by David Gilman
Behind them the deserted Castle de Harcourt was protected by the dead. A dozen heads stuck on poles served as a warning to any other marauding bands.
Godfrey de Harcourt’s relentless search for a river crossing took his force back north to a curl of the Seine. As the baron sat on a crested rise, hunched across his saddle’s pommel, Blackstone and the others waited fifty paces behind.
‘Holy God,’ Will Longdon muttered when he saw the host gathered in the city. ‘I thought there were only twice as many as us.’
‘My money says that’s not even their whole army,’ Elfred said.
The battlements and suburbs of Rouen confirmed King Edward’s information that the French army had called its arrière ban, the conscription of every able-bodied man and knight. The banners and pennons of French noble pride fluttered across the skyline. Smoke rose from thousands of fires. And Elfred was correct. The King and the main force defended Paris. King Edward’s army was going to be crushed between the hammer and anvil of French might.
‘We won’t be going across the river here, that’s for certain,’ Blackstone said. He scanned the flock of banners. Amidst the royalty and honour of France, the gold and red colours of the de Harcourt family drew the eye to the bloodline of the Norman who sat on this side of the river having sworn loyalty to the English King. Godfrey de Harcourt, his thoughts his own, turned his horse. His men followed.
Blackstone looked across the wide river. The division between himself and Richard was as great as that between de Harcourt and his brother.
As de Harcourt and other knights led their scouting parties searching for a crossing, the King and the army reached Poissy, twelve miles from Paris, and found the town undefended. Fear had made the wealthy citizens abandon the town favoured by French royalty for its beauty and where the King of France had his mansion next to the Dominican nuns’ priory. The unwalled town lay deserted on a bend of the Seine, less than twenty miles from Paris. God whispered in Edward’s ear that He would give him a chance, a slim chance, to cross the river. The retreating French had destroyed the bridge but had left the stanchions. The carpenters began to cut wood.
By the time de Harcourt and his men returned to the main force, Edward’s carpenters had managed to lay a single sixty-foot beam across the stanchions at Poissy. There was no opposition on the far bank; the French, believing that they had destroyed the bridge, had retreated to Paris.
Roger Oakley beckoned Blackstone forward from the company. ‘Thomas, there’s not many can please the lame baron, but you must have done some good in rescuing this girl. He wants you. Take yourself to him.’
As Blackstone eased the horse past Elfred he asked a favour.
‘Elfred, will you keep Richard with you? I don’t know what it is Sir Godfrey wants with me.’
‘I will. I’ll have food kept for you,’ the centenar answered.
Blackstone approached de Harcourt and Sir Gilbert. Sir Godfrey spoke to Christiana. ‘This man will take you to the King’s baggage train. You’re a courageous young woman. Your mistress will be proud,’ de Harcourt said. ‘Sir Gilbert! We’ll report to the King.’ He spurred the horse forward.
Sir Gilbert sidled alongside Blackstone and Christiana. ‘I want you back here, not supping delicate foods stolen from the King’s kitchen. Speak to one of the King’s captains. Tell him Sir Godfrey wishes her safe.’ He looked at the girl. ‘You’re fortunate Thomas Blackstone found you. He’s my sworn man.’ He paused, as if considering what he said next. ‘I would trust him with my life.’
He urged the horse forward, following Sir Godfrey towards the King’s banner flying outside the new palace Philip had built for himself.
‘Sir Gilbert honours you,’ she said.
‘I don’t know why,’ Blackstone said modestly. But his captain’s compliment meant more than anyone would ever know.
Her arms tightened around his waist as he turned the horse. ‘I wasn’t brave,’ Christiana said quietly. ‘I was frightened. More frightened than I have ever been in my life.’
Not, Blackstone thought, as frightened as he felt with her body pressed tightly against his.
Sir Gilbert stood at the water’s edge, anxious to remove the burden of his plate armour after the days of riding, but while Godfrey de Harcourt still spoke to the King, he had been summoned by William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton. The rebuilding of the bridge could never be fast enough for the marshal’s liking.
