by David Gilman
The archer’s hands caressed the length of yew and his fingertips stroked the nocked horn tips. He nodded with an almost inaudible sigh, and then eased it back to Blackstone. ‘You take it, Thomas, and kill as many as you can. There was none better’n you. Not even Richard, God rest his soul. Take it, lad.’
Blackstone extended his crooked arm. ‘I’ll never draw a bow again, Matthew. A sword stroke snapped me like a twig.’
Hampton’s eyes followed the line of his arm. ‘A sword stroke cannot break a mighty oak, Thomas. Give me and the others another day of the good friar’s broth and we’ll stand by you.’
Blackstone grasped the man’s extended hand. He could see that no matter how willing Hampton and the other men might be they would need more than a day to recover. There would be no archers ready if Saquet’s attack came the next morning as expected. Before that happened he would have a Mass said for his men.
They dragged Abbot Pierre from his room and kicked him out in front of those condemned to hang. As he fell his cassock was rucked up, exposing his bare backside. Blackstone’s men and the lay brothers laughed at his humiliation. Blackstone saw that the other monks who had benefited from the fat abbot’s rule looked concerned. They knew that if their penance of building the wall did not please the Englishman then they too could face ignominious banishment from their own monastery. And who would they turn to? Brother monks of the same order would have heard of the way they lived. They would most likely be shunned if forced out from the safety of these walls, and penance at another monastery could be harder than staying where they were. They all knew that the time of Abbot Pierre was over and that their future lay in the Englishman’s hands.
Blackstone’s men hauled the abbot to his feet as the Englishman stood before him. ‘Those who want it can have the sacrament before they hang. And you can lead your brothers in prayer for your own safe deliverance before I send you on your way.’
Abbot Pierre’s eyes darted back and forth among the gathered soldiers and monks. ‘You cannot send me away, this is my monastery. I have the favour of the King and he has the favour of the Pope. You can’t send me from this place; it’s miles to the nearest village.’
‘If you reach it alive you can beg for food and shelter like a true mendicant. Though I suspect that every door will be closed to you for allowing Saquet and his men to strip them bare. Your blessing to him became their curse.’
‘You cannot! The weather is closing in.’ The abbot’s jowls quivered.
‘You led Saquet and his routiers into Chaulion. I should put you on the scaffold with the rest of these men, but I doubt we have a gallows strong enough to bear such a barrel of lard,’ said Blackstone.
Abbot Pierre fell to his knees, hands clasped, and begged for his life. ‘Sir Thomas, I have no chance of reaching even the nearest village before nightfall. The cold will kill me, the coming snow will bury me and I will lie in unconsecrated ground. Recant, I implore you.’
‘What about these men who are about to die? Have you no wish to beg on their behalf?’
The abbot struggled to his feet, sweeping his arm in a gesture to encompass the condemned men. ‘Blasphemers and murderers. Their end was determined when their whore mothers dropped them from their fouled wombs. I was at their mercy. I had no choice in what I did!’
‘Then forgive them their sins when they receive their last sacrament before I send you on your way. Hurry, the day is already shortening. Darkness will soon be your only companion. Get to it.’
One of the routiers stepped forward and gobbed a mouthful of phlegm at the abbot, splattering his shoulder and face. The abbot recoiled in horror.
‘I’ll not have a creature like this pray over me. I’ll meet the devil on my own terms,’ the routier said, and tried to land a kick on the fat abbot, who stumbled back, turning this way and that, searching the faces around him for any sign of compassion. There was none. Some of the monks turned their faces deliberately away from him.
Blackstone said, ‘I wouldn’t be able to face my King if I put you to the sword, or hanged you from a tree. I have given you your life. Do with it what you will.’
The abbot trembled as tears welled and spilled. Like a blind man he stumbled, not knowing which way to go. He was beyond the wall and his beseeching gesture as he reached out to those on the other side did nothing but graze the skin from his arms on the coping stones bristling like teeth along its top.
