by David Gilman
‘Sir William.’
‘My lord governor,’ said Felton to the severe-looking figure whose clothing and demeanour were enough to proclaim his importance even without the chain of office around his neck.
Sir Henry le Scrope was fifty years old, man and boy a soldier, and for the past year his skills as an administrator rewarded with the authority to govern his King’s jewels in France: Guînes and Calais. He studied the tall knight who stood before him and who did not avert his eyes. The two men facing him looked little more than unkempt brigands. ‘Sir Thomas Blackstone and Sir Gilbert Killbere, you stink of the road and your clothing is still stained with the blood of the French.’
‘My lord, we have not yet had the opportunity to bathe,’ said Blackstone, ‘and I remember seeing you splattered with French blood when we fought at Rheims. A man bears the marks of the duty he performs just as you bear your seal of office.’
‘Your impertinence does not surprise me,’ said the governor. ‘Wait here.’
Sir Henry walked to another door beyond the fireplace and knocked.
‘Christ, Thomas, do not antagonize the man who holds our fate in his hands,’ Killbere sighed. ‘Like facing a wild boar with nothing more than a stick.’
‘Gilbert, they have not disarmed us; we are not yet prisoners. And when we are we can use that stick to poke the boar in the eye. Let us not yield too easily in this matter.’
The door was opened by someone unseen. The governor stood in the doorway and raised the rolled document. ‘I have it ready.’ He stepped inside when a muted voice summoned him. The door closed behind him.
‘Where’s Chandos?’ whispered Killbere to Blackstone. ‘He might defend us.’
‘It looks as though the governor has already prepared our warrant,’ said Blackstone. ‘We are in the belly of the beast, Gilbert.’
Before Killbere could answer the door opened again and the governor faced them. ‘Sir William, you are excused. Our thanks. Blackstone, Killbere, in here.’
Sir William Felton bowed his head and turned on his heel. No look of triumph crossed his features but his eyes expressed a satisfaction that the rogue knight had been brought to heel.
Blackstone and Killbere did the governor’s bidding and stepped into a vast room. The warmth from a big fire reached them as soon as they entered. Candles were positioned around the chamber, but there was sufficient light from another large window to show woven rugs strewn over rush floors and tapestries hanging to help keep out the chill from stone walls. An iron chandelier bearing forty candles hung like a huge wagon wheel above their heads. Servants lurked in the shadows; an array of twenty or more court officials stood here and there. Sir John Chandos stepped forward, nodded at the two men and then stepped aside. It was a room furnished for comfort. Fit for a king.
Blackstone and Killbere caught their breath as King Edward turned from where he warmed his hands against the flames. His long flaxen beard and hair were shot through with slivers of grey. A second man rose from the embroidered chair that had been concealed by Chandos. It was the Prince of Wales.
Blackstone and Killbere went down on one knee. Killbere grimaced slightly at the pain from his wounded leg.
‘We hear you were injured, Gilbert,’ said the King.
‘Sire, it was nothing. A scratch.’
‘Get to your feet. Sir John, help him,’ said the King.
No sooner had Chandos taken a step forward than Killbere pushed himself upright despite the discomfort. ‘No need, my lord. With your pardon, I’m not yet ready to be nursed.’
The King of England stepped forward, away from his officials, closer to the two men. ‘You did not know that your King and his son were here.’
‘No, sire, we did not. We were not told.’
‘Because, Thomas, no one knew other than Sir John and Sir Henry. What needs to be attended to here is a matter of grave importance. A matter that required us to travel here by night across the sea. The very treaty we have signed might be at risk.’
‘Sire, whatever charges are to be brought should only be brought against me, no one else. Sir Gilbert is here as a loyal friend.’
‘You were not given permission to speak,’ said Sir John Chandos.
Blackstone dipped his head, acknowledging his fault.
‘We have received two delegations from the French King and the Dauphin,’ said the King. ‘They sought permission to hunt you down and asked that we lend our support with the troops we have in France. The charges against a knight under the command of our trusted Chandos were of such a serious nature that we were left with little choice but to give this matter our sincere efforts and best consideration. Over the weeks since the delegation reached us in England we were caused much vexation. Speak, Sir Thomas, explain to us how these charges came about.’
‘Sire, my men and I have done everything to serve your good name. I cannot know the exact nature of these charges and would hope that, once I am told, your grace will give me the opportunity to explain.’
The King’s face had not lost its stern look of displeasure. ‘We doubt that will be necessary.’ He returned to the fire and a liveried servant quickly pushed a second chair in place so that the King could sit and face the accused men. The Prince of Wales remained standing, gazing at Blackstone.
‘Saint-Aubin-la-Fère,’ said the King. ‘A town ceded to us by the treaty. You burned it down after killing the lord who held it.’
‘They betrayed you, sire. The agreement was broken. They tried to kill Sir Gilbert. I lost good men behind those walls. I reported the loss to Sir John.’
