by David Gilman
‘You did well last night. You drew their attention and their crossbowmen. Your men are safe?’
‘Aye, my lord. It was a simple enough task you gave us.’
‘Stay here until food is arranged for the men. I have matters to attend to. Do not think that because we hold the town that we are safe. There might be some belligerent townsmen who think they can slip out into a darkened alley and plunge a knife into your neck. The sooner we are done with this place the better.’
‘Yes, Sir Thomas, I understand. My lads are scavengers, they’ll find themselves food and they wouldn’t trust the Pope when walking down an alley so they’ll be wide enough awake for any attack.’
‘Good. You tell your men that the captains have orders to pay for anything we take. What’s happening in there?’ Blackstone asked as another peal of laughter was heard.
Tait shrugged. ‘You would think the Countess might be more sorrowful. Her men are dead or captured, her town taken and she must still wonder whether she herself will come to any harm. Perhaps it is Sir Gilbert’s charm that pleases her.’
‘Then I should have brought one of the scribes from the monastery so that such an event might be recorded in the history books. Sir Gilbert’s charm is best expressed in battle.’
‘My lord?’ said Tait, not understanding.
‘He has none,’ Blackstone explained and then pushed open the doors.
* * *
‘Thomas, there you are,’ said Killbere, who was sitting on a footstool between Countess Catherine and the fireplace. He had a glow to his face that was not only from sitting close to the warmth of the flames. He grinned foolishly. ‘Come, my friend, join us. Our hostess has brandy that would grow hair where there is none!’ He chortled, glancing at the Countess who, barely suppressing a smile, fixed her gaze more intently on Blackstone.
Blackstone’s grim countenance showed he had no wish to be inveigled into the Countess’s hospitality. ‘Our hostess is our prisoner. She has no privileges until she proves herself willing to co-operate,’ he said.
Killbere stepped to his friend’s side and spoke quietly so that the Countess could not hear. ‘Thomas, she is more than willing.’ He grinned foolishly again.
‘Has the wine and brandy on an empty stomach addled your brain?’ said Blackstone quietly. ‘Do you know how dangerous this woman might prove to be?’
‘I think you should leave her to me. I have a certain finesse in these matters,’ Killbere told him. Then, in little more than a whisper: ‘You do what you have to do and I will do what needs to be done here.’
Countess Catherine stared boldly at Blackstone. It was almost like a challenge. It seemed likely that she would desire nothing better than to come between him and his friend. Then she would have won a victory of sorts over him.
Blackstone looked past Killbere. ‘You gave a young man to your killer as a man would toss a dog a bone.’
‘Alain?’ She shrugged. ‘I could do nothing else. I thought he had lied to us. Had I not done so then who knows what Cade might have done to me. I have men at my shoulder who would die for me but even they would not have stopped him. I value my life. I have seen what men like Cade are capable of.’
‘You flit from seasoned killers to innocent young man between your sheets, and then you betray and abandon both.’
‘I am a woman alone in a violent man’s world. I have sworn soldiers at my command. I rule this territory. I am no chattel; I am permitted by law to sign legal documents, to buy and sell land and goods. I am a woman whose husband and family were cruelly slain and I will not take any lecture from a heathen mercenary like you. I am a countess in the realm of King John. I have authority. Do not dare, sir, to tell me whom I might or might not take to my bed.’ She hurled the glass into the fire, where it flared briefly as the brandy spilled.
Killbere glanced with raised eyebrows at Blackstone and then slowly released the breath he had held as Blackstone had been berated. ‘I’ll stay,’ he said quietly. ‘And smooth things over.’
Blackstone ignored his friend. ‘Countess, you are confined to these quarters. Once we are secure here you will command your men not to raise arms against mine. If you do this then your remaining soldiers will have their weapons returned when we leave. Sufficient men remain to protect you and to hold this town. But you will no longer have men like Cade to draw routiers here to their death. If you refuse to command your men then they will die.’
