Gate of the Dead

by David Gilman

  She gave him a knowing look. A lifetime of fawning servants and courtiers had encrusted her heart with a brittle disregard for such compliments, but at times there was someone who found the right words and spoke them plainly as had Blackstone.

  ‘You have learnt that flattery to a woman, even a queen, does not go unnoticed or unappreciated. You were taught manners by a Norman lord’s wife,’ she said, the tone of her voice telling Blackstone that she knew exactly who had nurtured him from common archer to man-at-arms.

  ‘My lady the Countess Blanche de Harcourt,’ Blackstone answered.

  ‘Her husband was a loyal supporter in those days. She taught you well.’

  A memory of a Norman castle and a lasting friendship that ended beneath a falchion’s blade on the orders of the French King flashed into his mind.

  Her eyes lingered on him for a moment. ‘You look a different man than the one I received,’ she said. His jupon and breeches were laundered, his boots cleaned, his beard trimmed. ‘You look better groomed than my dogs.’

  ‘I have been spoiled by your highness’s generosity.’

  ‘So you have,’ she said.

  She saw the goddess Arianrhod at his throat. ‘I have seen her amulet before. Our Welsh archers have her as a talisman. They say she protects them. It’s a pagan belief. You’re no Welshman.’

  ‘I am not. But years ago a dying Welsh archer pressed her into my hand at Caen.’

  She nodded knowingly. ‘Where much slaughter took place. No matter. A soldier seeks protection wherever he may find it.’

  She stood and a lady-in-waiting stepped quickly forward, but was waved away. Isabella needed no helping hand in public; besides, the sleeping draught had taken her through the night and her morning prayers had strengthened her, and the joy of her early hunt had lifted her spirits. She stroked the hooded falcon.

  ‘I have twenty birds – falcons, goshawks, tiercels, lannerets – an expensive indulgence. It costs a penny a day to feed each of them.’ She faced Blackstone. ‘But their ability to strike so silently and effectively is worth paying for.’

  Blackstone waited but her gaze made him lower his eyes.

  ‘Not so defiant after all,’ she said. ‘You have good sense not to challenge me, young Thomas Blackstone.’ She made a slight gesture and the courtiers backed away out of earshot. ‘Are you worth paying for, I wonder?’

  ‘I have always served the King, highness. I ask for nothing in return.’

  ‘But your loyalty comes at a cost to others. I know what happened after Poitiers. I am a Frenchwoman who has family and friends in France. I know the ladies of the courts, I know the rumours and the gossip and the truth of what happened. You fought and won your battle but you lost your wife and children. And you did not force them to remain with you. A man’s affection betrays his heart, Sir Thomas. You are a confusing man to me, and I like things to be clear. How else does one make decisions?’

  She walked a few paces and then pointed at the ragged pigeon that lay on the ground. Blackstone bent and picked it up. She took it from him, its limp neck and opaque eyes a sad sacrifice to a queen’s pleasure.

  ‘You strike your enemies with the same ferocity. You kill efficiently. You leave women and children weeping.’ She put a finger beneath the dead bird’s head and lifted the almost weightless neck. ‘And yet you give comfort to those who seek it. And mercy to those who beg it.’ She dropped the dead bird. ‘Where does a killer find such compassion?’

  ‘Perhaps, my lady, it was there first and the killing came afterwards.’

  She nodded. ‘A good answer.’ She lifted her arm. ‘Help me to my chair.’

  The gesture almost caught him by surprise but he quickly levelled his arm for her to grasp and in the instant she took it he felt her weight to be little more than the bird’s.

  ‘You trust the men with you?’ she asked as she settled onto the cushions.

  ‘John Jacob has served the King and me with fierce loyalty. The Italian Knight of the Tau was unknown to me but he saved my life from assassins and fought at my side on our journey here. Every man I have with me I would trust with my life. And that of my King.’

  ‘Then what I tell you is for you alone, for now at least. You will decide when the time is right to share it and with whom. Do you see how I extend my trust to you?’

  He nodded, but felt that she had already lured him into her web. This woman could entice the devil to forswear Satan.