Everyone watched as Abbott Pierre moved further away, his sandalled feet finding a path to tread once he was across the bridge. He fell once or twice and then, almost on all fours, clambered like a child up the rising ground towards the forest. No one watching doubted that his fat carcass would soon become a feast for the creatures of the woodland. It had been a harsh winter and the wolves would find him.
Blackstone asked the routiers if any of them wanted the sacrament. They all accepted except the man who had spat his contempt at the abbot.
‘Brother Marcus,’ he said, gesturing the prior forward, ‘you held Mass for my men last night, and now you’re in charge of this monastery. Step forward and ease these men’s souls into the next world.’
Guinot and the others were carried from their beds to watch the execution. When Matthew Hampton saw the gallows he knew that the boy who had become a ventenar and now a man-at-arms would never lose the inherent skills of an archer. The six men captured at Chaulion were hanged at hundred-yard intervals from the edge of the wall. The dead men marked out the distance for his archers, be they French crossbowmen or the English with their long, curved war bows. Ailing or not, he and the others would loose as many shafts as they could at the men who would soon fall upon them.
Some Norman lords had turned against King Edward; others were as yet undecided where their loyalties lay. The violent William de Fossat, seeing an opportunity to regain his pride and reputation, had offered his services – and thirty men – to the French King. He had vowed to the King that he would track down the marauders led by the Englishman. But then he stumbled upon the mercenary Saquet.
Saquet and his men had camped in the forests in rough shelters made from hacked branches and dead ferns, then finally picked their way through the forest’s tracks until they came to where the road should be beneath the snow. They had not enjoyed a hot meal for days and their slow progress home was becoming a further irritation. The French King’s warrant to kill the daring Englishman gave William de Fossat no status among the brigands he had joined and he and his men dutifully followed the mercenaries at the rear, acknowledging that the Breton was master of the routiers under his command.
As luck would have it the defenders at the monastery were granted another three days before the mercenaries broke the skyline. Heavy snow fell during that first night and into the next day, and it took another two to die away into flurries. A blanket of snow a foot deep covered the approach roads to the monastery and smothered the obstacles that Blackstone’s men had laid before their wall. No broad front of horsemen would be able to approach, only two or three men abreast, tentatively easing nervous horses forward through snow that hid uneven ground. Blackstone had marked out the road in the direction from which he wanted the mercenaries to come. The executed men’s bodies hung in the cold air, barely moving from the breeze, caked with snow, clumps of which fell from them like rotting flesh. The man whose throat was cut took his place among the dead, a rope under his shoulders, the gaping wound blackened, his clothes stripped, leaving his naked body a meal for scavenging ravens and crows. His would be the first body that Saquet would see as he turned the bend in the road to bring him in sight of the monastery and the crossroads to his town. It would bring him down the track exactly as Blackstone had planned.
Blackstone’s footprints led to the small bridge where he stood watching the river wash the snow from its boulders. The weather was fickle and warming; the snow might soon melt. He would rather Saquet arrived when it was still on the ground. He wanted the fight over and its outcome settled. His men were
inside the monastery on his orders because he knew that when his enemy came they would be cold and stiff from a long ride and the discomfort of sleeping cramped in the open. He wanted his men warm, well fed and strong, ready to kill.
‘You think he’ll come today?’ Gaillard asked Meulon, who stood with him at the front wall, watching Blackstone pace across the bridge.
The big man nodded, and pulled his beard. ‘He has to. No one travels in winter; there’ll be no food for him to scavenge. This snowfall bought us time.’ His eyes scanned the distance. The dark figure of a horseman broke the grey horizon. ‘It’s today,’ he said.
Saquet reined in his horse and gazed at the mutilated bodies. Anger pumped warmth into his frozen limbs. He spat and cursed. He had been pursuing a ghost through the forests and now the Englishman taunted him with the hanged men. So be it. He would slaughter Blackstone like a beast in the field and then send his butchered body back to the King, limb by limb, using the Norman lord as a lowly messenger. Those few pathetic defenders would soon lie in the bloodied snow and then every man, woman and child in Chaulion would die. He would smear the countryside with a streak of blood a mile long and no man would ever challenge him again. The French King would reward him handsomely.
