Defiant Unto Death

by David Gilman

  ‘Aye, Sir Thomas. And we’ve made up a balm for those with any wounds,’ she said, taking from him the jar whose contents he had just tasted.

  Blackstone hid his foolishness as Beatrix reclaimed her authority in the kitchen. A fighter knew when to retreat and Blackstone left the heat of the kitchen for the cool air of the open fields. There was a wall to be built, and his skill in choosing and laying the stones was a welcome distraction. He remembered that there had been some unhappiness from the men who served in the kitchen when Beatrix came to the house, shuffling down the road with her bundle on her shoulder, bent as double as Old Hugh, whom she followed. Where one was sent the other trailed behind, and so Christiana inherited not only a steward to look after Blackstone’s affairs while he was away fighting, but a cook from Lord de Graville’s castle, a woman, ruddy-faced from years standing over flames and steaming pots, with broken veins in her face that crawled like rivers on a map. Thirty years in the kitchens was experience that would benefit the Englishman and his wife, de Graville had decided. It was a known fact among the French noblemen that the English scorched their food and ate coarse bread, and if Christiana insisted on breaking tradition by breastfeeding her children, then it would do no harm to have a woman cooking in the kitchen rather than a male servant. And Lord de Graville had not gifted the servants simply out of the goodness of his heart or a wish to help Blackstone and his wife in their new home. The servants were old and their strength would soon fail, and then they would be mouths to feed without any return of work.

  But Beatrix and Old Hugh had shown a willingness to serve their new master with what seemed to be grim determination. Perhaps it was the generosity with which Blackstone and Christiana governed their house. There was firm rule, but both Christiana, the daughter of a penurious knight, and Blackstone, a village stonemason whose strength and courage had brought him honour, understood how peasants could be treated. Beatrix had proved more competent than expected. Her previously undernourished body gained weight and, despite her slender frame, she had no difficulty hauling the chains above the great fireplace in the kitchens when meat had to be smoked and roasted, or when lifting the cauldrons of boiled ham or pottage when Blackstone fed his men.

  Christiana saw to it that older children from the village were employed to fetch and carry and scrub floors in the kitchens, and the discontent among the men who would have served as cooks was soon quelled when Blackstone suggested they might prefer to return to being bondsmen rather than have the freedom he had given them. Over time the Blackstone domain became productive and well organized, its master liking nothing better than taking his son into the forests with Guillaume, showing Henry the tracks of fox and wolf while they hunted venison and boar whose meat was smoked or salted for the winter months. The manor’s grain stores had been repaired and were dry and airy, keeping the bushels free of mould. Old Hugh supervised the crop rotation, instructed the blacksmith and beat the stable-hands if they were not diligent in their duties. He was as tireless as his master. There was little time for rest except on holy days and special occasions when the peasants did not work. But on any of those days Blackstone was seldom behind the stone walls that surrounded the courtyard. The outlying domains of the Norman lords offered him protection, but he created his own defences, cutting back the treeline, using the timber as a palisade that created an additional barrier to anyone wishing to strike suddenly. A stream had been dammed to form a small lake with sluice gates, where fish bred and were caught when the winter frosts were not too heavy. It had all taken great effort because he was so often absent, but the rewards were there for all to see.

  Blackstone remembered the ruined manor when they first rode into the weed-grown courtyard. They had both worked like peasants to clear it, and the villagers gradually submitted to his promise of protection. Over the months that followed Christiana decorated their chambers with tapestry and silk, covered floors with carpets that Blackstone brought home from his raids on French lords. Her own resourcefulness was often tested, not least when Blackstone was away fighting. Once, a thief had slipped through Blackstone’s patrolling soldiers; she had remained calm despite the desperate man menacing her with a knife. She talked to him until he eventually agreed that she would have him fed and given food for the road. She gave him her word to cement the promise. When the man had gorged and had a sack of supplies given to him, Blackstone’s men held him, ready for their lord’s return and the hanging that was sure to follow. Christiana demanded they release him. Her word was Blackstone’s bond as well as her own. Reluctantly they did as she ordered but, like all vagabonds, he left a mark on a stone near the manor, a sign to tell others like him that there were easy pickings to be had with the lady of the house. The next thief who slipped through the kitchen window held Beatrix at knife point, but this time Christiana summoned the sentry. The promise she made the intruder was also straightforward. Harm the cook and he would be hanged, drawn and quartered by Count Jean de Harcourt, on whose land the thief had trespassed in order to reach Blackstone’s domain, or surrender and be hanged on a full stomach without mutilation. The thief surrendered, she fed him, and had him strung up at the crossroads. No thief ever again entered the manor’s land.