  ‘Then treasure it, because it can be easily squandered and my grandson’s life could be at risk.’

  And with those words the cage door fell and held his loyalty captive.

  27

  The tournament on St George’s Day was to be a great celebration before the two Kings reached agreement on the treaty that would give Edward much of what he desired from France. He would renounce his claim to the French crown provided his sovereignty over widespread fiefs and counties was recognized. King John the Good’s ransom had yet to be paid and there was great concern that it would be further delayed because of the strife that still tore across France. The Dauphin held Paris, but civil violence and class hatred were being stirred by Charles of Navarre, the French monarch’s duplicitous son-in-law, who had escaped from prison the year before and who wanted to be King. Taxes could not be raised and the ransom would not be forthcoming unless order was re-established and the violence quelled – and who would succeed in doing that was far from clear. If the treaty were not ratified, the demand not met, the ransom not paid – England would go to war again.

  ‘A king and queen are divine, Sir Thomas. We have the hand of God on our shoulder and we have great responsibility to heal a nation and secure its future,’ Isabella said.

  Blackstone waited patiently. He knew parts of France were in turmoil, but what did it have to do with him? Paris and the Seine were the key to the heart of France and whoever held those controlled the country.

  ‘Last year you helped common townsmen and villeins rise up against the Duke of Milan’s soldiers.’

  ‘I did, my lady. The Visconti’s troops were contracted men who committed atrocities.’

  ‘France bleeds from civil strife and routiers; wounds fester into poison. A king can lay hands on the sick and if God wills it they will be healed – or He, in His wisdom, lets the afflicted die. Until we know God’s desire we must strive with the attributes He has blessed us with – our instinct and intelligence. Your King stands back while France turns on itself. It suits him. It suits a King who waits for a treaty to be signed.’

  Blackstone saw the logic of it. While a nation tore itself apart the English King sat back until a victor emerged. John the Good would be desperate to agree terms that would at least leave him a country to rule.

  ‘Then the King lets others do his fighting. It places great pressure on King John and the Dauphin. It makes sense, my lady. It’s what any good general would do. Loose the dogs at the bear and see who wins.’

  Isabella looked suddenly tired. ‘France and England are one. We inflict this on ourselves. It will become a hollow victory.’

  ‘I see no role for me to play in all of this, highness,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘You will. And I will instruct you later. Your mother was French; your wife is French. You are suited to my plan. But first it is enough to know that you must take part in the tournament. That is my wish and you will fight with shield covered and without your coat of arms displayed. The King and the Prince must not know you are here. Not yet.’

  She stood and he watched as she hid the pain. He took a half-step towards her and she rested her hand on his arm. In an instant he saw in her eyes not the most powerful woman in England and France but a dying woman, who feared for her family and the country they ruled.

  ‘You cannot see the future, Thomas Blackstone, but I tell you that one day it will be more than a dying queen who relies on your strength.’

  She withdrew her arm and walked bravely past the courtiers, who stepped clear of her path and lowered the
ir heads in respect.

  *

  The cortège rumbled slowly southward on roads the King of England had vowed would be repaired. Blackstone and his two companions rode on the verge, easing the horses’ amble. It was a slow, laborious ride that demanded patience and reminded Blackstone of the baggage trains of war. How a woman in pain endured the rocking wagon he did not know, but royalty were not the same as ordinary people. They were chosen to rule. Divine. And that gave them what? he wondered. The ability to hear the voice of God? The money to buy His grace, more like, Blackstone reasoned. Common men fought in blood for holy benevolence. He silently thanked the great mystery of it all for a King and his son who had built the bridge between themselves and their soldiers. A warrior king was blessed by God and his people. As the journey progressed there were frequent stops as Isabella gave alms. One day he counted 170 poor being blessed with her largesse. At each place they stopped Isabella beckoned him and used the strength of his sword arm to help her from her wagon. Each stop she spoke carefully to him and drew him in further. As his horse shadowed the royal wagon he knew that Isabella the Fair had enticed him to her more as an enchantress who cast her spell than a queen who commanded.

