Viper's Blood

by David Gilman

  ‘Aelis,’ he said as he pulled up his horse.

  She pulled the cloak’s hood back from her head, ignoring the fine soaking drizzle. ‘We’re close to your army,’ she said.

  After they had crossed the river she had changed back into her skirt and bodice and once again the soft folds of her dress allowed men’s eyes to settle on the fullness of her body.

  ‘Tomorrow we will rejoin the Prince’s division.’

  ‘Am I a prisoner?’ she asked. ‘There is always a guard placed on me.’

  Blackstone looked beyond her to where the shadowed figure stood. ‘For your protection,’ he told her.

  ‘You cannot protect me all the time, Sir Thomas. I said that to you before at Balon.’

  ‘But I did and I will. Men lust after you. Enough wine and my orders can be forgotten.’

  ‘I am unafraid,’ she told him. ‘I would prefer to be left alone. I can defend myself should I have to.’

  He remembered her desire to castrate the men who had raped her. There was little doubt she would not hesitate to use a knife if she had one. ‘No,’ he said and pressed his heels into the horse. It took a few strides, but she stepped in its path. He pulled the horse up.

  ‘Sir Thomas, I will be at greater risk once we reach the army. If you let me go my own way I will find refuge somewhere. What difference between now and then when you will be obliged to abandon me?’

  ‘Now, I am here. Then, remains to be seen. I might place you with the barber surgeons.’

  ‘Those butchers?’

  ‘They help the wounded.’

  ‘I would rather take to the road and become a wayfarer,’ she said.

  ‘Then accept my protection and stay with my men under guard,’ he said.

  ‘If I agree will you let me practise my skills? If I cannot save a wounded man I can ease him out of his pain and give him a clean death. I use the treasure given to me by my father and the blessing of a merciful God.’

  Despite the darkness there was sufficient light for her to see his scarred face scowl with contempt. ‘No one goes into the darkness silently. We die screaming in pain. We cry tears of agony from shattered bones. There’s no final breath eased from our lungs – we gurgle and choke on our own blood. There is no merciful God, only a vengeful one.’

  He eased the belligerent horse around her. He and his men were close to Paris and the French should by now be drawing up their army to protect that great city, the heart of their nation. The war banners would be unfurled and the last great battle would be fought. He would be glad to quit France and its misery.

  Her voice carried behind him. ‘Vengeful only for those who deserve it.’

  He turned and faced her. ‘My wife and child carried no sin,’ he said, his voice cold, the words spoken deliberately. ‘You think you are blessed with the power of healing and the sight to see the future? I am blessed with a greater vengefulness than even God. Take some care what you ask of me. If I abandon you demons hidden in the hearts of men will hurtle from your merciful God’s underworld. They will savage you.’

  ‘I bear the scars already,’ she said.

  ‘You’re alive,’ he said. ‘Scars and pain are proof of it. You will stay under guard until I decide what to do with you.’

  He heeled the horse and sought the company of his men, silently cursing the memory of her nakedness and the desire it brought.

  PART THREE

  DEATH OF THE INNOCENTS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Failure bludgeoned the Dauphin Charles. The shock was as potent as if armed men had breached his chamber and attacked him. In reality only one man stood before him: Simon Bucy.

  ‘The attack on England has ended in a rout,’ said Bucy. ‘And because of it our noble lord and King has been removed to another place of safety, far from the coast. The English will unleash their fury now.’

  The Dauphin glared at his most senior aide, whose experience and presence he had inherited following his father’s capture. In truth Bucy held more power than the Dauphin. It was Bucy who always searched for a way forward to secure a peace with the English. It was he who had liaised with the papal legates seeking an accommodation between the two warring kingdoms. And now the tone of the man’s voice was accusatory.

  The Dauphin sniffed. ‘We cannot be held responsible for this failure,’ he snapped. ‘If thousands of men lacked sufficient courage to strike into England’s heart then it cannot be laid at our door.’

