by David Gilman
The priest believed the fragment of information would keep Blackstone waiting for his return, but the moment he left the refectory Blackstone took a lamp and found his way to the stables. The monks were at compline, their final prayers for the night, so the dormitorium was empty except for the snoring soldiers. Blackstone kicked the nearest man awake. Instinctively the hobelar reached for the sword at the side of his palliasse. Blackstone stamped on the blade and tipped the man off the bed. He had the advantage, despite the others being already on their feet and reaching for their weapons.
Blackstone stepped back, offering no threat, the action asserting his rank, letting the man recover, which he did quickly, gripping his sword. One of the men stepped forward. ‘I’m the sergeant of these men. What is it you want, my lord?’
The men looked to be battle-hardened veterans. They had recovered from their sleep quickly, ready to strike any intruder. They would make good bodyguards for an unarmed priest travelling on a vital mission.
‘I am Sir Thomas Blackstone,’ he said. The sergeant’s eyes registered his recognition. He lowered his sword and the other men followed his lead.
‘I know of you, my lord. I fought at Cobham’s side at Blanchetaque. I was wounded at the river – we were glad of the archers that day. I am John Jacob; how can we be of service to you?’
‘You ride as escort for the Italian priest. Why are you here?’
‘We were to sail to Bordeaux and meet up with Prince Edward’s army. But the weather came down on us before we could get any further south. We were blown ashore. We lost four men in the storm. We’ve been here two days waiting for the fog to lift. The priest is nervous.’
Blackstone addressed the men. ‘He has good cause to be. King John has men everywhere, mostly routiers, and he holds many of the villages and towns. You’d be hard pressed to find the Prince.’
‘Be that as it may, my lord, if the priest says we have to find him then that’s the way it is. We’re on the King’s business.’
‘Do you know what news is to be delivered?’
‘Only Father Niccolò knows that,’ the sergeant answered. ‘You’ll ride with us?’ he asked with undisguised hope in his voice. A knight of Blackstone’s reputation and fighting skill was worth having on what seemed to be a fool’s errand. No good could come of wet-nursing a priest in hostile territory.
Blackstone shook his head. ‘I’ve other business to attend to. I’ll speak to you before I leave. I know the lie of the land.’
‘We’re obliged, my lord.’
Blackstone nodded and turned away. Was it so long ago that he had slept rough with coarse archers, who fought as sworn men for a knight? A life shared with Christiana and the Harcourts had softened his manners, but seeing these Englishmen stand-to, belligerent and ready to fight, kindled a memory. He missed the comradeship denied him by being a commander of such men.
The gloomy passageways felt oppressive as Blackstone waited for the priest’s return. The still air, clammy from the fog outside, made his undershirt stick to his skin, making him wish he could be free of the confined space. Now that his family was safe he would rather be taking the fight to his enemy. His daughter’s illness had held sway over his emotions. The thought of Christiana and the children falling into enemy hands had hardened an already resolute determination, but now the girl lay still and helpless in the grip of fever, and he was angered by his inability to protect her. He watched Father Niccolò moving towards him, a cloak of good English cloth edged with fur over his white habit blurring the image of a humble man of God. Blackstone distrusted those who professed humility and vows of poverty. Mendicant friars lived from a begging bowl; others in the clergy seemed secure in self-sufficiency and interest. He had seldom seen common men attend church services. It seemed that worship and blessings were attended mostly by the nobility and the rich. Perhaps heaven was similarly divided. Blackstone tried to put a face to the English King’s banker, Bardi. His name had been mentioned when they first invaded Normandy and Blackstone had crept into the ceremony when the Prince of Wales was knighted in that small Norman church, but the moment had been filled by the King’s presence. He could not remember ever seeing this priest, or his master, but the delicately featured Torellini, with the hands of a woman, had been entrusted with a mission by the King of England – that alone commanded respect.
