by David Gilman
From every corner a running battle ensued along the walls. Blackstone knew he and his men were now at their most vulnerable. The city had awoken to an assault. Confusion and panic could bring more armed militia onto the streets but Blackstone reasoned that they would not put up any resistance to Meulon and the others who had secured the city gates. Those who fought on the walls would soon be overcome and then it was only the garrison and de Miremont’s men who would counter-attack. He needed to find the Frenchman and secure the city.
‘I don’t see de Miremont,’ John Jacob called.
Blackstone looked beyond the dead and the dying. The smoke from the braziers smudged the line of the wall. Then he saw the Frenchman retreating along the walkway towards the next gate. De Miremont ran down a flight of steps into the street. He would soon be in the square to rally and organize the rest of his men. ‘John! Secure the wall with Sir Gilbert.’ Blackstone ran forward, and then shouted to the men below: ‘Meulon!’
The throat-cutter looked up. Blackstone gestured to where de Miremont was turning into the street. Meulon saw him, understood, summoned the men with him and gave chase. Blackstone called out to the hulking Norman spearman: ‘Cry St George!’
Meulon turned and raised an arm in acknowledgement. The city was King Edward’s by treaty and his cry would tell the citizens it was not routiers who had breached their walls. The English were their protection against such brigands and hearing the fighting men declare themselves might restrain them from taking up arms. Meulon and his men raced down a narrow alley. Doors slammed shut at the sound of pounding feet. Anyone foolish enough to step out was shouldered aside and left sprawled in the gutter flowing with sewage.
Blackstone went down the steps three at a time. The monotonous clanging bell now became more vigorous in its urgency. Sounding the alarm. The city was under attack. Will Longdon and his archers stepped forward; Henry Blackstone was with them.
‘Will, get your lads on the walls.’
The centenar needed no further command and ran for the steps. Blackstone placed a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘Yet again you have proved your courage. Stay with Will.’ Blackstone saw the shadow of disappointment. ‘I don’t want you in this fight. Do as I say.’
Henry knew the urgency of the moment demanded he obey. ‘Yes, Father,’ he said.
Blackstone spared a moment to watch his son run after the archers and then saw Gisbert de Dome waiting for him, his shirt flecked with blood from the fighting, a sword in one hand, a knife in the other. ‘Sir Thomas?’
‘We hold and defend the square,’ said Blackstone. The enemy he sought bore Wolf Sword on his belt.
*
The men-at-arms on the walls had fallen under the archer’s arrows and Blackstone’s fighters had killed the unseen men who slept at each portal. Will Longdon rallied his archers on the walkway once they had secured the gates and sent a runner in each direction to have the others at every gate follow his example. The archers’ bows were unwieldy in a close-quarter fight in a town’s streets: the bowmen needed space to draw and distance to shoot and their presence on the walls gave Blackstone’s men the advantage should de Miremont’s men retreat towards the gates. Will Longdon and Jack Halfpenny’s archers would cut them down before they reached the portal. Above and below the gates Blackstone’s men controlled the way in and out of the city. The confines of the streets might allow their enemy to counter-attack and if that happened Blackstone and the few men with him might need to escape back into the forest. It was up to the archers to cover them.
Longdon scoured the streets, searching across the rooftops for any sign of Meulon and Blackstone. Screams reached him: the clamour of voices raised in panic. He heard men shout. Saint George! Saint George! Longdon raised the archers’ charm to his lips and prayed that Arianrhod, Goddess of the Silver Wheel, did not abandon Thomas Blackstone now.
Then he yanked bodkin-tipped arrows from the corpses.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Blackstone reached the square. All except his archers were gathered together as Meulon and Renfred formed the men into a tight knot of defence. Meulon had spent years fighting in towns and cities throughout France and Italy where the fabric of the buildings could count against men jostling through twisting streets. Buildings often shielded those intent on harm. In Sarlat it was impossible to secure the spider’s web of unlit alleyways where de Miremont’s troops could wait in ambush. The sun had not broken through the blanket of clouds. Only dull, grey light smothered the city. Better to find open ground and take the brunt of the assault.
Moments after Blackstone reached his men Killbere arrived, gasping for breath. ‘Merciful Christ,’ he wheezed. ‘Since when are we meant to run and fight?’ It was a question needing no answer. Killbere had wind enough to draw breath in a close fight; he needed nothing more.
‘Where will they attack from?’ Blackstone asked Gisbert de Dome.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. De Miremont’s men are garrisoned in different parts of the city. Fifteen men in each quarter. He’ll have rallied them by now.’
‘Why weren’t they at the walls?’ said Meulon.
‘They are kept in reserve to kill anyone who breaches the city defences. Any attack would have come from outside, not within, and an enemy would not know the streets here. De Miremont’s men do. This is where they would win the fight. Your attack caught him by surprise.’