  Bucy was in no mood to coddle the boy. Decisions had been made against Bucy’s advice. Hard-won years of experience serving the King of France and overseeing Parlement had been ignored. Whether it was the father or the son who went against his counsel their behaviour often stretched his lawyer’s training and skills. And now the walled island that was Paris was soon to be completely surrounded and was being ruled by a boy who was at times as intemperate as his father. Well, if they were to have any chance at all of overcoming the great army that was trudging its way towards their beloved city then the Dauphin would have to be told the facts.

  ‘The raid was bravely led, sire. They did not lack courage. But the English will come at us now and if their rage is greater than their caution they will lay their siege engines and towers against our walls and throw fire and missiles until we burn.’

  ‘Let them come! Let them be provoked! The English army would never rise again: they would die in their thousands if they breached us.’

  Bucy acknowledged to himself that the Dauphin, despite his immaturity, made a sensible point: his defensive position was strong. But… always a but, always a doubt… what if they were all wrong and the English threw caution to the wind?

  The Dauphin paced nervously. Bucy remained unmoving. Best to let the boy spill out his thoughts and if pacing like a caged beast helped, then so be it. The Dauphin blew his nose and glared watery-eyed at Bucy. ‘We are being assailed from within as well as from beyond these walls. Every day you bring me petitions from knights who wish to ride out and confront the English. How long before they raise their voices so loud that they cannot be ignored?’

  ‘They’re fighting men who do not wish to be held captive behind the walls, highness. Their honour demands confrontation.’

  ‘We cannot afford to lose them but their ill will grows daily.’

  ‘Then let them go out and fight. Let them issue a challenge – if that’s what it takes to appease their blood-lust and misguided sense of honour.’

  ‘Let our knights leave the city? Are you mad?’

  ‘Highness, give them something… a gesture… succour for their wounded pride. A hundred knights can be spared.’

  The Dauphin shook his head. ‘We cannot afford to lose them,’ he repeated.

  ‘They might beat the English in a challenge. That would be good for morale in the city,’ said Bucy.

  ‘And if they do not?’

  ‘Then it will convince the other knights to stay and ready our defences.’

  The Dauphin could see that it made some kind of sense. The lawyer’s mind had weighed the odds and offered a solution.

  ‘Very well,’ said the Dauphin, and Bucy could have sworn that the Regent had squared his shoulders as if pride had suddenly straightened his spine. ‘They can issue the challenge but only when the time is right, when the English reach the walls. But not a hundred, that’s too many. Fifty or sixty. No more.’

  ‘A very wise decision, highness,’ said Bucy with a nod of feigned respect. If the Dauphin now felt more confident it was a good time to deliver a more worrying message. ‘There’s more news, highness. Oil has been poured on the fire.’

  *

  An hour before, after he had read the document that related the disaster of the invasion of England, the royal captain of the guard had summoned Bucy to the courtyard. A dishevelled soldier stood clasping a sack darkened with dried blood. The man had refused to relinquish either the sack or the message he carried to anyone but the man who had given the orders to the raiding party in the Dauphin
’s name. Paul de Venette had travelled cautiously back to the city and had decided to delay his report and seek out his family in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, one of the great suburbs that stretched from the countryside to the city walls. He had collected what possessions they could carry and brought his wife and children into the city where she would stay in the safety of her cousin’s home as he did his duty and joined others on the walls to face the onslaught that would surely come.

  Bucy had tugged the ermine collar of his cloak around his neck and shivered when he realized what was in the sack. Violence and the men who perpetrated it always stirred revulsion within him. He had commanded de Venette to relinquish the sack to a guard as he listened to the message from the man whose blazon he now clutched in his hand. The stitching on the badge showed the cruciform design of a sword and the words Défiant à la mort.

