Gate of the Dead

by David Gilman

  Cale’s body shuddered, its pain settling ever deeper. From somewhere in the darkness within he drew up the strength to answer Blackstone. ‘You... torment me... further.’

  ‘No,’ said Blackstone, ‘I can end this suffering. It will soon be Midsummer’s Eve and the celebration of St John the Baptist. You can die like him. Tell me what I want to know and Navarre will behead you. There will be no more torture.’

  A tear welled in Cale’s eye and spilled down his fractured cheekbone to join the phlegm from his nose that soaked his beard. He nodded.

  ‘Do the Jacquerie seek out the Dauphin’s family?’ Blackstone asked. He gave the man time to answer, letting him ease the words from his cracked lips.

  Cale nodded. ‘They do,’ he whispered.

  ‘Who leads the mob?’

  ‘Vaillant. Jean Vaillant. From Paris. And... Pierre Gilles...’ Cale said slowly.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘East... to Meaux.’

  Blackstone did not wish to put words into the suffering man’s mouth. If the royal family were there he had to hear it from the one man who knew for certain.

  ‘Why? Why Meaux?’

  They... and many other... noblemen’s families... Meaux. They go... for them.’ His body trembled, his voice cracking.

  Blackstone had his answer. He needed nothing further from this broken man.

  ‘We could not stop...’ whispered Cale.

  Blackstone hesitated, waiting for him to finish what he was trying to say.

  ‘We... had seized... a lion’s tail... We did not... know how to let go.’

  Blackstone made no reply. There were still thousands more out there who were not afraid of their grip on terror.

  Part 4

  Blood Oath

  40

  Christiana followed the two German knights through the narrow, crooked streets of Meaux, her thoughts only of escape. Exhaustion had tugged at her over every yard, and she had slept in the saddle, jolting awake when Agnes nearly tumbled from her arms. Von Lienhard had tried to engage her in conversation in an attempt to tease out information, but she begged his forbearance for her tiredness and the German soon became bored with her. She served a purpose for them and beyond that they had no interest. They had travelled in near-silence for the better part of the day and then they came upon the great curve of the river and the walled city that stood on its northern bank. Before the city gates were opened to them she saw the towers and battlements of the fortress rising up in the background and knew that once inside they would at last be safe. The labyrinth took them, turning this way and that along streets only wide enough to accommodate a laden donkey, where daylight barely reached because of the density of the overhanging windows and roofs.

  As they rode slowly, one horse behind the other, she saw no way to avoid staying with the two men who had pretended to rescue them. The killers would go into the fortress with her and who there would believe her story of their part in the slaughter of Sir Marcel de Lorris and his family? It would make no sense. Why would they risk their own lives to bring her to safety and why had they turned over the silver from de Lorris’s chapel to the bishop? She knew that gratitude and honour would be afforded them. Until she could relate the images of their part in the killing she would have trust in her own instincts, because once the accusation was made there would be a judicial hearing and then her own life and those of her children would be at risk.

  Women sitting outside their houses raised their heads from their sewing as the horses ambled past them. Christiana was bedraggled and bloodstained. She was obviously another nobleman’s woman rescued by knights. Another one to be locked into the fortress where they thought themselves to be untouchable.

  Their indifferent glances told Christiana that escape could be more dangerous than staying with the killers in the stronghold known as the Marché. There would be no welcome or hiding place among these old houses that sagged, timbers creaking, almost touching each other from either side of the thoroughfare. Their doorways opened into near-darkness where children picked hems from scavenged cloth in light from hearth-fires barely bright enough for visibility, their fingers close to their faces. Beeswax candles cost money and only the Church and noblemen would indulge in such extravagance. For families crammed into one room, animal fat was scraped and saved then turned into pungent candles by a chandler.

