Defiant Unto Death

by David Gilman

  ‘A dozen times and more. You need to be at their front, man.’

  ‘De Marcy first. Then we’ll see.’

  Blackstone’s weariness showed. He folded Christiana’s token against the wound in his side and secured it by tightening his sword belt.

  ‘Cut the bastard’s throat and be done with it. Let it go, man. What’s the point?’ Killbere urged him.

  ‘I want him under my sword.’

  ‘Thomas,’ Killbere groaned. ‘Thomas … sweet, merciful God, he’s a stain from the devil’s loins. Tie him to a stake and burn him if you must have revenge, but you’re hurt, and those men you killed took their toll. In truth, you’re in no condition to take him. And he carries as great a hatred as you.’

  ‘Gilbert, I’ve known you since I was a boy, and you’ve always been a belligerent, conceited bastard with an unmerciful heart.’

  ‘This is no time for compliments, Thomas.’

  Blackstone lifted the sword. ‘So if he kills me, show him no mercy and slaughter him however you choose.’

  Killbere made no humour from it, but nodded and spurred the horse away. Thomas Blackstone would face his own destiny.

  Memories of men standing before their enemy, calling out for a champion, appeared like a vision in his mind’s eye. Drums and trumpets, ten thousand banners, lances held high, armour embellished by surcoats of every hue. Pomp and ceremony declaring war as, shoulder to shoulder, men jostled for position to be the first to attack, to seek the glory that would live on in their family history and be recounted by troubadours.

  Not this day.

  Two belligerent forces faced each other across three hundred yards of open field. Men lost to peace, devoted to war without glory, intent only on profit. No banners or royalty, no surge of pride for a king, a prince or a cause. They were there for the killing, for those who slaughtered the most would sell their skills to the highest bidder.

  The Savage Priest strode out of the gates wearing mail without armour, ready to strike hard and fast with agility. He seemed bigger than Blackstone remembered – his sallow face more gaunt, his dark-ringed eyes sunk deeper into his skull. His shield bore no markings; his black surcoat covered his mail. He appeared from the shadows of the great gates, as would the Grim Reaper.

  Gilles de Marcy stopped ten paces away.

  ‘I will punish your mortal body, Thomas Blackstone, and inflict more pain than you have known, and when you beg for mercy I’ll cut out your eyes and tongue, and render you blind and speechless. And then, in front of your wife and children I will cut out your heart and leave your corrupt flesh on this field for the crows and ravens. Without Christian burial your soul will be damned.’

  Blackstone had no doubt that a demonic force sheltered within the Savage Priest, but he had cut him once before in the darkened streets of a captured city and he bled like any other man. De Marcy’s words had no effect. He raised his shield and, as split and battered as it was, its declaration, Defiant unto Death, could still be seen. Blackstone gripped Wolf Sword and strode forward without challenge or battle cry, chilled by his own hatred.

  The Savage Priest ran at him and the two men struck, shields clashing, followed by vicious, hammering blows. Blackstone’s weight and height gave him a brief advantage, but de Marcy’s knights had weakened him against the strength and skill of a fresh fighter. He feinted, half turning from his wounded side, trying to draw de Marcy in, but the killer priest stepped back, found his balance and struck hard. The blow stunned Blackstone; he went down on one knee and the roar from the routiers surged across the field, but still de Marcy did not press home his advantage. Again he stepped back, waiting for the moment Blackstone was half raised, off balance. Then he struck again, two massive blows that cut through shield and broke mail. Blackstone’s shield fell. De Marcy’s men edged forward, war dogs on a leash, wanting the kill. Their captains screamed to hold them back, de Marcy’s rank and reputation enough to hold them in check. The Savage Priest would kill Blackstone and then, when his head was hoisted on a lance, Blackstone’s disheartened men would be vulnerable.

  Blackstone took a blow on Wolf Sword’s crossguard, twisted, and threw himself against de Marcy, so that they stood face to face, the priest’s glowering black eyes glinting in the darkness of his visor. Their chests heaved desperately for air, grunting with exertion as, sweat-soaked, they grappled, neither yielding. Blackstone rammed his shoulder against de Marcy’s shield, forcing strength into his legs, making the killer take two paces back, but he quickly retaliated and barged Blackstone, striking hard and fast, grunting with effort, determined to take the man’s legend as a trophy. Five, six, seven times he powered his blade onto Wolf Sword, but Blackstone twisted, half turned, used the sword’s pommel to crack down against de Marcy’s helmet. Stunned, the Savage Priest faltered, regained his stance, brought up his shield and struck down again and again. Blackstone took the punishment, feeling his arms weakening against the power of the blows, knowing he risked death but wanting to tire his attacker..