  Bucy’s stomach squirmed. He remembered a time past when he had commissioned the Savage Priest to slay Thomas Blackstone and his family, and now the Englishman’s revenge reached again for those responsible

  ‘I am to tell you, my lord,’ said de Venette, ‘that Sir Thomas Blackstone has slain our men and spared only me so that I may deliver his words exactly as they were spoken and which are meant for his highness, the Dauphin. I am to say this – and I recite it with disgust in my heart and the wish that I had not been so commanded. Forgive me, lord. These are his words: “There is no honour in the vile King’s son, the Dauphin Charles of the house of Valois. He sends dishonourable men to do his bidding, who are prepared to slaughter in ambush disguised as their enemy; it is he who deserves to die after being dragged naked through the streets of Paris and then to face execution in the Place de Grève, and then for his severed head to be kicked into the Seine and his body cast before swine so they might feast on his foul flesh. I, Sir Thomas Blackstone, am the sworn enemy of the house of Valois. I am the sword of vengeance for all the wrongs done by that ignoble house. I come for you.”’

  Paul de Venette’s head had remained bowed as he recited the message. He raised his face to that of the inscrutable Bucy. He could not know the fear that had gripped the older man’s heart when he held the blazon and heard the words of the Englishman they had tried to kill.

  ‘Forgive me, lord,’ said de Venette.

  Bucy looked at the forlorn man. ‘You bring me the head of your captain and the words of the man who slew him. You say you regret being obliged to speak such foul words.’

  ‘I do, my lord.’

  ‘Then why was it not enough for you to bring your captain’s head and remain silent?’

  De Venette looked nonplussed for a moment. And then confessed: ‘Lord, the Englishman’s reputation is fearful. He swore that if I did not deliver the message he would hear of it and he would hunt me and my family down and slaughter us all.’

  Bucy sneered at him. ‘So you would malign your King and his son at an Englishman’s command in order to save your family? Traitors have no place within these walls.’

  He nodded quickly to the captain of the guard and before de Venette could protest his innocence the captain’s knife blade cut his throat.

  ‘There is to be no mention of this man or the message he brought. Understand?’ he said to the captain.

  *

  In the sumptuous king’s chambers, warmed by braziers and carpets laid across the stone floor, a far cry from the dank and bloodied courtyard, the Dauphin waited for Bucy to relate the further bad news.

  ‘Sire, the men you sent out to raid against the English and disguise themselves in Englishmen’s colours: they have all been slaughtered.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘One raiding party is all we know about, highness. They were formidable men anxious to execute your orders. They slew enough Englishmen to cover themselves in honour,’ Bucy lied. Killing eighty Englishmen was hardly a major success but embellishment was always a good way to help smother bad news. ‘They had the misfortune to come up against…’ Was there any point, he wondered in his hesitation, in telling the Dauphin any more lies about the glorious dead who had died at the Dauphin’s ill-conceived orders? Bucy handed the blazon to the Dauphin, who quickly cast it aside.

  ‘He says he is coming for you,’ said Bucy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Simon Bucy clattered down the palace steps towards the royal captain, who waited with an escort of fifty men.

  ‘Your name?’ he demanded of the captain.

  ‘De Chauliac, my lord.’

  ‘You will escort me to the gates. To each gate and every defence. There is little time. Have some of your men ride ahead and clear the way.’

  The royal captain turned on his heel and gave his men their orders. The closest city wall lay less than seven hundred yards from the palace to the west. The Faubourg Saint-Germain was already burning, but Bucy wanted to see for himself how close the English were behind the smoke and flames. Knights and their commanders were born liars. Soldiers never conceded that they could be beaten: there was no glory in that. They would insist they could hold the walls no matter what the English threw at them. Bucy had reports on his desk of the supplies held in the city grain stores. There was enough to sustain them; livestock could be slaughtered and the city’s wells could not be poisoned by an enemy outside. If the English laid siege Paris would survive, but if they attacked then panic had to be avoided at all costs and the people’s fear harnessed to fight their aggressor.

