by David Gilman
He called the order again and the last of the arrows arched and fell into the armoured men. The Welshmen had killed as many as their own fallen, but wooden-shafted spears could not withstand the cut of axe and sword. The attack might fail. Blackstone secured the bow across his back, feeling the stave press against his spine. A backbone of yew was no bad thing at that moment. He reached for his sword but the scabbard had gone. Then he remembered that he had left it with the wounded archer. All he had was his long knife. He unsheathed it and released the cry that exploded from his chest – and charged into madness.
None of the archers would survive. Except for their knives they were defenceless, and their padded jackets would split like skin once the French men-at-arms struck with sword and axe. The bodies of the dead and dying Welshmen littered the ground, French dead lay beside them, pierced by lance or arrow, and within another twenty paces Blackstone saw the wall of armoured men raise their swords, readying themselves for the easiest killing they would have that day.
Ten paces.
A violent storm of bloodcurdling howls blew at his back.
The black smoke shifted and from the defenders’ flank English knights stormed into attack with a ferocity that slowed Blackstone and the archers’ charge as the English set about killing their enemy. Steel clashed, shields thudded from blows. One shield took the brunt of an axe blow, its coat of arms declaring the knight’s reputation.
‘Sir Gilbert!’ Blackstone yelled, but the knight was cutting his way through the French with methodical sword strokes as blood spewed and shattered bone pierced muscle. It was a slaughterhouse. One of Warwick’s archers overtook Blackstone and leapt on a French man-at-arms hammered to the ground by a mace-wielding Englishman. He threw his weight on the fallen man and with all his strength jabbed his knife through his visor, twisting the blade as blood spurted and the man’s legs kicked in agony.
The English were clambering across the barricade from the opposite end of the bridge’s defences and suddenly Frenchmen were yielding, down on one knee, offering their swords to their English equals.
English knights blocked the archers from killing more men-at-arms; some of Oxford’s men were pulled away moments before ramming their knife blades beneath the knights’ helms into their throats.
For a moment the smoke wrapped itself around a dream-like vision as English knights encircled their French hostages, protecting them against their own men.
Caen had fallen.
Sporadic fighting continued all day, and as dusk settled houses still burned. Pockets of resistance remained – citizens and some of Sir Robert Bertrand’s soldiers who had survived the main attacks. Bertrand and a couple of hundred men were in the castle and posed no threat to the King’s forces. A company of soldiers was placed to ensure the French did not try a counter-attack in the night. By the end of the battle more than a hundred French knights and men-at-arms, and that number again of esquires, had surrendered to men of equal rank, but the streets were littered with thousands of French dead. The English had proved their courage, especially the archers and infantry, who had fought hand-to-hand against the armoured French. But the wolves tore through the city. No one was safe. No man, woman or child dare contest the rape and plunder. With a ferocity the like of which the citizens of Caen could not even have imagined, English and Welsh soldiers eviscerated their city.
Sir Gilbert had accepted the surrender of a local knight who was taken, along with other captured noblemen, aboard English ships that had sailed up the River Orne on the tide. They would be returned to England and held until their ransoms were paid. The King had issued another proclamation forbidding violence to women and children and the pillaging of churches, but the marshals and captains could not enforce it. There was no protection from looting for the rich merchant houses and the marketplaces. The soldiers needed their spoils of war, and it would serve as a lesson to citizens in other towns not to resist in the future.
Elfred had survived the battle, so too Will Longdon, both bloodied with wounds but remaining steadfast with Sir Gilbert throughout the fighting. Blackstone’s brother had been with them most of the way, but Skinner and others had come under fire from crossbowmen and had attacked a street barricade. The fighting had been intense, but it was a rolling battle and the men were separated. Archers were missing from the company and Sir Gilbert sent his men into the streets to find the dead and recall those who were plundering or caught up in the final skirmishes.
