by Dan Davis
Rob nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “Sounds like a most favourable employment. I wonder how much is their daily pay?”
“More than Richard pays, I bet,” Walt said and they laughed, clashing their cups together.
“Very amusing.” I turned to the valets. “Prepare our belongings and see to the horses. We will leave today. Now, please.” They knocked back their wines and stood to obey my commands and I waited until they were out of earshot before continuing. “It seems clear to me that Gilles de Rais and at least some of his men are surviving on the blood of these children. Certainly, the scrawny one called Poitou and the fat one called Henriet. Perhaps they are bleeding their living servants, as we do, but consider how many children that have disappeared over the years. How many would you say, Stephen?”
He sighed and shifted in his seat. “Very difficult to calculate such a figure. Based on the depositions we have taken, it is certainly over one hundred. Extrapolating over the years since the first ones disappeared and over the number of villages within his lands, I believe, although I cannot prove, that it is over four hundred children.”
“Dear God,” Rob said, crossing himself. “Four hundred murdered children from these accursed lands.”
“Perhaps many more,” I said. “It could be thousands. Who can say how far afield they have travelled over the last few years?”
“Dirty bloody bastards,” Walt said, downing his wine and slamming his cup on the table. “Let’s go find them.”
***
I did not wish to be without either Walt or Rob the next time I had a run in with the Marshal’s servants and so we took turns on watch in the same place as before. The jagged rock formation on the plain north of Castle Tiffauges provided enough cover for us all but we could not move around without showing ourselves, should anyone be watching for us. While I slept in the daytime, wrapped in my cloak and wedged in the pile of rocks, Walt stood watch, peering through the light brush and sheltering from the sun beneath his wide-brimmed hat. Rob took over in the evening and first part of the night, while I took the later watch until dawn.
Stephen and our valets were safe back at our inn at Mortagne, not too far away. If we were forced to wait more than a couple of days, I knew I would have to send Rob and Walt back to get their supply of blood before they degenerated into the blood sickness.
The first day, we saw nothing but ordinary castle business. Supplies of wood and fresh food were trundled up through the gates. During the night, I was sure I would see the servants slinking out to find another child to feed on but the night was still and silent and none emerged and I settled down at dawn, feeling irritated and spoiling for a fight.
In the morning of the second day, Walt shook us both awake and we crawled forward while he jabbed his finger at the castle. Peeking over the top of the rocks, I watched as around three score of the Baron’s soldiers rode out of the gate in their exquisite armour on their powerful, shining horses.
“They’ve spotted us,” Rob said, sending a chill through me. He grabbed his bow and slipped an arrow out of his bag.
But the great mass of soldiers turned their magnificent beasts onto the main track and headed west, throwing up a cloud of dust into the morning sun.
“The Baron’s escaping,” Walt said, peering out from his hat. “Sneaky bloody bastard.”
“Shall I get the horses?” Rob asked, tugging his hood closer about his face.
“The Marshal’s banner is not flying over them,” I said. “He is going nowhere. It is just the soldiers.”
“Could be a trick?” Walt said. “Keep his banner over the castle here while he flees with his soldiers?”
“Could be,” I said. “And yet he seems like a man obsessed with declaring his own position to the world. I do not believe he would skulk away anywhere in such a way.”
“You might be wrong,” Walt said. “Maybe I should follow those lads, just in case.”
“No, it does not matter what they are up to. Even if the Marshal is with them, we do not want him. We want one of his men, that is all.”
“That must be a quarter of his strength,” Rob said as the riders thundered away. “More, even. Why would he send so many men away?”
“To the west is his other favourite castle at Machecoul. They must be headed there for some reason. To protect the prisoners that he is keeping there, no doubt, the priest le Ferron and the men the Duke sent to bargain for his release.”
“There are soldiers enough at Machecoul already,” Rob said.
I sighed, because I did not have any answers though I needed to pretend certainty. “Some other important reason, then.”
“What could be so important?” Walt asked.
I snapped at them. “Whatever they are doing, it is of no concern. We will stay here and remain focused on finding a single servant to take. Wake us if you see any such man emerging, otherwise I am returning to sleep.”
It was almost dark when Rob shook me awake and hissed in my ear. “They are coming out, sir. The servants are coming out. A wagon with four men. Heading east.”
I crept to the top of the rocks and watched the light of a lantern bobbing along the road as the wagon banged and squeaked
“Just as last time,” I said. “Well done, Rob.”
We scrambled for our horses and followed the wagon at the longest distance we could. There was not much cover in the landscape and much of it was flat. But we had experience scouting enemies from horseback and keeping a constant watch on one’s target is not necessary, especially when they are driving a wagon along a track. However, the sun soon set and the moon was waning. With the sporadic cloud cover it became very dark indeed and I had to rely on my men’s enhanced night sight. If I was right and Gilles de Rais’ men were revenants, created by ingesting his blood, then their vision would likely be even better than Walt and Rob’s but I prayed we would not be spotted before we could close the distance and attack them.
