Viper's Blood

by David Gilman

  Lorenz saw Blackstone strike out towards him. In that moment he realized that to have a chance of survival against the scar-faced knight he had to get clear of the swirling blades. His men were dying around him and Blackstone’s fighters could soon overwhelm them. And then he would most likely be slaughtered like a sacrificial lamb.

  Blackstone saw Lorenz wheel his horse as he shouted to the men closest to him. They looked at Blackstone and two of them spurred their horses towards the Englishman. They barged the bastard horse but its strength made them falter and they panicked, swerving away as Blackstone struck down the closest rider. The second man was fighting his horse and although he tried to bring the beast back on course to protect his paymaster’s escape, its terror made it sway wide. Its rider gave a desperate sweep of his arm as it went past Blackstone and managed a glancing blow with his flanged mace. It struck Blackstone on the side of his head, rocking him back in the saddle. His vision blurred, almost causing him to fall, but he held on as the bastard horse’s power carried him through the brigands’ ranks. He spat blood as Lorenz spurred his horse in the direction of Milan. Was he running for home?

  They were already half a mile from the fight and Blackstone knew that the Italian’s horse could outrun his own. Like the armour on the man’s back the horse beneath him was of the finest quality. Desperation began to claw at Blackstone as he saw his quarry slip away. The bastard horse lumbered on in pursuit and he knew that if nothing else the belligerent animal would never stop until its heart failed and it fell dead. He looked behind him and saw he was alone. The fight had snared his men in a killing spree. Blackstone’s wounds had torn open and blood trickled down his arm. His lathered horse rumbled on and as its uneven stride settled into its own peculiar rhythm he felt the dizziness blur his vision once again. He knew in his heart he could never catch the man he sought so desperately to kill. Wolf Sword’s blood knot bit into his wrist, its burn adding to the cuts that seared his body beneath his mail, rubbed raw by his sweat-soaked undershirt. He offered a prayer to the Celtic goddess at his neck and begged Christiana’s spirit to help him. Anger at losing the chance to kill Antonio Lorenz spurred a fresh determination in him.

  ‘Come on! Come on!’ He urged the tireless horse because suddenly his prayer was answered and the assassin master’s horse slowed. The Italian had looked over his shoulder and seen that Blackstone had momentarily slumped over the horse’s withers.

  Blackstone’s vision blurred again; he shook it free. The man had turned! Lorenz was galloping towards him. The Italian raised the shield that bore the writhing viper, his sword arm ready to strike. His visor was down and the sunlight glinted off his burnished armour.

  Blackstone put the reins into his sword hand and reached down for his shield strapped to the pommel. He ignored the animal-like bite that seared his muscles as he lifted its weight into place. Now the two men were less than two hundred strides from each other and Blackstone could see that Lorenz was an experienced tournament fighter because he had angled his body low in the saddle, leaving a smaller target for Blackstone to strike.

  There was no time to think. It was all down to instinct now whether he would live or die. Blackstone had one advantage over Lorenz. He released the reins and felt the horse respond given its freedom. It nearly threw him from the saddle as it swerved and then straightened and within moments barged heavily into the other horse. There was a tremendous slap of muscle and the impact threw both men to the ground. Blackstone fell heavily on his back and felt the sharp pain thrust into his lungs. For a moment everything went dark and then instinct took over and he rolled clear, shield raised, Wolf Sword held low ready to strike upwards. But Lorenz was nowhere near him: he too was only just getting to his feet. His horse had been knocked down by Blackstone’s but it raised itself and cantered away. The bastard horse stood still, head lowered, flanks heaving from the impact.

