by David Gilman
Chandos was no fool. ‘Thomas! No!’
Blackstone ignored him and as Chandos’s men’s hands went for their swords Will Longdon’s men already gripped their bows with arrows nocked. Chandos yelled orders for his men to sheathe swords. What was about to happen could not be stopped.
‘I killed French peasants when they rose up because they slaughtered the innocent, and you are no better than those Jacques. It is you who are the scum. You whip men’s bodies and murder their souls,’ Blackstone said.
His taunt wounded French pride. De Joigny scrambled to his feet, sword drawn, and attacked. Blackstone sidestepped. The Frenchman slashed left and right but Blackstone parried the blows and forced him further back to where the townspeople gathered. Their moment of silent awe at what was happening was soon replaced by baying for Sir Louis’s blood. The Frenchman did not lack courage; his heritage and years of fighting were as much a part of him as the air he breathed. He would not be defeated by a man of low birth no matter how formidable his reputation. Legends were just that. Myths. Embellished stories to create fear. Louis de Joigny was not afraid. He did not have time. Wolf Sword’s blade severed his head in a single blow.
The corpse shuddered. Blackstone bent and picked up the head by the hair. He stepped to the cart that Chandos had loaded with the French soldiers’ weapons. He pulled a spear free and jammed its point into the soft torn flesh and then hoisted Louis de Joigny’s arrogant head for the townspeople to see. They cheered.
Chandos wheeled his horse, anger clouding his face. ‘Damn you, Thomas. The King will hear of this.’
‘Tell him the town and the gold moutons are his. Tell him I am riding north to seek help for my wounded friend. Tell him what you like, Sir John. This needed to be done.’
Blackstone rammed the spear shaft into the dirt. De Joigny’s sightless eyes gazed on the town and the people who raised their fists and their voices. The town had been bought for the English crown; Blackstone had secured, too, a slim chance of survival for Sir Gilbert Killbere.
PART TWO
THE WITCH OF BALON
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mist and rain crept along the Seine, smothering Paris, but the grey blanket of weather failed to deaden the noise of the largest and most populated city in northern Europe. Street traders shouted and cajoled; carts rumbled; cattle were driven through the streets, their bells clanging, to be slaughtered in the butchers’ and tanners’ quarter near the Châtelet by the river. The beasts’ pitiful bleating at the scent of blood was lost in the clamour of a city alive with commerce; the stench of the killing mingled with that of human waste that ran down open sewers. Depending where you were in the city, relief from this noxious odour could be found in the sweet aroma of baked wheat sprinkled with sugar and angelica and freshly baked, stacked tiers of loaves. A miasma of laundry women’s steaming cauldrons failed to rise above the damp air.
Counsellor to the Prince Regent Simon Bucy looked out from the Île de la Cité across the river to the bustling streets. Who would be foolish enough to lay siege to and attack Paris? Only the English and their ravening King, who had slain the greatest army in Christendom years before and captured King Jean le Bon at Poitiers. Part of him wished they would try. Let them come, he thought, let them storm the gates and fall into the maze of narrow traffic-clogged streets and alleyways below the tall wooden buildings. It was his city, a place that had given him wealth and status, a walled fortress that protected thousands. His indignation at the thought of the English threatened to overtake his rational mind. There was news from Rheims and business to attend with the Dauphin. At times he wished he did not carry the burden of office, but he always dismissed that thought quickly. Not for him the slabs of cooked meat on open fires in the streets, the sizzling fat scraped onto slices of rye bread to be gorged without manners, the squatting in doorways playing dice as mendicant monks rattled their begging bowls and chanted prayers. Better to be cocooned by the finery of wealth and privilege.
The city’s noise abated only after curfew, but during daylight hours Bucy had always welcomed its cacophony. Paris was the heart of the nation; it pumped life into France. At times its bedlam and smell seemed tame compared to the stench of cheap perfume and bustling insincerity of courtiers who jammed the inner chambers seeking favour with the court. He had lived long enough to recognize the smell of fear and treachery that being a close adviser to King Jean le Bon had brought. And he knew the threat that was England would never leave France; it would forever recur, as did the plague. The English – he sighed with distaste at their very name – had captured his King four years before and his absence was an additional problem for the adviser. How to fulfil the absent monarch’s wishes and talk sense into his son, the Dauphin Charles?