Blackstone knew they were at a disadvantage. Gaillard de Miremont and his men could wreak havoc within the city and Blackstone had insufficient men to root him out. ‘It makes no difference,’ he said. ‘He’ll come for us. He wants me dead and the city back under his control. He cannot know there are no more men to reinforce us. There are so few of us he cannot afford to wait. He means to kill us where we stand.’
A woman’s cry of alarm alerted them. It came from one of the side streets. Angry shouts followed. When de Miremont’s soldiers appeared it was obvious they had been pushing aside men and women as they approached the square. Armed men thronged the narrow alleys; they edged forward cautiously, and paused fifty or sixty paces from where Blackstone’s outnumbered men huddled in defence. Word had spread that the scar-faced Englishman was no other than Thomas Blackstone, the sworn enemy of their King and Dauphin. Their caution was a mistake. Had they rushed forward they might have overwhelmed him.
‘Bastards have us near enough surrounded, Thomas,’ said Killbere. ‘Renfred, see to it you cover our flank. Thomas, we must kill these dogs quickly before they swamp us.’
‘Let them come to us, Gilbert. We are a wall of steel they must break.’
Killbere glanced at his friend. His concern needed no explanation. He looked at the men and then back to Blackstone. The men were weary. ‘As you wish,’ said Killbere.
Blackstone walked along the rank of his tired men. The dozen fighters looked strained from the months of conflict that had gone before, but still formidable. Their stubbled and bearded faces, creased from lack of sleep and ingrained with dirt, added to their ferocious look. Their enemies’ dried blood stained their jupons and their curled fists that gripped swords and falchions. Blackstone offered words of praise for their action at the gates; he checked that those who had sustained wounds would not be impaired in their ability to fight when the French attacked. His voice carried. ‘Your ugly faces are enough to scare an enemy into running for the shit pit before their bowels loosen.’
The men cheered.
One called out: ‘And when they see your scarred face, Sir Thomas, they’ll shit themselves where they stand.’
The men laughed, their spirits lifting.
Blackstone grinned. ‘Aye, that and my blade opening their guts. They gave us sport this morning, lads, they warmed our sword arm from the night’s chill. They cannot know each of you is worth three of their fighting men. They ring those bells to summon death. They will hurl themselves from these streets as eager as rats seeking daylight and they will see how we treat vermin.’
The bells su
ddenly fell silent as if yielding to Blackstone’s men’s roar of defiance.
Blackstone strode five paces forward and faced the enemy so that every man could see him. John Jacob was four paces to his left, Killbere to his right. Meulon and Renfred stood in front of their men. As a flooding river bursts its banks, streams of men broke free from the confines of the city’s passages and poured into the square, fear and the desire to kill spurring them on. Voices bellowed. Blackstone waited, sword raised.
The first men were almost upon him, driven by their ambition to kill the legend who stood alone in front of his men. Killbere and John Jacob took rapid paces forward to stand level with Blackstone so that the attackers now faced three men experienced in close-quarter killing. Their fate sealed, they fell under savage blows.
Behind them de Miremont’s men barely faltered. Trampling over their comrades dead or dying at their feet, they pressed home the attack. Blackstone’s line still held. After several minutes, he saw through the blur of sweat and mayhem and tumbling bodies how far they were outnumbered. His men were holding their ground, but if the attack kept going as hard as it was Blackstone’s ranks would yield under its weight. A wall of seething men were forcing them back. Mouths agape spewing vile curses; spittle flecking beards; eyes wide, some with terror, others with a crazed desire.
Blackstone slashed across three men to his front. The blade caught the first man’s throat, the second man’s sword arm suddenly hung from sinew and skin and the force of the curved strike cut deeply into the third man’s leg. They tumbled aside, opening a gap. Blackstone stepped into it. ‘With me!’ he bellowed. The time for defence was over.
Blackstone’s men’s grunting effort forced back de Miremont’s fighters. They gave a yard, then three. The enemy wheeled, forced aside, and then they re-formed. As immovable as the city walls. Blackstone knew in that moment his men had thrown every sinew of effort against them and had nothing more to offer. But a small miracle, a blessing from a watching angel, saved Blackstone and his men. The wind turned at their backs, pushing them forward stride by stride. A force of nature giving them added strength, blowing dust into their enemies’ eyes. At first the body of men wavered; then they broke. A warning cry rose from the back of their ranks. Men were dying well beyond Blackstone’s reach. As they fell, others turned to face a fresh enemy who had attacked their rear. The gap widened. Blackstone saw the four Teutonic Knights, white surcoats emblazoned with black crosses, standing abreast, efficiently killing de Miremont’s men. The survivors broke and ran, now too few to win the fight, and too fearful of holy wrath and the Englishmen they had failed to kill.
The clamour fell silent.