  Both men staggered momentarily but then ran at each other. Antonio Lorenz was the lighter of the two and more agile. He clipped Blackstone’s shield with his own, sidestepped and aimed a hefty blow towards Blackstone’s neck. Blackstone raised the shield and the blade bit into its rim. He yanked hard before Lorenz could release his sword and the action threw the younger man off balance. As Lorenz stumbled his sword came free. He braced his legs and immediately attacked with a flurry of blows. He was muscular and had a tireless strength that Blackstone recognized in himself. Lorenz’s determination and agility were in his favour, but his desperation to strike a crippling blow on the bigger and heavier man meant he concentrated on using the skills and technique taught him by the great swordmasters of Italy. He had never fought in a major battle where blood and spittle showered everything and where men killed with any weapon they had including their bare hands. Antonio Lorenz was a master swordsman and he would soon find a way through Blackstone’s defence. But he did not know how to kill in a dirty fight.

  Both men grunted, lungs heaving with exertion and muscles burning. Blackstone forced his shield into Lorenz’s body, let Wolf Sword drop and dangle from its blood knot and with his sword hand now free gripped Lorenz’s belt. Blackstone’s momentum, size and weight did the rest and Bernabò Visconti’s bastard son fell backwards, his sword arm smothered. His weapon had no blood knot and he was suddenly defenceless. Blackstone gripped his sword hilt again for the killing blow but Lorenz yanked his knife free and slashed. The blade caught Blackstone across his thigh where he had strapped a piece of armour to protect his old wound; as the blade caught the metal its momentum was halted and it slashed across the inside leg muscle. Blackstone fell. Inflicting the wound gave Lorenz a surge of strength. He rolled, pushed back his visor to suck in air and then threw his weight down on Blackstone, whose injured leg hampered his movement. All Blackstone could do was raise his shield. It was the most natural reflex, but he knew that if he did Lorenz would simply smother it with his weight and strike low and fast with the knife.

  Instead of doing what was expected he threw his shield arm wide and, as Lorenz dropped onto him, rammed his sword arm upwards, the heel of his gloved fist smashing into the rim of the man’s helm. Lorenz’s head snapped back with such force that he fell away, losing his grip on his knife.

  This time he had no chance to roll clear because it was Blackstone who laid his weight across him. Lorenz bucked but could not shift him. Blackstone’s arm was now free of its shield and his forearm pressed against the younger man’s throat. Lorenz struggled for breath from the weight on his chest. He was being choked to death. His strength deserted him. Blackstone watched as the light faded from his eyes. He pulled off his gauntlets and freed Wolf Sword from the knot. ‘Not yet,’ he spat at the groggy man. ‘You don’t die this easily.’

  Lorenz recovered and began to fight again. Blackstone almost lost his grip now his hands were bare on the blood-slicked armour. ‘You sent the assassin who killed my wife and daughter and you thought I would never find you because you lived in the shadows. But I am here and I told you that when you die you would have my face close to yours,’ Blackstone said, holding the wide-eyed man under him, pinning his struggling arms beneath his knees. His leg wound felt as though muscle was being torn from bone, but Blackstone welcomed the pain. It poured strength into his hands as he reached inside the man’s helm and gripped his face and squeezed. Lorenz’s heels kicked and he tried to buck. But Blackstone’s hands were those of a stonemason and of a fighting man. He felt Lorenz’s jaw break. The man screamed.

  Antonio Lorenz half raised himself in agony, and gazed up in horror. The last thing the Lord of Milan’s son saw in his life was the scar-faced Englishman sweeping Wolf Sword down onto his neck.

  Like forsaken souls reluctant to leave their earth-bound world the shrouds of mist clung to the vast plain where Thomas Blackstone stood over his vanquished enemy. Bernabò Visconti would soon have his son’s head in a bloodied sack.

  Blackstone let the tension drain from him. He offered a prayer that his murdered wife and child would now find peace. As he l
imped towards his waiting horse he thought he heard the laughter of angels, but it was only the lilting sound of music from a city in the far distance heralding a new beginning.

  We hope you enjoyed this book!