‘Your daughter still sleeps. The monks have attended to her and your lady stays by her side,’ Father Niccolò told him. Then, in an unexpected gesture of compassion, he touched Blackstone’s arm. ‘They say that if she survives until dawn, she will recover. Now, let us leave her in God’s hands so that we may talk.’
‘Bring her here,’ Blackstone said abruptly.
‘What?’
‘If she is close to death then she and her mother will need her family’s comfort. Have the monks bring them to my room. They can attend to her there. If she survives the night then I’ll listen to what you have to say. If she does not, we will mourn her death and then you will continue on your journey and I on mine. Everything seems to be in God’s hands.’
Father Niccolò could see no alternative but to do as Blackstone demanded. He turned back towards the infirmary. There was need for more prayer. His knees would be aching by morning.
Guillaume and Henry slept in the first cell-like chamber while Blackstone and Christiana stayed together with Agnes, who was settled on the bed that had been provided for Blackstone. The silent monks came and went every half-hour through the night. Exhausted, Christiana finally fell asleep and Blackstone covered her with a blanket, then went back to nursing his child. He dabbed water on her lips and kept the wet cloths, brought by the monks from the fountain house, on her body. At each visit the monk would bring another herbal potion and, as Blackstone cradled his child, her lips were eased apart and drops administered on her tongue.
As the hours passed by the night was disturbed by the bells that called the monks to their midnight prayers. No one in the two rooms awoke, so Blackstone kept a lone vigil. The haunting cadence of the monks’ hymns and plainsongs offered an unexpected comfort to him. The night wore on, but two hours after the one period of prayer ended, another bell rang, taking the monks from their beds back to the church. Blackstone had not moved the whole night and when the bell rang for matins as the dull morning light eased through the window, he saw that Agnes’s fever had broken. The child turned in her sleep; Blackstone softly stroked the curls back from her forehead and felt the tiny life under his hands respond to his touch. The morning prayers ended, and once again the infirmary monk returned to check on his patient. Blackstone allowed the man his examination, and the monk nodded and smiled, then made the sign of the cross. God had guided his hand to administer life-saving potions.
Blackstone woke Christiana and allowed her the tears a mother sheds at the news of her child’s survival; then he kissed his sleeping daughter and left the room. He had made an agreement to meet with the Italian priest.
As God’s breath had soothed away Agnes’s fever, so too had the wind blown away the fog. Blackstone found the priest trailing the monks who were leaving the morning service. Knowing Torellini had seen him he walked around the animal pens and waited on the cliff top, from which he could now see the river that ran through the landscape below. On the horizon a brief ray of warmth slipped like a gold sword blade between earth and sky, only to be hidden almost immediately by the lowering clouds.
‘Tell me what it is King Edward has charged you with,’ he said.
Torellini nodded in answer to his own thoughts. Destiny, guided by the hand of God, had seen fit to deliver the child from death and Blackstone back into the King’s service.
‘The Prince’s army is fewer than six thousand men; they are weary from months of raiding across France, but they expect the King to invade through Normandy and intend to meet him at the Loire. The Duke of Lancaster has landed in Brittany with two thousand men. The French army would be caught and crushed between the three English forces. This is
the great battle to secure France that Edward has always dreamed of.’
Blackstone sensed the closeness of victory over the French, just as King Edward would have done.
‘Godfrey de Harcourt went to Edward to pledge Normandy. The King now has strongholds across the north. There couldn’t be a better time for him to invade.’
‘Then you have not heard of Godfrey’s death?’ said Father Niccolò.
Blackstone felt the hollow pit of his stomach contract. The old lame knight was dead? ‘What happened?’
‘King Edward accepted his allegiance; he returned to his castle in Normandy and was ambushed. They cut him down.’
Ambushed. Was it the same vicious killers who had swept into Blackstone’s home? Did it make a difference who killed you? Perhaps it did, if they took pleasure in making a man die slowly.
‘Do we know anything more?’