William de Fossat brought his horse up next to Saquet’s. ‘He’s got behind you and taken what you held. I told you he was cunning. Are those yours?’ de Fossat asked, meaning the hanged men. There was no need for an answer; the look on Saquet’s face was enough.
‘Then if he’s taken the crossroads he’s taken Chaulion as well. Look, twenty-odd men behind a makeshift wall and not a bowman to his name. It looks as though your arse will freeze for more days to come. Shall I kill him for you?’ the nobleman sneered.
‘Stay back!’ Saquet snarled. The Norman lord had already been kept in his place. He needed no help from a baron, or whatever he was; these earls and counts were no different from him, but they hid behind a cloak of nobility. As far as Saquet was concerned they were just better dressed brigands who trampled the poor and sought favour with the King. Saquet knew exactly what his code was: a man had to kill and spread terror to make a mark in his world. He spurred his horse down the path marked out by the hanging men and what remained of their executioner’s footprints. Saquet’s horsemen shoved de Fossat and his men aside. And as the last of the fifty or so mercenaries spurred their horses on, de Fossat turned to his men. Whatever the outcome of Saquet’s murderous attack, de Fossat knew he would achieve his goal.
‘Get ready!’ he commanded, and drew his sword.
Five hundred yards away Blackstone stood at the head of his men. They were behind the wall, their shields on their arms, spears and swords ready as the horsemen came recklessly along the narrow road. Crossbowmen stood poised on each side of him, their weapons held out of sight. Matthew Hampton was ten paces back with the half-dozen English archers. They had few arrows between them, but they would bring men down more quickly than the crossbows.
Meulon stood next to Blackstone. ‘You see that? Mother’s tears. That’s de Fossat up there on the ridge. He’s joined the bastards. With Saquet’s men there must be eighty or more of them.’
They were outnumbered by Saquet’s forces alone; with de Fossat and his men, the sheer weight of them would easily break through their thin line of defence. Blackstone glanced at his men’s faces. Their eyes widened as the horde got closer. Four hundred yards. Who could blame them if they broke and ran?
‘Curse the bastards!’ he yelled. ‘Curse them for being whoresons and turds! They’ll die condemned! Curse them! Let them burn in hell!’ and then yelled abuse at the top of his lungs, clenching Wolf Sword above his head, clambering on top of the wall so all could see him. ‘Burn in hell!’ he bellowed.
And the chant went up as Meulon and Gaillard strode along the line screaming the curse.
Burn in hell! BURN IN HELL!
Blackstone twisted around and looked at Matthew Hampton. The archers looked sick and weak. Their sallow faces and flecked lips told him that they couldn’t loose more than a volley or two.
Saquet’s men were closer, their voices urging their horses onwards.
Blackstone waited. Watching those horses struggle downhill, seeing the men’s urgency to kill them.
A few more strides was all he needed from them. Stay on the track, stay on the track, he urged silently.
It was time.
‘Archers! At three hundred paces! Nock…’ The men readied their shafts, arms trembling from ailing bodies, but a lifetime of training and skill steadied them. ‘Draw…’ Blackstone looked back to the horsemen being channelled down the narrow road as they came next to one of the hanged men. ‘Loose!’
Though there were no more than a handful of archers the twang of their bowstrings and the sudden rush of air made the Norman soldiers at the wall turn and gape at the arrows’ flight. The first fletchings were still quivering through the air when another volley chased them. And another. Blackstone couldn’t hold back the yell of triumph that burst from him. It was England’s killing machine doing its work again. Horses and men fell in a tumble, cartwheeling and sliding, veering away only to fall from unseen hazards beneath the snow. Some of the mercenaries pulled their horses up short for fear of more arrow strikes and dismounted, running forward in ragged numbers, tripping and making hard work of the assault, their lungs heaving in the cold air. They would be weakened by the time they reached the wall.
Two of the archers sank to their knees – the effort had taken the last of their strength. Hampton and the three others let fly their final volleys and were then out of arrows.
