The Half-Hanged Man

by David Pilling

  “If you live, you will be rewarded, I promise,” I said, and shouted for some men to take him to the rear. Two esquires of my Company ran to do my bidding – his name was Sir John Chetlyng, a knight of Cheshire, but he died of blood loss shortly after - and then Fyling came trotting up with over thirty archers at his heels.

  “Listen, lads,” I shouted above the noise, ignoring the knots of brawling knights and individual combats raging around us, “we have the Company of Wolves exactly where we want them, and this time they will not escape us. Captain Fyling, do you see that wolf’s-head banner?”

  “Yes, Captain-General,” he shouted back, his hideous features slick with rain and mud and gore, “never fear. We’ll be wiping our backsides with it by nightfall.”

  “Follow where I lead,” I ordered him, “and never lose sight of the Wolves. A hundred florins to the man who brings me the head of Thomas Page.”

  That put some extra spite and eagerness into them, and they followed like an obedient pack of hounds as I spurred towards the hated banner. Elsewhere the Comte de Armagnac had led his division against the Castilian knights of King Enrique’s battalion, who fought bravely but were starting to buckle under the pressure. A battle is no neatly-ordered sequence of events, though, and all was noise and violence and magnificent chaos, thousands of screaming, mud-caked demons hacking each other into oblivion in the pouring rain.

  A few of my knights extricated themselves from the mêlée and joined myself and Fyling’s archers on the wolf-hunt. I urged my destrier over the slimy ground, carpeted with still and writhing bodies, just as a troop of mounted English men-at-arms slammed into the flank of the line of Castilians ahead of us and burst it to pieces. The slender figure of Chandos was at their head, his white gauntlets soaked with blood, his bright sword administering death with exquisite precision, and then he disappeared into the mass of yelling, stabbing, struggling men as they broke and stumbled in bloody retreat, back towards the river.

  For a moment I was appalled – the wolf’s-head banner had vanished, but no, there it was again, on a little mound surrounded by a cluster of eighty or so Wolves. They had dismounted and formed into a schiltron or Swiss-style wedge, using their lances to present an impenetrable wall of points.

  And there, standing under his banner and exhorting his men to sell their lives dearly, was the Wolf of Burgundy, Thomas Page, the stocky, flaxen-haired figure I had only glimpsed from a distance at Auray.

  My heart almost burst with joy, for Page, that rotten, bastard whoreson who had shamed and humiliated and evaded me for so long, had made a terrible blunder. His men dared not break ranks, for then Chandos’s knights would cut them down. As it was, the knights swirled aimlessly around the hedge of lance-points, throwing maces and axes at the Wolves, but keeping their distance – a few valiant souls who charged the lances found their horses skewered from under them.

  The Wolves had no protection against my archers, and Fyling was already bellowing at his men to shoot. They notched, drew and shot with smooth, well-drilled precision, and I watched with murderous glee as the shafts sailed high into the air, over the heads of Chandos’s men and plunged into the wolf-pack.

  The Wolves had no choice but to die where they stood. Lanes of dead and dying opening in their ranks as the arrows showered among them. Less than two minutes passed before the wedge of lances was broken, and Fyling roared at his archers to cease as Chandos’s knights eagerly galloped into the ruined formation, clubbing and spearing the survivors – Christ, many of the men in Page’s command were fellow Englishmen, but that didn’t matter. At Najéra they were simply the enemy.

  Page. I had to find him, and kill him with my own hands. I raked in my spurs and put my destrier to the slope, charging recklessly through the final death-struggle of the Company of Wolves. The wolf’s-head banner still flew, and a little knot of men fought to defend it, back-to-back in a circle. I drove the point of my sword into the throat of one of the defenders, but I wanted Page, and couldn’t see him. The fight on the hill was a staggering, disordered mass of figures, stabbing and standing and lying, slathered in blood and mud while horsemen rode through and over them, but the Wolf had vanished.

  He had vanished. The Battle of Najéra was won, the Company of Wolves was destroyed, King Enrique was fleeing for his life, and the Prince of Wales had another garland to add to his heap of battle-honours, but Thomas Page had escaped me. Whether he hid under a pile of corpses, or swam the river, I don’t know, but I had lost him.

  I didn’t see him again for eighteen years.

  8.

  “Eighteen years,” said Calveley, staring at Froissart, “you know the rest. Najéra was only a temporary victory. Once the English withdrew to Aquitaine, Enrique came back again and ripped the throne of Castile away from his brother. He made sure of Pedro this time, and murdered the bastard with his own knife. The Prince of Wales got precious little out of the campaign, save crippling debts and the fever that eventually killed him.”

  Froissart rubbed his tired eyes and carefully laid down his quill.

  “And you lost the trail of Thomas Page, until your agents saw him with me in the Plough inn,” he said. Calveley nodded.

  “You led me to him,” he said, grinning. Froissart didn’t like that grin. It stretched Calveley’s papery skin tight across the gaunt bones of his face, exposing his brown needle-like incisors and making his rheumy eyes bulge. The old soldier was a grotesque, living cadaver, and Froissart was sick of his company.

  He glanced at the window. It was pitch-black outside now, and rain was still pattering at the glass. He didn’t relish the thought of travelling back to London in darkness, but the risk and discomfort of the road was preferable to staying the night at Steventon.

  The mute, Adam, was moving about the hall, lighting candles. At a nod from Calveley he fetched a wine jug and refilled the cup at Froissart’s elbow.

