Cross of Fire

by David Gilman

  Blackstone nodded. It had been the time when the French monarch had set the Savage Priest against him. Blackstone’s family had come close to death, his young squire, Guillaume Bourdin, had been brutally tortured and slain, and they’d set a trap for Blackstone’s friend, the Norman lord William de Fossat. De Fossat had been lured to the Breton march and held in de Sagard’s castle where de Fossat was flayed alive by the Savage Priest. Blackstone had put his friend out of his misery and then killed Rolf de Sagard for allowing the atrocity.

  ‘And de Sagard’s widow is Babeneaux’s sister,’ said Killbere. ‘Thomas, we have no business here. It’s obvious why he wants to kill you. You threw his sister to the wolves of poverty without a man to protect her and her children. He’s probably had to raise his rents on those poor bastards in the village just to keep her fed all these years.’

  ‘I have no quarrel with him, Gilbert. He has the quarrel with me.’

  ‘Thomas, see it as a piece of grit in your boot. It irritates, it might pinch, but it can be ignored.’

  ‘Babeneaux has the same poison in him. He tortures and kills and does it slowly like he did to that man we found hanging. And he gave his wife and daughter to his men,’ Blackstone answered. ‘Grit can be shaken from a boot.’ He turned the bastard horse back to where they had come.

  Killbere nudged his horse to follow. He glared at Quenell. ‘You have a big mouth. There are times it’s best to plead ignorance and not try so hard to remember.’

  *

  Blackstone stood before mother and child and felt the barbed point of memory of his own dead wife and daughter. The child’s name was Jehanne. She was five years old. Her body was bruised from the soldiers’ rough handling and a blow to her head had rendered her unconscious during the assault but now the blue-eyed girl stared up at him as her mother cradled her.

  ‘She has recovered,’ said Cateline. ‘Thanks to your son and these men.’

  ‘They were shown how to heal by a woman versed in such skills.’

  ‘Then my thanks and prayers must go to her.’

  ‘Prayers will do her more good.’

  The explanation was plain enough. She nodded. ‘What will you do with us?’

  ‘I have discovered why your husband wishes me dead but I want to know why he has taken your son.’

  ‘Hatred for me and a female child. I was widowed with a young son. He married me because I had land and title in my own right. I could not give him a son of his own. My son Jocard will inherit when he comes of age and with me dead Mael will act for the boy.’

  ‘And you tried to escape?’

  ‘Yes. We were going south to first seek protection from the English seneschal at Poitiers, Sir William Felton, and then ask for an escort to Avignon where I will place my son in the care of tutors until he is of age.’

  ‘You know Sir William Felton?’ said Killbere.

  ‘By name and reputation.’

  ‘Reputation?’ Killbere said, barely able to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  She nodded. ‘He defeated the Bretons months ago. He is favoured by the English King.’

  Killbere bent at the waist and glared at her. ‘Madame, it was Sir Thomas Blackstone who defeated the Bretons. Why would Sir William look favourably on you? You’re Breton. Your son is Breton. Your land is in the march.’

  Cateline Babeneaux stood, unafraid of the threatening veteran knight. ‘Do not presume to lecture me. I am no fool. My domain lies close to the lands of John de Montfort. If my husband controls it then he can strike out against those favoured by the English. The French King would like nothing better than to have a viper squirming in the heart of the English King’s ambition.’

  Blackstone looked at Killbere. It was now obvious that removing Mael Babeneaux from his stronghold would help Edward’s chosen ward, the young de Montfort, to one day secure Brittany.

  ‘Thomas,’ Killbere said. ‘This woman will wreak destruction on us. I feel it.’

  ‘Gilbert, I’m charged by the King to secure his territory.’

  Killbere growled his displeasure. He half turned to return to the men and then swung back to face Cateline Babeneaux again. ‘Thomas, ask yourself why this woman was abandoned now. Eh? A daughter of five years and no other offspring since. Why did her husband cast her out? Why not when the girl was born instead of the son he expected? Why now? He could have had her domain years ago.’

  ‘There was no dispute years ago,’ Cateline insisted.

  ‘The Bretons have been at each other’s throats for generations,’ Killbere answered her. ‘She’s hiding something, Thomas. You mark my words. It’s more than she’s telling us.’

  Blackstone sensed the woman’s unease and knew Killbere had drawn a deeply buried secret close to the surface.

  ‘Why hand you over to his men? Why not cut your throat and throw you in the river?’ he asked.

