by Dan Davis
But they were expecting an ambush in the woods. Of course they were. And they broke into three groups, the first riding along the road while the others came behind, separated by over a hundred yards.
“Should we call it off, sir?” Rob asked me. His men were concealed on both sides of the road, ready with their arrows.
“No,” I said, though my heart raced at the thought of what was about to happen. “Bring down as many of the first group as you can then withdraw up the hill. We shall make a stand and take them as they come for us. They will give up before long and ride home to tell Sir Charles about us.”
My complacency was going to cost my men dearly.
Our arrows flitted into the first group of riders. All eleven of them were hit with an arrow to either horse or man. But the survivors raced straight for us with cries of red murder in their throats and the other two groups came galloping to their companions’ aid.
I did what I could to forestall them, as did Thomas, Hugh and Walt. But our enemies were so spread out between the trees that we could not reach and slay enough of them before the riders overtook us and ran down my fleeing archers. Stout and brave fellows that they were, they fought the mounted men with their bows, their swords, and even their bare hands. But many fell and no matter how many enemies I killed, they refused to flee from us. I killed man after man but I also saw my own men lying dead or crying out in agony and I wondered if I would have any men left to salvage from the utter disaster.
And then I saw him.
Up the hill, on a white horse, with his sword blade raised and visor up, roaring in fury and in victory.
It was Sir Charles de Coussey himself urging his men on from horseback in very fine armour and the most magnificent clothing. He was a big, burly fellow, gesturing theatrically. His fitted surcoat was a vivid yellow with a black cross emblazoned on it.
That was why the enemy were fighting with such uncommon ferocity. That was why my men were being slaughtered.
Their lord was amongst them.
He had been leading the third group of riders and had charged through the trees up the hill to the ridge to cut off my men and kill them all. Charles de Coussey was filled also with a ferocious energy and vigour and made an inspiring sight.
I was moving before I considered the bodyguard around him. I ran as though my armour was nothing, closing the distance in mere seconds and pushing through his men without attacking them.
A growl of rage grew in my throat and I speared my blade through the neck of de Coussey’s horse and sawed it out, spilling the hot blood from the terrified beast. I yanked de Coussey from the saddle and stamped my foot on his face through the open visor. His nose crunched and I pushed my weight on him so that he could not rise.
His men came at me all at once and I fought them off for a few moments before Thomas, Hugh and Walt caught up with me and killed the bodyguards. The remaining enemies fled back through the wood toward the town and I let them go. Charles de Coussey was suffocating on his own blood but we got him upright and he coughed it out well enough while he was trussed up tight.
“Send to the servants beyond the ridge and have them bring up the horses,” I said to Walt. “Thomas, Hugh. Let us find any man of us who yet lives.”
“It is Rob, sir!” Hugh called a few moments later from just along the hill.
I went crashing through the undergrowth and found him on his back, coughing up blood all over Hugh. A broken lance point had taken him in the gut, front to back.
“We shall remove it,” I said. “Hold him steady, Hugh.”
Rob grimaced as he spoke. “No point. I’m done for.”
“Yes,” I replied, hurrying to remove the armour from my left arm. “You will die. But if you wish it, you can be reborn stronger than before.”
He was confused and dying and did not understand, especially when we slid the lance from his guts, being careful to hold the wound tight so we did not rip him apart. In his confusion and agony, he followed our directions and drank down the blood that I gave him.
I poured it in and he drank and was turned.
So many more were close to death. I had a choice to make. Grant the gift of immortality to the dying remnants of my company or resign myself to failure. Recruiting new men who would be willing to follow me as the others had would be close to impossible and, even if I could, it would set me back months or years.
There was no time to hesitate.
I offered life to my strong men-at-arms Hal, Reginald, Osmund, and Watkyn, and the archer Randulf. They all took the chance, though they knew it to be blood magic and they barely comprehended what they were agreeing to. Ultimately, though, it was as stark and simple a choice as the one I faced in whether to offer it. Few men, when offered life over death, ask to first see the terms.
We were safe enough in the darkness of those woods but it was a tense night, crouched in the undergrowth and tending to my poor soldiers as they lay in the leaf litter. It took a long time to turn so many but they all lived to see the dawn, other than poor Reg, who died writhing in agony after drinking my blood. For some men, the Gift simply does not take.
When the surviving archers understood what had happened to their brothers, they each wanted to join them in immortality. With those men, healthy as they were, I took the time to explain that they would be slaves to blood and that their chance for ordinary life would be over.
They wanted it anyway though I could see they were not considering the consequences. And because I needed them, I cursed them also by granting them the Gift of immortality. So the archers Osbert, Jake, Lambert, and Stan were soon welcomed into the brotherhood of the blood.
The six remaining servants I would not change because my men needed their blood to drink and, in fact, I required more of them just so I would have enough for the bloodletting needed to keep my men thriving.
I had lost fourteen men in the failed ambush, including some of my best. Men who had followed me for years. Men like Nicholas Gedding, who would sing ditties to his bow to make his mates laugh. And Roger Russet the sturdy man-at-arms who never said much but always did what he said he would do. Gerald Crowfield, another one who had been a stocky labourer when I found him but who had turned into a damned savage soldier after a few months in the crucible that was Brittany. And Fred and Digger Blackthorpe, brothers who had died protecting each other.