‘And when I give this order, if I give this order, and your men have taken whatever you permit them to take—’
‘They will take nothing more than food and drink and fodder for our horses which we will pay for,’ interrupted Blackstone.
‘Very well, and what happens then?’ said the Countess.
‘We leave Felice. After I kill William Cade.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Blackstone inspected his men’s positions, taking Renfred with him. It was obvious that he had too few men to effectively hold the town for any length of time. Townspeople averted their eyes as the two men walked through the narrow streets. The air was still crisp and he knew they had been blessed with the dry weather for the attack on the town.
The two men made their way down into the open square where the corpses had been hanging but had now been removed. Meulon and his men were shepherding some of the garrison prisoners whose work party carried bundles of faggots and cut timber. The gates were open and guarded by Will Longdon’s men on the walls.
‘Sir Thomas, we have too few men to patrol the walls at night so Will Longdon and I are putting markers out to burn near those village houses,’ said Meulon. ‘There’s a French army out there only a few days away. If for any reason they decide that they would rather hold this place than us then we don’t want any surprises. The archers will have their distance marked.’
‘Warn the villagers to stay in their homes after curfew. These small towns are not as strict and they have no police to enforce it,’ said Blackstone. ‘Are the horses stabled?’
‘John Jacob and his men brought them in.’
‘Take the braziers from the walls and place them in the square. Better that we see anyone within who might try and take us by surprise than for our men on the parapet to be seen by the fires. Cade made the mistake of showing us where his men were.’
Meulon nodded and turned away to carry out Blackstone’s orders.
‘Renfred, I want our men to take over the soldiers’ billets. Make sure that the cooks know where they are. Have the garrison men locked in one of the buildings before dark once they have been fed. They may only be garrison troops but they fought well and there’ll be veterans among them. No fighting man likes the taste of defeat and if they see a chance to strike back at us then they could seize it. They might have a hidden cache of weapons. Caution is the best defence we have now. Remember, no man walks the streets alone. When that is done then find me: there is more we need to do to protect ourselves.’
Renfred beckoned one of his men to him and they made their way towards the soldiers’ quarters as Blackstone went up onto the walls. To one side he saw Jack Halfpenny and Quenell still holding their archers in place. Will Longdon and his men controlled the front wall over the town gate. He saw that Meulon’s men were stacking firewood to be lit as beacons with the veteran archer directing their positioning.
‘How far?’ Will Longdon called to those below.
‘Two hundred and forty-seven,’ came the answer as Blackstone joined him.
‘Mark!’ cried Will Longdon. ‘Thomas, we can do little more to secure the town. How long do you intend to stay here?’
‘All being well we will leave in a day or so. I would like to find out where the Welshman has gone but even on pain of death Cade would lie so it would serve no purpose to torture him.’
‘I would still take my knife to him if you’d permit it. The bastard’s men nearly killed me and he hanged Peter Garland for the pleasure of it.’
‘I know, Will, but I’ll fight him tomorrow.
He’ll be dead by the time the church bell rings for midday prayers.’ Blackstone let his eyes take in the defences. ‘As you said, we have done all we can do to secure this place but something is wrong. I feel it. We are more vulnerable inside these walls than we are out.’ He watched as Felice’s carpenters repaired the roofs he and his men had used to clamber onto the walls. He turned his gaze across the town’s buildings and the château that towered beyond them. ‘There’s a woman up there who commands loyalty from these people. She inflicts revenge on routiers and she still has sworn men who serve her. And to these townspeople we are nothing more than English mercenaries.’
‘We didn’t kill any of them in the attack and Meulon says that we pay for the food we take.’
‘It means nothing to people who hate routiers and who served her husband and now her. She wields power. She’s unafraid. And that makes her dangerous.’
* * *
Before darkness fell Blackstone and John Jacob made their way to the apothecary’s house. Alain lay strapped to the old man’s table, a blanket covering his chest and thighs. His wound had been packed with maggots. The young Frenchman trembled with fever, and sweat streaked his face and torso.