Blackstone looked behind him. Two of his men lay dead, others wounded. All stood bloodied, sword or mace in hand. Some bent forward, vomiting from exhaustion. Men sank to their knees, lifted up by a comrade’s strong arm, too spent to raise a voice in victory. Blackstone turned to Wolfram von Plauen. ‘You disobeyed me. You were to stay with the Lady Cateline.’
‘She is in good company with the priest and his bodyguard. She had no need of me. You did.’
Blackstone nodded. ‘I did.’
Monks appeared from the abbey, then a priest from the church. They carried water for the men and linen to bind their wounds. It seemed they welcomed Blackstone’s victory. The dead lay scattered across the square. Rivulets of blood pooled across the cobbles. Townsmen and -women appeared at the mouths of alleys and streets, gazing at the carnage. A melancholy bell rang slowly. The citizens ventured closer. Serving women came forward bearing wineskins. Men summoned a handcart. And then another. They would strip the dead of clothing, mail and weapons. These were unlikely to be acts of compassion. Death would yield a profit. The citizens of Sarlat were concerned with their own self-preservation. They did not know whether the Englishmen would inflict retribution on them for supporting the rogue Mayor and his henchman de Miremont.
Blackstone saw Killbere leaning on his sword. The man’s gaunt stare told Blackstone that he had fought as hard as men half his age. The veteran straightened, then spat contemptuously at his own tiredness and swore at the townspeople approaching Blackstone’s fallen men.
Gisbert de Dome lay in a pool of blood. There was a bruise on his temple from the blow of a mace, already turning yellow. Blackstone nudged him with his boot until he came around. ‘Get up, you’re not wounded,’ he said. ‘It’s not your blood.’ He reached down and heaved him to his feet. De Dome staggered and then sat on the steps, needing time for his head to clear.
Henry Blackstone picked his way through the dead. ‘My lord,’ he said, knowing that he had tempted his father’s anger by not staying with Will Longdon on the city walls.
Blackstone wiped a hand across the sweat and blood splatters on his face. ‘You have disobeyed me again,’ he said. ‘Am I to chain you to a tree like a dog?’
‘When the fight started I followed the crowd to the square, my lord. They were fearful of who would win. And then I watched the French break and run – those that could.’
‘And what purpose does that serve other than to tell me that at least you did not arm yourself and join the battle?’
‘I saw de Miremont. He killed two of our men and then he came close to being overwhelmed. He escaped. I saw him.’
Blackstone had lost sight of de Miremont in the mêlée. ‘He’s in the city?’
‘The church, my lord. He went into the side door from the cemetery.’ Henry Blackstone waited for the imminent reprimand for his disobedience. His father’s commands were not to be disobeyed without retribution.
‘You vex me, Henry. You are a feral mongrel running free of constraint. Untamed by discipline.’ He smiled. ‘There is no doubt you are my son.’
Relief swept over the boy. ‘My lord,’ he said and bowed his head.
‘Now help the wounded.’
Henry turned back into the carnage. Killbere wiped his sword blade. ‘Now what? Has the lad brought news of men at the gates?’
‘De Miremont is in the church.’
‘Ah, the bastard has lost his courage and seeks sanctuary. He is untouchable now.’
‘I know. Secure the square, Gilbert. Then we find the rogue Mayor Villon and arrest him. The merchants in the crypt need to be reinstated in their position as councilmen. I’ll see to it.’
Killbere knew full well what Blackstone intended. ‘Thomas, you cannot kill him. Sanctuary is everything. The city will turn against us.’
‘I know,’ said Blackstone.
‘Let us leave this place in peace and goodwill,’ said Killbere.
Blackstone stepped towards the church doors. His men had died in an unnecessary fight. Whether the blame lay solely with Gisbert de Dome for joining routiers to retrieve money lost because Villon had withheld taxes or with the antagonism and aggression of Gaillard de Miremont and his corrupt mayor who had seized the city from him mattered little when good men had died. Blame would not breathe life back into their corpses. What mattered was that Sarlat belonged to the English King. They had broken a treaty. And that was punishable.
By death.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The dank chill of the cathedral embraced him, cooling the sweat beneath the shirt that clung to his skin. The braziers were no longer burning near the crypt. Three tall candles flickered next to the altar, another two either side of the transept. They were beeswax candles that gave off a sweet smell, not the cloying tallow scent. A priest must have thought the cost of the more expensive candles worth it to celebrate the victory. Either that or the stench from the crypt had become unbearable.
Blackstone’s eyes adjusted to the dull light. De Miremont knelt in prayer at the altar beneath the pitiful gaze of the crucified Christ. A priest was administering the sacrament. He raised his eyes when he saw the tall figure walk without haste across the nave. The concerned priest blessed de Miremont and lifted his face to the waiting Englishman.
‘My Lord Gaillard de Miremont has claimed sanctuary. There can
be no violation. He has prayed for forgiveness for his sins and prostrates himself before God. Sanctuary is a time-honoured right. And today of all days it permits those in conflict to let tempers cool and to consider reparation.’