The wagon soon stopped by a large farmhouse. We saw it in the distance, as light from inside spilled out from the open windows on the top floor, as if the very building was a beacon.
“Not exactly ashamed of themselves, are they?” Rob muttered as we observed from afar.
“The people are so cowed that they do not care who sees,” I said. “But they shall find their confidence is misplaced tonight.”
“Ain’t going to be easy, Richard,” Walt said. “Forcing our way inside that place with four of them in there.”
“What do you want to do?” Rob asked me.
“We will ride up fast,” I said. “Go through the front door and grab the closest or the smallest or the quietest man. We will truss him up and throw him over the spare horse. If the others resist, we will kill them.”
Rob cleared his throat. “Stephen said we should try not to murder anyone.”
“We’ll murder the lot of them if need be,” I said. “Come on, let it be done.”
Quickly, we divested ourselves of our cloaks and stowed them and other unnecessary items on the horses and prepared our weapons. We rode up to the house. It must have belonged to a wealthy franklin and the outer walls on both the ground floor and the one above were covered in pale blue painted plaster between the timbers of the building’s frame. The shutters were thrown open to the night and the lamps within threw yellow light from all four windows.
If anyone happened to look out of those windows as we approached, they would have seen us illuminated in the glow. They had even left the lamp alight on the wagon outside. The horse stomped his foot and snorted at ours as we approached, and Rob hushed him after we dismounted and threw our horses’ reins around parts of the wagon.
Steeling myself, I lifted the latch and threw open the front door with my dagger in hand.
The room was empty.
On the ground floor was two rooms. One large and one small and I stood in the larger of them, occupied by a table with two lit lamps and five good candles throwing out light, a pair of benches, and a large hearth and
chimney at the far end. A small fire burned in the hearth, rapidly going out. Stairs at the rear, by the back door, led to the floor above.
Otherwise it was quiet.
I nodded at the stairs and we rushed to the rear and charged up to the next storey, ready to fall upon the Marshal’s servants.
There was no one upstairs in either bedchamber. Again, those rooms were lit with multiple lamps, stood on the bed frame, on a storage chest, and others placed on the floor by the open shutters.
We looked at each other blankly but I was beginning to feel a twisting in my guts.
“Maybe they went out the back way,” Walt said.
“That must be it,” I said.
“There was a cellar,” Rob blurted out.
We clattered down the stairs and Rob pulled back the hatch in the floor by the back door. The hinges creaked and so, any remaining chance at surprise gone, I jumped down the steep steps into the cellar.
It was empty. Again, they had lit the cellar with a lamp but there was nothing within other than barrels on one side and sacks of dry goods on the other.
“What’s with all the bloody lamps?” Walt muttered.
“There must be a passage from here,” Rob suggested. “A passage leading away underground to some secret place where they bring the children t0—”
“Oh, don’t be a plum, Rob, for God’s sake,” Walt snapped. “They done sold us a duck, have they not?”
“We must flee,” I said. “Immediately.”
Even as I spoke, there came the sound of hooves drumming outside. A sound that grew and grew until it seemed as though an entire army was charging up on us.
“Dear God,” I said. “Up, up!”
We charged back up the steps and I threw open the front door to see dozens of the Marshal’s soldiers swarming outside in their steel armour with their weapons drawn, glinting in the lamplight. Our terrified horses were already surrounded, with soldiers grasping their reins, and there was no way through.
I slammed the door shut, swung down the bar, and turned to my men. “They outwitted us, the bastards.” We drew our swords and looked at each other.
“Worth trying to talk our way out?” Rob suggested, as the shouts of the soldiers grew.
I almost laughed and he hung his head. Each of us knew that we faced what might prove an insurmountable challenge and I felt death’s presence lurking near. “Bar the door,” I snapped at Walt. “Let us be away through the back.”
The men outside called orders to each other, and many laughed as they did so, for they believed bringing us down would be no more than sport.
By the time I ran through the back door, there were already a dozen mounted soldiers riding down the wattle fences surrounding the kitchen garden. They charged at us with their swords and maces raised and I pushed Rob back inside and shut the door behind us. We dragged the table across the room and pushed it against the rear door, then threw a bench and a chest against it.
Walt backed away from the door as the soldiers tried to force it open.
“The windows,” I said, nodding at the nearest one. There was one in each room, on the south side like the front door, and each large enough for a man to climb through. Sure enough, a helmeted head poked through the one I had indicated as the soldier it belonged to tried to climb in. Walt grabbed the man’s helm and twisted it off. His shocked face looked up as I cleaved his skull in two with my sword and pushed his twitching body back outside again where his comrades cried out in anger.
A crash from the smaller room next door alerted us to more men climbing in through there and I left Walt to guard the window while Rob and I went to deal with the intruders.