‘I dare not administer any more opiate to him,’ said the apothecary to Blackstone and John Jacob in the dim candlelit room.
‘You have the skill to keep him alive, though.’
‘Medicine is brought together by astrology, the use of herbs and the will of God. I have not studied the heavens and profess to have only a lifetime of skill with the plants and potions at my disposal. I have taken urine from him. His water was green after first being red. It tells me he is infected. I do not see how he can live.’
‘The colour of a man’s piss doesn’t kill him,’ said John Jacob.
The old man shrugged. ‘I can only tell you what I know.’
‘And the bones in his leg?’ said Blackstone.
The old man sighed. ‘You have seen wounds like this before?’ he said, exposing the wound more clearly to the candlelight. ‘Tell me what you see now.’
The stench was bad enough and even though the maggots had eaten away much of the dead flesh Blackstone knew the poison could soon kill the young man.
‘The leg must go,’ said Blackstone.
‘And it is doubtful he would survive. I have never seen it done,’ said the apothecary.
‘I have,’ said Blackstone. ‘But he’ll surely die if we do not cut off the leg.’
‘I have no skill in this,’ said the apothecary.
‘Send for the town butcher and have your blacksmith prepare hot pitch. Once the leg is off what remains needs to be seared.’
The apothecary scuttled from the room and called a servant to do Blackstone’s bidding.
Blackstone wrung out a cloth in a bowl of water and bathed Alain’s face. He had tried and failed to keep the young man safe.
‘I have never seen a man survive this,’ said John Jacob. ‘If it were me I would be happy for you to kill me now.’
The apothecary heard. ‘You cannot murder a man so injured.’
‘How many battlefields have you seen?’ said Blackstone. ‘We kill out of mercy as well as out of anger. This boy is one of us. His parents were cruelly slain and butchered by routiers. And I promised his father that no harm would come to him. He has courage. He deserves a chance.’
‘What you propose is barely a chance,’ said the apothecary. ‘The pain that will be inflicted on him is enough to kill him. I do not have enough medicine to help him.’
‘You have henbane?’ said Blackstone.
The old man nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Mix henbane and brandy. It will make him unconscious to anything done to him.’
For a moment the old man looked uncertain. ‘How do you know this?’
‘I saved a woman once who was thought to be a witch but she was a healer and if she were here now she would tell you to do the same thing. His heart is strong enough and if it isn’t then he will die in his sleep.’
Alain shuddered as the fever gripped him. Blackstone looked helplessly at the maggot-infested leg of the young man who had only wanted to prove himself. The apothecary’s door opened as the servant brought in the town butcher. The well-fed man sweated from the exertion of hurrying and while he wheezed, regaining his breath, he gazed at the man strapped to the table. He placed his belt of implements down on a table, licked his lips and swallowed hard.
‘You are to take off this man’s leg. Above the knee. What do you need?’
The butcher’s eyes widened. The two fighting men frightened him. He stuttered with uncertainty. ‘A… a block. Beneath his leg.’
‘You’ve brought a bone-cutting saw and knife?’ said Blackstone.
The hapless man tugged out a saw and a long curved-bladed knife. His hands shook uncontrollably as he also tugged free a cleaver from its pouch.
‘Mother of God, Sir Thomas, he’ll tear more flesh and cause more damage. This isn’t a pig’s hock.’
The sight of the crude instruments and the fear in the butcher’s face made it plain that the man would be less than useless if the bone saw jammed and to hack off the leg with a cleaver was too brutal an act. Blackstone had seen men’s legs taken off in less than a minute by barber surgeons on the battlefield. ‘We packed Perinne’s wound with honey and had it stitched closed. Perhaps we need to try that here before we take the leg.’
‘And how do we get the bones back inside his leg?’ said John Jacob.
Blackstone studied the two sharp pieces that pierced the wound. ‘Butcher, go back to your house. We will call you again if you are needed,’ he said. ‘Be quick. It will soon be curfew.’
