Defiant Unto Death

by David Gilman

  Blackstone addressed the conspirators. ‘Do you think the King’s spies haven’t already told him? Jean, listen to Blanche and your uncle. It’s a trap,’ he said.

  Jean de Harcourt paced the room, the weight of opinion threatening his desire to finally dislodge the King of France and create unfettered autonomy for Normandy and an escape from the crippling taxes being imposed on the nobles. ‘We would have the support of the Pope. Even the Church is to be taxed,’ said Guy de Ruymont.

  ‘And the Prince of Wales raids throughout the south; he has two thousand English and Gascons. Once John raises his army with these new taxes it will be too late. We should make our move now,’ Jean de Harcourt urged.

  A heavy-set man pushed himself from the fireside bench.

  ‘Thomas? You could act as envoy to King Edward. If he gives you a firm commitment to invade we can do the rest.’

  ‘My Lord de Graville, you overestimate my influence,’ Blackstone answered warily, still suspicious of how much time the older man spent in Paris.

  De Graville took a step towards him. ‘You command more than respect, Thomas, there are what … two hundred-odd men of yours scattered across the countryside who would rally to your call?’

  The old Norman was right. Blackstone was in a unique position, not least because those in the great hall had protected him. Itinerant soldiers – English, Germans and Gascons; men who had fought the great battles and needed a leader who could pay for their fighting skills – had followed the English knight whose notoriety often caused opponents to yield without engaging in battle.

  Blackstone made no reply. The conspirators needed as many fighting men as they could muster but to become involved in French conspiracies and politics was to walk in a maze of intrigue, betrayal and murder. It was a sport for nobles, not a fighting man.

  One of the dogs defecated onto the rush-strewn floor, and yelped when another of the nobles kicked it away. Blanche threw a handful of powder into the flames, a mixture of sulphur, arsenic and antimony, used during the great pestilence against rat fleas as well as for its aroma, to veil the stench.

  ‘Edward will invade. Street criers in London have brought in five hundred archers. The English nobles have committed to Edward. This situation is one he’s always dreamed of, an attack from the north and the south. And this time he will help Navarre become the power behind the Crown,’ said de Mainemares, the noble who had kicked the dog. ‘Charles of Navarre remains a festering wound in King John’s side.’

  De Graville lowered his voice, as if the whisper lessened his guilt of conspiracy. ‘France’s strength will come from the English King’s invasion,’ he said. ‘The Dauphin is a boy. He’s weak and debt-ridden.’

  ‘And what then?’ Blackstone asked. ‘You’ll murder him as well as his father? This is more than a King against a King. It’s family business. King Edward wants to secure the greatest amount of territory for his children as much as King John wishes to keep France secure for his. It’s what we all do. We fight and take what we can for ourselves so that our children have a future.’ Blackstone pulled open the heavy chestnut doors. ‘I’m going home. Thank you for your hospitality, Blanche. I believe that what my Lord de Mainemares says is true: Edward will invade. But to place your lives under the protection of the Dauphin is foolish. You underestimate your enemy. King John is no fool. He’ll have you where he wants you.’

  A conspiracy needed guile and sworn secrecy and the Norman barons had the one but not the other. Secrets leaked out like whey through a cheesemaker’s cloth.

  Jean de Harcourt strode angrily towards him as Blackstone faced him.

  ‘You sell your sword, Thomas!’ de Harcourt said.

  For a moment Blackstone allowed the Count’s grip to stay on his arm. ‘And I always choose the paymaster,’ he said quietly, and then easily loosened his closest friend’s grip.

  ‘Jean!’ Sir Godfrey called. ‘Thomas is his own man. Always has been.’ He limped to the doorway and extended his hand. Blackstone grasped it. ‘You were a self-willed and insolent bastard of an archer, Thomas – more than most – but your sword has served this family and your King. You’re not a part of this. Go in peace with Christiana and the children. You’ll hear no more from us on this matter. I’ll go to King Edward. I’ve sworn my fealty once; I’ll do it again. And this time we will give him Normandy and he will give us the France we need.’

