by David Gilman
‘Get up!’ Meulon shouted. ‘They’re all dead except one.’
Blackstone accepted the man’s extended arm and hauled himself up. Meulon looked at him questioningly as Blackstone pulled the hair back from his face and saw the smear of blood on his hand. He’d been lucky.
‘I’m all right,’ Blackstone told him.
‘It seems you know how to use this, Sir Thomas,’ Meulon said, acknowledging Blackstone’s rank for the first time as he handed back the recovered Wolf Sword.
Blackstone walked down the track to where one of the escorts guarded the surviving brigand. Another of de Harcourt’s men held the horses as the soldier who had been at Blackstone’s side sat, ashen-faced, against the bank.
‘Gaillard. He’s taken a cut through his mail, he’ll bleed a bit longer and then it’ll congeal. He’ll survive, though he deserves no sympathy for making such a piss-poor mess of it. God’s blood! He only had to ride at your side. I’ll make sure he loses pay and gets a flogging because of it.’ The injured man’s face hardened at the thought of more pain and of losing what little he earned.
‘He did well,’ Blackstone lied, ‘he slowed the man attacking me. Give him some wine and we’ll attend to his wound before we leave this place.’
The wounded man gritted his teeth and got to his feet. ‘My thanks, Sir Thomas.’
Meulon nodded. ‘You’re a lucky bastard, Gaillard, in more ways than one,’ he said, knowing full well that it was more usual for a man-at-arms to blame a common soldier for any misfortune that befell him, and that Blackstone had almost gone down under the routier’s sword.
The prisoner was on his knees in the mud, his hands tied behind his back. Greasy hair plastered his face from the sweat of the fight. Meulon yanked his head back, the man gasped, exposing the broken and blackened stumps that had once been teeth.
‘Who do you fight for?’ Blackstone asked him.
‘We serve no one,’ he answered, and then fell to Meulon’s kick.
‘Lying bastard. Half a dozen scum like you don’t survive on your own. There’s more of you. Where?’ Meulon demanded.
The man shook his head in denial, and earned another kick for his resistance.
Blackstone raised a hand. ‘That’s enough. Listen to me,’ he said, ‘I’m going to set you free.’
Meulon couldn’t believe what he’d heard. ‘We string this piece of shit up and leave his body as a warning to others who trespass on my lord’s territory!’
‘No, I do this my way,’ Blackstone answered. ‘Get him on his knees and untie him.’
Meulon stepped in front of Blackstone, his face close to the Englishman. ‘We make an example of him, as would my Lord de Harcourt.’
‘He’s not here,’ Blackstone said and tried to step aside, but Meulon positioned himself again.
‘We kill him,’ Meulon hissed. The other men couldn’t hide their disgust and murmured their agreement.
A fragment of memory shot into Blackstone’s mind of Killbere’s strength and authority, of the man who made the decisions without favour. ‘Do as I say and do it now,’ Blackstone told him without raising his voice. ‘I know what needs to be done.’
Once again Meulon hesitated, but Blackstone had not moved and showed no sign of changing his mind. Finally, Meulon obeyed and dragged the man by his hair onto his knees and cut free the bonds.
‘Now, tell me who you serve, and you’re free to go,’ Blackstone told him.
‘You’ll kill me anyway,’ the man said defiantly.
‘No. I will not kill you. I give you my word.’
‘And what’s that worth?’
‘My honour has been well earned,’ said Blackstone. ‘It means everything.’
The man hesitated. ‘I need a drink.’
‘No drink, only your freedom as I promised. Now who do you ride for?’
The man thought about it for a moment. What was there to lose? ‘Routiers hold Chaulion.’
Blackstone looked to Meulon to explain. ‘Eighty miles or more to the south. It controls one of the crossroads,’ Meulon told him.
‘Who’s there? How many?’ Blackstone demanded as Meulon’s fist was raised ready to punish.
The man flinched. ‘Germans, French, Gascons – all kinds. English deserters as well. More than sixty men, sometimes more. Saquet leads them. He’s their leader. Saquet, le poigne de fer.’
‘The “Iron Fist”. I’ve heard of him,’ Meulon said, ‘he’s a Breton, murdering bastards every last one of them, they’d sell their mothers for a jug of wine. He’s one of the worst. They call him that because he likes to kill a man on the ground by smashing his skull with his fist.’
Blackstone knew that de Harcourt’s men would gut and hang the man as a warning for others not to stray into their lord’s domain. They looked at him expectantly. Sometimes harsh actions were necessary. He faltered, trying to decide on what act would serve its purpose. Finding the lesser of the evils was what separated wanton torture and killing from exacting a harsh lesson on an enemy.
‘Bring him over here,’ he ordered.
Meulon dragged the man by his hair and beard across to a fallen tree. Blackstone raised his sword ready to strike. The man’s knees sagged beneath him; spittle and snot clung to his beard as he begged for his life.
‘No, no! You gave your honour!’
‘I always keep my word. I’ll give you your freedom. Meulon, his arm, there,’ Blackstone said, pointing to the tree stump. Meulon and another of de Harcourt’s men held the man down and forced his arm across the stump.
