by David Gilman
‘Let the men have their breakfast here, Meulon,’ he said, staring at the drooping figure.
Talpin came forward as the men dismounted. ‘He called for you and you alone. Said he knows you and that he wouldn’t move until you were here. I can’t tell whether he’s sick with pestilence or not, but we warned him off. Had one of the archers put a shaft close to him.’ Talpin looked concerned.
‘You did everything as I’ve ordered. There’s no favour for anyone in these times,’ said Blackstone and strode past the men who stood their guard at the wall. Blackstone walked as far as the bridge. The horse had not moved and the rider’s head drooped on his chest, exhaustion claiming him.
‘Guillaume,’ Blackstone called. His voice made the horse shift its weight and the boy raise his head.
Like a man being pulled from sleep in the darkness, Guillaume Bourdin looked uncertainly towards the figure who stood across the bridge. ‘Sir Thomas? Is that you?’
‘I’m here.’
‘Forgive me. I had no choice but to come to you,’ he said with a voice that breathed weariness.
‘That’s all right, boy.’ He turned and called to Talpin. ‘Bring a basket of food and drink. Hot food with bread and spiced wine. Tell Brother Simon to put a potion in the drink, something to help the boy, tell him what you see.’ He looked up at the sky. Rain or snow was coming, either one would finish off Henri Livay’s page if he didn’t have shelter. ‘And I want canvas and ropes.’
The wind cut at them but the boy showed no sign that he felt it. Blackstone knew that meant he was beyond exhaustion. He turned back to Guillaume who swayed in the saddle. ‘Guillaume! Listen to me, boy! You hear me?’
Once again he raised his head. ‘I must sleep, my lord. I must.’
‘You will not. The cold will kill you unless you eat first. Obey me or you’ll die! And you did not come all this way to die at my door. Tell me what’s happened. Come on – talk to me, lad.’
‘My Lord Livay is dead. And his household. Servants and squire. All of them.’
‘How? The pestilence?’
Guillaume’s head sagged again.
‘Guillaume!’ Blackstone bellowed, desperately wanting to reach for the boy.
Blackstone’s voice snapped the boy’s head back. ‘Pestilence. Yes. He took in a merchant… gave him shelter and… in days… they were all dead. I brought his shield and sword so that they were not stolen.’
Talpin hurried back with a basket containing a small earthenware pot cradled by bread and a hand-sized piece of cheese wrapped in cloth. Two other men followed with a folded sheet of canvas and ropes. Blackstone took the food and pointed to an outcrop of rocks.
‘Make a shelter there. Tie it fast, batten it with wood and stone and then bring straw from the stable.’
He walked closer to the horses. They didn’t shy at his approach and by the look of them they too had not eaten for days. He searched the boy’s face. Wind and dirt had pitted his skin but there was no sign of boils. But that did not mean the lad was not infected. He put the basket of food down.
‘Guillaume, ease yourself down and eat. And then get yourself into that shelter where you can sleep. Understand?’
The boy nodded and, like an old man, slowly lowered himself to the ground. His legs trembled and gave way. Blackstone instinctively took a step forward but then checked himself.
‘Do you have any sign of red buboes? Have you had fever or thirst?’
Guillaume shook his head and eased himself down onto the ground. ‘My master died in terror, Sir Thomas, he writhed like a wounded beast… his wife too… it was the merchant who… brought it… the sickness… and the warning… so I came to warn you…’ the boy said haltingly, his voice now barely above a whisper.
The boy is dying, Blackstone thought. His body had deflated like a pierced football in what seemed to be a final sigh of breath. He stepped around Guillaume’s body and eased the horses away and then handed the reins to one of the men. He took the man’s spear and turned it to use the blunt shaft to ease Guillaume’s body over. If the lad had come all this way to warn him of the pestilence then he had sacrificed himself needlessly. The boy flinched. There was life still trapped in his body, a reluctant spirit refusing to die. He prodded him again and, as the boy stirred, took off his cloak and threw it over him.
Guillaume gazed up at him.