Somewhere in the half-light towards the back of the room was the sound of a quill scratching across parchment. Blackstone glanced towards it and saw three scribes seated at a long table copying down what was being said. So, a trial it is and the evidence is being recorded against me. Questioned by the King himself. He dared a glance at Killbere. Blackstone’s young life had almost ended in a sheriff’s court where only his own wit and help from Killbere had saved him. But this was no Court of Common Pleas. Perhaps they were to be handed over to the French. How poisonous an end to be given to his sworn enemy who had tried to kill him so often without success.
‘Sainte-Bernice-de-la-Grave,’ the King said. ‘Murder, rape, mutilation and the abduction of the lord’s son.’
Blackstone quickly related the events that led up to them riding into Sainte-Bernice and his pursuit of the mercenary who hanged the young archer and the fate of the brave young Frenchman. Throughout the explanation the room remained silent. No comment was made by Sir John Chandos, the governor or the King and the Prince of Wales. Blackstone began to feel his narration was sounding more and more like a troubadour’s embellished lyrics.
‘Louis de Harcourt gave a full report of what happened against the Bretons. There was some conflict in the telling by Sir William Felton, who is acknowledged as the victor.’
‘Sire, Sir William is an experienced commander. He deserves the credit,’ said Blackstone.
‘And then, the town of Felice. Slaughter on a vicious scale, the slaying of William Cade, the rape of Countess Catherine de Val. You destroyed the town and turned the Countess over to your men. The litany of crime goes on. Your destruction has cut a swathe across France. You recruit Gascons to your side and then with barely a handful of men you strike at the Count de Tancarville’s army. Thousands of men – routiers, Sir Thomas, mercenaries, men of base nature – flocked to your name.’
‘And many of them had served their King loyally in time of war,’ Blackstone said.
‘Be quiet,’ warned the governor.
‘It’s all right, Sir Henry, we have become accustomed over the years to Blackstone’s defiance. It has served us well at times. And not at others.’
‘Sir Henry, Defiance unto Death is Thomas Blackstone’s creed,’ said the Prince of Wales. ‘Twelve years ago we awarded him and his men their blazon here in this very town after he fought the French at the city gates. For that and a dozen other b
attles.’
The King settled his gaze on Blackstone. ‘Our son and I have spent many hours deciding how best to deal with these charges. We have conferred with our chancellor in France, Sir John, and we have given our assurances to King John and the Dauphin that we will deal with you appropriately. We also learnt from our trusted and loyal servant in Florence, Father Torellini, that an attempt had been made on your son’s life. We know the anguish of seeing a beloved son come close to death,’ the King said quietly. For the first time his features softened as he spoke to the man who had saved the young Prince at Crécy. ‘It was an act of courage all those years ago that has finally brought you before us in this room today.’
The King gestured for the document that the governor had brought into the room. An official stepped forward, took it, then placed it on the table, unrolling its length, securing each end with a weight.
‘During the weeks since these charges were brought against you we instructed Sir John to investigate every one of them fully. It was an onerous duty laid on a man who was already tasked with bringing the territory and towns under our control. He had more important things to be doing and he is soon to leave for Aquitaine where our son, Edward, is to be made Prince of Aquitaine and will rule in our name under the direct lordship of the Crown of England. He will soon journey there with Sir John Chandos, who will be constable. The Breton war will not end shortly and the Spanish princes will fight again.’
The official spilled hot wax onto the document, pressed the royal seal into it and bore it on a writing tray to the King, who took the proffered quill and scratched his signature. The tray was returned to the shadows. Blackstone heard the scratch of the quill again.
‘You saved our son’s life at Crécy, Thomas. And you swore an oath to our mother the Queen before she died that you would serve us and the Prince loyally. Sir John has confirmed to us that the allegations against you were false. You are a man of honour and humility who does not claim success that is rightfully his.’ The King gestured for the official to hand him the document. Edward stood and approached Blackstone. He held out the document that had now been folded square and sealed with wax and pressed once again with the royal seal. Blackstone looked at what was written on the front of the document. The three words hurled his mind back to his village in England and the day it started, all those years before, when Fate and its travelling companions Bad Luck and Misery had visited him, and he had begun his own boyhood journey that had brought him to this place.
‘Sir Thomas Blackstone, you are to accompany our son, the Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, and to serve the English Crown as Master of War.’
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Historical Note
Acknowledgements
About David Gilman
About the Master of War Series
Also by David Gilman
An invitation from the Publisher
Historical Notes
In 1360 the Plantagenet King Edward III agreed to a peace treaty with the House of Valois after twenty-three years of fighting. He and his son the Prince of Wales had achieved magnificent victories on the battlefield. King John II of France, held as a prisoner in England after being captured in 1356 – though more like a pampered guest in the luxurious surroundings of the Savoy Palace in London – returned to a devastated realm. While King John had been in England it had been his son the Dauphin Charles who had effectively stymied Edward’s invasion in late 1359–60 by steadfastly refusing to commit to a major battle. Charles was a shrewd and calculating Prince Regent who had vowed to reclaim as much of France as he could and who had rejected the original treaty agreed by his father the King. Once the new treaty had been signed there then began the process of handing over cities, towns and territory into English hands and their occupants swearing allegiance to the English. This was no straightforward task. A civil war raged for control of Brittany, which further complicated matters. The French claimed Brittany through their support of Charles de Blois, while the English claimed it through Edward’s young ward, John de Montfort. It was a proxy war that continued even while the peace treaty was signed. The Breton mercenaries had no cause to acknowledge the English King’s peace treaty.
