Cross of Fire

by David Gilman

  Felton’s mouth tugged down – in displeasure or disgust, Blackstone couldn’t tell. And he didn’t care.

  ‘And you get to keep the peace,’ he added. ‘I’ll take him down to the cells and make the exchange.’ He paused, granting Felton a moment of ill-deserved respect to pamper his vanity. ‘With your permission, Sir William.’

  Felton’s silence was all the permission Blackstone needed. Once outside he led the man across to the jailer, who was paid more ale money.

  ‘Sir Thomas,’ said Jack Halfpenny. ‘Are you here to help me?’

  ‘Give this man your jupon, and your belt. Dress him. His hands tremble too much.’ Blackstone turned to the jailer. ‘The seneschal will send the provost for this man tomorrow morning. See he is fed and given wine. As much as he can eat and drink. There is no need for him to be sober when the sun rises.’

  The jailer nodded, knowing where his good fortune lay.

  Halfpenny finished tightening his belt around the man and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘God be with you.’ He faced Blackstone. ‘And with you, Sir Thomas, for saving me.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Blackstone led his men out of Poitiers the next morning. Torellini and his escort with Lady Cateline and her children were placed in the middle of the column. As they followed the road along the river they heard the roar of the crowd as the unfortunate was hanged. A few of the men turned in the saddle. Blackstone did not look back.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ said John Jacob and crossed himself.

  ‘Money well spent,’ said Killbere.

  ‘We are still too few,’ said Meulon. ‘There were few men of quality in Poitiers to replace those we lost, Sir Thomas.’

  ‘We would not want Felton’s cast-offs,’ Killbere told him. ‘Our problems begin when we part company with the Italian’s escort. They’re the kind of men we need to go with us to smooth the Count of Foix’s peacock feathers.’

  ‘You think we should ride with them as far as Avignon?’ said Renfred. ‘They travel through English-held territory. Safe enough for a few days until we find reinforcements.’

  ‘Several days of arse-aching misery to the Count of Foix is enough, ten or more to Avignon could bring a man to embrace the Church,’ said Killbere. ‘Thomas?’

  Blackstone turned in the saddle and looked at the column snaking behind him. The rising towers of Poitiers were already shrouded in low cloud. ‘We need to strike out and pick up the pace. Today we follow the river; tomorrow we turn east. There’s a monastery where we can stay for another night and then Father Torellini and those with him will find sanctuary in towns held by the English and any other religious house that lies on their route. Renfred, you and Meulon scout far enough forward for us to make camp tonight. Take three men apiece. There are Teutonic Knights searching for us.’

  The news brought a look of surprise. ‘They’re a long way from home,’ said Renfred. ‘Are they seeking trouble?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘Miserable bastards, they are,’ said Will Longdon, who was riding further back. ‘Half-shaved heads and a dislike for whoring. They think they’re some kind of holy warrior. You don’t want them as an enemy is all I know.’

  ‘All you know is what it costs for a whore and how to pull a bow,’ said Meulon.

  ‘And you men-at-arms should seek a priest every day and offer prayers that our aim is true and our bow arms stay strong. And everyone knows whores prefer us archers. It’s not only our bows that have the length.’

  Meulon snorted and spat. ‘I hear your quick shooting is what pleases them.’

  ‘If I want to hear bickering I’ll ride with the Lady Cateline,’ said Killbere. ‘Get about your business, Meulon, and leave Will to scratch his balls.’

  Meulon and Renfred veered away, rode down the column and called out the men to join them.

  ‘Trouble is, Thomas,’ said Killbere, ‘Teutonic Knights swoop like falcons, talons bared. They could strike in our centre, ride through, and be gone until the next ambush. Once we get across open country, we should put outriders on our flanks.’

  ‘No need, Gilbert. They won’t strike at us.’

  ‘Oh, and what prophets have you been listening to? Does Torellini have God’s ear?’

  ‘No. I intend to find them before they find us.’