As he climbed the steps towards the royal chambers he felt old and tired. Every damned joint seemed to ache from the perpetual damp that the Seine inflicted on him. Yet endurance was an essential attribute for those who desired to wield power, and Bucy knew in his heart that he of all people would endure. He had been the First President of the Parlement; he had witnessed and survived the plague; he had withstood the Paris uprising, which almost cost him his life when he had been deposed by the peasants’ revolt a year and a half before. He grunted at the memory. That time had almost finished him. Those ignorant scum had not only deprived him of a great swathe of his wealth but also his role in government when the leader of the Paris merchants had briefly taken control, depriving him and the other advisers of their influence over the young Dauphin. The marauding Jacquerie had looted and burned his three suburban mansions at Vaugirard, Issy and Viroflay, but by the grace of God his magnificent urban estate close to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés had been spared. Bucy sighed with satisfaction. The scum had been slain and Etienne Marcel, the leader of the merchants, executed. Now Bucy was back in power at the side of the Dauphin. Sooner or later the French would have to sue for peace and Bucy would do all he could to achieve the settlement.
He was ushered into the Dauphin’s presence. Hardly the kingly type, Bucy thought as he bowed to the sickly, pale boy. The Dauphin had no reputation as a warrior; in fact years before he had been ushered from the field at Poitiers, his father’s last great battle, by the mercenary creature the Savage Priest. Despite that humiliation, he now ruled as regent, to the anger and despair of many Frenchmen. He lacked any prestige in the eyes of either the citizens of Paris or the fawning noblemen. But, Bucy admitted to himself, the boy did have backbone. Indeed, his father might have been proud of that fact, had the Dauphin not rejected the peace treaty his father had signed with Edward. Stubbornness was one thing – was it born from a feeling of inferiority? – but taunting the English lion was sheer stupidity. And now the English had stormed ashore with the greatest army they had ever mustered.
The Dauphin raised a lace handkerchief to his nose. He seemed to have a perpetually runny nose and watery eyes, thought Bucy, watching the contradictory twenty-two-year-old who appeared more determined to keep as much of France out of the English lion’s claws than his father the King. The treaty had ceded half the country, which was why Charles refused to honour it and the French monarch’s ransom had yet to be raised and paid.
‘It still rains,’ said the Dauphin.
‘Incessantly,’ replied Bucy.
‘Four months! Nearly five. It has not stopped! We tire of it. It has caused havoc with the crops, the wine harvest has failed, everything is becoming expensive. There will soon be shortages, refugees flood into the city, our coin is devalued and the price of grain has more than doubled.’
Bucy swallowed his despair. It was going to be one of those meetings fraught with misery. How he dreaded them. ‘It might be wet,’ he said, his voice rising with attempted enthusiasm and assurance, ‘but we are safe behind the walls. The English are in the open. Their supplies dwindle; their army is bogged down in mud.’
‘But for how much longer can we endure? We do not desire another revolt from the people,’ sniffed t
he Dauphin.
‘Should such a time come they would rather starve than bend their knee to an English king,’ said Bucy.
‘Don’t pander. You and the King were close for many years, you are still his trusted friend, but when you come into our presence it must be with the truth not fantasy.’
‘It is the truth, your grace. Can you imagine that mob out there being told what to do by the English?’ The very thought made Bucy laugh. ‘The butchers and tanners would have blood running down the streets and it wouldn’t be from cattle.’
