Defiant Unto Death

by David Gilman

  ‘Run, sire? Women and dogs run.’

  ‘Blackstone!’ Warwick shouted, taking a stride towards him, but the Prince was already ahead of him, a restraining arm halting him.

  ‘There are so few of us! Our men are exhausted and we have no water! And you accuse me of cowardice!’

  Blackstone had not flinched. The two men were of equal height. Their strength was comparable, only one had rank’s greater stature.

  Blackstone did not yield. He spoke plainly in a measured tone that bore an inflection that could leave no doubt in the Prince’s mind.

  ‘You have scorched this country from head to toe. You’ve slaughtered men, women and children in a vicious manner that will always be remembered and defame your name. You have wallowed in victory over the innocent and the poor and you have raped and pillaged until France weeps blood. You are not the boy Prince who fought at Crécy until battered to his knees; you are the Prince who ripped this land to shreds without contest and with disgrace! What kind of honour is that?’

  The stunned silence was broken by Salisbury and Warwick grabbing Blackstone’s arms in fear that his disregard would lead him to strike Edward. Blackstone offered no resistance. He had taunted the heir to the throne and could lose his life for it.

  The Prince of Wales hesitated, and then turned on his heel and headed for the cardinals. The Earls followed after looking uncomprehendingly at the rogue knight.

  Killbere paused before turning from the pavilion. ‘Sweet Jesus, Thomas – still defiant unto death!’

  Blackstone watched the men approach the cardinals, ready to discuss the terms of surrender. The huge oak doors closed on them. He had done as he had promised Father Niccolò, but had omitted the King’s orders that the Prince should sign a truce and return safely home.

  Blackstone rode bareheaded along the ranks. Some men called him by name; others ignored him, unaware of who the scar-faced, dirt-caked knight was. He looked almost too poor to afford the habergeon of mail beneath his grimy surcoat and padded leather jerkin that lay across the saddle’s pommel. A knight without armour, squire or page was a beggar on the battlefield.

  Blackstone went in search of the English and Welsh archers and found the green-and-white-clad men away from the others as they lit their fires and cooked what little pottage was left to them. Many of the faces from ten years ago were not there, but the type of man had not changed, and they looked just like those with whom Blackstone had served. Thick-muscled men and boys brought on from childhood to use the mighty war bow. But this was not the army of ten years ago; these archers might sting the enemy and kill a few hundred, but the Prince was right: they had too few archers and too few arrows. Arrow bags were less than half full, like the men who sat slumped; dispirited from the gruelling chevauchée. And this was bad news for Prince Edward. The English needed their archers to win their wars.

  For the first time Blackstone noticed the grizzled stubble that clung to etched features. The men looked exhausted. Their wind-burnished faces could not disguise the hollow tiredness beneath their eyes. Blackstone looked around him. All the men had that same haunted look. They were not fit to fight a major battle. And Prince Edward was no fool.

  ‘That old nag could serve the army better if we put it on a spit, sir knight,’ said a voice from somewhere back among the archers.

  Blackstone reined the horse to a halt. He searched for the man who had spoken. Once again the voice called: ‘And you’d be better with a bow in your hand – better’n that German’s sword you stole when he wasn’t looking.’

  Blackstone dismounted and pushed his way through the men until he came to one whose back refused to turn from his cooking pot. Blackstone kicked him gently, pushing him to the ground.

  ‘You never did have any respect for authority, Will Longdon,’ Blackstone said as he extended his arm to help raise the archer to his feet.

  The men embraced, and laughed with the joy of seeing each other again.

  ‘And you’ve not lost your common touch, Thomas, or the strength in your boot. So – you missed your old comrades so much after all these years that you came all the way down here to see us. What? You miss sixpence a day and all the misery you can bear?’

  Will Longdon led the way through the men, up a short incline and into the fringe of a forest. A man emerged from the treeline.

  ‘I found this knight wandering lost,’ said Longdon.

  Elfred grinned and clasped Blackstone to him. ‘Still don’t know which way the enemy is coming from then, Thomas? Sweet Mother of God, it was a fine surgeon that stopped half your face falling onto your shoulder,’ he said, looking up into the leathered face and the white scar that travelled across it.