‘No. But King Edward fears for the Prince. He has had prayers said for him.’ Torellini let the information sink in. For a King to engage chaplains to pray for his family was a rare show of anxiety.
It could only be bad news that Torellini carried.
‘Then what news is it that’s so important?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Enemy ships are in the Channel. The King cannot come. The Prince is alone with only Lancaster as reinforcement. It is the King of France who has the advantage. Everything the English have fought for over all these years could be lost.’
The French King had made promises to protect his people from the ravages of the English raids that had swept through the south-west. Taxes had to be raised, and for the King not to finally strike out at the marauding English would signal the disintegration of his country. King John had the northern army gathered at the Loire; the Count of Poitiers held the southern army to the west.
Father Niccolò spread his hands, a gesture of hopelessness. ‘King Edward has many influences from Italy. Italian art adorns his palaces, our doctors serve him, he buys our armour, and English cloth is on our weavers’ looms.’ He looked almost apologetically at Blackstone. ‘We commit money to the English throne. We have been loyal over the years, even when times were difficult and debts were not repaid.’
‘War is a risk,’ said Blackstone.
‘Victory benefits us all,’ the priest answered.
Blackstone knew it was a simple statement of fact. The common soldier pillaged at the point of a sword for his profit; the bankers weighed the odds and backed those they thought could win. The more blood spilled on the battlefield, the greater the profit to the bankers.
‘Ride and warn him that he stands alone against the French. His only escape is to retreat south to Bordeaux. In time a fleet can be sent,’ Father Niccolò said.
‘When?’
The priest shrugged.
‘His retreat might already be cut off,’ Blackstone said.
‘Quite so.’
‘Then what?’
‘The French Pope would do all he can to favour the French King. His cardinals will try to sue for peace. The Prince has plundered great wealth; he will be anxious to keep it because his army is so weak. The French could extract favourable terms.’
‘You believe the Prince’ll agree to peace?’ Blackstone said.
Father Niccolò nodded. ‘Of course. His army is in no condition to fight a major battle and his father does not want his son killed or captured and ransomed. Prince Edward must make the best of it. You must relay the King’s wishes.’
Blackstone looked out across the swathes of forest that blanketed the hills. He had no idea how far away the Prince’s army might be. A messenger would have to travel quickly through those forests and hope not to be seen by French scouts or brigands. King John was making a final, desperate attempt to regain stature in the eyes of his people. He was bankrupt. Taxes could be raised only if the people were safe from raids by the barbaric English, whose depredations laid waste the countryside. Crushing the English would secure the people’s loyalty and silence his critics. The retribution wreaked against the conspirators in support of Charles of Navarre was almost complete. Only Blackstone remained alive.
Torellini related what informers in the French court had reported. It was the French King’s time for victory. The anxious King who suspected betrayal at every corner could finally restore France to her rightful place as the greatest kingdom in Christendom. Even royal astrologers had predicted a great shift of power for France. Encouraged by all the signs of potential victory John had forced an agreement with the thousands of French noblemen, who would bring their knights and soldiers to fight, that they would no longer have the baronial right to quit the field of battle when it suited them. For the first time, they could leave only when victory was complete or when the King allowed it. It was a binding agreement with a nobility driven by their sense of personal status and obligations of honour. It was what gave them their undeniable courage. Blackstone had witnessed enough evidence of that when the French knights kept advancing into the storm of English arrows at Crécy.
‘So,’ Torellini asked, ‘will you ride to save your Prince?’