  *

  They made good progress along a well-travelled road. Late in the day Blackstone changed direction, leading them across rolling meadows offering sweet grass for their horses and chestnut forests which gave shelter for the night. If anyone wishing them harm saw their fires they would have to travel across the open ground. Not even belligerent Teutonic Knights would attempt an attack across such terrain in darkness. But Blackstone never trusted the obvious and had outposts sited so that any ghostly attempt to get close would be seen before someone inflicted violence.

  ‘Father?’ said Henry as he crept closer to where Blackstone lay next to his campfire, careful not to approach too close in case his father was asleep. A rude awakening could mean a lunge with a knife before identifying his son.

  ‘I’m awake,’ said Blackstone.

  Killbere snorted and turned in his sleep.

  Henry trod carefully around the sleeping veteran. ‘I heard Renfred say that there might be German knights on the road ahead.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Jocard told me that days before Lady Cateline tried to escape from the castle there were men he had never seen before at the gates. He says they spoke with a heavy accent and wore blazons of a black cross. They rode sturdy coursers and looked as though they had travelled a long way.’

  Blackstone knew that if they were the same men who had questioned Father Torellini at Chartres, then it was possible that priests or monks further west towards the monastery that had once given Babeneaux’s daughter sanctuary had directed them. From there it would not be difficult for them to seek the man renowned for giving sanctuary to pilgrims. And it seemed possible that by design or good fortune they were following Blackstone’s route or had bypassed Poitiers and were ahead.

  ‘That’s valuable information, Henry. Thank you.’

  The firelight’s shadows caught the boy’s face. Blackstone saw his uncertainty.

  ‘Will says they are terrible men. Fearsome fighters,’ Henry said. ‘And that they are hunting you.’

  ‘Will Longdon is gossiping like a washerwoman. Don’t listen to him. And he’s only half right. Most of the Teutonic Knights are noblemen. They take the monastic vows and another to devote themselves to serving the sick. Courage, prowess and honour guide them. They wear no gold or jewels, own nothing of value except their armour and their horses, but they are indeed fearsome fighters. They’re known for their pride and their tyranny. They can be as cruel as any routier. They have tortured and massacred prisoners, even destroyed churches. No great order of chivalry ever survives untouched by human weakness.’ He smiled at his son, who sat as attentive as any student. ‘Some things such as this they don’t teach at school. And Jocard’s observation was accurate. Teutonic Knights wear white surcoats that bear a black cross.’

  ‘Then it sounds as though they might be close,’ said Henry.

  ‘We’ll see. You’ve heard what Father Torellini has said about Avignon? That you will have no shadow from the Tau knights as you did when you travelled from Florence last time?’

  Henry nodded.

  ‘And Jocard?’

  Henry shrugged.

  ‘He is a danger to you. He knows your true identity.’

  ‘He’s sworn to secrecy. I saved his life, and you saved his mother and sister. He’s a brave boy, Father, and he knows the importance of keeping my name secret. And besides, he will not be in the same school or lodging. Avignon is a big place. I doubt we will even see each other that often.’ He studied his father for a moment. ‘But you must have considered the risk before sending me there.’

  ‘You cannot live a full life without risk, Henry. I considered it. I wanted to
find out if you had.’

  They fell silent. Henry got to his feet. ‘Goodnight, Father.’

  ‘Goodnight, my son. You have my blessings.’

  ‘Thank you, Father.’

  As the boy turned Blackstone could not resist asking the question that itched like an old battle scar. ‘The boy’s mother. Lady Cateline is well? She is not fearful of the journey?’

  Henry faced his father. ‘She has expressed no misgivings. I think Father Torellini’s escort has given her confidence.’ He hesitated. ‘But she is not as brave or as strong as Mother,’ he said, unable to stop himself.

  ‘No one could ever replace her or her courage,’ said Blackstone.

  Blackstone’s gentle reply brought a brief smile of gratitude from his son. Henry made his way back through the sleeping men.

  Killbere turned in his blanket, pushing his back towards the flames. ‘Yet still the widow squeezes your heart and stirs your cock,’ he said, without opening his eyes.