  Agnes squirmed in Christiana’s arms as the small procession pushed aside street hawkers and water carriers. She looked this way and that along city streets that clanged and hammered from the noise of furriers and shoemakers, coopers beating metal rings into place and locksmiths tapping away diligently at their trade. This small city was prosperous. At each narrow side street she strained to see how they might fare if for any reason they had to run. Artisans’ signs competed with each other outside the wooden houses. A vintner’s board, as big as a door, with its painted symbol of a bush, proclaimed a cellar to drink in; an apothecary’s sign of three gilded pills glistened in the rays of sunlight that managed to penetrate the narrow street and she glimpsed the white pole, striped red, for a barber-surgeon. There was wealth here. That was good. That meant these people had something to lose and would resist if the mob descended. The city gates would remain closed.

  Women haggled at poultry stores as chickens and ducks, their legs trussed, floundered on the ground with rabbits and hares. Five deniers for a rabbit, four for a chicken. The stallholders’ cries fought each other. Down another street a butcher’s offal swarmed with flies, the beast slain in the street, its blood pooling in the gutters. Harness makers, spice and salt sellers: all of these trades would surely fight for what they had. She felt a growing sense of confidence. Wealth and food. These townsmen were no part of the Jacquerie; they would not sacrifice what they had.

  The sky opened again as they emerged from the cluttered streets. The stone-built fortress rose up before them across the narrow stone bridge on the opposite bank. It was a strong defensive citadel, cushioned from attack by the outer walls of Meaux itself, and surrounded by water on all sides. As the horses clattered across the bridge, the portcullis cranked upwards. Christiana kissed Agnes’s hair and turned in the saddle to give Henry an encouraging smile. Safety, food and warmth lay within.

  She put a finger to her lips.

  Stay silent.

  *

  Once behind the stronghold’s walls Christiana and Agnes were accommodated in the vast dormitory made ready by the Marché’s commander. She soon learnt that hundreds of women had been given safe haven, many of whom would never see their husbands again, nor their burnt-out homes. The lesser noblewomen were obliged to suffer the indignity of being herded into rooms and corridors, even though their status might have normally afforded them the comfort of their own chamber. But they were alive, witnesses to horror, and that kept any such discontent unspoken, but they all still felt their vulnerability, no matter how thick the walls of the fortress or the rank they held.

  Twenty or more banners and pennons fluttered but Christiana saw little sign of the noblemen whose coat of arms they were. She wrestled with the urge to confront von Lienhard now they were safe. An outburst would bring those noblemen running, but no sooner had they been accepted into the stronghold than she and Agnes were separated from Henry and taken to where the women were billeted. Von Lienhard was welcomed and praised for his courage in bringing her and the children to safety and, as other women ushered her away to their quarters, Christiana’s final sight of Henry was of him being ordered to join other young pages and squires who had survived – though from what the women had said, their numbers were few. He would be given weapons to clean and other duties to perform: she hoped one task would be to serve on tables so she might have the chance to see and speak to him again. Von Lienhard had glanced her way and with a noncommittal expression placed a hand on Henry’s shoulder. There had been enough fear in her life these past days but the thought that von Lienhard might suspect that she or Henry had seen his acts of brutality closed around h
er like bands of steel. His gesture had been obvious.

  If Henry was to live – she must remain silent.

  41

  Perinne scratched an inverted triangle in the dirt as Blackstone and his captains gathered around him. He placed a stone at each corner and then pointed out what knowledge he had of the area.

  ‘Up here on the left, that’s Beauvais, and from what we’ve been told, Sir Thomas, that’s swarming with these peasants. Across here,’ he said, hovering a stick to the right, ‘this is Compiègne, and we’re between the two.’

  ‘Paris is there,’ said Blackstone, pointing to the bottom of the triangle, ‘and Compiègne is a stronghold for the Dauphin. They have held firm against the Jacques, and we don’t need to stir that nest – we’ll have problem enough getting down to Meaux,’ he added, jabbing in the dirt a few inches to the right of Paris.

  Gaillard extended his spear shaft and gently curved a line that extended from the east of Meaux and then let it taper off as it nudged below Paris. ‘Sir Thomas, we cannot go directly south – if the Parisians march as you have been told we will ride into them and I heard a man-at-arms say he was from a stronghold of Navarre’s men at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre on the river. But where that is I don’t know.’