  The handful of soldiers who served in the village were never idle, often working alongside their sworn lord as he reinforced broken walls, or carted fresh stone for another. They were low-caste men; some had committed murder; all had served in one army or another. Some were deserters, others men displaced by fractured treaties, but as Blackstone seized towns and garrisoned them with soldiers drawn by his reputation, he handpicked some of the basest characters to settle in his village with their women. Such men, he knew, would fight with great viciousness in defence of the privilege bestowed on them. Their worth had been proven on the occasions when the King sent marauders into the duchy. The Norman lords would send word to Blackstone and it was men from his village who would ride out and do the killing. It was a strange relationship between the English knight and these men, but he had shown a firm hand and paid them well and they served as his first line of defence should intruders ever slip through the forests and assault the village. The domain served them all and its master was unrelenting in his determination to see it prosper further still. He wondered if the time might come when the violence between France and England would cease and that King Edward would relinquish his desire for the French crown. Even if such a thing came to pass, the killing would not stop in such places as Brittany and Gascony, because local lords would feud and the last thing men trained for war wanted was peace.

  But here in Normandy, which was like his home country, the lush fields and rich orchards were a haven that could feed his family and allow him to watch his children grow.

  ‘You’re daydreaming,’ said Christiana, carrying a basket over her arm as she walked to where he had been cutting and laying the stone wall.

  Blackstone looked quickly at her. ‘Was I?’

  ‘Yes.’ She threw down a blanket next to a large piece of stone that had yet to be cut and shaped. ‘Your mouth was open, your eyes were glazed and flies were starting to gather,’ she said as she sat, settling herself.

  He threw down the mallet and chisel, and bent to kiss her. ‘I was thinking,’ he told her.

  ‘It looked painful.’

  ‘Yet I felt no discomfort.’

  ‘You were grimacing,’ she said and pulled back the linen cloth that covered his food.

  ‘Thinking can be hard work,’ he said, and nuzzled her neck, breathing deeply of her scent.

  Christiana shrugged him off. ‘I’m not here for sex, Thomas. It’s too cold and this stubborn frost would seize my bones.’

  ‘I’d warm you. You would be aflame with desire and be grateful for the cold earth to cool your passion. Isn’t that what a courtly-love nobleman would say?’

  ‘Do you want cheese or meat?’ she asked.

  ‘Either,’ he said and smiled. It made no difference what food he ate, but he could not igno
re the stirring of passion for her.

  She cut a chunk of rough bread and handed it to him with a wedge of cheese and an apple whose skin was beginning to wrinkle.

  He rolled the apple between his fingers. ‘Have we been married too long?’

  ‘Are you saying I’m as wrinkled as that?’

  ‘I’m saying we used to rut like deer,’ he told her and took a big bite of cheese, pushing a torn piece of bread into his mouth at the same time.

  ‘You’re a peasant, Thomas,’ she said, not unkindly, to which he grinned and nodded. She held the wrinkled apple. ‘It’s one of the last on the rack in the barn,’ she said. ‘Maybe it is like me. Left abandoned over winter to age alone. Letting my juices dry.’

  ‘You could take a lover,’ he said, pulling the cork on the stone flask from the basket and taking a mouthful of cider. ‘God’s blood, this could turn a man blind.’ He grimaced.