  Blackstone had not been summoned again but on the second night, as they approached Windsor, he saw in the distance hundreds of burning torches illuminating the castle’s great walls and tournament fields that fluttered with pennons and banners.

  ‘Do you think we’ll ride in tonight?’ asked Jacob. ‘It’s a murky business, all of this, Sir Thomas. And there’s a kingdom’s worth of armed men down there.’

  ‘A Queen arrives in daylight so that she may be noticed,’ said Caprini.

  ‘Aye. Tomorrow, John, she’ll not skulk in. Not she.’

  Voices drifted across the distant fields. Entertainers were singing as their music beat its rhythm in what sounded like a county fair.

  ‘Well, King’s tournament or not,’ said Jacob as they gazed down at the burning fields, ‘there’ll be whoring and drinking.’ He smiled. ‘At least I hope so.’

  Blackstone turned to Caprini. ‘There’ll be a monastery somewhere around here. Perhaps you’d prefer to find lodging there. Knights and the nobility can be as drunk and raucous as a tavern’s villeins.’

  ‘What others do is no concern to me, Sir Thomas. I live my own life.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Blackstone, ‘but when a man wades through a swamp some of the slime always sticks to him.’ He nudged his horse forward.

  *

  Servants had gone ahead to pitch Isabella’s pavilion for the night’s rest. Blackstone and Jacob lay in silence on the damp ground watching as stewards controlled the camp’s never-ending activity. The intemperate horse was hobbled and fed and kept close by. Until Blackstone knew what was being asked of him he wanted the chance to escape if danger loomed out of the night. Liveried staff scurried this way and that, cooking fires burned, food was prepared and served and ladies-in-waiting came and went from the Queen’s pavilion. The two men lay beneath a tree and rolled themselves in their blankets. Caprini had gone beyond the pickets and found a hermitage to pray at. Across the camp a boy servant, little more than six or seven years old, was cuffed round the ear by a cook for dropping something. He made no sound of pain or complaint and went on with his duties with the cook’s scolding voice following him.

  ‘You miss your lady, Sir Thomas?’ Jacob said unexpectedly.

  The question took Blackstone by surprise. Men seldom shared their feelings with each other. Their actions spoke louder. Though perhaps it wasn’t such a strange thing to ask, Blackstone thought. It was John Jacob who had killed the man who had raped Christiana and who had kept silent to protect her name. And when Blackstone fought the Savage Priest before they were exiled it was Jacob who had scaled the castle walls and brought her and his children to safety. Jacob was a strong man; with his cropped hair and stubbled face he looked like someone who would not be troubled by a fight, and on many occasions Blackstone had been grateful for the man’s stubbornness. No task was too great for this captain.

  ‘Yes. I think of her every day.’

  ‘Rightly so. She’s a fine woman and that boy of yours, Henry, he’s a lion’s heart inside of him. Bit uncertain of some things, I grant you, but he’s a son to be proud of.’

  Jacob was one of the chosen few whom Blackstone trusted without question. The men seldom spoke about their families, if they knew of them, preferring to remember whores who gave pleasure and drink that smothered memories. But John Jacob was quieter than most.

  ‘You have family,’ said Blackstone. ‘South, aren’t they? Near London?’

  ‘Once,’ said the captain, without any hint of regret. ‘They died.’

  ‘The pestilence?’ Blackstone asked after a pause trying to remember when last they had spoken of home and hearth. What little there was of either.

  John Jacob shook his head, still gazing to where children ran back and forth carrying platters of food. ‘The famine, back in ’50. Stored rye went mouldy; crops failed. All they had was drawk and darnel, and them weeds don’t keep a body alive. My girls died first. Two of them. Then the three lads. I don’t know what happened to Beth. Neighbours said she wandered off into the woods after she buried them. Wolves probably took her.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, as if telling of something simple instead of a great loss at a time that had taken the lives of many.

  ‘You weren’t there?’

  ‘No. King’s business in Flanders after Crécy. My belly was full.’

  They lapsed into silence again, the moment past.