  The heavy doors closed behind Blackstone, their sullen echo thudding into his heart. It felt as though his friend had been entombed.

  It was bad enough that Blackstone and Jean de Harcourt had parted in ill temper; when he gathered his family to return home, a shame-faced Henry stood with Guillaume and confessed to losing his treasured knife.

  ‘You don’t deserve the honour!’ Blackstone thundered. ‘You need to learn when privilege is bestowed on you! You searched the riverbed?’ The answer was already obvious when he looked at the boy’s wet clothing.

  ‘I did, Father, diligently.’

  ‘But you weren’t damned well diligent enough to keep from losing it. Agnes cares more for her cloth doll than you do for a gift of great value. It shames the memory of the brave man who wore it and gave up his life.’ He turned away with a dismissive gesture. ‘You ride behind the wagon. Master Guillaume is your squire; he’ll suggest a suitable penance.’

  As the wagon carrying Christiana and Agnes rocked along the rutted track Christiana stayed silent. A boy’s duty would always be harsher than that of a girl’s. Guillaume rode with Henry at his side on a gelded palfrey.

  ‘Father’s still quiet,’ Henry said. ‘I’ve really angered him.’

  ‘He’s worried about my Lord de Harcourt. These are dangerous times, Master Henry,’ said Guillaume.

  ‘Is he worried about us?’

  ‘Of course. He’s your father.’

  ‘Should I ride with Mother and Agnes, do you think?’

  ‘Men-at-arms don’t ride in wagons. I’ve told you that before.’

  ‘Or on a mare,’ Henry said, remembering.

  ‘Or on a mare,’ Guillaume answered. Henry fell silent because men-at-arms did not chatter like girls either. He hoped his father’s anger and concern would settle by the time they reached home.

  It was a day’s travel with the wagon, though this time it seemed even slower and more ponderous than usual, which had more to do with Blackstone’s mood than the well-travelled road. He had always felt the simple joy of going home, to lazy smoke from the cooking fires drifting above the broad expanse of the valley and wooded hills that contrasted with the high, shadowed walls of Harcourt. But this time he could not dispel the incessant voice urging him to go back and do more to convince Jean not to travel to Rouen for the planned meeting with the King’s son.

  As they turned towards the hamlet where his villagers went about their work, they stopped whatever they were doing and bowed their heads in honour of their lord who passed by.

  They and their master could not know on that cold morning in late March as they welcomed Sir Thomas Blackstone home, that violence more savage than anything they had thought possible would soon descend upon them.

  The rider appeared four days later.

  Old Hugh took the mud-splattered man from Castle de Harcourt to his mistress and she in turn called Blackstone.

  ‘Marcel?’

  ‘My lord.’

  ‘You’re soaked. No, no, don’t stand. Stay seated at the fire.’

  The old man gratefully accepted Blackstone’s charity to stay on the fireside stool, but he seemed close to tears.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Blackstone asked Christiana.

  ‘The nobles went to Rouen and Blanche has gone after them. She’s armed herself, she’s convinced Jean is going to be killed,’ she told him.

  ‘Why would the Dauphin kill Jean? Whatever they’re planning they’re in it together,’ Blackstone said.

  Christiana turned to the old man. ‘Tell Sir Thomas what happened.’

  ‘A messenger arrived la
te last night, after my Lord de Harcourt had left for Rouen. I overheard what it was not my privilege to hear. Two weeks ago the King was to attend a wedding outside of Paris, but a plot was discovered to capture and imprison him and the Dauphin. The King changed his plans and evaded his attackers.’

  ‘Then your master would have known of this,’ Blackstone said.

  The old man shook his head. ‘Those who plotted do not know they were betrayed, and my master was not involved. It was the King’s son-in-law who planned it.’

  ‘Navarre would kill to get the crown,’ Blackstone said. ‘He’s the one who’s convinced Jean and the others. Who warned the King?’

  ‘My lady believes it was one of the Count’s friends,’ the old man answered.