  The fifth book in the Master of War series will be released in spring 2018

  For more information, click the following links

  Historical Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About David Gilman

  About the Master of War series

  Also by David Gilman

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Historical Notes

  When Edward III invaded France in October 1359 he did so with a final determination to seize the French crown that he believed was rightfully his. The Second Treaty of London which he had secured from the French King had not been ratified by the interim French government. Three years earlier his son, Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, had defeated the French King John II at Poitiers and taken him prisoner. It was a magnificent victory, one that overshadowed even that of Crécy in 1346. The English army, with Welsh longbowmen and Gascon men-at-arms, had once been the underdog of Europe but the defeat at Crécy of the greatest army in Christendom by this upstart English King shocked the whole of Europe. Edward’s fortunes were in the ascendancy. He was an extremely able military leader who fought alongside his men (as did his son the Prince of Wales) and was complemented by loyal and experienced commanders. His army was well disciplined and fought with efficiency and skill. The French King was ransomed for a huge amount – an equivalent then of £600,000. After Poitiers the treaty was signed giving Edward all the territory he demanded but the French King’s son, Charles, the sickly Prince Regent in Paris, doggedly refused to accept the terms and conditions, perhaps thinking ahead to the day when he would rule because when that day came it was unlikely he would wish to be monarch of a country so reduced in size that it would have appeared little more than a vassal of England.

  Despite King John II’s agreement to the treaty the Dauphin’s refusal to implement it left Edward little choice other than to invade. The army that left England on that October day was already a month behind its proposed date of invasion. Shipping 10,000 men, horses and equipment was an enormous undertaking – and needed 1,000 carts and teams to be taken across the Channel in 1,100 ships. This vast, impressive undertaking was not paid for by the Treasury but by the King himself. King Edward set sail with all his sons. The Prince of Wales was already an experienced fighter and no doubt Edward wanted to have his other sons, Lionel, John and Edmund, win their spurs.

  The invasion force landed at Calais on 28 October 1359 and on 4 November marched south in three divisions. The King led the main body of the army, the Prince of Wales shadowed him on a parallel course and the Duke of Lancaster took the middle route. Beset by supply problems from the start (even a thousand carts of supplies could not sustain an army longer than a couple of weeks), Edward had hoped to forage across the countryside but the Dauphin’s plan of resistance was simple: abandon villages and farms, burn everything, deny the enemy any comfort. Walled towns were well defended and no French army appeared on the horizon. By December the English army had reached Rheims, the city where kings were traditionally crowned. If Edward hoped to seize the city and have himself crowned there he had not reckoned on its stalwart commander Gaucher de Châtillon, who was from one of the most prominent families in Champagne and a determined fighter. The English divisions attacked unsuccessfully, most progress being made by the Prince of Wales’s men. But by January Edward had abandoned the siege.

  Small towns did not fare as well. The Duke of Lancaster’s men fought their way across defensive positions and with scaling ladders captured the town of Cernay. It was this operation that gave me the idea to have Thomas Blackstone seize the fictional town of Cormiers, but he needed a more important reason than merely securing food and drink. I had read that the Dauphin, safe behind the walls of Paris, struggled to fund troops beyond the city walls and it occurred to me that seizing gold coin fitted the bill, especially as the Constable of France was scouring the land for money to pay off independent captains whose routiers (mercenaries) plagued the countryside. So desperate were the French for money that the royal Lieutenant, Jean de Boucicaut, took over a local mint to pay his troops. Having Blackstone seize the gold for Edward gave me the perfect motive.

  France was being devastated. Routiers and Englishmen roamed the land, stripping whatever the French themselves had not taken or destroyed. When Blackstone and his men set out for the fictional town of Balon to save the life of Killbere, the English army had already gone further south into the abundant landscape of Burgundy. For the large sum of 200,000 moutons, the duchy bought off the English with the promise of a three-year truce from Edward whose army could now fill their bellies.

  The Picard nobleman Jean de Neuville had, in the meantime, led a small invasion force of a couple of thousand men to try and rescue King John. They landed on the English south coast and made their way to Winchelsea where they killed all those who had not had time to escape. English troops finally reached de Neuville’s men and saw them off but Edward considered this assault as an act of betrayal against a signed treaty. I therefore used this attempt to rescue the French King as motivation to spur Edward on to besiege Paris. While the Pope’s envoys were in conference with the English on Good Friday Edward launched an attack on the village of Orly, five miles from the conference centre. Half the population were massacred in the parish church. When Blackstone defies the Prince of Wales and refuses to attack civilians at the town of Arpajon he takes the more difficult choice of attacking the Benedictine priory that had been turned into a fortress by French troops. Records show that when some of the population sought refuge in the nearby church and decided to surrender to the English, French soldiers set fire to the church and nearly a thousand people died. As the survivors clambered down to the ground the English troops from the Prince of Wales’s division killed them.