Blackstone trudged back through the streets searching for his brother, ignoring the pockets of resistance that still held an alleyway or square. Grime was etched into his skin with blood and dried sweat, and the stench of his own body made him yearn for water to scrape away the day’s filth. Every muscle ached and his bow arm felt as though it had been beaten with a mace. Soldiers slept in doorways, others dragged bodies into the streets, stripping them of coin or jewellery. Small groups of men sat drinking looted wine or gorging on bread, eggs and cheese, ravenous after the day’s efforts. Whatever meat was found in larders or smokehouses was ignored. It was Wednesday, a fast day when no meat could be consumed, even when men and women could be slaughtered.
Blackstone retraced his steps trying to find the alleyways and streets to take him back to the barricade where he last saw his brother. He came across Alan of Marsh, who still lay in the doorway but whose body had been mutilated, most probably by the town’s citizens. The sword was missing, but it was no great loss, it was, after all, a poor knight’s sword. A mass grave awaited the boy, but at least he would lie with the other archers. The grim cost of the fighting settled like curdled milk in Blackstone’s stomach. It made no difference where a man was buried. Dead was dead and putrid meat would wriggle with maggots once the flies settled.
Charred buildings altered the shape of the streets and his memory faltered. He had taken a wrong turn somewhere and came across a man-at-arms commanding a group of infantrymen piling bodies of French dead in the street, readying them for burial. Blackstone was ordered to help and for the next two hours dragged and stripped corpses, laying them in a row the length of the street. As the soldiers slowed, giving way to their exhaustion, Blackstone slipped down a darkened passageway and made his way to the streets where he had fought. He asked every Englishman he met if they had seen his brother during the fighting. A weary group of Welsh spearmen said they saw the boy’s hulk smashing his way down the street behind his captain. The archer was using a polehammer like a scythe. Then another spearman added that he had seen the knight whom he knew to be Sir Gilbert Killbere attack a barricade and swore he had been killed in the fighting. Blackstone said he had survived. The white-haired man who had asked Blackstone for help at the bridge barricade came into the group. He was haggard from battle. The others made room for him. He looked sharply at Blackstone and then extended his hand.
‘I am Gruffydd ap Madoc.’
‘Thomas Blackstone.’
They talked of the fighting and Blackstone gratefully shared the bread and cheese they offered. He told them about the Welsh archer who had given him courage. He was nameless and the spearmen did not know him either. But from what Blackstone described of the man’s wounds they agreed he had fought well. He showed them the medallion the dying man had pressed into his hand.
Gruffydd examined it and laid it back in Blackstone’s hand. ‘Keep it. The old man wanted you to have it. She’s a protector of men in this life and she will carry your soul across to the other side when it’s time. She is called Arianrhod, Goddess of the Silver Wheel. It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not. She is with you.’
As the men curled into sleep where they lay, Blackstone went further into the ravaged city. Fires still burned and cries and moans still echoed through the labyrinth of streets. A proclamation was not enough to stop women being raped and their husbands slaughtered. He ignored the rampaging groups of drunken soldiers; they were too dangerous to approach. Blood-lust and rape drove them through house after house. He allowed only a glance
at small, frightened children, half naked and snot-nosed, wandering helplessly near their homes, waiting for a mother to return, bewildered by the stench of gutted bodies and howls of anguish from women being ravished.
Rape was a hanging offence – but not that night.
Firelight showed the three-storey house leaning at its threatening angle. This was where crossbowmen had held the streets, and more than a dozen of their bodies littered the cobblestones, all killed by one archer. Blackstone retraced his steps and found Richard Whet twisted in a doorway. The wood was splintered, three crossbow bolts embedded in the hardwood planking. Whet must have come under attack and attempted to retreat and this was where he fought his last. No arrows remained in his bag and the spare arrow bag Blackstone had given him was also empty. Blackstone saw the bolt in Whet’s shoulder that would have disabled him, leaving him barely able to defend himself. What chance of survival did his brother have when so many other archers had been slain?
