by David Gilman
‘I apologize, sire. My expression was not one of disapproval,’ he lied, ‘but was, as you so rightly observed, one of disgust. Disgust and dismay at another matter that has been reported to me. Something that I can scarcely believe.’
Bucy paused and drew breath. The old trick. Show deep concern and imply careful thought by waiting a few heartbeats; thus convincing the listener that his wisdom and considered opinion as a long-serving lawyer were invaluable – and, more than that, giving the impression that imparting such bad news caused him personal grievous pain.
The Dauphin’s eyebrows raised. Bucy’s timing was perfect. Before the young man’s impatience overflowed the veteran politician’s words struck him as hard as a steel gauntlet.
‘Thomas Blackstone is at Rheims.’
The Dauphin’s jaw dropped as he sagged into his chair.
‘The Englishman who came through the lines saw his blazon and then the man himself,’ said Bucy.
‘No. He’s dead,’ said the Dauphin. ‘He drowned more than a year ago.’
‘Then perhaps it is his ghost.’
The Dauphin unconsciously crossed himself. Perhaps the scarred knight had returned from the dead.
‘Before Poitiers I tried to kill him with your father’s blessing. We unleashed the Savage Priest on him, but de Marcy paid with his life and his skeleton serves as a warning on an alpine pass.’
‘Blackstone,’ said the Dauphin in barely a whisper.
‘The enemy of France sworn to kill your father.’ Bucy let the reminder settle a moment. ‘Now is not the time to discuss it, my lord, but I believe I have information that may give us the means to finally rid ourselves of him.’ He smiled. Information was a tool that could be used like an iron rod to stoke a fire. Ram it hard and watch the sparks fly. He gazed out of the window. ‘Ah, look, highness, the clouds part. A sunbeam breaks through.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They rode slowly with Killbere tied onto a canvas litter between two horses. For three days and nights they made their way north towards the town where the crow priest had told them was a man with healing powers. The priest was allowed to ride without his ankles tied to the stirrups but a rope was around his waist at the other end of which was Meulon. There would be no escape for Robinet Corneille who had neither the physical strength to pull the huge Norman from his horse nor the courage to even try.
Will Longdon was, as he told everyone, well versed in folk medicine. ‘If he coughs blood then we must find a wet-nurse,’ he informed those who would listen.
‘He’s no babe in arms, you short-arsed fool,’ said Gaillard.
‘You’re a Norman oaf who has no knowledge of the English peasant,’ Longdon said. ‘We have cures for such ills. A man coughs blood: he needs the milk tit. Suckle the milk tit and the lungs clear.’
John Jacob gave a despairing glance to Blackstone and then turned in the saddle. ‘Will, you’d take the cure yourself then?’
‘Only for the healing it offered,’ he said and grinned.
‘Then you would know’, Jacob continued, ‘that the cure is not only the milk from the breast but also the teat of a goat. If there was no wet-nurse to aid your cure then you would suckle a goat, would you?’
‘He belongs in a goat pen,’ said Meulon. ‘It was where he was born!’
Longdon had no time to reply. The men’s laughter drowned out any chance of complaint.
*
On the afternoon of the fourth day the men awoke to a clear sky and the sight of thin trails of smoke on the horizon several miles away.
‘Food and warmth,’ said Perinne. ‘That smoke’s from a town’s hearths.’
‘Aye and the chance for some ale and a hot bath,’ said Will Longdon.
Meulon spat. The Norman seemed impervious to the weather but not the men’s stench. ‘The bath before the ale, Will. You stink like a wet dog that’s rolled in shit.’
‘Were it warm enough the flies would be around you like a heaped dollop of cow dung,’ he answered.
‘Me, stink? No, you bow-legged fool, I smell as sweet as a whore’s fart. Your nose is too close to your arse.’
The banter lightened the men’s mood.
John Jacob rode at Blackstone’s side. ‘Is that Balon?’