The thought of English blood being spilled in his city lightened the Dauphin’s mood. He smiled. ‘Yes. So they would. They are rough and uncouth, but they are Parisians and they would draw blood before yielding. They are a troublesome people but they are our troublesome people.’ He gazed out across the city he was sworn to hold. His eyes sought out the landmarks that proclaimed the city’s greatness. The twin towers of that magnificent homage to God, Notre-Dame, which would soon break through the shroud that had covered them these past several days. The university of Paris on the left bank that was, despite its often violent students, acknowledged as the intellectual seat of theological learning. The Grand’Rue, the paved thoroughfare that was the great artery running through the heart of the city, a city whose mighty gates and miles of extra walls built by his father kept enemies at bay. All of these must be denied the English. Perhaps the English King’s avarice for the French crown would rouse God’s displeasure – this interminable mist and rain might be cloaking a mighty storm waiting to hurl him back across la Manche, the sea that had borne him to these shores.
He turned back to Bucy, who was waiting patiently. ‘Now, Simon, what news?’
Bucy straightened his shoulders and raised his head. It was good to look as confident as possible given the nation’s dire situation. ‘Rheims has not yielded. The English cannot break them. Gaucher de Châtillon stands firm as a symbol of the honour of France.’
‘Edward has not broken through?’ said the Dauphin, hope rising in his voice.
‘And de Châtillon sends out raiding sorties. He is a hard taskmaster, sire, he even has the Archbishop in mail and on the walls.’
‘The good Archbishop will make sure we never hear the end of it. How do we know this?’ The Dauphin gestured for the ageing man to sit on one of the plumped silk cushions that adorned an ornate chair near to him. Bucy nodded gratefully.
‘He sent a messenger through the English ranks. The man is English himself, married to a local woman. He talked his way through the lines. De Châtillon desires that you be told that Rheims will never fall. Rheims is well stocked with food. They could withhold another year, and Edward does not have the resources to lay siege for that long.’
The Dauphin smiled. The English could still be defeated without him ever going into the field to do battle. Not that that could ever be a possibility. Other than the Constable with his cavalry, who were riding from town to town trying to bolster defences and raise what money they could, the Dauphin had no army. Had no money to raise one. A eunuch prince regent. Well, the lack of finances may have castrated him but he could outwait the enemy; if he could hold on long enough the day would come when Edward would relinquish his claims to the French crown.
‘Providing we pay the ransom,’ he said aloud, letting his thoughts take voice.
‘Your grace?’ said Bucy.
‘We have still not raised the ransom for our father and the English will not go home until they have the crown or the ransom. Or both.’
‘The Pope has sent his legates to parlay for peace. Your father is prepared –’
‘To sell France!’ the Dauphin interrupted. ‘To give Edward vast swathes of territory. Which we will not do!’
‘No, highness,’ said Bucy with sufficient humility in his voice. ‘But, highness, the English King had agreed the treaty with King John. That treaty has not been… fulfilled. Edward’s honour demanded he invade.’
‘His greed demanded it.’
‘As you say. Greed is certainly a compelling reason, sire, as is having the biggest army the English have ever mustered.’
The Dauphin glared at his most senior adviser. With ten thousand Englishmen on the rampage and the bands of routiers who raped and pillaged unhindered, France might buckle.
‘France will not die,’ said the Dauphin quietly. ‘We saved Paris from the mob and we will stand firm against Edward. God will grant us the strength and He will sustain our people.’ He blew his nose into the handkerchief and for a moment Bucy thought there were tears in his eyes from the emotions that drove the boy. He quickly dismissed the thought. The Dauphin fought for France but also had a shrewd eye on the future. When his father eventually died Charles would inherit the crown and the kingdom, and the more Edward gained now the more the Dauphin would become a pauper in his own land.
‘Our plans are being implemented?’ said the Dauphin.
Bucy managed to conceal his discomfort with a brief smile. ‘As we speak, highness.’
The Dauphin nodded. He might be trapped behind the city walls but there were men enough outside to cause some havoc to the English. Especially the most daring. ‘When they land they must strike quickly. They understand that?’