  ‘Perinne?’ Blackstone said.

  The hobelar shrugged. ‘No idea, Sir Thomas.’

  Blackstone looked at Gaillard hopefully.

  The big Norman shook his bearded head. ‘Upriver from Meaux is all I heard,’ he answered.

  ‘The gap for us to squeeze through is getting tighter,’ said Killbere. ‘Peasants on the rampage, Dauphin’s men in castles and Navarre’s men close enough to get too nosey. It’s tight.’

  Will Longdon squatted, chin resting on his fists. ‘Tighter than a nun’s cunny,’ he muttered to himself.

  Gaillard eased his boot against him. ‘No holy woman would let you close enough to empty her pisspot,’ he said, tipping the archer over. Longdon instinctively rolled and came up with his archer’s knife in his hand and a snarl on his face.

  ‘You stupid ox! I’ll geld you and then cut your fucking throat if you ever touch me again!’

  Gaillard took a step towards him but Meulon was big enough to block him as John Jacob grabbed Longdon’s knife arm. ‘Drop the knife, Will. Drop it!’

  The archer’s forearm was corded muscle and it took a strong man to squeeze it that hard. Longdon’s glazed eyes cleared for a moment. He had been one lunge away from stabbing the Norman.

  In that moment Blackstone regretted not bringing Elfred on this mission. The older man had the most influence over Longdon. Will Longdon had been at Blackstone’s side since they had first run across the invasion sands twelve years before. Before everything. Young men, vigorous and scared, sworn to Killbere and the King, sworn to each other, and Longdon had wafted their fears away with disrespect and humour.

  ‘You grow mean in your years, Will,’ said Blackstone calmly. ‘There’ll be no gelding done among my captains unless I wield the knife.’

  The men fell silent, but the tension was still evident. The aftermath of killing stirred men’s humours, and the bile took time to settle.

  It would take only a moment of madness for a killing to occur in the oppressive summer heat, and then there would be a hanging. Which meant that two of Blackstone’s men would die needlessly. Two of his best.

  Killbere broke the simmering resentment that threatened to boil into violence. ‘I loved a woman who was a nun,’ he said quietly, a seldom-heard hint of regret in his voice.

  The remark caused the men to look towards him in a moment of uncertainty. Sir Gilbert Killbere never spoke of his life or offered any glimpse into his past.

  ‘An aristocratic lady placed in a nunnery by her father to keep her from me,’ he said. ‘I was prepared to take holy orders to stay in her embrace.’ Killbere shrugged. ‘Alas, it was never consummated. I was unworthy of the Church. And her.’

  He had sacrificed part of himself so that the others might not take a step that would tear this close-knit band of men apart. But there was to be no intimacy beyond that. He grinned. ‘Will’s right: a nun would be tight and, as Gaillard said, none here are fit to empty their pisspots. We are who we are and we have only ourselves to blame for it.’ He kicked away the scratches in the sand. ‘I know how to get us through to Meaux.’

  *

  They rested beyond the forest, where a stream provided fresh water and the trees security from any groups of peasants who had escaped the slaughter. Free of mail and armour, Killbere swabbed his face and neck with a cloth soaked in the stream’s cold water. The summer heat was already fierce enough to make them wring sweat from their shirts. Blackstone sat half-propped, with his wounded leg exposed, as Caprini knelt in front of him and prepared a dressing; Bertrand, at last given more responsibility than caring for horses, acted as his assistant, boiling a torn piece of linen in a pot over the fire. The Tau knight had cut a strip of bark from one of the trees, and carefully separated it from the moist sap behind it, easing the fibrous thread onto Blackstone’s wound. The cut was six inches across his upper leg and was already discoloured, now that they had swabbed away the congealing blood and dirt. He then gently padded the wound with dried lichen scraped from the rocks by the stream.

  Bertrand looked over his shoulder from where he attended the boiling water and linen. ‘Sir Thomas, I have skills enough from my time in the monastery to stitch your wound.’