‘Forgive me, Sir Thomas, I fell asleep.’
‘And I thought you dead. My cloak will keep you warm, and I’ll have blankets brought for the straw. Now do as I say and eat. Then you sleep. I’ll be over there beyond that wall.’
‘No, Sir Thomas, I must tell you something…’
‘Later,’ Blackstone commanded and waited to make sure that the boy put food into his mouth, no matter how feebly it was done.
He returned to the monastery wall where Meulon was waiting.
‘Does he have the devil’s kiss?’ he asked.
‘I don’t see any sign of it. We’ll wait a few days. There are two of Livay’s men here, aren’t there?’
‘One died last summer, when the clumsy bastard fell from his horse. Talpin’s the other.’
‘Yes. I remember. Tell him his lord and master is dead,’ Blackstone told him.
‘You forget, Sir Thomas, months turn into years. You’ve been his lord and master for more time than you remember. But I’ll tell him. And don’t worry about that boy out there. If he hasn’t got the plague he’ll live. Looks to me as though he’s been in that saddle for more than a couple of weeks. I’ll wager he’s a hard little bastard.’
‘He’s a page who will one day be a squire. Remember that, Meulon,’ Blackstone said.
Meulon’s face dropped and he bowed his head for his indiscretion.
Blackstone smiled and reached out and grasped the man’s shoulder. ‘You’re too serious, Meulon! You’re right; he’s a hard little bastard. He was prepared to kill me once.’
Guillaume Bourdin had survived the Blanchetaque battle and then helped his lord to safety at Noyelles castle where he then faced the English archer. And now that his new master Henri Livay had died in agony he forced his young body to cross the empty and hostile terrain with little sense of where the small town of Chaulion might be. A mendicant friar he passed on a track knew of the monastery and sent him in the right direction, but finding anywhere inhabited in that unknown landscape was down to luck and his horse’s ability to find water. Where there was a river or stream people would live, and if they were not afflicted they would know of the monks of Chaulion.
Blackstone stood every day at the wall and waited for the boy to die, but by the third day he was on his feet and as the sky cleared he had made a fire and busied himself drying the damp blankets, and by the fourth he was washing in the river and calling for Blackstone. When Blackstone got within thirty paces of him, the boy stripped away his tunic and shirt and raised his arms. There were no boils.
‘I was locked in the cellar,’ he told Blackstone as they sat in the monastery’s refectory and ate breakfast, a meal tolerated by the monks for their lay brothers before the midday dinner and insisted upon by Blackstone, who had taken food every morning since he had worked in the quarry as a child. He waited as Guillaume took a last slice of apple and swallowed the cup of warm goat’s milk.
‘I had spoken out of turn and was knocked to the ground by my squire,’ he said.
‘What did you do to deserve the punishment?’
‘I served at my master’s table and the merchant told Lord Livay that a Norman lord had been promised a bounty for you because you were known as a vicious killer of women and children,’ Guillaume told him. ‘I couldn’t help myself and shouted out that that was a lie.’
‘A foolish act. Brave but foolish. He could have had you flogged,’ Blackstone said.
‘As you know, Sir Thomas, my Lord Livay was a good and kind knight and he spared me that.’
‘And the cellar saved your life,’ said Blackstone, quietly pleased with the boy�
�s bravery in finding him and bringing the warning of the Norman who hunted him. It had been two years since he had last seen Guillaume ride out of Castle de Harcourt with Henry Livay and he had grown taller and broader, but still with the gangly arms and legs of a youth.
‘I know about the bounty. Count de Harcourt and William de Fossat created a pretence of hunting me. It’s long over.’
Blackstone rose from the table and Guillaume quickly got to his feet.
‘Sir Thomas, it was not William de Fossat who was commissioned to hunt you down; it was Count Louis de Vitry. He was given a great payment from the mint and an army. He promised that he would retake the towns held by the Gascons and English. He’s already done that with places in the south. There was a plan to trap you at St Aubin where the King had his coin minted, but the pestilence caused them to move it somewhere else. I don’t know where.’