Three men were already within and helping a fourth in through the window. All were armoured in steel and with helms down. There would be no breaking through such fine armour and our only chance was in slipping our blades into the gaps between pieces. I knew from experience that seeing through such helms as they wore would be difficult and I rushed them before they noticed my approach. One man I threw back off his feet into the shelves against the wall and the next man I wrestled off his feet. Rob, with his archer’s strength enhanced by his immortality, pushed one man back out of the window and then pitched another one off his feet right out after him. We fell on the downed men, flipped open their visors and ran them through their terrified faces.
Walt shouted a warning from the other room and I ran back to find him grappling with an armoured soldier while another pulled himself through the window. Blood soaked one of Walt’s arms.
Guiding the point of my sword with my free hand, I slipped the blade under the soldier’s aventail and speared him through the back of the neck and he fell straight down. Together with Walt, we forced the other man back from the window.
Both the front and back door resounded with hammering while outside the soldiers shouted orders to each other. The furniture across the back door shifted as the men pushed and shoved and heaved their way through.
Rob came running back from the other room with a group of soldiers after him that I checked with a wild cry and the swinging of my sword. But they were not to be held at bay for long, not by an unarmoured opponent, and they rushed us with full-throated cries of their own. I grabbed the arm of the first one and heaved and swung him across the room with considerable force and he crashed into one of the lamps, knocking it to the floor where it broke and threw oil across the floor, which burst into flame.
Never one to miss an opportunity for destruction, Walt grasped the other lamp and threw it at the feet of the attacking soldiers. The flames flashed up and drove them back.
At the back door, the soldiers finally pushed their way in and we found ourselves heavily outnumbered and attacked from both sides.
“Up!” I ordered, and we bundled our way up the stairs.
From there, we held them off at the top. A few brave souls rushed us and we seized each of them in turn and killed them, one after the other, and threw the bodies back down the steps. We held them for long enough that the flames spread in the room below, catching on the furniture and the beams in the walls and floor, driving them away from the base of the stairs.
They clambered in through the windows upstairs and I killed them as they came in. One man I smote with a single blow through his helm and I quickly sawed his head clean off and threw it down to the men below, shouting at them to come and share the same fate.
All three of us were wounded and bleeding and the next man I tore off his helm and sank my teeth into his face and savaged his cheek. He screamed like a woman and I held him in the window before tearing off half of his face in a jagged big streak and throwing him down to his fellows. I sucked the blood from the chunk of flesh and tossed it out with the blood streaming down my chin. The fire below flickered out of the building to shine on me and the heat was growing with every moment.
“Come and die!” I shouted through the smoke and flame. “Come and die, cowards, and I will drink your blood! I will feast on your flesh and wear your skin. I will devour your souls. Come and die! Come and die!”
Instead, they remounted their horses and rode away into the darkness, their collective will shattered by the horror that we had sown.
We had killed a score of them and wounded more so their trap had failed. But so had our plan to lure them out and seize them. Instead, they had outwitted us and played me for a fool. We had our lives, to be sure, but we had nothing else.
Bloodied, battered, and coughing out smoke, we calmed and mounted our horses and slipped carefully through the darkness to our inn as the sun turned the sky red in the east.
There would be no warrant for the arrest of Gilles de Rais.
10. Summoning Demons
August 1440
“Richard!” Stephen threw open the door to my bedchamber before dawn and I sat bolt upright, heart racing, and grabbed my sword from beside the bed.
“What is it?” I asked, grasping one of the bedposts in one hand as my head swam, brandishing my sword in
the other.
“Another child has been taken.”
“Dear God. We must act swiftly. What has happened?”
“We had a local man ride through the night to tell us,” Stephen said. “Bone tired and his horse will never be the same.”
“I hope you paid him well for bringing us the news.”
For weeks, we had spread word everywhere we travelled to take depositions, that we would pay handsomely for immediate news of lost children. We stipulated that it must be genuine information and it must get to us swiftly, so that we might catch the servants in the act. Perhaps yet on the road.
“Of course, I tried, but he would accept no payment, saying he was cousin to the missing boy’s mother. He said the blacksmith in Saint-Georges-Montaigu had lost his son. The father is named Jean le Fevre, his son they call Little Jean, aged about twelve or so.”
“Where is the rider now?”
“Drinking spiced wine in the public rooms below.”
“I must speak with him.”
“You suspect a trap?”
“Trust me, Stephen, if you had been with us in that burning house last week, you would suspect it also.”
I shouted for the valets to prepare our gear and the horses. Walt and Rob stumbled, bleary-eyed, from their rooms and came down with us to speak to the rider. He was younger than I had expected, little more than a boy himself and just a little, narrow-shouldered thing, he was.
“You can save Little Jean, can’t you, sire?” he said, jumping to his feet as we approached. He swayed on tired legs and Rob helped him to sit once more on the bench. The innkeeper, Bouchard-Menard, lit a candle on the table and I watched the young man’s face as he spoke it all again. His cousin’s boy went on an errand and did not return. Little Jean had ever been a dutiful boy and had never tarried before.
“He is twelve, you say?” I prompted, looking at Stephen.