Blackstone knew his family would be safe under Torellini’s protection – he represented not only the power of the Church but the wealth of Florence. Blackstone nodded. ‘I will – but Prince Edward won’t surrender,’ he said. He knew the lion Prince that he had once saved loved war, but suing for peace with booty and honour intact was a temptation for any fighting man. Blackstone had fought for his King and suffered loss and injury but something of his own father’s spirit had always held him close: a belligerent and unyielding duty to be honour-bound to those who deserved such loyalty. His father was once an archer loyal to his sworn lord as Blackstone had been to Sir Gilbert when they invaded Normandy all those years before. Loyalty to one another was what Killbere believed in. Men fighting side by side. The King had honoured Blackstone at Crécy and the Prince had awarded him his coat of arms at Calais. Blackstone held his towns in the King’s name. He was an Englishman whose forebears stood at his back: ghosts of fighting men who denied him any choice other than to be what he was. There was no simple explanation to what lay in Blackstone’s heart; he knew it was a cat’s cradle of emotions that entwined his sworn lords – the King and his son – his family, friendship, and the abiding affection he held towards his men. Whatever name could be put on it, it had to be honoured. Retribution would be inflicted on those who caused any of them harm.
Edward must not retreat. The priest had offered him a means to seek his own revenge against the French monarch and his assassin – and to do that he needed a battle.
‘The Prince won’t surrender,’ he said again.
All Agnes needed now was sleep and nourishment. Christiana bathed and fed her, then opened the shutters and looked out across the monastery’s grounds. Guillaume and Henry were not in the adjoining room. Satisfied that Agnes was asleep and no longer needed constant vigilance, she pulled her cloak around her and went out into the chill wind that now blew from the north. Guests’ movements within the grounds were restricted, so she could not imagine where Guillaume and Henry had gone, or why her husband had not returned. Her thoughts flew beyond the monastery walls. It was urgent that they leave once Agnes had recovered sufficiently to travel. But where would the family go? Their home had been destroyed and she had no idea of Blanche de Harcourt’s fate since her escape from Rouen. How many had survived the King’s revenge? All she knew was that the life they once had – all they had built – had been destroyed.
By the time she had examined the options for the family’s well-being she had reached the stables. Guillaume had saddled and prepared her husband’s war horse, and Henry was making final adjustments to the bridles on the two coursers. Guillaume turned to face her, but said nothing. He already knew there would be conflict between his master and Henry’s mother.
‘Where is Sir Thomas?’ Christiana asked.
‘He’s talking to the priest, my lady,’ the squire answered, securing Blackstone’s cleaned
and honed sword to the pommel.
Christiana’s eyes followed the movement. Her husband was leaving her and going off to fight.
‘Where are they?’ she demanded.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Somewhere in the monastery.’
Christiana saw Henry avert his eyes and fiddle needlessly with his horse’s stirrup.
‘Henry, are you riding with Guillaume and your father?’
‘Yes, Mother,’ the boy answered reluctantly, torn between affection for his mother and obedience to his father.
Christiana turned away. Her husband could not abandon her and her child at such a time.
Father Niccolò Torellini eased a ring from his finger and handed it to Blackstone. ‘Take this and use it as proof that you speak on my behalf and at the command of the King. In today’s world it is a matter of trust. Men can be bought and a King’s messenger could be murdered,’ he said.
Blackstone’s fingers were all too thick to accept the gold band with its blood-red stone. Torellini smiled and offered a small drawstring pouch. ‘Here, use this.’
‘Offering this as a token means nothing. I could have killed you on the road and taken it,’ said Blackstone.
‘True, but when you see the Prince, tell him that he was present when his father gave it to me and that the chapel where we prayed that day bore the sign of St Peter. Then he will know I have sent you.’
‘I might ride for days without finding Prince Edward. I may already be too late,’ Blackstone said. ‘No matter what happens, I need your word that my wife and daughter will be kept safe at Avignon.’
‘You have it,’ said the priest and grasped his arm. ‘When you lay before me at Crécy I saw the body of a boy torn apart by war – not even the physicians thought you would live. Now, here is the man made whole by a generous God and given great strength to serve his King. God be with you, Sir Thomas. I shall see you at Avignon.’
Blackstone caught a movement in the corner of his eye. The auburn-haired woman, her full dress pushed against her body by the freshening breeze, walked out of the stables and turned to face him. There were a hundred paces between them, but he could see the glimmer of anger in her green eyes.