Blackstone made his way through the shadows, ducking into doorways and stepping over bodies as small marauding gangs of English soldiers ripped their way through the townhouses. Slowly but surely he began to identify the area where he had fought. The surge of emotion from the battle had blurred the streets and buildings, but now his mind focused and he recognized a corner house here, a craftsman’s sign there. As he moved towards one of the burning houses hasty footsteps rapidly approached down one of the side alleys. Men were shouting, but they were French voices. From the end of the darkened passage a priest ran as if the devil himself were after him, then tripped over a body that lay sprawled across the cobblestones. The cowled figure tumbled, arms outstretched, falling full-length, hard and painfully, to the ground. Half-stunned by the impact he tried to raise himself, but the three men pursuing him were already upon him. They were armed townsmen and had obviously been part of the city’s defence against the English attack, but now they were intent on killing the priest. One of them struck the black-cloaked figure with a pole, the other kicked the huddled body and the third readied himself with a billhook to hack the man to death.
Almost without thought Blackstone pulled an arrow from a body lying less than two paces away. The loosed arrow took the Frenchman down as he was about to decapitate the priest. The other men faltered from the shock of the arrow hissing from the darkness and striking their companion. Blackstone came at them knife in hand. In what seemed an effort to save himself one man shouted something and pointed at the priest. The words came thick and fast but Blackstone recognized only some of them; an accusation that the priest was stealing from the dead. But with less than fifteen paces before he reached them the Frenchmen turned and ran back down the alleyway.
The injured priest groaned, blood on his face, knuckles and hands skinned from the rough cobbles. Blackstone looked quickly around him; if men still fought and killed on the streets he didn’t want a sudden attack from the encroaching shadows. He dragged the injured man to the corner of a house.
‘All right, Father, you’re safe for now. King Edward has offered his protection to the clergy,’ he said in faltering French. He bent down and pulled the cowl back from the priest’s face, revealing a gaunt man in his twenties. For a moment Blackstone felt a shock of uncertainty, the man’s eyes were like dark pools in his skull. Strands of long hair, matted with blood and dank street water, clung to the sides of his face like a cat’s claw. The rescued man gave a snort of derision, then pushed himself back against the wall, clasping a clergyman’s crucifix around his neck.
‘You’re English, but you speak French,’ he said, wiping blood away from his mouth. He snorted blood and spat. ‘I never imagined I would owe my life to a bastard Englishman.’
Being a priest did not necessarily imbue a man with gentleness or gratitude. A benefice could be bought or given. This man’s words stank of ill-concealed hatred despite his life being spared. Blackstone pushed a foot into his chest and held him there.
‘What’s in the sack, priest?’ he said.
‘A feast,’ he answered. ‘Benedic nos Domine et haec tua dona.’ His insolent smile suggesting a common archer would not understand, but Blackstone had heard the blessing before and cut the tied bag, spilling its contents into the half-light. Rings and trinkets, stuck together with black, congealed blood, fell onto the cobblestones. Some of the rings were embedded in the skin of engorged fingers hacked from victims’ hands. In the moment of uncertainty at what Blackstone saw at his feet, the priest twisted and kicked, freeing himself. Blackstone swung with his knife and caught the man’s outstretched palm, severing his little finger, which hung from a shred of skin. Blackstone would have struck again, but the priest was agile and danced away like a soldier avoiding a sword strike. And then he ran without another word or curse. Blackstone gave chase, slamming into the side of a building, rolling free and propelling himself after the looter. As he jumped across fallen bodies, he snatched another arrow, never taking his eyes from the fleeing shadow as he ran through the twisting darkness. As the cloaked figure reached the heavy studded door of a church he turned and looked back towards his pursuer. Sanctuary was a step away. Blackstone’s arrow would have pinned him to that holy place, but it seemed as if the man had a sixth sense. He stepped away as the shaft thudded into the door where he had stood a moment before. Then the door was slammed shut and a bolt thrown. Blackstone put his shoulder to it, but the wood was solid and unyielding. There would be other doors into other passageways. The man was gone. Mutilation of the dead was nothing unusual, but the guise of a priest was cunning. And yet, the man wore a clerical crucifix around his neck and had spoken in Latin, which was a schooled language reserved for the nobility or the clergy. Blackstone decided that it obviously made no difference who you were when there was killing to be done.