  ‘Because he is cruel and saw me as sport for his men,’ she said. ‘And since the birth of my daughter he thought he could win me around – that I would grant him my lands.’

  The answer was too glib. Blackstone stared at her. The danger in his eyes would cause a battle-hardened soldier to hesitate.

  ‘Why now?’ she said wearily and then lifted her chin defiantly. ‘One of his lieutenants helped us escape. When Lord Mael caught us on the road, he butchered him. That man was my lover.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Henry Blackstone earned a sharp rebuke from John Jacob. The boy had questioned his father’s decision to leave him in the forest under Killbere’s command while Blackstone and his squire rode out to find Babeneaux’s castle.

  ‘Know your place, boy. I serve your father and you serve me. Time will come when you will earn the right to be given responsibilities beyond those you now bear.’

  There was no question of Blackstone reprimanding John Jacob. The squire had saved Henry’s life in the past and his tutelage of Blackstone’s son as a page was at the express command of the boy’s father.

  ‘You’ll obey your squire, Henry. There’s nothing more to be said on the matter,’ Blackstone told him, secretly yearning to soften his harsh tone. The unwritten law of a boy serving his apprenticeship with an experienced knight or fighting man demanded no favour be shown.

  ‘I understand, my lord,’ Henry said with a bow of his head and turned back into the forest.

  Blackstone and John Jacob shared a glance. ‘He’s like a hunting dog straining at the leash, Sir Thomas,’ he said and smiled.

  ‘And a defiant streak as wide as my shield,’ Blackstone answered.

  ‘I wonder where he got that from,’ Killbere said as he stood next to the belligerent horse before Blackstone led the scouting party away. ‘Thomas, I fear this woman and her desires distract us. She may wear fine clothes but a whore is a whore no matter what they cloak themselves in.’

  ‘Gilbert, the woman followed her heart and tried to save her son and his inheritance. Nothing more.’

  ‘Had an itch between her legs is more like.’ Killbere sighed. ‘All I am saying is that if we are to die in a fight, let it be for the right reason.’

  Blackstone tightened the reins. ‘We will defeat Babeneaux and hold the woman’s domain in Edward’s name. It fits well with his support for John de Montfort. We’ll fight the Bretons soon enough and we will defeat them. Then with Edward’s alliance with de Montfort he’ll have the territory north of Aquitaine and a stronghold from the coast to Anjou and Maine. It’s strategic, Gilbert, and little to do with the woman’s lovers.’

  Killbere shrugged, cleared his throat and spat. ‘And you leave me here to wet-nurse the woman and child. Get a damned move on and stop chattering like a washerwoman.’ He knew defeat when he saw it and Blackstone’s plan had merit. Though he had no desire to admit it.

  *

  Blackstone and John Jacob reconnoitred Babeneaux’s castle. The German captain Renfred and Quenell along with six men accompanied them. Blackstone wanted another archer’s eye to confirm accurately the distance betw
een the forest and what was certain to be the open ground leading to the castle walls. They found what high ground there was beyond Babeneaux’s village where woodcutters’ tracks meandered this way and that. Riding cautiously, they neither saw sign of villagers nor tasted acrid woodsmoke from charcoal-making kilns. No cur barked or wary goose cackled in alarm as the men moved silently through the forest skirting the village. The trees closed in on the rutted ground and then, sensing the sweet smell of cut meadow grass, Blackstone chose a track that eventually opened into broad fields where stacked wood lay in piles ready to be hauled by cart to the lord’s castle.

  A mile beyond the open ground the castle rose up, its walls embedded in the granite escarpment.

  ‘Mercy,’ said John Jacob. ‘That’s a damned fine castle.’

  ‘One of the best we’ve seen,’ said Blackstone. ‘Unfortunately.’

  The men drew up alongside Blackstone, each man’s eyes gauging the difficulty of scaling the rock face and then the walls. Blackstone studied every line of defence that lay before him. A broad slope swept up to the north wall, a natural defence that exposed any attack. The broken ground made it difficult for men on horses to approach and any attacker on foot would be exhausted before they reached the rock face. An approach road, wide enough for a cart or two or three horses abreast, snaked its way towards the main gate across the uneven ground, the route forcing riders to jostle shoulder to shoulder and making them easy targets for crossbowmen or archers on the walls. On the flank of the castle walls quarried stone lay in mounds: gritty limestone rich in iron oxide and sand that was easy to cut and gave the castle a ruddy hue. There was evidence of ongoing building and fortification.

