Master of War

by David Gilman

  ‘It’s spread fast,’ he called as he walked back to his horse. ‘It’s missed the villages to the east. It’s travelling north,’ he told them.

  ‘You’re certain?’ Meulon asked.

  ‘These people were heading towards Chaulion and the mon­astery,’ Blackstone told him.

  ‘They needed prayers said for them by the monks,’ Meulon replied.

  ‘Nothing to do with redemption, Meulon,’ he said.

  They spurred on their horses, leaving behind the suppurating body of the big bearded man who carried not only the dark angel’s mark, but also that of the fleur-de-lys that Blackstone had branded him with months earlier.

  The village of Christophe-la-Campagne had not learnt the lessons from Blackstone’s punishment after killing the English messenger and beating William Harness. They had done as he expected and betrayed him to Saquet, but they were still riven with hatred for the Englishman. And when the pestilence had struck they had turned in on themselves like a snared wolf chewing off its own leg.

  ‘It came here first,’ said Blackstone as they stood off from the village watching for movement among the houses. ‘Came here like an enemy through a back gate. They weren’t seeking a monk’s prayers, Meulon, they wanted to strike back at me. They wanted to get inside our walls before the plague showed its full force on their bodies.’

  The men crossed themselves.

  ‘Sweet Jesus on the cross! That’s hatred, Sir Thomas,’ said one of the men.

  Meulon looked up and down the muddied road. ‘This is the main highway for most anyone in these parts. If a pilgrim steps across that threshold they’ll be dead within a week and infect others.’

  The men remained uneasy, some looking over their shoulder as if malign spirits could sweep down from the treetops. They could see animals untended in the fields; the cow byre was empty. Only one or two houses seeped smoke through their thatch. No dogs barked; no babies cried.

  ‘Many of them will lie where they fell,’ Blackstone told the men. ‘Wild boar and carrion will feed on them, the disease will spread. Get a fire going, make torches. We’ll go down and burn them out.’

  Blackstone and his men tore strips from their shirts to cover mouths and noses and rode slowly into the sullen village. He and Meulon carried the burning torches as the other two men acted as guards with their spears at the ready. Every mud and wattle house they went to calling out for anyone still alive, was in darkness, the stench of human and animal waste rising up to meet them, mixing with the foulness of the putrefaction of the scattered bodies that lay in the muddied track. It was as if a sudden, silent blow from Heaven had slain them where they stood. In reality some had tried to crawl into their hovels but succumbed in the gaps between them, or fell straddled half in doorways; others simply lay in the street. The wealthier villeins’ houses were half-timbered and had windows covered with oiled cloth, but the privilege gave them no protection, and inside families lay in grotesque embrace.

  As the men worked their way through the village they counted fourteen houses, some with reed roofs, others little more than shelters with animal skins stretched over them. There had probably been seventy or so people living in the village. Broken pigpens and scattered chicken feathers from an unlocked chicken house told a story of predators and untended animals for at least a week.

  Meulon suddenly pointed: ‘There!’

  A group of men, women and children sat huddled at the far end of the village, their haunted eyes staring fearfully at the ap­proach­ing men.

  ‘Speak to them,’ Blackstone told Meulon. ‘Find out how many have survived.’

  Blackstone stood back as Meulon cautiously advanced and spoke to the cowering villagers.

  ‘Twenty or more went into the forests,’ he reported. ‘Others were buried in a pit in the meadow. They don’t know what to do so they’ve kept themselves back here. No food to speak of, but there’s water.’

  Blackstone turned and cut free a stretched goatskin from its curing rack and then carefully grabbed a corpse’s wrist by its clothing and dragged the body onto the hide. He called to the spearmen. ‘Take down some of those roofs and use them,’ he said, dragging the corpse to the threshold of a hut. The men were hesitant, but seeing how Blackstone gathered the dead they soon followed.

  ‘Get their help!’ Blackstone commanded, pointing at the vil­lagers. ‘At spear point if necessary.’

  Meulon dragged a body onto a cow hide cut down from one of the roofs. ‘We can’t do this in every village we come across. The risk is too great.’