  *

  The following day’s journey was uneventful. Blackstone used the pretence of going back in the column to speak to Father Torellini. The priest did not know the monastery that Blackstone had chosen for the night’s stay.

  ‘I used to raid this far south,’ Blackstone assured him. ‘One year we beat off a band of routiers who threatened the monks. They’ll give us sanctuary and food.’

  ‘Is there anywhere in France that you don’t know?’

  ‘There are many places I haven’t visited,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘And few you have not fought at,’ Torellini answered. ‘Depending where we travel there will be people who embrace you or fear you. I would be frightened for my life if any of those who harbour resentment discovered I was the priest who cradled you at Crécy. I wonder if our good Lord gave me a blessing or a burden that day.’

  ‘Only you can decide that,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘I’m teasing you, Thomas. To ride in the shadow of a legend gives more warmth than basking in the Tuscan sun. I wish you were riding with us as far as Avignon but I know you are on the King’s business.’

  ‘You’ll be safe enough. The English hold the road and towns and the routiers are scavenging further east. And your escort are the kind of men I wish I could recruit.’

  ‘Once they deliver us to the new Pope, they are still the King’s men and would obey any order given from you. You’re Edward’s Master of War. Speak to them. You have my blessing.’ He smiled and laid a hand on Blackstone’s arm. ‘As always.’

  Blackstone reined in the bastard horse and let the column move past him. When Cateline drew level, cradling her daughter, Blackstone eased the belligerent beast next to her. ‘You are managing the child, my lady?’

  ‘You care?’ she answered, keeping her eyes on the way ahead.

  ‘Your welfare is my responsibility until I leave.’

  Cateline eased the sleeping girl into a more comfortable position. ‘You needn’t concern yourself. You made your opinion of me very clear.’

  ‘I spoke harshly and I apologize.’

  ‘Is there anything else you wish to say, Sir Thomas? I don’t want to wake Jehanne.’

  Blackstone accepted her dismissal and heeled the horse forward to retake his place at the head of the column alongside Killbere.

  ‘Everything all right back there?’ Killbere taunted gently. ‘Our Italian not complaining? The weather not too hot or cold?’

  ‘I was discussing the men who ride with him.’

  ‘And the husband-huntress? She is in good humour, is she?’

  ‘Mind your own business.’

  ‘Ah. Well, Thomas, when a woman uses her wiles to draw you back to her and then beats you over the head with a mace to show she controls you, then it is something a man should recognize and turn his back on.’

  ‘Gilbert, you talk like a court fool. She has not used her wiles on me. I went to see that she and her child were all right.’

  Killbere gave him a disbelieving look.

  ‘After I spoke to Father Torellini,’ Blackstone added quickly.

  ‘Thomas, I trust your instincts in battle but when it comes to women, you are as helpless as a sack full of blind kittens being thrown down a well. Of course she wants you. God’s blood, man, she tells her son about the visitors at the castle; he tells Henry; Henry comes creeping through the night to tell you. She meant for you to go to her last night. To go and question her. To find out what she saw. What she knows. It was a message, you dullard, to draw you into her bed. Why do you think her tent was some distance from the men?’ He sighed. ‘A pity your wits are not as sharp as your sword when it comes to women. She has thrown grappling irons to scale the walls of your resistance. Good riddance to her, Thomas. Know the game she plays. If she breaks through your defences, you are lost.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Wolfram von Plauen led his men across the unfamiliar countryside. Certainty had been his lifelong companion but this foreign land tested him. He was not used to self-doubt; it had never entered his thoughts when fighting in the crusade against marauding Samogitians in Prussia. They were a pagan enemy like the Lithuanians and the brethren had brought both to God by killing them. Like cauterizing a wound on the body, dying beneath a Teutonic Knight’s sword seared the infection in a heathen’s soul, releasing it in the final moments of agony to the care of the Almighty.