‘You tell this “Iron Fist” that he will not come again into this territory and that Sir Thomas Blackstone, sworn to his sovereign lord, the English King, will seek him out and kill him, and that this is fair warning.’
Blackstone’s blade severed the fingers cleanly from the man’s sword hand.
Blackstone had the brigand’s wound bound, but before they sent him on his way he was given another lesson: they gathered the slain men’s swords and spiked their bodies to the trees as a warning. Meulon and the others stayed silent once the work was done. Whatever doubts they had harboured about the Englishman seeped away like the blood spilled on the track.
18
Jean de Harcourt watched the blood-spattered escort return. Their arrival caused a flurry of activity in the courtyard as the injured men were helped. Blackstone briefly explained what had happened and that mercenaries held the town of Chaulion.
‘We knew it had been taken, but that they were raiding this far is worrying news,’ said de Harcourt.
‘Is the King testing those of us he doubts?’ Louis de Vitry asked.
‘There’s no saying they’re being paid by our King,’ Guy de Ruymont said, ‘they are as likely to be serving their own ends as that of his.’
‘My lord,’ said Blackstone, ‘the Englishman wears the livery of the King of England, and there was another man hanged in the village. I don’t know what they were doing so far south.’
‘What they were doing, young Blackstone, is telling Frenchmen that Edward would protect them if they swore allegiance,’ said de Mainemares, the noblemen’s elder statesman, who pushed his way through the group and tugged at the wounded man’s livery as he was being carried into the castle. ‘He’s sending out runners and without much success. Perhaps your King’s authority and influence is not what we believe it to be.’ He nodded for the litter bearers to take the man inside.
‘Put him next to Sir Thomas’s quarters,’ de Harcourt commanded. ‘Thomas, stay with him and see what you can find out when he regains consciousness, you’re the only one who speaks the language.’
There had been no condemnation of Blackstone’s actions, but neither had there been praise for stopping the mercenaries. The gathered nobles stood aside as the young knight followed the litter through the castle doors.
William de Fossat pulled his fingers through his thatch of beard.
‘A good kill, Jean. It’ll teach those thieving bastards to keep t
heir distance.
De Vitry agreed. ‘If they hold Chaulion, they control the trade that passes on those roads. We should burn them out before more skinners join them.’
Jean de Harcourt remained silent. Murmurs of agreement joined de Vitry and Fossat.
‘Meulon!’ de Harcourt called as the soldier attended to his injured man near the stables. ‘Inside. Now.’
De Harcourt turned on his heel, followed by the others. He needed to know whether Thomas Blackstone’s actions had been foolish and disturbed a hornet’s nest that could bring raiders onto his lands, or whether he had started a chain of events that would suit the Norman barons and their long-term plans.
The servants put the unconscious man onto a fresh litter and gathered their medicines and herbs. As they washed the grime from his face and hands he stirred and muttered something in his delirium.
‘Master Blackstone,’ Marcel called. ‘He said something.’
Blackstone sat next to the unconscious man. ‘What have you given him?’
‘Comfrey for the burn on his forehead and his broken ribs. His foot is at the wrong angle so we will also use it in the binding. We have stitched the wound on his head as best we can and we’ll prepare more herbs.’
‘And what’s this?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Common rue heals many things and wards off evil spirits,’ Marcel said.
‘Perhaps prayer might do that,’ Blackstone suggested.
Marcel took back the pouch of herbs. ‘We must take all precautions, Sir Thomas. Lady Christiana prayed three times a day for your recovery but we also tended you with these same potions once Master Jordan returned to the English army. Evil spirits find their way into our souls when we are helpless. No one should risk being caught in the jaws of hell through the lack of a few herbs.’
Blackstone couldn’t argue. Not with his own superstitions. He unconsciously touched the silver lady at his throat and saw Marcel’s glimmer of a smile.
The injured man turned his head and half opened his eyes. ‘Do I live?’ he said in barely a whisper.
Blackstone lowered his face to hear more clearly. The man repeated his question. ‘Yes,’ Blackstone told him, ‘and you’re safe.’ He beckoned for Marcel and the other servant in the room to raise the man so he could drink. They eased the liquid to his lips. He sipped and then closed his eyes. Blackstone waited, and moments later he recovered again.
‘Who are you?’ Blackstone asked him.
‘I am a messenger for the King of England. I had a warrant of safe passage.’ He sighed, closed his eyes, rested a moment and then spoke again. ‘I should have used it to wipe my arse.’ He wheezed, as if his lungs could not fill with air. It took a few seconds for him to recover. ‘Those bloody French heathens tore us down like a pack of wolves.’ He grimaced. ‘I feel as though I’ve been kicked and trampled by a bloody war horse. I’m no fighting man, I’m a runner for the King.’ He sighed again and once more closed his eyes, his ability to speak coming in fits and starts.
Blackstone brushed the man’s hair from his face and looked again at the brand burned into his forehead. It was difficult to determine how old he was but he guessed he was a few years older than himself. That he was a commoner was obvious. He would have been part of the King’s retinue, serving the chamberlain and used for delivering proclamations. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of the man’s mouth.