It was a disaster that would have been the end of most routier leaders. What soldiers would follow a lord so incompetent? But my company was not dead. I had lost so much but I had gained eight more immortals. Three men-at-arms and five archers.
These along with Walt, Thomas, and Hugh, made for a force equal in effective strength to a mortal one of perhaps three or four times its size. There were few companies in France capable of withstanding a dozen veteran immortals.
After the disastrous ambush, we had dragged Sir Charles de Coussey with us and although much of the time I had his head covered by a sack, I had not bothered to hide all of the bloodletting from him as I turned my men.
When, three days later and many miles away, I leaned him against an ash tree by a swollen river and removed his hood, he stared at me in horror. His eyes wide and wary and jittery.
“Yes,” I said, smiling. “I am Satan himself. But I hear you are quite the murderer yourself, Charles.” I wagged my finger at him.
He ground his teeth and glared but said nothing. Sweat ran down his face and his eyes seemed unfocused.
“Hungry are you, Charles?” I asked. “Thirsty? What a terrible host I am, not giving you water for so long. Dear me, and your nose is such a bloody mess it is a wonder you did not suffocate, sir. Here, watch me drink this wine.” I slurped at it and smacked my lips. “Would you care for some?”
He nodded.
“What was that, Charles?”
“Yes.” His voice was thick with his broken nose. “If you please.”
“What a polite fellow you are.” I had another sip. “Tell me, Charles. Are you the man I am lookin
g for?”
He seemed to be somewhere between horrified and confused, which was understandable.
“What do you want?” he managed, blinking as the sweat ran into his eyes.
He did not look well at all and I nodded to Walt who crossed and gave Sir Charles a drink of water. He gulped it down, gasping. Thirst is a terrible thing and he was suffering mightily from it.
“All I want, Sir Charles, is to ask you some questions and then I shall ransom you back to your men. What do you think about that?”
He pursed his lips. “I know who you seek.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Everyone knows. You are Richard of Hawkedon and you seek a black armoured knight. You are offering a reward for him. I will tell you all I know in exchange for the wealth.”
I laughed. “Your reward shall be that you will live. If your answers are true. If I think you are lying, I will gut you from hip to hip and leave you tied to that tree so you can watch the wild dogs eat your entrails. Now, what do you know?”
“The knight with the black banner. I saw him.”
I shook my head. “I doubt that.”
“It is the truth, sir. I saw him three years past, in Orleans, meeting with Jean de Clermont. He wore blackened armour, with a surcoat of a black field. His man held aloft a black banner also.”
“Who was he? The black knight?”
“I know not. I swear it.”
“Oh, you swear it? It must be true, then. Why were they meeting? Jean de Clermont is the lord of Chantilly and of Beaumont.”
“De Clermont has been made a Marshal of France and he governs Poitou, the Saintonge, Angoumois, Périgord and Limousin for the new King John.”
I whistled. “And the black knight was there? In armour? For the ceremony? What did he look like?”
“It was from afar, across the field. I did not see his face but they seemed to be on good terms, sir. On good terms. Jean de Clermont laughed at something the knight said. Other lords around me noted the knight and asked each other who he was but none there recognised him.”
“What else can you tell me?”
De Coussey shifted in discomfort and looked like he was going to be sick. “Nothing. I beg your pardon but there is no more.”
I watched him for a while. Thomas raised his eyebrows. Walt shrugged.
“I think I will kill you anyway,” I said.
“Sir!” Thomas said. I went away with him a few paces. “Richard, you cannot kill him. You took him as your prisoner. He has given his word he would not flee. We have treated him very poorly already and we must not slay him.”
“He is a murderer, Thomas. Even worse than I am. He kills women.”
“It is nothing to do with him, Richard, nor his actions. To kill him would demean us. It would demean you. A chivalrous knight saves his own soul.”
Walt was at my elbow. “Begging pardon, sirs. But the lads was all heart set on ransoming the bastard. Running low on coins, a bit.”
“Very well, let us offer him back to his men. If they will have him.”
His men did have him, though it was for a pittance as they swore they had not a penny more in the entire town. But Charles de Coussey seemed sick and dying when we handed him over outside his town and I did not expect him to live much longer so I did not feel too bad about it.
“What now?” Thomas asked.
“Now we must capture a Marshal of France, the governor of Poitou, the Saintonge, Angoumois, Périgord and Limousin. Jean de Clermont. For he has met the black knight, face to face.”
Hugh looked to Thomas rather than me. “But does such a man not have a sizeable force?”
“Hundreds, perhaps,” I said, lightly.
“Thousands,” Thomas said. “Thousands of mounted men from the Loire to the Dordogne.”
Walt looked around. “There’s only a dozen of us, sir.”
“A dozen immortals,” I said.
“Even so, Richard, I do not think that we can make war with a Marshal of France.”