  Von Plauen and his companions had tracked down some routiers who had fled from the eastern border and were now raiding along the Loire and into Brittany. These men had served with Gruffydd ap Madoc and knew of Thomas Blackstone but none had admitted that the Englishman had been on the eastern border with the Welshman and the Count de Vaudémont. Von Plauen and his brethren had killed nine routiers so far and given alms to the peasants who had suffered from their depredations, but the mercenary scourge had now outrun them, leaving the Germans to find only burnt-out villages and massacred civilians. He and the knights with him slept in Dominican abbeys yet no information was forthcoming from the monks either, despite the Teutonic hospitallers’ close association with the religious order. Von Plauen knew that was because the monks often paid patis to the routiers for protection – they could not deny hospitality but they could remain silent.

  Horse tracks went this way and that across the meadows. They had been following fresh signs but now those tracks had separated into two groups. How was he ever to find the Englishman and his raiding companion ap Madoc? In truth, he told himself, they were lost.

  ‘Brother Wolfram,’ Rudolf von Burchard called, urging his horse forward. ‘We have passed this place before. Without stars or sun in a clear sky to guide us we are making poor progress.’ The broad-shouldered knight wiped the sweat from his eyes. He was not laying blame. ‘I saw signs of woodcutters at that forest we passed. One of them might be willing to guide us towards those who came this way. It’s worth a few livres, surely? Criss-crossing the land like this, hoping to find the Englishman is taking too long.’

  Von Plauen nodded. ‘If Blackstone is ahead of us, then we must discover his route. We are close to him – I feel it.’ He tightened the reins in his hands and tugged his spare horse with him. ‘As the Frenchman said in Paris: we find Blackstone, we find the murdering ap Madoc. And from what we have since learnt about this Englishman there will be honour in killing him also.’ He gestured one of the two half-brethren forward. The man’s grey mantle beneath the black cross denoted his status as a sergeant-at-arms. ‘Hartmann, ride into the forest. Find a guide among the woodcutters. Bring him to me with the promise of payment. We will wait here.’

  The half-brother wheeled his horse.

  ‘Have Brother Gunther bring up the horses. Secure them until Hartmann returns. We’ll rest and pray here. We must stay on our guard, Rudolf. We are few and the enemy are many.’

  Von Burchard smiled. ‘And when has that ever been different?’

  *

  Guiscard the Lame seldom left the woodcutters’ village. His leg was crooked – had been ever s
ince the day he had helped his father rope some felled timber onto his cart twenty-six years before. The holding knot had slipped, tumbling the heavy oak logs onto the boy’s leg. The limb eventually healed, but remained bent in a misshapen bow that caused him no trouble as he cut timber for charcoal burning, following his father’s trade. The local lord’s domain spread far and wide but Guiscard’s world extended no further than the forests and the town a day’s journey away. He paid half a mark for the licence to cut the woodland and produce his charcoal. Twice a year he took the results of his labours to the town to be sent north to the furnaces for forging weapons, and the lord’s reeve paid him. For years, ever since the war against the English, men had skirted the forest. Few ventured into its gloomy depths – fear of woodland spirits and wolves kept them out. Guiscard and his neighbours knew how to deal with those ravening beasts by setting traps and skinning the victims. Wolfskins hung from poles was the time-honoured way of keeping the wolves at bay: the villagers believed it warned the packs of man’s superiority – a short-lived comfort in their harsh existence. They barely had enough food to feed themselves; they trapped birds and grew meagre ground crops. But the dark of the forest that protected them from outsiders inflicted its own cruelty. Children died of disease. The damp, sodden ground rotted crops. There was no food for those who could not work and the elderly among them struggled when no longer able to cut, heft and split the logs. They existed by stripping the inner bark from lime trees for rope making, and when too infirm even to manage that, they were sent into the forest to await death from wild beasts.

  What frightened the villagers most was armed men, even though routiers who rode past the forest hamlet of twenty-seven souls usually caused no trouble. The villeins had nothing to steal, and their women, dirt-caked from grubbing root vegetables and stinking from charcoal burning, were not worth raping.