Bucy’s mind raced. The Dauphin had sent two thousand men to England to seize his father from the English and restore him to the throne. It was a bold, daring plan under the command of the nobleman Jean de Neuville. It had not been the Dauphin’s idea but he had claimed it as his own. De Neuville had seized upon the opportunity and the Dauphin had seen the glory of it. The attack would strike fear into the English. It might even make Edward deplete his army and send them home. It was, Bucy knew, madness.
The fleet had been hemmed in by onshore winds against the Normandy coast and had been delayed by a week. ‘They will cause great havoc. And their courage will see them victorious, of that we must remain confident,’ said Bucy. It served no purpose to tell the Dauphin otherwise. And as the Prince Regent wallowed in the prospect of a victory that would never happen Bucy was trying to find a way to bring about a peace treaty. If, though, the raid was successful, then he would claim his part in its planning.
‘And the other matter?’ said the Dauphin.
Simon Bucy had sent raiding parties out into the countryside to kill the English wherever they could be found. The English scavenged and patrolled far and wide in small groups and a hundred Frenchmen eager to kill their enemy could prove a valuable way of striking fear into Edward’s men. The cold and wet reduced soldiers’ alertness. They could be ambushed where they slept. And if nothing else the French raiders were a welcome boost to the Dauphin’s morale.
‘Who knows, highness, they might even penetrate the English lines and reach Edward himself.’ The words had tumbled too quickly off his tongue. His mind had formed a picture of French troops wearing English uniforms taken from the dead and getting close enough to the English King to kill him. But the Dauphin’s sudden glare showed his displeasure.
‘We do not slay kings!’ said the Dauphin.
‘Of course,’ Bucy said, quickly backtracking. ‘I meant only that they could seize him and then it is we who would control events.’ A knife to the rapacious English King’s throat would have been preferable. ‘But, highness, that is not what they have been ordered to do.’
That seemed to mollify the impatient Prince. ‘Very well,’ said the Dauphin. ‘Now, what news from Milan?’
‘Your delegation has not yet returned with terms from the Visconti,’ said Bucy.
The Dauphin nodded. This was a strategy he had quietly put into operation, first spoken of by his father more than a year earlier. It was a plan to sell the Dauphin’s eleven-year-old sister to the ruler of Milan to be betrothed to Galeazzo Visconti’s eight-year-old son. If the raid into England did not secure King John’s release there was still the matter of the outrageous ransom demanded by Edward.
‘The Visconti are awash with money. More than enough for a king’s ransom,’
said the Dauphin.
Bucy could not disguise his distaste. ‘They’re a brash, violent family. Over the years they have murdered their way to power. They’re debauched.’
The Dauphin shrugged. Everyone knew the one brother, Bernabò, was as mad as a caged beast tormented with hot irons, but Galeazzo was the more intelligent and had visions of grandeur. ‘Galeazzo spends money on art and music; he creates places of learning,’ said the Dauphin.
‘That does not excuse them.’
‘Excuses are not needed, Simon, money is. At least this betrothal keeps our sister on the right side of that family and out of the mad bastard’s reach. It’s a straightforward business arrangement. The King of France needs to pay the English King’s extortionate ransom; the ruler of Milan craves respectability among Europe’s houses of nobility.’ The Dauphin sniffed and hawked into his handkerchief and then threw the fouled lace aside to be quickly picked up by a servant. ‘He’ll pay,’ said the Dauphin. ‘He’s no fool. But we must hold out until a new treaty is discussed and we can send Edward home with his coffers groaning under the weight of Italian gold.’ He smiled grimly. ‘We’ll buy off Edward.’
Simon Bucy grimaced. They were bartering the glory that was France for a child’s life as if they were common street traders.
‘You disapprove?’ snapped the Dauphin. ‘Your counsel is valued, not your disgust!’
Bucy quickly recovered his composure. The King had always been intemperate but the trust and friendship between them had allowed his senior counsellor some flexibility to express opposing opinions. The Dauphin’s nature was more of a spoiled child who did not wish to be admonished. Too much criticism and Bucy might find himself cast out from the inner sanctum. He bowed his head. He had saved the bad news until last.