon family. Soon, we crossed the River Creuse at Argenton and again the crossing was uncontested by the French.