  ‘I know,’ Blackstone admitted, realizing their task was going to prove too difficult, ‘but this place is a danger to others and if there are more survivors then we give them a chance. We can’t know how far or fast this plague has gone. We burn everything. If any of these people survive they can rebuild what they had.’

  By the day’s end they had gathered thirty-seven bodies of men, women and children and placed them in one of the houses. They pulled down the reed roofs of other houses and laid them over the bodies. Blackstone wiped the sweat from his face, and dreaded the thought that the tang of salt he felt on his lips might harbour the disease. Meulon approached him once the last of the bodies was covered.

  ‘The villagers ask permission to speak to you, Sir Thomas,’ he said.

  Blackstone looked to where they stood, heads bowed, caps taken off respectfully.

  Blackstone gave Meulon a quizzical look, but the man could only shrug.

  Meulon herded forward the reluctant men and women who, unlike the children who gazed fearfully at his scarred face, kept their eyes lowered.

  One of the men prodded another, urging him to speak. The reluctant spokesman shuffled another half-step forward. ‘Lord, we have paid dearly in this village. There has been no priest here for years, and no monk from the monastery at Chaulion has ven­tured this far.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do about that,’ Blackstone told them, a fragment of memory reminding him of the villagers’ brutality.

  ‘Lord,’ the man continued, ‘we beg you to speak for those who have died. Without a priest or monk, only a man of rank like yourself would know the words to bless their souls and to bear witness to our sins.’

  Blackstone could not grasp what they asked of him. Meulon raised his eyebrows.

  ‘They want you to say a prayer for the dead and confess them. They’re scared of dying without confession,’ he said.

  Blackstone pulled Meulon aside and kept his voice barely above a whisper. ‘I’m no confessor or priest. Why do they ask it of me? I’m the one who hanged and branded them.’

  ‘I’ve heard of this before. Better to be confessed even by a common man than die burdened. You’ll be their saviour, Sir Thomas,’ he answered, and then dared to add, ‘that would make a change, would it not?’

  His men retreated to their horses as Blackstone sat on a milking stool and heard each confession from those who knelt in the mud before him. And then as he and his men thrust the torches into the huts he said a boyhood prayer for the dead, barely remembered from his own village priest’s incantations.

  That night, a mile or more from the village, Blackstone and his men sat naked, wrapped in their cloaks, their own clothes washed in the river and drying by a campfire. In the distance the sky glowed as flames from the burning pyre released flickering sparks of departing souls into the dark heavens.

  28

  Days passed as the men rode across miles of deserted countryside. Bodies lay scattered in fields and on roadsides, groups of travellers lay dead around a cold campfire. Some of Blackstone’s villages fared well, and he instructed the inhabitants how to protect themselves; others were wastelands of ghosts and were burned. Their journey yielded food and abandoned livestock and in exchange for some of the supplies two more manor houses yielded to Blackstone without a sword being drawn as impoverished knights swore loyalty to hold their land in Blackstone’s name. Every day they made camp he had the men strip and show themselves to be free
of buboes or rashes, and he did the same so that each knew the other was not infected. By the time the weary men returned to Chaulion they had two carts drawn by villeins’ palfreys and loaded with sacks of grain, barrels of smoked meat and pickled fish, and caged chick­ens. They arrived at the crossroads with a procession of goats and cows. Blackstone had allowed no swine to be taken and slaughtered those that were found in the infected villages. He called Perinne to the bridge and ordered that the men keep back as they made their way to the gates of Chaulion. Once there he summoned Guinot and ordered him to take the supplies and animals in hand. He and the men then dismounted and hobbled their horses. Soldiers and townspeople gathered on the walls.

  ‘Guinot! Put food and drink out. And vinegar water! We’ll stay over there for a few days,’ Blackstone said, pointing to an area a hundred paces away.

  The Gascon barked his orders and Blackstone’s instructions were carried out. Meulon and the two men were already building a fire as Blackstone moved closer to the walls where Guinot leaned down.

  ‘Is there news from anyone? Messengers?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘No one. Not a damned word from anywhere. No pilgrims, no travellers. Is the world dead?’