King Edward sent the renowned Knight of the Garter Sir John Chandos to lead the negotiations with King John for the ceded towns to be handed over to the English Crown. He succeeded in gathering a thousand men to fight the Bretons in the Limousin where de Blois held territory. The Seneschal of Poitou, Sir William Felton, succeeded in defeating the Breton mercenaries in early 1362. In addition to this ongoing conflict the country was still plagued with mercenaries who swarmed throughout the regions, especially down the Rhône Valley. At times these bands of brigands came together and were sufficiently organized to number between ten and twelve thousand. The English brigands were obliged by Edward to renounce claim to the towns they held, but in reality the fact that they still raided and caused distress to the French Crown suited King Edward. The French, in an attempt to regain their own territory, often made payments to the brigands to encourage them to abandon the towns they occupied. Eventually, by increasing taxation and gaining financial support from major French cities, the French monarch managed to raise an army of the north under the command of Count Jean de Tancarville, the French Royal Chamberlain, with the renowned commander Jacques de Bourbon, Count de la Marche, Constable of France. Another army in the south was led by Arnoul d’Audrehem, Lieutenant of Languedoc. The expedition was a desperate attempt by the French to clear the mercenaries from the Rhône Valley and from any towns they held. In the small fortified town of Brignais in 1362 they thought to trap one of the mercenary leaders, Hélie (Petit) Meschin. The French army numbered nearly five thousand men, more than enough to destroy the defenders, but the French left their rear unguarded and Meschin organized a disparate group of mercenaries that outnumbered the French and defeated them.
It was after this defeat that King John II put into effect his desire to travel to Avignon and make the proposal to Pope Innocent VI that he, John, marry Joanna, Countess of Provence, Queen of Naples. (Since 1343 Provence had belonged to Joanna of Anjou, Charles of Anjou’s great-great-granddaughter, a dangerous woman, at this date twice widowed, whose first husband had been strangled, it is said, on her orders. There is a touch of this violent and dissolute woman in my character Catherine, Countess de Val.)
It must have felt to the French officials that King John had abandoned France and it was rumoured that he yearned to return to the luxurious life he had enjoyed as Edward’s prisoner in England rather than to try and rebuild a devastated and bankrupt nation. The shrewd Dauphin Charles waited in the wings. There were still unresolved issues in the peace process concerning the boundaries of territory which Edward claimed as his and which the French refused to cede. And so Edward now refused to renounce his claim to the French throne.
Many of King Edward’s great knights and fighters, loyal friends who had been at his side since he seized back the crown from his mother and her lover Mortimer in October 1330, were now dead. The Earl of Northampton, Sir Thomas Holland, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, Sir Reginald Cobham, Sir John Mowbray, Sir William Fitzwarin. Death after death visited Edward. It was time to hand over the command of his territories to his sons, a strategy to give them authority and responsibility, ably assisted by trusted officials at their side.
The Prince of Wales was also made Prince of Aquitaine, that vast and resource-rich area in the south of France, with Sir John Chandos as constable and Sir William Felton as administrator.
It seemed a timely moment to honour and promote Sir Thomas Blackstone.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to all my readers who have made the Master of War series and Thomas Blackstone’s adventures successful. On occasion I turn to some of these loyal fans when I need help with my research. When it came to finding a Welsh translation for the insult delivered by Gruffydd ap Madoc I asked fellow
author and ex-broadcaster Nick Evans for his help. He, in turn, spoke to a Welsh speaker and between them they advised me how best to write the derogative term. What I discovered from their advice was that the Welsh language seems not to have such pointed unkindness as I had written and usually employs low-key, non-aggressive verbal insults. More like banter than harsh insult. The translation, then, is as pointed as I can make it. It might not be the exact interpretation but I hope Welsh speakers are generous enough to grant me some leeway.
My ongoing appreciation for the painstaking editorial skills and patience of my editor, Richenda Todd. My usual thanks to the enthusiastic team at my publishers, Head of Zeus, who have now come up with a brand-new set of covers that give the Master of War series a fresh look on the bookshelves. Nic Cheetham, my publisher, has made good inroads for Blackstone into the American market and Blackstone’s legion of friends increases. Thanks to the efforts of the staff at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency and my agent, Isobel Dixon, other countries have also embraced Sir Thomas, Killbere and their men. More recently my German publishers, Rowohlt, have done a fantastic job of presenting the series to their readers. The books go from strength to strength, with audio editions read by Daniel Philpott and Colin Mace bringing another dimension to the series.