  Blackstone felt the alarm squeeze his chest. If Jean had been betrayed then it was by one of the men, all friends, in the great hall that day.

  ‘Did she take anyone with her? Soldiers? A squire?’ Blackstone asked the steward.

  ‘No, my lord,’ the servant said. ‘She went alone. I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘What about Sir Godfrey?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘To England,’ the servant replied.

  Blackstone refrained from allowing his irritation at Blanche’s action to show. The old man had been a servant since childhood at Castle de Harcourt. Blackstone knew him as a trusted retainer, a man who had helped ease his own broken body in his first faltering steps to recovery. He nodded at the servant. ‘You were correct in coming to me. Go to the kitchen and tell Beatrix to feed you and that you are to sleep near the fire. Tomorrow, return to Harcourt and wait for news from me or Guillaume.’

  The steward bowed and turned away.

  ‘Thomas, you have to go after her,’ Christiana said.

  ‘And do what? If she’s so determined to interfere in her husband’s affairs, what right do I have to stop her? I don’t want to get caught up in their plans. My duty is to you and the children and my people here.’

  ‘Thomas! She cared for you!’

  ‘You cared for me!’ he shouted. It was a mess, a god-awful dung heap of a mess and he was being dragged into it.

  ‘Help them, Thomas. She’ll fight tooth and claw to stop Jean from being hurt or dishonoured. They gave us shelter when we were both abandoned in the world.’

  ‘As a favour to the King of England!’

  ‘Shame on you! They weren’t duty-bound to offer their friendship! Nor was Jean to accept you as a man-at-arms. Their obligation ended when you were strong enough to leave their household. Blanche will kill any man who tries to hurt Jean, just as I would for you.’

  Blackstone felt her stinging rebuke. No matter how much he argued to the contrary, his wife’s love for him would settle any dispute. It was easier to lay siege to a fortified town than scale the heights of her determination.

  Her voice softened. ‘Blanche is my lady and my friend. Help her, Thomas. For me. She tried to stop me going to Paris.’ She leaned into his chest. Blackstone kissed her hair.

  ‘If my men saw how easily I yielded to you, I’d have a mutiny on my hands,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t have to convince you. I could read your thoughts all the way home. You just needed to know it was all right to leave me and the children. And your men would never dare question your decisions.’

  ‘Unlike my wife,’ he said.

  ‘They don’t know the Thomas Blackstone that I know,’ she answered, bravely ignoring the fear that lodged in her heart whenever he left her to confront danger.

  In the hours before first light Guillaume saddled his master’s horse and fastened his shield and Wolf Sword to the pommel. The younger man’s loyalty and fighting skills had been proven over the years at Blackstone’s side and his master had no hesitation in leaving the safety of his family in the squire’s keeping.

  ‘You’ll stay here for a day and a night,’ Blackstone told him. ‘If I’m not back by then, or you have not heard from Castle de Harcourt, you will take Christiana and the children down to Chaulion and stay behind the walls. Tell Guinot to hold against any attack. Have men on the road between here and Harcourt and others on the road to Rouen. If the King sends armed men on either of these roads it will mean I’ve run into trouble. Escape while you can. He won’t harm the people here. Tell them to deny me and swear their allegiance to him. Make them understand that the King will not harm his subjects, especially if they have been under threat from a war lord like me.’

  ‘They won’t turn their backs on you, Sir Thomas,’ Guillaume said.

  ‘They’ll have to. Those are my orders,’ Blackstone said.

  Blackstone left his horse outside the city walls in the care of a blacksmith known to him, so that the great beast and his coat of arms would not raise curiosity or attract unwanted attention. One of the stalls held Blanche’s chestnut mare. She was here, then, and had taken the same precaution as him.