  “Thank you, no,” said Froissart, refusing the cup, “this has been most informative and interesting, but I must head back to my lodgings in London. The Duke may take it as an insult, otherwise.”

  “You will stay,” murmured Calveley, resting his massive head on his fist, “and drink, and allow me the pleasure of your damned company until I say otherwise.”

  Froissart paled, and took a polite sip of wine. It had a bitter, grainy taste. “Thomas Page,” he said, dabbing at his mouth, “at least tell me what you have done with him.”

  “First, the Raven. Adam, go and fetch her.”

  The mute padded away, returning with a small iron-bound black box. He knelt and placed it on the floor between Calveley and Froissart.

  “Open it,” said Calveley, and Adam unlocked and pushed back the lid. Inside the velvet-lined box were a poniard and a slender human skull.

  “After the battle at Najéra was done, I took a few of the surviving Wolves prisoner and put them to the torture,” said Calveley, watching Froissart intently, until they told me of the whereabouts of the Raven. She was holed up in a little church near Navaretta, waiting for news of Enrique’s victory. They were confident, you see. She expected her lover to come and find her afterwards. Instead I did, with thirty men-at-arms at my back.”

  A sick feeling took hold of Froissart, and he started to shake as Adam lifted out the poniard and held it up to the light. The blade was marked up to the hilt with a rust-brown stain.

  “That was her knife,” Calveley rumbled on, “and that is her blood on it. I murdered her, Froissart, on the steps of the altar. She did not scream or beg, but spat in my face and cursed me for a coward. That is her skull in the box.”

  A wave of horror overcame Froissart’s fear of the monster sprawled on the sofa. He rose to his feet, knocking over his cup, and backed away towards the door.

  “You murdered Eleanor,” he said, his voice trembling, “you sit there and openly admit to killing a woman in cold blood, without a shred of remorse, and expect me to sit and listen to it. I suppose you have had Page done to death by now. You animal�
�you filthy, flint-hearted beast…you…”

  To Froissart’s surprise, Calveley unfolded from his seat without the aid of the crutches leaning against the wall, and loomed over Froissart. His towering, spindly form, tattered grey hair hanging loose to his waist, took on a ghastly appearance in the shadowy half-light of the hall.

  “You damn me, do you?” snarled Calveley, baring his jagged teeth, “in my own house, you dare to throw accusing words at me. Ah, but your famous eloquence is curbed a little.”

  Froissart staggered, and raised a hand to his brow. He felt thick-headed, his tongue suddenly swollen and too large for his mouth. A prickling sweat had broken out all over his body that had nothing to do with fear.

  Calveley moved closer, kicking aside the box and spilling the Raven’s fragile skull onto the tiles, “Hear me, Froissart. I was once the terror and glory of Christendom, and shall not be prated at by some squeaking, pusillanimous, scribbling Frenchman. Your tongue cleaves to your skull, does it not? Be thankful. I was tempted to have Adam rip it out.”

  The wine. The wine was drugged. Froissart’s mind couldn’t conceive why Calveley should have drugged him, or conceive of much at all. His vision was blurring, and he groaned and sank to the floor as the candle flames in the hall dwindled to pin-pricks.

  Calveley was standing over him now, roaring as he struck at Froissart’s head with his yellow fists, jarring it right and left.

  “I will send you to meet the Wolf!” he bawled, his voice echoing strangely inside Froissart’s head, “and you can see for yourself what has become of him. Let his fate serve as a fitting epilogue to your Chronicle, Jean Froissart, and a testament to what happens to those who spit on the name of Calveley! Bonne nuit, you son of a whore…”

  The terrifying giant slipped out of sight as Froissart toppled sideways, and then he knew no more.

  He woke with a foul taste in his mouth, a pounding ache in his skull, and fresh air in his nostrils. A wave of nausea ripped through him as he tried to sit up, and he vomited.

  When he was able, Froissart stood up on shaky legs and clutched at his head as he tried to make out his surroundings. It was a damp, fresh morning, and he was in open country somewhere, surrounded by pleasant green fields, fringed by patches of woodland to the east and west. His horse stood nearby, tethered to the solitary oak tree growing in the middle of the field. God only knew what Calveley had done with his servants. The old murderer was capable of anything.

  Something hard and sharp brushed against Froissart’s head, making him flinch and look up, and what he saw drove him to his knees.

  The sharp object was a rusted and corroded spur, attached to the boot of a man sitting inside a square iron cage. The cage hung from the tree via a thick rope running from a hook to a stout branch overhead.

  Froissart wept and babbled prayers at the sight of the man in the cage. He was dead, and rotting away, and around his scarred neck was a tattered red scarf. The bars of the cage were wide enough to admit hungry scavengers, and a couple of ravens were perched on his head, picking at the few dry scraps of flesh that were all that remained of Thomas Page’s face.

  The Wolf is caged, but the Raven loves him at last.

  Death had caught up with the Half-Hanged Man at last.

  END

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  David Pilling is a writer of historical and fantasy fiction. He was fortunate enough to grow up in West Wales, where his innate love of history was inspired by the dramatic landscape, dotted with ruins of castles and abbeys. The Dark Ages and the high medieval period particularly appeal to him.

  His influences include: George MacDonald Fraser, Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow, Rafael Sabatini, Terry Pratchett, J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, Ian Fleming, and many others