‘Get your arses moving, or by Christ I’ll cut off your ears and have you sent out as treasonable bastards who are deliberately slowing your King’s progress.’ He turned to Sir Gilbert. ‘From what you and Godfrey said, we’re caught between the millstones of Philip’s armies.’
‘We are if we don’t get across the river.’
‘Aye, and there’s another ninety miles north if we’re to meet up with Hastings and his Flemish whoresons. We can catch Philip by surprise if we’re quick enough. We’re a spit away from Paris. The King believes this is God’s gift.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘That we’ve ended in the buttery on our arses. Once your lads are fed I need a company of archers ready to get across this damned ditch and defend the other side. If we’re to feint to Paris and—’
‘My lord!’
Northampton and Sir Gilbert looked to where the carpenter pointed. Beyond the far bank a line of French horsemen appeared, with infantry running at their flanks.
‘The butter’s just curdled,’ Northampton said and grabbed his helm.
Even Sir Gilbert’s experience of war did not prepare him for what Northampton did next. The pugnacious earl pulled on his helm, drew his sword and began to move across the foot-wide plank towards the enemy. Encased in eighty pounds of armour and chain mail, on a slippery footing across a swirling river, the mad bastard was going to attack.
‘Sound the alarm!’ Sir Gilbert called.
Blackstone had ridden to the rear of the column with Christiana. Camp followers and whores were kept furthest from the milling activity of this community of non-combatants. The baggage train carried all the King’s personal effects, the royal kitchen and its cooks. There were carpenters, masons and horsemasters. Blacksmiths and farriers unloaded portable forges and the charcoal to heat them. Two-pence-a-day grooms cared for the beasts of burden and war. Wagons stacked with bushels of corn, peas and beans as fodder for the war horses, which needed more than grass as their diet, were drawn up to one side of the town. Sacks of oats were carried for the heavy carthorses. More food for the beasts than the men, Blackstone thought as he guided the horse through the coming and going of servants.
Surgeons had their own retinues, clerks kept records, the hierarchy of officials and attendants seemed a natural state of affairs to those involved, but Blackstone was used to the uncomplicated structure and discipline of an archers’ company and the milling of these people confused him.
As wagoners unbridled their large carthorses, armourers stood watch over two wagons that carried saltpetre and sulphur for the three bombards strapped below. These cannons would fire stone shot, though Sir Gilbert had told him that such bombards caused more noise – like a clap of thunder – than killing: that was left to the King’s archers.
Blackstone eased the horse forward to a robed official who was directing others to their duties.
‘Sir, I’m charged by Sir Godfrey de Harcourt to deliver this lady into safekeeping.’
The man looked up at the weather-scoured archer whose matted hair clung to his dirt-streaked face, and whose jupon was so faded that its coat of arms was unrecognizable. He looked little better than a vagabond. Archers were thieves and killers. The King favoured their strength, which was why half his army consisted of these scum from the shires. Was this a rescued lady from one of the ransacked towns or a noble’s whore needing protecting? One could never tell and discretion could make the difference between demotion and a flogging or a favourable mention from the marshal’s woman.
The official
looked the girl over. Her face showed no sign of the pox and her delicate hands bore no raw redness from lime soap. She was too slight for heavy work and her cloak was of good quality. She was no whore or working woman, the official determined.
‘The lady shall be safe here. Assure Sir Godfrey I shall arrange as much comfort as is possible under the circumstances.’
Blackstone quickly dismounted and reached up to Christiana. As she allowed him to ease her down a small crucifix swung clear from her neck. Blackstone held her a moment longer than he could have hoped for.
‘Thank you. I can feel the ground beneath my feet. I don’t think I shall stumble now,’ she said.
He released his hands from her waist. She came to no higher than his chest but she kept her gaze on his. ‘I owe you a kindness,’ she said.
The thoughts of a kiss rushed through his mind. He bent his head but she smiled and raised the crucifix.
‘Rather let your lips touch the cross of Christ and then I can pray you will be blessed and kept safe.’ She held the small gold crucifix to his lips but her eyes stayed on his. ‘Kiss the cross of Christ if you believe in His… love.’ The whispered final word seemed carefully chosen to Blackstone’s ears.