‘God bless you, lads!’ Blackstone yelled and then shook the walls with his yell: ‘Normans! Gascons! Ready!’
The mercenaries were two hundred paces from the bridge when Blackstone’s men brought up their crossbows and levelled them at the attackers. ‘Wait! Wait!’ At a hundred and fifty paces they were on level ground, some wading across the stream. ‘Loose!’ And a hum of armour-piercing bolts struck like a mailed fist on the first wave of men. The mercenaries faltered but recovered. The crossbowmen needed two minutes to reload and in that time Saquet’s men would be over the wall. That knowledge gave them strength and courage.
Meulon stood at the end of his line of men, Gaillard was on the flank, and the ailing Guinot stood propped, sword in hand, against the main gates to steady himself: it looked as though he would be the last man they would have to kill in order to gain entry. Matthew Hampton and his archers had dragged themselves to stand with him. The mercenaries ran with wild abandon, thirsting to close for the kill. No one behind the wall moved. Blackstone leapt down to be with them. Fifty paces.
‘Spearmen!’ Meulon yelled. And where crossbows had been, spears now bristled across the saw-toothed wall. They had no intention of losing time reloading the weapons. The mercenaries tripped, stumbled and fell on the scattered rocks and branches that the wall builders had placed there on Blackstone’s orders and which slowed their advance. Bruised and broken, the ragged horde of men got back on their feet and kept attacking, but those who had fallen lost momentum. Blackstone sought out Saquet. No man looked more vicious than another. Which was the routiers’ leader?
He turned and yelled, ‘Guinot! Which one is he?’
Guinot took a pace forward and looked desperately at the attacking men thirty paces away. Saquet was in the middle of a group of men running with shields half covering their bodies and faces. ‘The boy!’ Guinot yelled, and pointed with his sword.
Blackstone thought he had misunderstood. His eyes went from face to snarling face and settled on one of them – a clean-shaven lad who looked no older than most of the boys in his own village, but who towered head and shoulders above the others. A steel-rimmed leather helmet capped flowing fair hair, and blue eyes glinted beneath the shield’s rim. For a moment Blackstone felt doubt drag at him. Could this be Iron Fist? The boy was big and he ran, powerful and lithe, behind the front rank of attackers. His sword was half raised
in a gloved fist. He made no sound. He uttered no curse. He had no need of a battle cry to urge him onto the spear points. Blackstone suddenly understood. The men in front of this boy were there to breach the wall. They would die if they had to, as many of them would, but they would carve a space for Saquet. Blackstone saw the intensity of those blue eyes. They were locked on him. Blackstone was the target.
The mercenaries struck the wall. Spears jabbed and drew blood, but the routiers were too many for the defenders to stop – some of them clambering over the dry-stone wall, spilling the top stones and hurling themselves with great ferocity on men who had little experience of close-quarter killing. There was a clash of steel and the sickening dull sound of blades cutting through bodies, like a butcher’s cleaver on the block, caused pitiful cries and screams from wounded men. Perinne and Talpin fought side by side, a torrent of abuse adding power to their spear and sword thrusts, as Meulon and Gaillard formed a shield wall to seal the breach.
Guinot saw a knot of men forcing their way towards Blackstone and somewhere behind those shields Saquet had lowered his head and the force of the charge was like a bull trampling those before it. Guinot knew he would be unable to reach the Englishman in time and Blackstone was becoming more isolated as he twisted and turned, sword striking and killing those nearest in the attack. The Gascon yelled a warning to Meulon, bellowing two or three times to be heard over the shouts and screams. Meulon finally half turned and saw what was happening. With a concerted push with the shield wall and with half a dozen men in support as Perinne and Talpin added their weight, they pushed back the assault, forcing mercenaries to clamber back over the wall so that the defenders could not pursue them. There were already twenty or more dead and half as many wounded. Meulon’s surge had broken the tide of men. A strange silence fell. No shouts of rage or screams of agony tore the air; only the repeated thud and blows of sword on shield and metal.