Tiredness gnawed at him; he cared little for the body looter, but as he turned back towards the streets a window shattered amidst a woman’s screams as men’s voices jeered and laughed. It would be another alleyway assault, except for one sound that carried louder than the others and started Blackstone running towards the commotion. The diminishing light from the burning buildings crept far enough towards the end of an alley, fading into darkness ten paces from a house where the glow from torchlight threw grotesque shadows into the street. Blackstone unsheathed his knife and edged into the doorway. In the flickering light three drunken men, half-naked ghosts of pale skin, dried bloodstains and soot grime on face and arms, held a naked woman across a table. One of the men fell spluttering against the wall as he poured red wine from a jug into his mouth and across his face; the second held the woman’s arms behind her head as the third slavered over her breasts, pouring wine across them, then slathering his face and tongue as his naked arse plunged back and forth. The man with the wine jug was Pedloe, the one holding the woman’s arms was Skinner and the rapist was Richard Blackstone, grunting and baying like a rutting animal. The sound Blackstone had heard.
Blackstone moved quickly out of the darkness and yanked his brother’s shoulder. Caught by surprise Richard swept around, his extended arm smashing into Blackstone, the force of the blow sending his knife skittering away. The sudden shock of the attack stunned Skinner and Pedloe, but Blackstone’s brother had already turned and leapt upon the intruder, his hands smothering Blackstone’s face in the gloom, grappling for his throat. Blackstone could barely see Richard’s glazed, drunken eyes, and crying out would have no effect. Blackstone bucked and kicked under his brother’s weight as the other men held the woman and peered drunkenly into the shadows trying to identify their assailant.
Blackstone pulled aside his brother’s grip and in that instant Richard focused and recognized who it was he was close to killing. Blackstone grabbed his shirtfront, yanked his head down and butted him across the nose. Recognition and sudden pain rocked Richard back. He sprawled, staring at the blood on his hand from his shattered nose. Blackstone was already on his feet as Skinner snarled, threw the woman aside and came at him, his knife held low
in a knife-fighter’s stance then slashed upwards – a disembowelling stroke. With his stonemason’s strength Blackstone grabbed his wrist, defeating even the veteran archer’s power. He held him, held him still, forcing him down onto his knees and reached out with his free hand, grasping for a weapon, for anything to stop the writhing man. Skinner’s drunkenness gave him the added force to twist free and slash across Blackstone’s chest. His padded jacket was slit like a wineskin, only the leather undershirt stopping the blade from reaching his flesh.
Blackstone stumbled backwards, blindly reaching out again, keeping his eyes on the killer as Skinner attacked. His hand found an arrow bag and, as Skinner lunged forward for the kill, Blackstone extended his arm and a bodkin-pointed shaft pierced his attacker’s gullet. Skinner gasped and tried to speak, but choked on his blood. He went slowly to his knees, his hands grasping the shaft, his eyes wide with incomprehension, unable to do anything but die. Pedloe, sobered by the fight, reached for his own knife; in two strides he would be at Blackstone’s blind side. The shadow that fell across him twisted his head in one violent motion. Blackstone heard the grinding snap from his brother’s grip on the man’s neck. Pedloe was dead before his body touched the floor. The two archers lay in the pooling blood.
After a moment’s silence Blackstone dragged his gaze away from the dead men. ‘Get dressed,’ he said quietly. His brother stared back. Blackstone gestured and the boy understood. Blackstone knelt next to the woman, who cowered away from him, muttering for mercy. He found her clothes and gently draped them across her nakedness. She flinched as the cloth touched her skin, but then clung to it. Blackstone attempted to wipe the sweat and dirt from her face but she recoiled. He showed her the palm of his hand, to calm her.