‘Marcel?’ Blackstone asked, indicating the blood.
‘His lungs. They must be pierced by a rib. I don’t know if that can be healed,’ Marcel answered. ‘I’ll burn some coltsfoot, it is said that can help with poor breathing.’ Marcel left the room in search of more herbs.
‘So I said to myself…’ the man said, as if carrying on from a conversation, ignorant that he had once again slipped into unconsciousness, ‘… I said, a dog’s bollocks couldn’t squeeze through the gap in this cage – did I tell you that? – that they put me in a wicker cage once they beat and branded me? I did, didn’t I? After they slaughtered poor old Jeffrey, strung him up like a cat at a village fair… for the sport of it…’
He faltered again, perhaps it was the pain-killing herbs that jumbled the man’s thoughts.
‘What’s your name?’ Blackstone asked.
The man looked bewildered, as if he had to remember an obscure message that eluded him. ‘It’s… Harness, William Harness, and I am a runner for the King of England. Did I tell you that?’
‘Yes. My name is Thomas Blackstone. I’m an Englishman. Do you know of Sir Gilbert Killbere? He was close to the Prince at Crécy.’
‘Is that where they cut you?’ Harness said, gazing at Blackstone’s scar.
‘Yes. Do you know him?’
‘Am I in England? What’s your name?’
‘Thomas. My name is Thomas. You’re in France. In Normandy. What about Sir Gilbert? Does he live?’
‘Are you a prisoner?’
Blackstone held his impatience in check. ‘No, I rescued you from that village.’
‘That’s right. I remember. I was in the cage when I saw your horsemen. I thought… Sweet Jesus, God bless my King for sending troops to find us. Then a voice that gave me hope. Piss! Piss on them! That’s what I heard. Only an Englishman would say that, I thought. Piss on them. Too right, I said to myself. I broke through the cage with my last ounce of strength. I wanted to be back with my lord King, and my friends. Those… bastards… they… tore at us… Sir Gilbert Killbere. I’ve heard the name. I don’t know. We slaughtered the French. Were you there?’
Harness was losing his grasp on reality again. It was too soon to question him.
‘Yes,’ Blackstone said again, ‘I was there.’
His grip closed on Blackstone’s arm. ‘I’m frightened. Frightened. Fearful of the dark and what awaits me. Don’t let them take me. Swear you won’t let them take me again.’
‘I swear. You’re safe here. You’re protected from all harm.’
The man sighed and closed his eyes, drifting into sleep.
If they were attacking and killing the English King’s messengers, then there was still a core of resistance embedded in the French countryside. No matter that a great victory had been won months ago, Edward’s influence was failing, and if that was the case then Blackstone knew his own life might once again be in jeopardy.
In the great hall Meulon stood to attention in front of the silent barons.
‘Sir Thomas went into the village against my wishes. As he went inside one of the hovels we saw a man held in a pigpen struggling to break out. At first we thought he may have belonged to one of the local lords. We saw another man had been beaten and strung up, and Sir Thomas commanded us to take the man we’d found with us. We got about a couple of miles from the village when the Englishman came to and said something to Master Thomas, which I didn’t understand. Then a few days later we saw the routiers. I did all I could to make him leave the Englishman, but he insisted we fight. It could have gone badly for us, but he positioned us on the track and sent me and another man to outflank them. He taught them a good lesson. He was right and I was wrong. I beg your forgiveness, lord, for not being able to fulfil your command and avoid danger.’
‘You think the Englishman thought it through?’ asked de Graville. ‘Or was he trying to impress you and your men?’
‘Oh yes, lord, he thought about it. We could have run from the fight, but he knew exactly what he was doing. It was a good ambush.’
‘And then?’ Fossat asked.
‘Then he stopped me from killing the last man alive. I wanted to gut the pig and put his head on a stake. But he wouldn’t have that. No, my lords, he promised the man his life if he would give him more information. Said he would keep his word. That his word was his honour. The bastard had never heard such a promise. And once we had it, the information I mean, that’s when he took the man’s fingers from his hand and sent the bastard back. He never faltered. Like taking the head off a chicken. That was the message he sent. To tell Saquet th
at he was not to raid into my Lord de Harcourt’s territory again or he, I mean Sir Thomas, would kill him.’
The questioning men fell silent, the tension was palpable. Meulon felt fear nip at his stomach, his eyes blinked with uncertainty.
‘You would say he has ability?’ asked de Harcourt. ‘Or was it luck?’
‘Lord, we all need luck in a fight, but in the time it took for us to kill those skinners, Sir Thomas led the way. He was unhorsed, but I think that was because his leg weakened. It made no difference to his courage. He has guts, sir. I didn’t see a sign of fear even on his face. His hands were steady. I thought for a minute he was relishing the idea. Of getting stuck in. There’s a word for it, my lords… means… he’s ready to fight.’
‘Belligerent,’ suggested de Graville.
‘I think that’s the word, sir,’ said Meulon. ‘Sounds right. And when he took the bastard’s fingers, well, we knew then he had what it takes.’ Meulon licked his lips; his throat was getting dry from all the talk and a sudden fear that he may have upset his own master by praising the young Englishman.