  ‘Well, it certainly can’t make you any more stupid,’ she teased as she slipped a slender slice of apple between her lips.

  ‘Why, because I suggested you take another man to your bed? You never would. I know that.’

  ‘No, because the sun is burning off the mist and we are here far away from the house and children, where there are no servants or sentries, it’s as secluded as I could hope for. You obviously don’t need the cider to turn you blind.’

  He swallowed and looked at her propped on her elbow, watching him, saying nothing, the swell of her breasts pushing against the dress. Like a child trespassing on his lord’s domain, Blackstone popped his head above the wall and peered across the fields and orchards. They were alone. Blackstone pushed aside the food basket and lay next to her.

  ‘Why don’t you just say you want to lie with your lord and husband?’ he said, teasing her nipple beneath her dress with a fingertip.

  ‘Thomas, that’s not how the game is played,’ she replied, and pulled his scarred face towards her lips.

  7

  Paris and the Île de la Cité shone in the spring sunshine, a welcome change from the river fog. Notre-Dame’s towers finally broke through the shroud that had covered them these past several days. The city’s stench had shifted as the breeze turned and King John felt that the future would reward his determination to protect this jewel of a city, with its renowned university and Notre-Dame’s magnificent homage to God. The court astrologer had predicted that momentous events would occur, that a great battle would be fought, and that could mean only one thing to the impetuous King – that Edward of England would be vanquished and hurled back across La Manche, the sea across which the bastard Duke of Normandy had once invaded and claimed the land beyond as his own. Like a blade being twisted in a wound, history since that day had inflicted its agony on the French and caused an abiding mistrust and bitterness between them and the Normans.

  The King, despite the apparent physical strength of his body, was prone to chills and ill health. His chair was drawn up close to the fire when Simon Bucy entered the royal apartment. John looked at him and for a moment Bucy thought that he looked like a sick old man despite his thirty-seven years. The King pulled his ermine robe closer to his neck. He was not in the mood for the leader of the Parlement to bring him affairs of state.

  ‘We have a new falcon and thought to release some cages of doves. A distraction from the tedium of this gilded cage where I am kept duty-bound,’ said John.

  ‘Sire, we have news,’ Bucy said. ‘From the south.’

  Bucy quickly gestured the attendants away and they pressed back against the walls, well out of earshot. He took a slow, deep breath. He needed it to calm his own trepidation before delivering what would be another mighty blow to the King’s already shaky confidence. ‘Jean de Grailly led a mixed force of Gascons and English and struck north from Bordeaux away from the main force and then turned east. He has taken the city of Périgueux.’

  King John’s breath expelled like a deflated bladder. ‘What?’ he whispered. ‘Impossible. The garrison at Saint-Clair-de-la-Beaumont holds the road and the river. De Grailly would need to take it. He could not. No one could lay siege at Saint-Clair. Sir Henri would have sent word. We would have heard.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true, highness. Thomas Blackstone sailed upriver and attacked through the marshes from the rear. Sir Henri is dead and his men with him. De Grailly has garrisoned it with a hundred troops or more and Blackstone seized the weapons and the coin Sir Henri held to pay the local lords. We cannot raise further taxes and must find other means to pay those who are still loyal to us there.’

  ‘Blackstone,’ said John, as if the very name was poison on his tongue.

  Bucy stepped quickly forward, eager to alleviate the bad news. ‘Sire, I have found the man who would dare to draw out Thomas Blackstone, and by so doing enable us to diminish the Norman lords.’

  The light of sudden interest sparkled in King John’s eyes. He nodded for Bucy to sit.

  Bucy began to relate all he had learnt from the Norman traitor. ‘He is the son of a minor family. He is educated, literate and has intelligence, even if more feral than most.’

  ‘We do not want these lesser nobles thinking we will grant them land and favour because they believe themselves to be capable of going against the Englishman. How many fools have dreamt of that and now look down on their folly from heaven?’