  ‘Damned near enough,’ Blackstone told him. ‘Thank God for the walls.’

  ‘Aye, well I’m glad for them, but I’ve been rotating the guard at the monastery more often than you said because the men are going wall-crazy. Much more of this and we’ll have fighting on our hands. Some of the whores are complaining!’

  ‘Complaining or moaning?’ Blackstone said.

  Guinot laughed. ‘Yes, all right, I can handle that problem, but we need these men out of here.’

  Blackstone knew what it meant to be caged behind walls.

  ‘All right. I’ll do something. Get fresh clothes for us. These still carry the stench no matter how often we wash them. My wife and son?’

  ‘All well. We’ve had no plague in here, but we’ll be glad of that food.’

  Guinot turned away to arrange Blackstone’s demands and Christiana suddenly appeared, leaning over – looking for him.

  ‘You’re safe?’ she cried.

  He smiled. ‘We’re blessed. You’ve been praying!’

  He saw her nod and smile, and caught the glint of tears that she quickly wiped away. ‘Day and night. Guinot has kept good discipline. Everything here is as you would wish.’

  He wanted to tell her how he yearned for her. How the fear of what he had felt beyond the safety of the walls had brought her even closer to his heart than she had been before. There was so much to say, but the walls were crowded. He nodded and turned back to where Meulon and the other men were already stripping off and tossing their clothes into the fire. The cold wind shivered the forest but the naked men ignored it.

  Meulon seemed as big as a bear as he dropped the last of his clothes into the flames. Four townsmen came through the gates carrying buckets and left them thirty yards away. Blackstone took two of them, another of the men loped forward and grabbed the others. By the time Blackstone had undressed the four men were in full view of those on the wall. None of the men looked that keen to begin their scrubdown with the astringent-laced water.

  ‘Christ, that’s going to sting my arsehole!’ one of the men said.

  ‘At least your shit will smell sweeter,’ the other told him.

  Blackstone bent and scooped water over himself, then raked his fingers through his soaked hair. He gasped as the vinegar stung his lips.

  Meulon tried hard not to flinch. ‘My cock feels as though it’s being thrashed with nettles.’

  A voice from the walls carried on the wind. ‘Hey, Meulon! Wash that weapon of yours! The whores need it to rid themselves of cunny crabs!’

  A ripple of laughter spilled over the walls.

  Matthew Hampton added his own insults. ‘That’s big enough to use on the butts. Let it swing, Meulon, I can use it for target practice!’

  The laughter increased and Blackstone laughed with them.

  ‘We’re home and we’re alive. That’s good, isn’t it?’ he told the scowling Meulon, who finally gave in to the jibes and opened his big, bearded face in a grin.

  ‘It’s good,’ he agreed and then turned his back to those on the wall, bent over and slapped his buttocks.

  No plague entered the walls of Chaulion or the monastery.

  As weeks turned into months Blackstone allowed the inhabit­ants and monks to begin, under strict control, a slow return to their normal lives. The monks were allowed back into their fields under guard by Talpin and Perinne’s outriders. Those few travellers who came towards the crossroads were kept at spear point and moved on. They would find no sanctuary on the road north and none cared whether they survived or fell by the way. There were towns and villages that never knew of the plague, their isolation a protective cloak against the outside world. The Norman lords were as vulnerable as any peasant, but their castle walls saved most, although fighting in the south between Philip’s territorial strongholds and those held by the English King’s seneschals went on sporadically despite the pestilence. Gaillard had reached de Harcourt without incident and, as the year drew to a close, the baron sent riders with written messages to those who were in alliance. The messengers understood they were not to enter any stronghold and that the letters should be left in plain sight in exchange for food and water for rider and horse. Then an answer could be written and sent back by the same means. It was this method of couriers that allowed the towns, and the lords who controlled them, to know of events. One of the first such letters arrived months after Blackstone had returned to Chaulion. No name appeared on it in case the courier was stopped. It was simply a letter of news about the state of the Norman towns.