  Soldiers formed an outer picket as Marcouf’s captain with thirty men stood guard closer to the royal quarters. Blackstone and Jacob had been fed, but no summons had come from Isabella.

  ‘It’s a bugger not knowing what’s going on,’ said Jacob after a few minutes. ‘She’s enough men here to protect a king. I’ve never been this close to a queen before. And she spoke to you. Personal, you say, with no one there? No chamberlain, chancellor or household controller? No one?’

  ‘No one,’ said Blackstone, taking the last bite out of a flaccid-skinned apple. The horse lowered its head and snuffled his hand, lips back, teeth seeking the fruit. Blackstone gave it a gentle slap, making it pull back its head, but then it scuffed the ground with a hoof and repeated its demand. Blackstone relented and opened his hand, letting the horse take the core, turning his palm to cover its nostrils. It swung its head away, needing no comforting hand once it had what it wanted.

  ‘Until we find out what’s going on, John, we’ll keep watch between us. There’s bait being dangled, but I don’t know why. Not yet.’

  They pulled their blankets up and propped themselves against the tree. There were enough shadows flitting through the torchlight for anyone to move in the darkness with a knife in hand. Within a few hours’ ride was the Prince who had outlawed him and stripped him of his towns in Normandy. And with him was the captured King John who had slain his friend Jean de Harcourt and whom Blackstone had sworn to kill. Whatever lay over that hill on the tournament fields, there was enough hatred and distrust to be the cause of Blackstone’s death.

  *

  The movement was slight, a will-o’-the-wisp that came through the night mist, a candle’s dandelion glow followed by the soft rustle of a woman’s brocade. Isabella had not sent a captain of the guard or the grizzled de Marcouf, but a young woman who attended her. She appeared like a vision and for a moment Blackstone thought he had fallen asleep on his watch and was dreaming.

  ‘Sir Thomas?’ she said, keeping her distance, fearful that if he slept he would react with a knife in his hand.

  Blackstone didn’t move. ‘Yes,’ he answered.

  ‘My lady awaits you.’

  John Jacob half rose as Blackstone got to his feet. ‘It’s all right, John. They’ve sent an angel for me.’

  Jacob grunted when he saw there was no danger. ‘I’ll stay awake. Angel or not, priests say women are Satan’s gate. And they sh
ould know. Tread carefully.’

  The captain of the guard stood aside as the woman led Blackstone into the pavilion. A rich orange glow from candles placed around the carpeted tent offered a false sense of warmth. Isabella sat, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak. A stool was placed ten feet away. Isabella smiled and nodded to the angel. ‘Merci, Jehanne.’

  The angel glided away, back into the night mist.

  Blackstone had kept his head bowed until the elderly Queen spoke.

  ‘The stool is pitifully small for a man your size, but I need to see clearly the face that earned its scar from saving my grandson. The eyes betray the truth of what someone really thinks, and what I have to say to you will leave me in no doubt about your thoughts.’

  Blackstone eased Wolf Sword’s scabbard and squatted on the stool to face her.

  ‘For some time our spies have been telling us that an assassin has been sent to England. Here, to kill the Prince. You are suspected of being one of those assassins.’

  It was an opening gambit meant to throw Blackstone off guard. He said nothing for a moment, thinking of those who had tried to kill him – an Englishman at Lucca, Visconti’s men on the Via Francigena. ‘An assassin would kill the King,’ he said.

  ‘If a protracted war takes place even a warrior king may not sustain the effort demanded. Look what my grandson achieved. It would be he who went to war in the vanguard. Kill the Prince and you leave a bereaved King, weakened by grief – perhaps reluctant to go to war.’

  ‘Or inflamed with an anger that would burn down the world in revenge,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘Neither result benefits England.’

  ‘Then it was the King who sent men to kill me?’

  ‘More likely those close to him.’

  ‘How would they know I was sent for?’

  Isabella made no show of regret. ‘Because someone in my court betrayed me.’ Betrayal and conspiracy were a daily fact of life among the labyrinthine passages of court.

  ‘Do you know who, my lady?’