He had no thoughts of whether God even existed. The Church said so, as did the whoring village priest at home – a landowner’s son who had taken the cloth instead of the sword. But if it meant Blackstone could spend another moment with this girl whose dark green eyes still looked into his, he would have joined the priesthood himself.
He put his face close to hers and smelled the fragrance of her hair as he kissed the crucifix.
‘Bless you, Thomas Blackstone. I shall pray for your safety.’
The moment passed. She turned and walked quickly away to where the official waited, glaring in the archer’s direction.
Blackstone was about to call after her when he heard a trumpet sounding the alarm from the river.
Armoured men in single file balanced their way across the narrow plank. Blackstone looked down from the hillside and watched as the first of them, Northampton and others, including Sir Gilbert, gained the other bank. By the time the French reached the slope twenty or so English banners were raised. It was too slender a force to hold the shore and there was no time to find and load boats with infantry. A thousand Frenchmen, for that was about the number that Blackstone gauged was swarming towards the river, would crush the courageous Northampton and his knights. Despite the unquestionable courage of the men following, Blackstone knew that if this bridge could not be repaired, or if the French gained sufficient strength to hold the shore, then they would all be trapped like rats. And Christiana was part of the English camp.
He spurred the horse forward. Archers were running into position. Elfred’s men were still at the rear being fed after their arduous time in the saddle, but there were a dozen or more archers, guards for the carpenters, running for the bank and levelling their bows. Blackstone dismounted and unslung his bow. It was obvious that these next few minutes would be vital.
‘Downriver!’ he cried to the men and was already running along the riverbank beyond the stanchions. They were Warwick’s men, but they responded to the command because archers needed a clear target and the mêlée on the other shore already consumed English and French men-at-arms. They realized Lord Marldon’s man must have seen something they had not. Two hundred yards along the bank showed the approaching infantry. Northampton and the others had their backs to the river, the spearmen’s numbers would overwhelm them.
One of the older men in Warwick’s contingent shouted, ‘Right, lad. We see the bastards.’
There was no need for a command. The archers hauled back their bowcords and, despite how few they were, began a steady killing fire. The infantry faltered but came on. Blackstone saw Sir Gilbert turn with a dozen men-at-arms to face the attack.
As more men got across the river the French began to fall back. It could not have been a main force from the French army, Blackstone reasoned, but a flying column sent to secure a crossing they thought already destroyed. They were dying too quickly to succeed. More archers joined Blackstone, others got across the river. They had to keep the slender foothold that was the army’s escape.
Elfred ran into view with Richard Blackstone at his shoulder. Weston, Longdon and all the others took up position on the opposite end of the riverbank and began firing steadily. Blackstone saw his brother at Elfred’s shoulder. A pang of uncertainty gripped him. Had the boy found a new guardian? Elfred was a kinder, older man who could easily have been their father. A thought shot through his mind like a bodkin piercing armour: was he happy to see responsibility for his brother gone from his life? He gripped his father’s war bow, his hand the breadth of his father’s. The man’s spirit lived on – so too the demands he had placed on his eldest son.
Men-at-arms were pushing the French back, but Blackstone had stopped firing. He wanted to fight with the comrades he knew.
‘That’s my company,’ he told the Warwick man. And then, knowing the answer to his own uncertainty, ‘My brother’s there.’
‘Aye. Off you go then, son. You did well bringing us here. We’ll hold the flank. Northampton and his men have the day, I reckon. He’s a lunatic bastard, thank God. You have to love him for it.’
Blackstone ran the few hundred yards to his friends. Richard saw him and his braying made John Weston turn as he nocked another arrow.
‘You took your time! Barely got your breeches back on, did you? Don’t mind us, we can win this fight without you.’
‘Thought you’d run off with her!’ Will Longdon said as he loosed another shaft.
Blackstone took his place with the others and drew back. ‘No, that’s later,’ he answered.