  John Jacob grunted in appreciation and gestured towards the three-cornered defence that jutted out from each end of the walls, which would give defenders an enfilade against exposed attackers.

  ‘I see them,’ said Blackstone.

  The outer defences were several hundred feet long and boasted four half-cylindrical bastions. Three spur-shaped bastions completed the reinforcements around the south-east and an entrance gate where the portcullis would snap shut its jaws. From where they stood Blackstone could see that if they could breach the outer wall another parallel curtain wall inside awaited anyone who survived the initial assault. Behind this wall additional towers were being built. Wooden scaffolding rose where masons hauled rope pulleys hauling aloft baskets loaded with cut stone.

  The more Blackstone studied the castle the greater his respect for the men who had built it and the more he realized that the castle could not be taken without siege engines. Well protected behind the curtain walls, five levels of a baronial hall loomed beyond the keep; each level’s upper window openings were braced with rows of columns of white limestone. This was home to the Lord of the manor and perhaps other seigneurial families. The keep was ninety feet high, accessed only by steps rising to an iron-studded double door entrance twenty feet up which would no doubt open onto a large vaulted chamber.

  ‘Quenell? Two hundred paces and more across the face of the wall? Between those bastions.’

  ‘Another fifty, my lord.’

  Blackstone nodded. He had been testing the archer; Quenell’s answer confirmed his own estimate. To assault anywhere along the outer wall would mean certain slaughter for the men on the ground.

  ‘They didn’t spare a sou on that,’ said John Jacob. ‘Have we ever seen anything that grand? There’s no way in, Sir Thomas. Our best chance is to find any underground rooms used for storage. They would be accessed from the courtyard.’

  Blackstone looked at the men. They all knew it was impregnable but if Blackstone ordered an assault, then they would not question his command.

  ‘It can’t be done,’ he said to the men. ‘We’ll find another way. John, Renfred, take the men and find us a place to fight in the open. We can’t get inside that fortress but I’ll find a way to draw them out.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On his return to the forest camp Blackstone called together his captains and their sergeants. He explained how the castle could not be seized and that his plan was to draw out Mael Babeneaux and fight him in the open.

  ‘We could send word to Sir William in Poitiers and with his men lay siege against Babeneaux,’ said one of the sergeants.

  ‘It would take an army,’ said Blackstone. ‘We would need siege machines and enough food to see us through winter. Besides, we are not to linger here. We must get to Poitiers.’

  ‘If the man who survived the river has reached home, then Babeneaux will know you’re alive,’ said Killbere.

  ‘If he recognized my blazon then Babeneaux will be all the more determined to find me. He won’t fall for a simple trap,’ said Blackstone. ‘That’s what we must use to our advantage.’

  ‘Yet he sends no patrols back into the forest,’ Will Longdon said.

  ‘So we don’t know if he is aware of you, Sir Thomas,’ said Jack Halfpenny. ‘If that man never returned then his lord will think you dead.’

  ‘Aye, he’ll believe that vagabond back at the hamlet he tortured and hanged was you,’ said Meulon the throat-cutter.

  Cateline sat outside the circle of men cradling her daughter. Henry Blackstone stood by her side. ‘May I speak?’ she asked.

  The men raised their heads and turned to look at her. She did not wait for permission. ‘Sir Thomas, you are right not to consider laying siege against him. My Lord Babeneaux had thirty men when he caught me. There are another forty behind his walls. He has grain and salt stores and winter fodder for his horses and enough food for another hundred men. He is a wealthy and powerful man who controls a dozen villages and towns, every one of which will betray you to him if they see you.’

  ‘Then we use that to our advantage. Let them see a few of us and that will be reported,’ said Killbere.

  ‘He would believe you had paid the villein to lie,’ said Cateline. ‘He would torture the man to confess. Under such pain any villager would admit anything, and then he would kill him.’

  Meulon pushed his bulk forward through the men, forcing Will Longdon aside. ‘Sir Thomas, I will go into the fortress and act as a beggar and tell him I have seen you and that you have only a few men with you.’

  ‘You a beggar?’ chided Will Longdon. ‘You’re too well fed, you oaf. You look as though you’ve eaten a hog for breakfast. Your arms are as thick as a man’s legs and stop you scratching that lice-ridden beard of yours.’

  The men laughed and jeered at Meulon, whose face darkened in anger. ‘At least I am no hunchbacked archer,’ he answered. ‘Bending to your bow deforms you.’