‘So the crow priest says,’ Blackstone answered. He was worried. The ride to the town, which was still out of sight, would be across a vast undulating plain. The pockets of forests that lay behind them had so far afforded them cover and shelter, once Perinne and the scouts had established they were free of the enemy. The woodlands ahead were far to their left and right. To use the forests again meant losing more time. A two-day journey had already taken four because of the need to keep Killbere from being jolted but now the veteran knight’s condition had grown worse. They had to risk riding out across the open ground, but if any French troops or marauding mercenaries were close by they could be overwhelmed.
Blackstone turned in the saddle and beckoned Meulon, who spurred his horse and dragged the priest with him.
‘You’re certain that’s Balon?’ Blackstone asked.
‘I believe it is, lord,’ said the priest.
‘Believe or know?’
‘There are a dozen small towns within twenty miles of Balon,’ he said. ‘Some are held by English routiers who raid and take what they can but Balon proclaimed for your King weeks ago.’
‘So what?’ said John Jacob. ‘If the skinners are after plunder then Balon might have fallen to them.’
‘No,’ said Blackstone. ‘If they’re English routiers they won’t attack a town held for Edward. We’ll risk riding straight across. I want Sir Gilbert to have a chance.’ He nodded to Perinne, who needed no further command. He and Robert Thurgood with a dozen others urged their horses forward. Perinne and Thurgood rode straight ahead; the rest separated and took up position half a mile or more on each flank as outriders to protect the others.
Up until now Blackstone and the men had barely made ten miles a day and it took another three hours before they reached the rising ground that allowed them to gaze down on the walled town. The breeze had freshened and a thick pall of smoke billowed, its dark, thick plume rising until the wind tore it apart.
‘Smell that! Pork!’ said Will Longdon. ‘They’ve a pig or a boar on a spit roast. Hot food, warm ale and then the bath!’
Blackstone rose up in his stirrups so he could see above the town’s walls below. ‘Meulon! Gaillard! You and your men with me. Everyone else stay here with Sir Gilbert until you’re called. That’s no pig on a stick, Will. They’re burning someone at the stake.’
He spurred the bastard horse forward.
*
The sentries refused to bow to John Jacob’s demand that the gates be opened to his sworn lord who rode for King Edward and the host that now besieged Rheims. After a few minutes a burgher peered over the low wall and shouted down to the men on horseback outside his town’s gate.
‘What dialect is that?’ Blackstone asked those around him.
‘Champenois,’ said the crow priest. ‘He’s the mayor.’
‘Tell him to speak French before my patience gives way,’ Blackstone demanded.
The crow did as he was told and the burgher repeated the question.
‘You mean us harm?’ said the town’s mayor.
‘If I wanted your town I would jump my horse over these broken walls,’ said Blackstone. ‘Open the damned gate before I do just that!’ he demanded.
The mayor was cowed but his courage was bolstered by his authority. ‘There is nothing here for you. We have declared for Edward. His name protects us. There is no place here for acts of violence, rape or looting.’
‘Open the fucking gate!’ yelled Meulon.
The mayor’s eyes widened at the bear of a man whose bellowing voice threatened to shake the walls.
‘Do as they ask,’ said the crow priest in the man’s own dialect in an effort to reassure him and his sentries. ‘I have brought these men here because they are
in need of the old hermit’s administrations.’
The mayor looked as though he had been slapped with a wet fish. Hands flew to his face.
‘What is going on?’ said Blackstone to the crow priest. ‘Speak to him again. Make sure he understands what it is we want.’
‘I have already done that. And that is when he… did what he did.’
The mayor opened the palms of his hands. ‘You will not punish us?’ he asked in French.
‘Not if you open the gate,’ Blackstone demanded again.
The mayor’s head bobbed as he looked down to those on the ground behind the gates, which began to open.
Blackstone urged his horse forward, flanked by the others, each man scanning the walls for any sign of ambush. Townspeople gathered in the muddy square backed away from the advancing horsemen and as they did they exposed the funeral pyre. The charred body was bent double in the chains that held it around the waist; fat dripped sizzling into the heat of the embers from the raw, red flesh still clinging to the bones. It was impossible to tell whether the victim was man or woman.