  Blackstone had walked through Rouen’s narrow streets years before when Jean de Harcourt had taken him into the great castle to see for himself the Duchy of Normandy’s seat of power. Now that the King’s son had been given that title and responsibility for the region, in the hope of bringing the Norman barons and landowners under the King’s control and making them more receptive to the increase in salt and hearth taxes, there were more soldiers than Blackstone had seen before. They moved through the alleyways and market stalls making random checks and searches of people in the streets. When Blackstone was an English archer riding with Sir Gilbert and Godfrey de Harcourt, they had gazed down onto the city’s battlements and seen the banners of the French army and its nobility that had gathered days before the battle at Crécy. It had always been a wonder to him how so many thousands of men could be accommodated within the confines of the city’s walls. Now as he walked the labyrinthine streets it was not difficult to imagine men quartered in every house and stinking alleyway. The streets were wide enough for two carts to pass side by side, but the throngs of people moved laboriously, shuffling between street and alley as overburdened pack donkeys were whipped and cajoled, jostling for passage past street vendors and their trays. Men and women, bent double from the loads of firewood and charcoal on their backs, shouted obscenities to those moving too slowly. The stench of urine and excrement wafted from narrow side streets where men and women squatted to relieve themselves. The cacophony of voices rose and fell, competing with the tavern signs clanging in the wind that funnelled into the constricted streets.

  Blackstone’s mail and surcoat were concealed beneath his cloak, and he kept its cowl pulled over his scarred face. It was not likely that common men and women in the streets of the great Norman capital would recognize him, but he did not wish to risk drawing the attention of the soldiers. Only when he reached the entrance of the great castle and the guards that stood before them did he show his face.

  ‘I have a message for the Countess de Harcourt et Ponthieu. Is she here?’

  The men did not step aside in deference to his rank.

  ‘No one’s allowed inside. And there’s no woman come through these doors, whether it’s a countess or a whore.’ The soldiers grinned, their manner almost a taunt to Blackstone. The guard’s impertinence signalled that the Dauphin’s soldiers carried their lord’s authority in this troublesome duchy. Perhaps they would welcome a challenge so that a local knight could be thrown into the dungeon. Anything to teach the Normans a lesson, and in their ignorance they took him to be Norman. Blackstone knew that confrontation would serve no purpose.

  ‘Then you will have your captain take my message to the Count himself,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘I doubt it. The Dauphin is hosting a banquet in the great hall. The mayor’s there, and the nobles; not even the captain is allowed to disturb them. Best be on your way, sir knight. It’s by invitation only,’ the man sneered.

  Blackstone turned away. He had the information he needed; now all he had to do was to find a way into the great hall.

  The courtyard heaved with horses – teth
ered, fed and groomed by stablehands – who cared little about a nobleman striding across their yard. Blackstone recognized Jean’s horse. He went through the stables, climbed over the baled hay and onto the low wall that separated the courtyard from the kitchens. The yard on the other side of the wall was closed off by a heavy gate; guards would be posted on the street side, but the yard itself was empty except for two supply carts loaded with barrels and caged poultry and animals for slaughter. He dropped down and ran up the steps into the steam and heat of the castle’s kitchen. Servants and cooks scurried back and forth as platters of food were ferried from the griddles and fires where carcasses were turned and basted on spits. A steward shouted commands at children who carried the trays of food through a passage doorway. The man looked startled when he saw Blackstone, unsettled by the scar, unable to take his eyes from it.

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘Is everything under control? I am the Dauphin’s taster,’ Blackstone said, looking quickly at a servant using iron hooks to haul boiled meat from a cauldron.

  ‘T-t-taster?’ the man stuttered in confusion.

  ‘You were not expecting me?’

  ‘No, I—’

  Blackstone grabbed a knife and quickly stabbed the meat. Blood tipped the blade and Blackstone wiped it clean across the distressed man’s chest. ‘It must fall from the bone. And the Dauphin will not tolerate gristle. You were told that?’

  The steward momentarily lost his authority in the kitchen. ‘I was not given specific instructions, but—’

  ‘You have them now,’ Blackstone interrupted.

  The steward rebuked the servant. ‘Put it back! Boil it longer!’

  By the time he turned to ingratiate himself with the scarred knight, he saw only Blackstone’s cloak disappearing into the darkened passage. Relief from further interrogation eased any uncertainty he might have felt about how the man had gained access from the gated yard.