  ‘I begged the surgeon not to let me end up like Will here. His face would make a dog’s arse on a moonlit night look a thing of beauty.’

  Elfred pulled him to a group of archers who shared a cooking pot.

  ‘Give us space, lads, if you please,’ he told them. Elfred’s archers moved away, leaving the three men to settle and take a share of the food. Blackstone declined.

  ‘There’s enough,’ Elfred insisted.

  ‘No, there isn’t. A blind man could see that. Keep it for your men. I’ll eat with Sir Gilbert later.’

  Elfred passed the pot to Longdon, who took a spoonful and passed it back.

  ‘Here!’ Elfred called to one of his men who squatted with others sharing a meagre pot.

  ‘Master Elfred?’ a boy answered.

  Elfred gave the boy the pot. ‘Share it out as I told you.’

  The boy returned to the others.

  Elfred sighed. ‘He’s fourteen. Lied about his age. But he’s a born archer, Thomas. Just as you were.’

  ‘I had an archer’s eye; no more, no less, Elfred. And good men who taught me how to fight. Just as you did.’

  As with all soldiers, the rights and wrongs of the campaign were soon bemoaned. The exaggerations were trimmed and the reality of their situation was obvious to everyone. Between the stories and the memories of past days, of who had died and who had not on that historic day at Crécy, Blackstone told his own story.

  ‘The Savage Priest?’ Elfred said in answer to Blackstone’s question. ‘Never heard of him. Will?’

  ‘I stay away from clergy, be they savage or otherwise,’ the archer answered.

  ‘You know where to find this black-hearted creature?’ Elfred asked.

  ‘I need a battle to get to him,’ said Blackstone.

  His companions fell silent. ‘Thomas,’ Elfred said, ‘we’re finished here. We’re laden and we want to get home. When the King lands, and Lancaster gets to us, then that might be different. Some fresh muscle is what we need, then maybe we can give this French King a thrashing. We tried to kill his father at Crécy. He took an arrow in the face – I like to think it was mine – but if the French army come at us now, I tell you he’ll have us like rats in a sack.’

  Blackstone accepted a wineskin offered by one of the men. The rough red wine caught his throat, and he coughed.

  ‘The years of soft living and fine wines have spoiled a good archer,’ Longdon said. The men laughed, but the archer raised a hand to silence them. ‘You new lads have had an easy time of it. You’ve heard me talk about Thomas Blackstone and his brother. We came ashore in Normandy and we saw real fighting, not raiding these country towns and taking what we wanted; no, we fought like tomcats to stop the French castrating us, and we bled and we died together. Only then did we take our plunder.’

  ‘Sir Gilbert will tell you what a liar Will Longdon is,’ Blackstone told them. The men laughed and gibed. ‘I’m no longer an archer,’ he said, holding up his bent arm. ‘You might have guessed that already. But I still fight like one. You can break an archer’s war bow, and you can cut the draw fingers from his hand and even take the arm, but unless you cut out his heart and set it on a pike, then you can never kill the way an archer fights.’

  The men roared with approval. Blackstone’s presence would race thro
ugh the companies of archers like a heathland fire in summer and his words would be told again and again; embellished each time in the telling; confirming an archer’s belief in his own prowess and filling each man’s heart with pride in who he was and the glory of past deeds. An empty belly could be endured, but a soldier needed a blood-gorged heart to keep fighting.

  Blackstone stood. ‘I’d best get back. I’ll bring you what news there is.’

  The men embraced again. ‘God rides at your shoulder, Thomas. If you can survive everything that’s befallen you, then there’s hope for us all.’

  ‘You cling to that, Elfred. And sharpen your knives. The King and Lancaster are not coming.’

  28

  Prince Edward and his commanders watched the Cardinal and his entourage turn their donkeys and ride back to the French King and his army, a dozen miles away, where they waited for news of whether Prince Edward accepted the Cardinal’s peace proposals. King John was intemperate, but had enough sense to know when a papal legation could serve his purpose. Keep the English Prince talking long enough and he would further exhaust his supplies. Time bought would allow even more French reinforcements to join the army.