‘Leave the gates open!’ Blackstone commanded the sentries, his nose wrinkling as a waft of the burning flesh reached his nostrils. The mayor scuttled down the steps from the walls. ‘Signal the others to come in,’ Blackstone ordered Gaillard. The mayor stood close to Blackstone’s horse, hands open in supplication. The bastard horse took advantage of the loose rein and snapped at him. The man leapt away, his heel catching his cloak, and fell on his back. He quickly got to his feet again.
‘Who is that?’ said Blackstone, pointing to the remains on the stake.
‘Sorcery was performed here. Ill fortune was brought down on us because the devil was enticed here. Witnesses saw the demon being fed at night; there are those who watched as incantations were delivered to the dark lord.’
There was palpable unease among the men. The line between heaven and hell was a narrow one.
John Jacob crossed himself and glanced nervously at Blackstone. ‘We can kill flesh and blood, Sir Thomas,’ he said quietly so no one else could hear, ‘but demons? We should leave this place. Sir Gilbert lies unconscious; his soul is vulnerable. They could possess him.’
Demons were the offspring of men and fallen angels, creatures of a middle nature who inhabited the place between earth and sky. If they had been conjured in this place through necromancy then they were all in danger.
‘Keep those thoughts to yourself,’ Blackstone said, handing him his reins. ‘Watch the others get inside safely then close the gates and put men on the walls.’
‘Do we disarm their militia?’ said John Jacob.
‘Yes. It would only take a single idiot to strike at one of us and we’d have another massacre on our hands. Quietly but firmly, John,’ said Blackstone as he dismounted. The mayor took another few steps back. Blackstone grabbed him. ‘Answer my question,’ he demanded, although in his heart he already knew the answer. ‘Who was burnt?’
‘It is the man you seek. The hermit. The soothsayer,’ said the mayor, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed his fear. ‘The sorcerer!’ he added finally in an attempt to justify the man’s death.
Blackstone pushed him away and gazed at the smouldering, blackened mass of the hermit’s carcass and his bubbling innards.
‘Open your town to us. Make no attempt to hinder my men. We have a wounded knight with us. We need food, beds and shelter, and fodder for our horses. And I need your house for my dying friend.’
‘My…’ The mayor quickly decided not to argue and clasped his hands together, his head bowing obediently.
Blackstone looked at the skeleton with its peeling flesh. ‘Do you still have his potions and herbs? The priest with us might be able to use them.’
The mayor’s eyes suddenly gleamed with hope. ‘Your priest is proficient?’
‘No, he’s as useful as a tit on a monk’s arse,’ said Will Longdon, who had dismounted and moved closer to examine the funeral pyre.
‘He is not proficient in the healing arts but he’s all we have,’ confirmed Blackstone.
The mayor looked undecided and then, tapping grubby fingernails against his teeth, made up his mind. ‘There is someone who might help, my lord. But it is a great risk. She was going to be burned tomorrow.’
‘Who?
The mayor glanced at the dead man. ‘The sorcerer’s daughter.’
*
Blackstone followed the cowed mayor through the town’s streets. Despite the closeness of the hulking Englishman the mayor squared his shoulders and raised his chin, displaying an air of authority that shooed away the crowds, who needed little encouragement to go back to their homes and trades. Men and women quickly dispersed, dragging their dirty-faced children with them, crossing themselves at the sight of the tall, scar-face knight.
Mud squelched beneath their feet and rain dripped from the soaked roofs. Thomas followed Balon’s mayor until they turned a corner and faced a large stone-built structure. It was obviously a more important building than the timber and clay-plastered houses everywhere else. It had once been fortified, but like the town its walls had fallen into disrepair and as Blackstone was led through the heavy oak door he saw that the roof had burned down.