Blackstone felt a pang of alarm. It had been Jean de Harcourt who had suggested he attack the King’s gold and silver. Was that information planted by de Vitry or was de Harcourt abandoning him in favour of the French King? It seemed the plague or the Celtic goddess had saved him.
‘What else do you know?’ he asked the boy who must have served at Livay’s right arm like a sharp-eyed falcon who missed nothing.
Guillaume shook his head. ‘I’m not sure what I heard but there are other French lords with him and someone in Calais will betray your King and open the gates.’
The information would have little meaning to a page like Guillaume. Calais was just another city to be taken from the English, a part of the chequerboard of war, but to Blackstone it was more vital than knowing that he was a prize to be taken. The months of plague had passed over, and it was already across the water in London. What better time to strike at Edward? A double attack in the south where so-called English allies argued between themselves to the point of conflict, and when England stumbled almost to her knees from pestilence. The Captain of Calais would have insufficient men to protect the gateway to France if de Vitry and the others got inside the walls.
Blackstone gathered the bulk of his force. Their winter fat had been shed, the sloth of peace was banished.
Guillaume Bourdin begged to serve, but the thought of having a page attend him was too big a leap for Blackstone. And besides, he told himself, he would not be able to complete the boy’s training to the age when he became a squire. Once this fight was over he would be sent to a noble lord to complete his apprenticeship.
‘How old are you now?’ Blackstone had asked.
‘Thirteen, Sir Thomas – nearly fourteen – and I’m proficient in sword and other weapons, and I can read Latin and know verse.’
‘Then you will stay here and be a companion to my wife and son and when I return we will discuss your future.’
The boy had been insistent. ‘You’ll need someone to hold your horse when you fight and bring you food and water.’
‘I can look after myself, Guillaume. You’ll stay. There’s no telling how the fight will go and I’ve fought in city streets before.’ He raised his hand to stop further argument. ‘I promise you, when this is done I’ll seek advice of what to do with you.’
‘My lord,’ Guillaume said, bowing his head and going down on one knee. ‘I beg you! Give me your word that you will allow me to stay in your service when you return. I have no desire for yet another master.’
‘Goddamnit, boy! I’m not here to reason with you!’ Blackstone said, irritated with the boy’s persistence.
‘I apologize, Sir Thomas. But if I cannot serve you, then I would ask permission to leave Chaulion and find my own way in the world.’ He kept his head bowed, knowing it would be reasonable for Blackstone to strike him.
Blackstone cursed him. Time was short. But the damned boy secured his word.
Leaving Guinot as Captain of Chaulion, he led the men onto the north road and Calais. As Christiana had embraced him in farewell she did not tell him that her belly was already swelling with another child.
29
It was a long, cold ride north. They had stopped at the monastery and received their blessing from Prior Marcus. They were a mixed bunch of English, Normans and Gascons; a band of men who would have fought each other in different times, and might still do so again. Blackstone had gathered them together in the town square. Meulon, Guinot, Matthew Hampton, Waterford, Perinne, Talpin – all of them. He knew every man’s name. He spoke to them, offering them the chance to stay at Chaulion. He did not expect the Normans to fight their own countrymen or the Gascons to go deeper into French territory where, if captured, they would be slain without hesitation. The same fate would await the Normans. Retribution from a French King would be without mercy for any of them.
‘We’re Normans,’ Meulon told him. ‘Our lords give their loyalty to those they choose, and they chose you to lead us. That’s good enough for me.’ He had turned and looked at the men who stood without argument. Dukes and counts and kings were born to nobility and breast-fed the milk of dissent. Greedy, selfish bastards, most of them. A fighting man could fall beneath their war horse’s hooves and his family would starve. Blackstone was different. He was of peasant stock and had earned the right to lead them.
Matthew Hampton called out from where he stood at the head of the archers. ‘If your head’s to end up on a pike then mine will be next to it; that way I can keep an eye on you, like always.’ That caused laughter and a cheer.