  ‘Thousands died in Rouen and in Paris. The cities ran out of burial space,’ he told Christiana.

  ‘But they are still safe? Jean, Blanche and the children?’

  ‘Yes. Others not. King Edward’s sister died on her way to marry a Prince of Castile.’

  Christiana put her hand to her mouth in shock. ‘We must pray for her, Thomas. As you must for your King.’

  ‘Prayers won’t help him. That marriage would have given Edward an alliance with the Spanish kingdom. The plague has taken more than a princess; it’s probably snatched peace from him.’ His eyes followed the scratchy writing and once he saw their meaning he carried on. ‘King Philip is trying to raise another army, but now there are not enough taxes. Too many have died. And – there’s still a price on my head.’ He handed the letter to her. ‘Blanche writes to you.’

  She kept from lowering her eyes to the page, as eager as she was to hear from Blanche de Harcourt. ‘Will they hunt you?’

  He gestured to the letter. ‘It’s in there. If they capture me they regain the territory and the towns. I’m a threat. So it looks as though Jean’s idea worked.’

  ‘It was not my Lord de Harcourt who suggested you undertake to risk everything. It was you. Blanche told me.’

  ‘What good would I have been without my bow arm? There’s no need for you to worry. You’re safe here, anyone would be hard-pushed to get past the monastery, let alone breach these walls now.’ He knew in his heart that any determined enemy with sufficient numbers could smash their way through to Chaulion, but it was unlikely, given the ravages of the plague. He wondered how much more he could do.

  Time was measured only by the ringing of the monastery bells. Day turned into night and then day again as month after month passed. It was as if they had been cast into a wilderness, remembered only by the occasional messenger. Blackstone had changed the face of Chaulion by putting every man and woman in the town to work. Idleness bred fear and under Guinot’s guidance they did as he ordered, because by now they had recognized that he was their master. They not only laboured in the fields under the watchful eye and protection of the soldiers but he used them to dig a broad ditch around the town whose spoil made a protective bank several feet high. Blackstone himself laid the stone
foundations for a narrow bridge, which the town’s carpenters built, wide enough for a wagon. It was added protection for what would become a key town in his defence of the territory. The withered corpses of the headless routiers went beneath the shovelled dirt, and by the time Henry Blackstone was walking and pulling tablecloths and ornaments from tables in their home, the Englishman had diverted the small river that flowed around Chaulion. It was only a narrow moat, but it would deter attack by escalade and the fortified town could be held with a small garrison aided by the town’s inhabitants. Blackstone had allowed no rest for his men. Soldiers who were used to garrison duty alone were of no use to him if he led a raid, and he had berated both Guinot and Meulon, a ploy to spur competition between their men. The two commanders had drilled the soldiers in lance and shield wall, defence and attack; battered them with mace and sword and culled the weakest by shaming them until they begged to be released from sentry duty and allowed to return into the fighting group. Blackstone spared no one, including himself, from the rigours of training.

  One morning, before daybreak, Blackstone was already up and about when he heard the monastery bell ring for matins. It was another day that promised a bitter wind and he was thankful that, over time, he had sent soldiers into the forest to guard the townspeople as they loaded carts of fallen timber. They had cut fresh logs, but it was the seasoned timber that would give them the warmth they needed. They had stored chestnut wood in the byres and barns, but that was useless unless it had been kept for two or three seasons. He had given orders for them to seek out ash wood because it would burn well whether it was wet or dry – that and slow-burning oak. But this morning the bell rang with a different urgency and it took him a few minutes to realize that it was not the call to prayer but a summons for the guard to turn out to the monastery.

  Meulon had already kicked men from their beds and sent stable lads to saddle the horses. By the time they were out of the gates the bell had ceased its demands. As they rounded the bend in the road that brought the monastery into sight it began again, only this time in a different rhythm, for matins. As they drew closer they realized that no threat awaited them, only a dishevelled figure on horseback wearing a tunic and who looked barely able to stay upright. Another palfrey held by a trailing rein carried a knight’s shield and sword. Although Blackstone could not make out the coat of arms, he did not have to. He knew the rider.