  Bucy shook his head and spoke quietly. ‘It has nothing to do with his family. They abandoned him, glad to rid themselves of him. He stole from a family while he was a guest in their home—’

  The King interrupted: ‘All nobles are thieves, my friend, like gutter rats snatching at scraps. They preen themselves with spittle for their enemies. A man who covets a silver goblet and is prepared to kill for it is a shallow character. To be a master thief with ambition is to steal a nation,’ he added dismissively. ‘Look to Edward for a lesson in thievery.’

  ‘This man is more than a thief, sire. He began killing when he was young. He befriended a widow’s son so he could attempt her seduction. But she rebuffed his advances.’

  The King’s attention was held. ‘And he killed her for it?’

  ‘No, her chastisement made him flee, but he helped himself to whatever jewellery he could find. When the woman’s young son accused him of the theft he murdered the boy.’

  ‘A matter of honour because he was falsely accused or was there proof?’ asked the King.

  Bucy licked his lips nervously. What frightened him was not the machinations of politics but of having any close contact with the violent men who scoured the country, be they of the nobility or base-born, like the routier horsemen. Rape and slaughter were an everyday occurrence. The King granted licence for torture and the Church never questioned a confession of heresy obtained by breaking and burning a victim. And yet Bucy hesitated. He was about to deliver to his King a man so vile in nature that the devout John might refuse to have him do the Crown’s bidding.

  ‘It was a matter of revenge against the woman. He took her son in the night and tied him to a tree within sight of his mother’s bedchamber. When she awoke the first thing she saw were his slashed and bloodied remains. It was a vicious evisceration that curdled even the hearts of men who had fought in war.’

  ‘He would have been condemned,’ said the King. ‘And hanged.’

  ‘He very nearly was. The scandal could hardly be contained. His family was on the point of ruin. Reparation to the injured widow would have meant the loss of their estate and financial compensation that would force them into penury.’

  The King raised a glass of wine to his lips. He could see his adviser was frightened by the very thought of this man. If fear could be spread like contagion then perhaps he had found his plague carrier.

  ‘How was he not punished?’

  ‘The solution was suggested by the killer himself. Were his family to buy a benefice from the Archbishop, their land would be retained, he would be saved from the hangman’s noose and the widow could not contest the forgiveness that would be granted.
’

  ‘And the killer was made the archpriest of the diocese?’

  Bucy nodded. ‘And in so doing the Church gave him the opportunity to secure his own authority and wealth.’

  Both men fell silent. The solution of the benefice offered a blessedly simple way for the killer to gain influence, and his family were well rid of a brutal and troublesome son who guaranteed their ruin. Bucy recounted what he knew.

  ‘This man sold sinners to the Bishop; those accused of blasphemy he whipped and tortured; he exchanged holy oils for gifts, rosaries for carnality and, when visiting the dying, would strip them of their jewellery. The abomination ended only when the Bishop realized that his priest was taking more from his victims within the dioceses than the Bishop himself. The killer lost his benefice, but by then he was well used to the pleasures that money could buy.’

  Bishops were powerful, archbishops more so, and the Pope may as well have been the voice of God incarnate. The Church’s power and authority could often be a direct challenge to the authority of the Crown despite a king being thought divine, but that they should have taken into their fold such an evil creature and stripped him of office only when they discovered he was more successful at extortion than themselves gave the King dispensation to use him. Doubts crossed the King’s mind. A brutal murderer might not be the answer to weakening the Norman lords’ power by killing Thomas Blackstone.

  ‘Simon, it is not enough to let a rabid dog loose across the countryside. A man like this will never be assuaged by blood; he will kill simply for the enjoyment of killing. He is not the man we seek. His desires make him too unreliable.’

  ‘Sire, there is more.’

  The King’s eyebrows lifted. A slaughterman who tortured his victims could have no further qualities that could be put to good use.

  Bucy said, ‘Ten or eleven years ago he became obsessed with the daughter of an ageing knight, Guyon de Sainteny.’