  The Prince spoke quickly, flourishing a document: ‘Relinquish all that we have taken. Surrender all conquests in France from the past three years, pay two hundred thousand nobles in recompense, repair all that we have damaged and they will let Navarre out of prison.’

  ‘My lord,’ Suffolk asked, ‘are you of a mind to accept?’

  ‘Would you deny us betrothal to a daughter of the King? It’s what’s promised if we agree. She would bring us the county of Angoulême as her dowry. Good lands, Suffolk. Another foothold for the King. Can you deny us that? A good match, Sir Gilbert, would you say?’

  ‘A fine dowry, my lord, but I’ll wager this daughter has teats like crab apples, a face like a rat and the breath of a dog.’

  No one could restrain their laughter, except the Prince himself, whose silence cut them short. Prince Edward faced him. ‘You offend a royal house, Sir Gilbert.’

  ‘Only if they are French, my lord,’ Sir Gilbert answered simply.

  The Prince smiled, crumpling the peace proposal. ‘Prepare to move,’ he told his commanders. ‘We use the time the Cardinal takes to explain his proposals to King John to get ourselves closer to Bordeaux. Let them think we are considering their offer.’

  ‘Do we find ground and fight, sire?’ Killbere asked.

  ‘We run as hard and fast as we can, Sir Gilbert, and pray the Cardinal convinces King John that we have no wish to confront him. Now, where’s that insolent Blackstone?’

  Killbere pointed across the meadows to where the mounted knight turned away from the companies of archers. Their cheer could be heard within the walls of the stone fortress.

  ‘He’s a war leader, my lord,’ Killbere said simply.

  Edward turned from the room. ‘Then there’s the pity. Because there’s no damned war for him to fight!’ retorted the Prince.

  Within the hour Prince Edward led an English army that pulled itself along like a crippled soldier. Sir Gilbert and Blackstone were summoned, and rode alongside him.

  ‘We will not be shamed into battle. You will not speak to your Prince with such insolence ever again. It is not for you to know what lies in our mind, Blackstone,’ he said.

  ‘I apologize, sire, but it’s not only France that will be lost should you surrender, but the glory of England. There’s no country in the world that doesn’t know of our King’s greatness. The heart needs to spur a man’s mind,’ Blackstone answered.

  ‘You’re a common man, Thomas. You behave as a base archer who would cut a man’s throat to see how long it took for him to die. You offend your rank if you believe that you were knighted so you could hurl insult and abuse at your King’s Prince. Had he been here he would have had a rope around your neck for such insolence.’

  ‘That you did not, sire, shows an understanding greater than that of even his highness, and I mean no disrespect to my sovereign lord.’

  ‘I wonder, Thomas. Do you respect anything or anyone?’

  ‘I respect a man who makes a necessary and difficult decision when an easier option is offered,’ Blackstone said carefully. He wasn’t yet free of any charge of impertinence.

  Edward rode on in silence for another minute.

  ‘You want revenge, Thomas, and you wish to use me to secure it,’ the Prince said finally. ‘I know what happened to de Harcourt. Our father also has his spies in the French court. Do not deny it.’

  ‘I do not, my lord.’

  ‘And Father Torellini’s message from the King? Was I to surrender?’

  ‘The King wishes that you return safely, unharmed and without ransom. The decision to yield should be yours,’ Blackstone admitted.

  Prince Edward turned to look at Blackstone. ‘Don’t ever lie to your Prince again. Not even by omission.’

  Blackstone held his gaze. ‘Everything I said was true, my lord. We should not leave this country with dishonour.’

  Prince Edward knew Blackstone would not recant his accusation of the brutal campaign he had led across France these several months. It had been bloody and merciless. It had been necessary. Scouring a man’s skin to the bone while no one tried to defend him was no different from John the Good standing aside while his country was put to the torch. The dishonour lay with the French King.

  ‘The French King’s army grows stronger by the hour; we need to know how long we have before finding a suitable place to make our stand,’ the Prince told him. ‘You and Sir Gilbert will ride ahead with thirty men and find me such a place. We’ve a day – two at best.’