‘Our church,’ said the mayor. ‘A lightning strike, weeks ago. It was conjured by the sorcerer.’ The mayor beckoned him to follow as he turned a key, which was the length of a man’s hand and as thick as a thumb, into the lock of a side door. It opened onto a stair leading down. Cresset lamps flickered and burned dully, just enough to show the stone steps curving away into darkness. Blackstone turned sideways to accommodate his feet on the narrow treads. As they reached the bottom the confines of the stairwell opened out to a broad square room. It looked to be at least thirty paces wide and long. A brazier smouldered; the acrid smell of the coals tainted his tongue.
A latticed pattern of shadows stretched across the floor from the light behind an iron cage. It stretched ten paces by six and had a bucket in one corner and a half-naked woman manacled to the wall. The mayor held back, his wavering hand pointing to the caged girl.
‘I warn you not to go too close to her. They say she has the gift of second sight. She will look into your future and see your very soul.’
Blackstone brushed past him and went to the cage. The woman’s dress was torn to her waist and her breasts hung freely. He reckoned she was about twenty, or perhaps a couple of years older. She was strong, her hips wide and her breasts full. Her hair had been hacked short; its matted strands had pieces of straw in it from where she had slept on the cold stone floor and its miserly covering. A horse would have had more straw in its stall than this girl had in her cage. The chain that held her was long enough for her to move about the cell and enable her to lie down. The bucket in the corner was her latrine. Her dark eyes followed him like a frightened beast as he paced the length of her cage, trying to see her more clearly.
‘Lord, she spits, and if the chains give way from their fastenings her nails can still claw a man’s face,’ said the mayor.
Blackstone turned and faced the timorous man. ‘My face has already been clawed by hardened steel. I don’t fear a chained and beaten girl. Those marks on her tits and belly. You tortured her?’
‘We used hot irons on her to make her talk.’
‘Did she confess?’
‘Of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Blackstone. ‘Who would not? You did this to her?’
‘Me? No, no. Our priest ordered men to bind her and apply the irons.’
‘Where is this priest?’
‘Dead, lord. Died in a convulsion. She cursed him and he died. Witches can summon fire from the sky and spirits from the night to seize a man’s soul.’
Blackstone looked at the frightened girl. Her skin was covered in gooseflesh from the cold in the cellar; her shivering made her breasts quiver.
‘You think her a witch?’
‘As I said, lord, she confessed.’
‘
Did you find any sign on her? A third teat for her to suckle the demon?’
‘There was none, but that does not mean that her powers are diminished. We all heard the incantations she used when she healed by magic; what we did not realize was that they were words that summoned forces from beyond this world.’
‘And why cut her hair?’
‘It was raven black, lord. Long and sensuous. It enticed men.’
Blackstone looked at the bedraggled girl. ‘You’ve fed her?’ he said.
‘Why would we do such a thing? She’s to be burnt.’
‘Not yet she’s not.’
The mayor gasped, his tongue licking dry lips, fingers laid nervously to his face. ‘My lord, we must rid ourselves of this witch. We have paid a heavy price having her and her father here. Our pardoner has claimed that penance must be done and –’
‘There’s a pardoner here?’ said Blackstone.
‘Yes. Once our priest was dead he heard of it and came to help us. We must unburden our sins and cast out devils. Don’t you see we must cleanse ourselves?’
Blackstone looked at the girl, who now crouched in the corner, arms across herself in an attempt to keep warm. Pardoners were the scourge of common men: they took money and goods in exchange for absolution of sin in the name of the Church. It was not difficult for such men to instil fear of witchcraft. Fear increased their payment.
‘The pardoner is still in town?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘I am Malatrait.’
‘All right, Mayor Malatrait, go and fetch the big man who has a rope around my priest and bring him here. Do it yourself. And give me your cloak.’
‘It’s my best cloak,’ complained the mayor.
‘Then go and get your second-best cloak to wear.’
‘Lord, this is too small for you,’ he argued plaintively.
Blackstone’s look needed no words. Malatrait loosened his cloak and gave it to him and then quickly moved to the stairs, pleased to be away from the witch and the man who seemed not to fear her.