  He made his way across the broad wooden bridge where silver- and goldsmiths and money changers plied their trade. The Grand-Pont spanned the River Seine from the Île de la Cité into the streets. It was unthinkable how much plunder the English would seize if they breached the walls. His beloved Paris was renowned throughout Europe for its luxury trades: her painters, jewellers, goldsmiths and furriers. There were Italian bankers on the right bank of the Seine, merchants’ houses and churches stretched all the way north up the paved Grand’Rue. He could see the smoke and flames in his mind’s eye, worse than any conflagration he would soon observe in the suburbs. The English King and his sons, banners unfurled, would ride down the city’s great thoroughfare with renowned knights following. Merciful God, he thought, it would be the end of civilization if the English unleashed their war dogs into the streets.

  The horses clattered onto the Grand’Rue, past the Châtelet and the church of Saint-Leuffroy. The butcher’s foul-smelling quarter lay down the narrow alleyways to the right, where heavy-set men went about their bloody business. Crude, foul-mouthed men, members of the oldest of the city guilds. For once he was thankful for them. Knives and meat cleavers with belligerent hearts behind them would punish the English.

  The captain wheeled the horses left towards Porte Saint-Honoré, the first great entrance into the city closest to the palace. As they approached a sergeant at the gates barked orders, an officer appeared and sentries poured out of their guardhouse. Bucy had no time for formalities: he raced up the steps to the ramparts behind the royal captain. No suburb touched the walls on the other side, it was still open countryside, but it gave an advancing army a clear line of attack. The gate was fortified and would hold, he told himself, and the English would be exposed. He looked over his left shoulder along the line of the city ramparts. A thousand yards distant, or more, the Faubourg Saint-Germain pressed itself against the south-east wall like a needy child against its mother’s skirts. Refugees were still trying to gain sanctuary as they fled from the surrounding countryside beyond the city walls. Smoke billowed, buildings already falling to the Dauphin’s command that nothing must be left to Edward and his marauding men. Bucy gripped the rough stone wall. He took a deep breath, thankful that he had decided to inspect the defences himself. His own eyes did not lie.

  Two years before, the marshals of the army had ordered troops into the city to help protect the Dauphin against the usurper to the throne, Charles of Navarre, and the surge of the Jacquerie uprising. Now those troops would be needed should the English storm the city. It was unimaginable. But
the royal captains had reported that King Edward was now closing in on all the suburbs that lay outside the walls. The huge city gates would soon be closed to any who sought refuge. Although, unlike smaller towns, Paris could not enhance its defence with ditches, this great city had its walls as well as its size and population to deter any attacker. But if Edward was so enraged by the failed assault on England then who could say what action he would take in revenge? One thing was certain, the villages and towns beyond the walls were already being burnt. If the English had brought sufficient supplies across la Manche then they could lay siege to Paris for years. But what King would want to exhaust his treasury thus? Everything favoured the city: no matter the size of the English army it was still not large enough to besiege Paris. However, every precaution had to be taken. Nothing could be left to chance. The city’s commanders had already placed bowls of water on top of the towers to watch for vibrations on the surface in case the English tried mining beneath the walls. If they did mine a concerted assault was also likely. They would hurl themselves from the forests and burning suburbs and push hundreds of scaling ladders around the city walls and main gates. One huge attack all at once. But then if the pestilent English poured into the city it would take them weeks to fight through the streets and reach the Île de la Cité. The Dauphin would remain safe on the island and the English would still be denied the French crown. There was a permanent body of two hundred professional crossbowmen employed within these walls as well as full-time knights and sergeants. Each municipality had their own archers. Yet they were too few to man the walls so in the final fight for life it would come down to the citizens themselves to defend every alleyway and thoroughfare. Every adult male living within the walls and the suburbs was liable for military service. Those with wealth would have armour and weaponry that suited their status; others would carry bucklers, padded jackets, sword and spear; any fighting weapon to hand would be raised against the English horde. Bucy momentarily relished the thought, seeing in his mind’s eye the fifty-strong groups of men assigned to each of their city areas ready to ambush and cut down English soldiers in the narrow streets. The citizenry was charged with the defence of a particular sector of the walls. He regretted not being able to convince the Dauphin that each of the suburbs beyond the walls should stand firm and fight until the bitter end. Anything to slow the English advance would have been welcome.