  The English army burned and killed their way through the outer suburbs of Paris getting ever closer to the city walls. But the Dauphin still refused to come out and face his enemy. Why should he? He was safe inside Paris and knew that even if the English breached the walls they would die in their thousands in the city streets. It was agreed that sixty French knights would fight thirty newly dubbed knights. One of them, Richard Baskerville, was unhorsed but saved and the thirty went on to defeat the French.

  The English supply route failed and the weather – it was one of the worst winters for years: rain poured down for weeks on end, turning roads into quagmires – suddenly unleashed one of the most violent storms of the era as King Edward withdrew south from Paris and took the road to Chartres. A massive thunderstorm broke on Monday 13 April 1360. The English army was caught on the open plain without shelter. Enormous hailstones killed thousands of men and horses and this ‘Black Monday’ convinced Edward that his war had now offended God, and historical records suggest that it was the Duke of Lancaster’s counsel that helped Edward decide to sue for peace.

  I had used Simon Bucy, counsellor to King John before his capture, who was also adviser to the Dauphin, as a character in Gate of the Dead, and in Viper’s Blood I decided to extend his influence in the negotiations between the Dauphin and the Visconti of Milan. They brokered a deal to raise the King’s ransom money by selling the Dauphin’s eleven-year-old sister, Princess Isabelle, in a marriage to Gian Galeazzo, the eight-year-old son of the despot of Milan, Galeazzo II Visconti.

  When the Prince of Wales gave Blackstone a bill of safe passage I copied the Prince’s words from ‘the Jodrell Pass’, which is the oldest surviving English army pass; it was given to an English archer, William Jaudrell, granting him leave from the Prince of Wales’s army. The only elements I altered were the date and the name on the pass.

  Historically Princess Isabelle was sent under escort from Paris to Milan via Chambéry, home of the transalpine prince, Count Amad
eus VI of Savoy. At this time the plague had returned to Savoy and Lombardy and the Princess’s journey faltered when she fell ill with a fever. For a time it was thought she had contracted the pestilence but fortunately she had not, and recovered sufficiently to travel over the Alps across the Mont Cenis route.

  Count Amadeus VI was known as the Green Count from the days when he was knighted at the age of nineteen and had appeared at tournaments wearing green plumes and green silk over his armour. His sister, Bianca, had married Galeazzo Visconti so there was a connection between the two families. The Vipers of Milan were despots who ruled Milan (and surrounding towns and cities) by fear. The two brothers shared the rule of Milan although Galeazzo preferred to spend more time in his palace at Pavia, south of the city. He was responsible for great building projects, the founding of a university and a vast library. Galeazzo was the more diplomatically ambitious of the two. Bernabò Visconti was a complex man: educated, well read, but more volatile than his brother, his life was essentially consumed by debauchery and hunting. He was renowned for keeping five thousand hunting dogs in the city and woe betide anyone who caused suffering or neglect to these beasts. Both brothers have gone down in history as inventing the quaresima – forty days of torture inflicted on a victim. It began with a flogging, then a day’s rest, another flogging, another rest, then limbs would gradually be removed – a hand, a foot, nose, ears, always a day’s rest, until on the fortieth day, every limb having gone and most of the features, the victim was finally beheaded. I wonder, though, whether anyone could have survived for so long.

  It was some years after the time of Viper’s Blood when Bernabò attempted to kill his brother’s son and limit that side of the family’s influence, but this rivalry gave me the idea for Bernabò trying to thwart his brother’s ambitions of marrying into the French royal family by killing Princess Isabelle.