‘Aye,’ shouted Waterford, ‘I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be tall!’
‘I could stick my spear up your arse now and hoist you up!’ Talpin jibed.
‘Piss on them,’ one of the Normans cried in English.
Hampton smiled. ‘He’s learning right well, is our Frenchie friend. Come on, Thomas, let’s be at them, it’s a hard ride to Calais.’
The men had cheered, eager to get beyond the walls and try their strength. There would be silver belts and coin to be filched and taken off the French dead.
Blackstone had the loyalty he needed.
‘You have to take Gaillard,’ Meulon told him. ‘It’s marshland around Calais. He was born and raised near there. If there’s a fight to be had he knows the causeways and paths to firm ground.’
Doubt clouded Blackstone’s thoughts. Could he risk going back to de Harcourt? There was still the matter of the plan de Harcourt had devised to seize the mint. Like a foul case of dysentery, mistrust griped in his gut.
He took them to within sight of the castle and then he and Meulon rode forward alone and called to the sentries. The gates soon opened and Jean de Harcourt rode out in full armour with twenty or more of his men. For a moment Blackstone’s hand went to Wolf Sword, but Meulon turned to him.
‘Sir Thomas, I served my Lord de Harcourt for many years, and I know he would not harm you. It would be insulting to draw your sword.’
Blackstone let his hand rest on the pommel as Jean de Harcourt pulled up his horse.
‘So here you are again, Thomas. Back at my door.’
‘It’s been a long time, Jean.’
‘It’s Christmas again, Thomas, I always see you at Christmas! Would summer be such a hard time to visit? Are you my Christmastime gift? You’re a wanted man and there’s a fair price on your head for those who would deliver it.’
‘I’m at your mercy, my lord,’ Blackstone answered to the smiling de Harcourt.
‘Well, I cannot be seen to welcome you back until King Edward settles matters once more. You know the truce is broken and that Geoffrey de Charny and Louis de Vitry plan to attack Calais? And there are some mighty names of France who ride with them.’
De Charny’s reputation was one of the greatest in France. His chivalry and courage were legend, and if he led then Blackstone knew that other great knights would follow him.
‘Word reached me of Count de Vitry’s agreement with the King. If Calais falls then everything is lost. It’s the key to Edward’s plans for France,’ Blackstone answered.
De Harcourt
smiled. ‘Indeed it is. Is this you getting involved in politics? I thought such things were of no interest to you.’
‘I don’t care anything for intrigue or conspiracy. I serve my King and his interests. But I don’t know how many of the barons have gone over to King Philip. Henri Livay is dead, taken by the plague, but they tried to buy his support. Who else besides de Vitry has turned?’
‘None that I know.’
‘De Fossat?’
‘William’s a law unto himself. I can’t tell. I think he’s already in Calais swearing allegiance but to whom I don’t know. If Louis de Vitry takes the citadel, he’s reclaimed the key to France and the rewards will be great. Who knows what our Lord de Fossat will accept if tempted to sell his loyalty to the King? De Vitry hates you, Thomas, but de Fossat… I don’t know… both men would benefit from your death. You humiliated them both. What better place to reclaim their pride than on the battlefield?’
‘And you, Jean? Where do you stand?’ Blackstone said without taking his gaze from the man’s eyes.
There was no sign of dishonesty when he answered. ‘With Edward, when the time is right.’
Blackstone nodded. The answer was good enough, and one he expected. ‘I need Gaillard.’
De Harcourt hesitated, not understanding for a moment, then he realized the man’s value. ‘Of course.’ Without turning in the saddle he commanded that Gaillard be brought from the castle. ‘Christiana is well? And Henry?’
‘Yes. She appreciates your letters and misses you and my lady Blanche.’
De Harcourt looked at him for a moment as if he were addressing his brother, and could barely keep the regret from his voice. ‘And we you, Thomas. There’s affection for you both in our home.’ The moment passed quickly. ‘Meulon,’ he said, ‘there’s grey in your beard. Has Sir Thomas aged you that much?’