By the end of the day several hundred French lay dead; others were hunted down as they ran. Some managed to retreat towards Paris and deliver the news the French King would despair at hearing: English infantry with men-at-arms, flanked by Welsh spearmen and archers, held the crossing at Poissy. Edward had lost many men in the bitter fighting, but he had his bridge. Now he could escape the tightening noose – that sent a message of fear to the French King. No foreign invader had ever sacked the capital. He was not about to let Edward’s savage, mongrel army be the first. Philip prepared his army to do battle on the outskirts of the city.
The exertion of the fighting had reopened Sir Gilbert’s wound sustained at Caen. He sat on a log without chest armour and chain mail as a surgeon inserted stitches to the sides of the raw gash.
‘I wouldn’t let you wipe my arse with silk, you damned butcher, if it weren’t for my lord’s grace in sending you,’ he said as Godfrey de Harcourt looked on.
‘The Prince’s surgeon should be accorded some respect, Gilbert,’ de Harcourt chided him gently.
‘So too should this damned wound on my back. You’d think the man was stitching a pig for roasting.’ Sir Gilbert swigged from a flask. ‘The brandy helps – to a point. I hope you’ll thank him in case I don’t survive his cripple-fingered administration.’
‘I’ve done all I can, Sir Gilbert,’ said the surgeon.
Sir Gilbert held up the pot of salve. ‘Then smear this on and dress it with a clean piece of linen, and your duties will be discharged.’
The surgeon sniffed the pot. His nose wrinkled.
‘It’s not a brothel salve; it’s honey and lavender from the monks at Caen. Do it and be gone and make sure the linen is clean. Then bind me.’ The surgeon did as he was told.
‘Can you ride?’ de Harcourt asked.
‘What is it you want, Sir Godfrey?’ he answered. The Norman’s question seemed to him tantamount to an insult.
‘I’m to lay waste as close to Paris as I can get – it’s a diversion. Edward has to get the army north and across the Somme to meet up with Hastings and the Flemish. He’ll be running like a stag with the French hunt on his scent.’
Sir Gilbert let the brandy catch the back of his throat, its warmth easing the
pain in his body. ‘He was never going to attack Paris. I knew that. We would be caught in a thousand streets and alleys. It’d be a hundred times worse than Caen. How much time does the King need?’
‘Nine days at the most.’
‘And what do you want of me and my men?’
‘Find a crossing on the Somme.’
‘Dear God, haven’t we done with trying to cross rivers? That’s the devil’s gate of a ditch. Worse than this place. Let’s do battle now and finish it.’
‘Edward’s ordered more archers and supplies. There’s a port north of the river at Le Crotoy, and to reach there we need to cross the Somme. There’s no victory unless we meet Hastings then turn and fight Philip. Supplies and men. That’s what we need.’
‘And a miracle.’
‘We’ll meet north of Amiens.’ De Harcourt turned his horse away.
Sir Gilbert grunted as the last binding was tied off. Six weeks of fighting sucked more than energy out of man and horse. They needed rest and food and care for their injuries. The army marched on worn-out shoes, and horses travelled on a meagre diet. Wounds festered and men died, desertion was not uncommon and soldiers had been hanged for looting monasteries. Yet still the warrior King asked more of his men. It was remarkable that they held him in such esteem that they bound up their feet, ignored their suffering and pushed onwards. And now there was to be a seventy-mile dash to get across another major river. Exhaustion was claiming them all.
The army crossed the Seine at Poissy and made certain the bridge was destroyed completely. Philip would not be able to attack from their rear, for now the race was on to march north. De Harcourt’s raiding party had burned their way to the outskirts of Paris itself, but the French army was on the move, and once he had done all that could be done the tireless baron rode hard to join the reconnaissance parties that were trying to find a crossing. The army had left the difficult terrain of the hedgerows and bocage of Normandy and, fuelled by desperation, cut across the plain of Picardy in a straight line for seventy miles with barely a mile’s divergence either side of the column. The sea to the north-west was close, the Somme’s salt marshlands and estuary to the west – and a determined French King, knowing his English cousin’s bedraggled army was making a last great effort to reach his Flemish allies, pursued him from the south. The English had slipped the noose once, he would tighten it again. And kick away the stool.