The butcher hurriedly gathered his tools and was ushered out.
‘Rinse out the wound,’ Blackstone told the apothecary’s servant. ‘Use brandy. Get every maggot out of that wound and do not touch those broken bones.’ He looked up at the apothecary. ‘You have honey here?’
‘Some.’
‘Enough to press into the wound?’
‘Yes.’
‘Get it. And mix the brandy with henbane.’
The old man and his servant did as Blackstone demanded.
‘What do you plan to do?’ said John Jacob.
‘Whatever I can,’ said Blackstone. ‘Go and fetch Will. Tell him he’s to stitch the lad’s wound so he must bring his needle and cord.’
‘You intend to push back the bones,’ said the apothecary realizing the only course of action left beyond amputation. ‘Very well.’ He turned to his servant. ‘I will clean the wound. Mix me eggs and flour.’
The servant disappeared into the back of the kitchen and through a door to a larder.
‘I will mix a paste that sets and will help hold the leg in place. It is a treatment I have used once a broken leg has been straightened.’
It didn’t take long for the wound to be flushed clean of the wriggling maggots and for the cup of sleeping draught to be eased between Alain’s lips. Blackstone instructed the apothecary to tear strips of a linen sheet into bandages. By the time Will Longdon arrived Alain was asleep. The wound looked raw and the broken bones appeared to be more prominent now that much of the dead flesh had been reduced. The apothecary smeared honey into the wound.
‘I can’t stitch that,’ said Longdon.
‘You’ve got the cord?’
‘Aye, silk from an arrow fletching.’
‘Get it ready.’
Whatever Blackstone had planned Longdon knew better than to argue. He threaded the silk in a curved needle that resembled a sailmaker’s awl and then dipped the silken cord into the brandy flask. Blackstone stood at the side of the table and placed his hands gently either side of the protruding bones. ‘Will, stand opposite me. I will push the bones back together in his leg. I’ll hold until you stitch each side. John, you and the old man will bind the leg with the bandage. Ready?’
The men nodded. Blackstone repositioned his hands slightly, gazed at the shattered
bones and tried to imagine how they might fit together. It was not the same calculation as laying a dry stone wall, of finding how each piece of rock might fit neatly together for strength, but there was a part of him that instinctively saw how it should be done. And then he pressed down. They heard a crunch and a grinding sound and Blackstone was momentarily surprised how much resistance there was to pushing the bones back into the leg. The young man’s leg muscles were as tight as a bow cord.
‘John, take hold of his foot and pull on his leg.’
The bones chafed together and submerged into the open wound. ‘Now,’ said Blackstone. Will Longdon bent to the task and quickly made long looping stitches to close the wound and then doubled the silk cord back to tie the skin together in smaller stitches as Blackstone shifted the weight of his hands to accommodate him. When Longdon had finished and cut the cord, Blackstone kept his hands in place holding the leg straight with his weight.
The apothecary’s servant placed a deep bowl on the table. The sticky mass it held was almost firm to the touch. The apothecary smeared the thick plaster mixture over the leg and, when satisfied, instructed what to do next.
‘Bind the leg tightly, top to bottom,’ he told John Jacob.
When the task was completed the men stood back and looked at the sleeping young Frenchman.
‘My servant will sit with him throughout the night,’ said the apothecary. ‘If he is still alive in the morning then… well, then we will see. He is in God’s hands now.’
Blackstone and his two companions stepped out into the last remnants of daylight. The church bell rang for vespers but the streets were deserted. The clear evening settled into near darkness. A dog barked somewhere, answered by another. The braziers were already lit in the town’s main square. Blackstone knew his men were tired, he felt it himself, but they needed to be alert this night. He imagined himself to be one of the townsmen, or a survivor from the fight. If he were going to strike an enemy who had taken his town he would wait until the attackers’ exhaustion claimed them. Blackstone’s men had ridden from the monastery, fought Cade’s men and then assaulted the town the previous day and night. They all needed sleep.