  ‘Aye, with sinew and muscle to pull a draw weight that few men can conquer,’ Will Longdon answered.

  Before Meulon’s temper led him to begin taunting Longdon again, Blackstone raised a hand and silenced everyone. ‘Meulon has a good idea.’

  ‘Just not the right one,’ added Killbere. ‘We should send Will Longdon’s scrawny arse in there. He stinks like a beggar most days.’

  ‘I lay no scent to scare the animals I hunt,’ Will Longdon answered. He looked up at Meulon. ‘You want fresh meat, a man needs to smell of the forest.’

  ‘Out of his own mouth. He stinks!’ said Meulon happy to continue his duel with the archer.

  ‘Enough!’ Blackstone’s irritation silenced the bickering. He turned to Cateline. ‘What can you tell us?’

  Cateline hesitated. ‘Beggars are not tolerated. They are beaten if they present themselves at his door. But if you could get someone inside there is a postern gate in the outside wall. They use it for supplies from the village; it’s wide enough for only one man at a time to enter. It leads into a storage courtyard.’

  ‘Then unless you have another lover to get a message to and open the gate we can abandon any hope of breaching the walls,’ said Killbere.

  ‘There is a way,’ she said, brushing a wisp of hair away from Jehanne’s forehead, ignoring his jibe. ‘Lord Mael would never turn away a pilgrim.’
<
br />   ‘He beats a beggar but feeds a pilgrim?’ said Killbere.

  She nodded. ‘Several years ago some Englishmen caught Lord Mael’s daughter when she was travelling home from Chartres. It was before the great battle at Poitiers. Lord Mael fought at King John’s side. He thought his family safe behind his walls but she had gone to pray at Chartres Cathedral at the feet of the Madonna. You English were a plague that swept the countryside. They killed her servants, but she gave the men the slip and reached the Abbaye de la Sainte-Trinité de Tiron, which gave her sanctuary.’ The men remained silent as Cateline’s gentle voice lulled them. ‘The abbot stood firm and defied those who gave chase. It was a miracle they did not murder the monks and take her. Thereafter Lord Mael vowed he would give safe passage to anyone who makes a holy pilgrimage from the abbey.’

  Blackstone got to his feet from where he squatted on the ground with the men. ‘Daughter, you say? I thought he was childless until you gave him the girl you cradle.’

  ‘The pestilence took his wife, his daughter and his young son. I was already widowed. I sensed no threat from him when we were introduced. As I told you, I hold title in my own right.’

  ‘So you were seduced by him?’ said Killbere; an unmistakable hint of sarcasm laced his question.

  She stared back at him unflinchingly. ‘I was,’ she said with no trace of regret or shame. ‘Your wars kill husbands and leave us women abandoned. We seek protection and comfort from those we hope will not degrade us.’ She gathered up the child and faced the men before she turned to where the makeshift shelter nestled in the undergrowth. ‘Lord Mael changed. Desire for wealth and property is greater than an honest desire for a woman. If you want to get inside his fortress find someone among you to be a pilgrim and pray his story is convincing. If it is not then his screams will haunt you forever.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Killbere sat cross-legged in his linen shirt and breeches ignoring the chill breeze that whispered through the forest. He was in a small clearing softened by ferns, away from the other men. Killbere’s jupon, mail, helmet, arm and leg armour rested on a low bough of a tree. His personal weapons were neatly laid out on his blanket spread before him; all had been cleaned and oiled. The chain of his ‘holy water sprinkle’ flail was laid in a gentle curl between its spiked ball and leather-bound shaft. His sword lay free of his scabbard. Next to it a misericord, the mercy knife, gleamed dully, its pitted steel as old as the man who wielded it in anger. Its thin blade was used by archers to despatch wounded enemy knights by forcing it through a helmet’s narrow visor. Killbere kept it as a secondary knife, his first preference being his rondel dagger. He spat on his whetstone and lovingly stroked it along the length of the twelve-inch blade. When enemies closed in during those final desperate moments of close-quarter battle and a man’s survival lay in his ability to bring down his opponent, the tried and tested rondel was often his last chance to kill his enemy. The weapon’s rounded hand guard and pommel offered a firm grip for a fighting man to plunge its tapered point between armour and mail. The veteran knight’s eyes shone with something akin to love for his weapons as he turned the gleaming blade to meet the stone with a tenderness few would ever observe. Killbere’s attention did not waver from the task at hand.