  Caprini concentrated on laying his dressing into the gash. ‘There is no need to stitch this wound. A week from now, with the binding of the clean linen the flesh will heal itself and there will be no risk of infection. And if you do not attend to the task I have set you, Bertrand, I will stitch your lips. You do not speak to me unless you are spoken to.’

  Bertrand turned back to his task as Caprini stood and inspected his effort.

  ‘It is done. Let the air get to it now, and when the linen is dry I will bind it.’

  ‘I’m grateful, Stefano, but we need to press on.’

  ‘And we shall, but man and horse need rest and food. A few hours will do more good than harm.’

  Blackstone would have protested further, but he knew Caprini was right. He nodded agreement as the Tau knight stood.

  ‘I have bound it with fern leaf and strands for now.’ Caprini nodded in satisfaction at his work and turned away. ‘Take away the soiled cloths,’ he said as he walked past Bertrand. ‘Once this strip is done, boil them. We’ll have need of them again.’

  Bertrand quickly bent to his task, lowering his eyes respectfully as he followed the Tau knight’s command and seized the bloodied strips of linen used to clean Blackstone’s wound.

  When he had retreated out of earshot, Killbere spread his washing cloth across a boulder. ‘I wouldn’t let Bertrand sew a badge onto a jupon,’ he said. ‘He’d have your cock stitched to your eyebrows.’

  Blackstone smiled, too tired to continue a ribald conversation. ‘Was it true what you said about your woman?’ he asked.

  ‘Does it matter? It served its purpose. Thomas, the men have no care for the reason, they follow you because of loyalty. But when they risk their lives for you it brings instincts to the fore. Once this business is done it might be time for your captains to be separated and given their own commands.’

  ‘I know. I see it.’

  ‘Will’s an archer, Thomas. He doesn’t give a dog’s turd for anyone other than you and old Elfred.’ He thought for a moment and then smiled. ‘Do you remember when he pissed in the river in front of the French at Blanchetaque?’

  ‘And you telling him it would rust your armour. Christ, Gilbert, that was a time.’ He let the memory show itself to him again. ‘It wasn’t Will. It was John Weston. He died in front of me at Crécy.’

  ‘Ah. So it was. I had forgotten.’ He grunted. ‘So many dead over the years.’ He swallowed his regret. ‘You archers, your insolence obscured your names and your fear. And I was glad of it.’

  ‘I’ve know
n fear before and since, but I swear the river ran with my own piss that day,’ said Blackstone. ‘Will’s all right. He’s taken to being made centenar. He thinks – and safeguards his men. He’ll not do anything to betray my trust in him.’

  ‘Be better for us all if we could follow a flag of war and fight the French as we did. That’s what we’re best suited for.’

  It was unusual for Killbere to reminisce. And Blackstone had never looked back over his shoulder to that which he had left behind, but the mood took them for a moment.

  ‘I despair, Thomas. There are no great battles to be fought any longer. I pray that Edward will never reach a treaty with the King of France or that his ransom is ever paid. If it were within my power to send out heralds, I would have them proclaim to every French nobleman that they should gather their arms and renew their allegiance to their sovereign lord. And then they would gather on some vast field in their thousands, with ranks of drums and trumpets, and raise their war banners and show their colours for us all to see. And then we few Englishmen would form ranks, tighten the blood knot on our swords and dig in our heels to fight our enemy. Will we ever again see thirty or forty thousand Frenchmen shoulder to shoulder, armour glistening, honour-bound to die on the battlefield? Sweet Jesus! I miss it – badly. It tears at me. It was the breath that kept me alive. Now what do we have? Skirmish and attack, seize a town, slay peasants in an uprising, and sell our swords to the highest bidder. I want a war, Thomas. It is what I was born for. It is how I want to die.’

  Blackstone let the moment settle and then said quietly, ‘I made a promise to the King that I would make the Dauphin’s family safe. It means nothing to me and I know he uses our efforts to further his bargaining with King John. We are expendable, Gilbert; by now he may have already sent men to fight alongside Navarre and what we do has no meaning.’