  ‘You’ll fight then, my lord?’ Killbere asked.

  The Prince stared ahead to a road that led to an uncertain future.

  ‘It was always our intention to do so,’ he said. A glint flashed in his eyes. A smile barely curved his mouth. A great battle and a chance for victory over the French King could not be denied.

  Blackstone and Killbere urged their horses on as Salisbury spurred his horse to take their place.

  ‘I’d have had him staked out and flogged and sent back to his French whore tied backwards on a donkey,’ the old warrior said.

  Edward smiled. ‘No, William, you would not. You value him as much as we do. He will die to see justice done. You cannot ask more of a man than that.’ Prince Edward raised a flask to his lips and swilled the dryness from his throat. ‘And his wife is no French whore. She’s a Norman whose father died defending his land against us. We should thank God that Blackstone still fights on the side of the English.’

  Blackstone and Killbere searched the skyline for French forces and bands of routiers. The English army needed to gain ground if they were to stay ahead of their enemy. If de Marcy’s routiers were riding with the regulars they were most likely acting as their scouts. Killbere’s outriders reported that French pennons could be seen beyond the hills.

  ‘They’ve outmanoeuvred us,’ Killbere said. ‘Bastard French whoreson wasn’t listening to any parley; he’s covering his arse with steel-plated breeches.’

  ‘He can move faster than us. He’ll be close to the Roman road at Poitiers. We can worry him enough to let Edward bring the main body forward. We have to get men up here with us.’

  Killbere sent riders back to the Prince with the message that the French were close to cutting off his route to Bordeaux.

  ‘Whether Edward had played for time or not,’ Killbere told Blackstone, ‘he’s no choice now but to fight!’

  But Edward sent no troops. He force-marched his army south as Blackstone rode tirelessly back and forth from the scouts, reporting everything they had seen. If the English had not been slowed by the lumbering baggage carts they might well have stumbled into the rear echelons of the French before they made their river crossing to the south of Edward’s march.

  The River Vienne separated the forest from the southern route of the French army. ‘Here, my lord,’ Blacks
tone said, as he drew a line in the dirt. ‘Here is a bridge at Chauvigny; King John would turn his army across the bridge and reach the Roman road south of Poitiers cutting you off. If he gets there before you, there is no escape. If we can hold him – push him away from that route – then you can keep moving around Poitiers towards Bordeaux until you choose to fight. Give Sir Gilbert and me two or three hundred men-at-arms and mounted archers and we’ll attack their rearguard. You keep the army moving through the forest and get to the road. King John won’t know how close we are. Push hard, sire. We can hurt him.’

  ‘It can’t be done, my lord,’ Warwick said. ‘We’ve already covered twenty miles today. We won’t make it in time.’

  ‘And even if we could, we’d be in no fit state to fight,’ Salisbury added. ‘We’re desperate for water.’

  ‘Give him the men,’ Oxford argued. His battle-hardened knights Richard Cobham and James Audley would take the fight down the enemy’s throat. ‘Cobham and Audley can hamstring the bastards from their rear and Blackstone and Killbere can go at their flanks. We can wound him. Blackstone is right; it will break their marching order or at least put the fear of Christ into them.’

  Blackstone stayed silent as the commanders argued and considered their options.

  ‘No,’ Edward said finally. ‘We’ll not split our forces. Find a place that gives us an advantage, Blackstone. Find it so we can choose when we fight.’

  Blackstone and Killbere, who took some time to cease from cursing Edward’s decision, shadowed the French army. They were out of sight behind the low hills, but the air held the murmur of armoured men, horses and equipment moving relentlessly.

  The two men, with the few soldiers who remained with them, rode on in silence, pushing further south through the forest, when Blackstone suddenly gestured them to halt. They had stumbled within sight of a considerable number of men-at-arms, the French rearguard, their image broken in the distance by two hundred yards of trees. Blackstone held back the men, all nervous of their presence being betrayed by the neighing of a horse or a movement an observant French knight might see. Blackstone gauged the number of riders. Each block of French men-at-arms that passed through the gap in the trees numbered at least seventy. It took little time to realize that there were several hundred of them.