“We shall not make war on him. We will burn his lands from the coast to the marshes. We will burn his forests and his vineyards. Destroy his villages and his mills.”
“He will never come out himself.”
“We will make him come. And then we will take him.”
It was easier said than done.
***
I had my men make new banners and paint the design on what few shields we possessed.
“A field of red, with yellow flames beneath rising up to touch the white dagger in the centre of it all. We shall be the White Dagger Company. And we come from Hell. Let us let the people know.”
Some were disquieted but most grinned like madmen at the thought of the fear it would instil in our enemies.
There was so much land to cover. We went from place to place, flying my banner, and causing what destruction we could. We took from the people and made ourselves rich, though we had to spend everything we took just to stay alive.
Local lords sent their men after us and some we killed and drank from, others we ran from. Because there was always the next village or valley to attack.
When things grew too difficult we travelled across to the next county or to the farthest reaches we could. Other times we went to ground or fell back into the chaos of Brittany.
The immortals were thrilled with their new strength and stamina. They wanted to slaughter every soul in France and make themselves kings. I needed the help of the steadier men to keep them in check and had to dominate a few with my own hand. I could depend utterly on Thomas, of course, and on Hugh who was ever the dutiful young squire even as he entered his sixties.
Getting the attention of such a great lord as Jean de Clermont was close to impossible. Especially as he was almost always in Paris. One year he spent in England and another year he spent near Calais, leading negotiations with the English. I was undecided on whether to chase him there or to continue on the path of destruction.
“The men do not wish to leave,” I said to Thomas one winter. “They are revelling in their power, here in the Périgord.”
I had taken an old fortress for my men and although it was cold and damp in places we sat by the crackling hearth fire and filled our bellies with warm, spiced wine.
Thomas watched the fire as he spoke. “You know you could order them to follow you. And they would. It is you who does not wish to leave.”
“What are you saying?”
He looked at me. “You love this burning and looting.”
“And you know its purpose.”
Thomas rubbed his eyes. “You love it for its own sake.”
“All I want is to find the black knight.”
He sighed and looked to Heaven for a moment. “You are lost in it. You must find your way back to virtue.”
I laughed. “You are mad, sir. You hang on to notions of chivalry. Do you not think that we are past that now?”
He stared at me, the fire flickering on the side of his face. He looked old. “I know you think you have gone beyond proper standards but we must hold on to our honour. It is not a line that one crosses but an ideal that one must always seek. We do this by following the code of honour that dictates our actions no matter how often we fall short.”
“When I say that we are past chivalry, it is not only us that I speak of. You and I. Not us alone. How can you not see that the world has changed around us, Thomas? Where are the true knights, now? Who decides the battles? Brutes like Walt and archers like Rob. Mercenaries from Italy and massed levies from towns. The great lords seek earthly power. None care about crusades in the Holy Land. I tell you, there are no true knights left, Thomas. If there ever were any. It seemed as though, in my youth, that knights strove to achieve greatness for the glory of God and for their king. Now, they seek only to further their family name and consolidate power and wealth. It is all so base. Why should we alone hold ourselves to such ideals when no other does? By so doing we merely hobble ourselves while the monsters
of the world have free reign.”
“Perhaps all you say is true. But what other men do does not have to dictate your own actions. You can yet be virtuous. You can be chivalrous in war.”
I shook my head as he spoke. “No, no. It is too late for all that, brother. There can be no chivalry in this war. It would not lead to victory and our oath to the Order of the White Dagger comes before all else.”
“Then go to Calais! Find Clermont in the negotiations, charge in amongst the diplomats and cardinals and cut off his head. If you wanted to do it and cared nought for the consequences, none could stop you.”
I looked away into the fire and Thomas scoffed.
“Precisely, sir,” he said. “You are not so far gone as all that. You are a knight still in your heart and would not carry out such an act and call it victory.”
I laughed, without humour. “Which is it, Thomas? You criticise me from both ends. Do I love pillage too much to be a knight or am I too virtuous to achieve victory? Make up your mind, sir.”
“It is you that must make up your mind, sir. Will you have victory through honour? Or victory no matter the cost?” He bowed his head. “I will, of course, do as you command.”
He left me alone to ponder it. Once, when I was a boy, I wanted only to be a knight. And then I wanted to fulfil the chivalric virtues through my actions. But over time, perhaps even before I had ever met Thomas, I had forgotten how to be courteous. I had grown arrogant and vain. And even then, I had not gone far enough to achieve the victories that I could have had if I had thrown off virtue entirely.
Virtue was all very well but perhaps it was more than I could afford when what I needed above all was victory.
King Edward had wanted victory and so he had thrown off knightly ideals on the battlefield. Using masses of archers instead of knights had led him to victory over the virtuous, chivalrous French.
Priskos my grandfather had conquered lands in ancient times before there were such notions as chivalry and Christian decency. He said that William would achieve greatness because he had thrown off the shackles of those very things.
Thomas was a knight from the days when it had still meant something. And so was I but I was also more than Thomas could ever be. I had the blood of heroes and conquerors in my veins. The blood of monsters and tyrants. Kings who had known victories that lived in legend.