  And then Blackstone felt the surge of fresh strength settle within him, as if those he had vowed to avenge now bore witness. He moved in quickly before de Marcy delivered the next blow. His free hand gripped de Marcy’s scabbard belt and he yanked, tipping the man down. Wolf Sword smashed away the black shield; then Blackstone kicked up the man’s visor. De Marcy’s distorted face revealed the shock from the blow, but his unrelenting desire to kill Blackstone fed the hatred to retaliate. He rolled clear with a vicious swipe that cut through Blackstone’s leg mail. It was not a crippling injury and the pain made no impression. De Marcy followed his advantage and rained down blows, grunting and cursing with the effort. Blackstone deflected every strike and then stepped to one side as de Marcy delivered what should have been a maiming strike against his sword arm. He backhanded de Marcy with Wolf Sword’s pommel and felt bones crack in the man’s face.

  Flat-footed, de Marcy was rocked back by the impact. His sword arm barely half-raised, Blackstone swept his blade down against his opponent’s gauntlet, shattering his wrist. De Marcy’s body crimped with the excruciating pain. Blackstone rammed the Wolf Sword’s narrow point through mail into the vulnerable shoulder and de Marcy cried out in agony. Blackstone kicked his legs away and as the priest thudded to the ground he dropped his full weight onto the man’s chest. A fine spray of bloody air plumed from the stunned priest’s face. De Marcy’s eyes blinked in disbelief.

  ‘You bastard knight … you archer scum,’ he gasped. ‘You’ll … die on this … field with me.’

  A blurred image through sweat-streaked eyes showed Blackstone a bellowing mass of attacking men. Their faces contorted, their roar muted in his mind to a dull, flat gathering of sound like a wave about to break. His knee crushed down; his crooked left arm pressed against de Marcy’s throat, forcing his struggling head back into the grass.

  Blackstone pulled free his archer’s knife, held the Savage Priest’s eyes with his own. ‘Then die under an archer’s knife,’ he grunted; then he slammed down the visor and pushed the blade through the slit. In his steel tomb the Savage Priest screamed as his feet drummed on the bloodied ground. His body bucked, but Blackstone kept his weight on him and pressed the knife harder. De Marcy’s black eyes dimmed, his last sight in this world the face of the man who killed him. Blackstone turned his gaze away before the dying killer’s stare sucked his soul into hell.

  The breaking tide of men was within twenty paces. Blackstone reached for his sword, but was overtaken by the whispering hail that fell and then thudded into their bodies. He saw that a hundred men must have fallen in an instant, and, as another storm of arrows reached further into the attacking routiers, Killbere and John Jacob surged past with Meulon and Gaillard beside them. Blackstone stood across the Savage Priest’s body and let the men swirl around him.

  The day was already won.

  The battle lasted two hours, the fight so vicious that many were executed while begging for mercy. Few prisoners were taken. Once Killbere�
��s men and John Jacob’s Gascons hurled themselves in the vanguard of the battle, Blanche de Harcourt’s men became the unstoppable tide of destruction. Many of de Marcy’s men ran into the high forests to escape. Few stood their ground once their advantage was lost.

  Afterwards, Blackstone allowed nearly two hundred of the Savage Priest’s men – Englishmen, mostly veterans of Poitiers, and another sixty Gascon survivors – to swear fealty to him. The most vicious, whose crimes he learnt about from de Marcy’s clerks, he hanged on a bleak, windswept day. Twenty-seven Englishmen and eleven Germans and Hungarians kicked their lives away on the end of a rope, the driving rain across the valley tightening the hemp, contorting faces into grotesque gargoyles. The monks and whores would join the camp followers’ train, as did two French physicians who had been captured by de Marcy.

  Most men who fought accepted death, but the greatest fear of even the most vicious among them was that they might die unshriven of their sins. Cistercian monks from a nearby abbey went among the dying to grant absolution. Monastic scribes recorded that a mass grave was dug before the winter snows fell on the pass. Several hundred bodies were interred from what became known as ‘La Battaglia nella Valle dei Fiori’. Months later the events at the Battle at the Valley of Flowers found their way back to the English court where the story of Thomas Blackstone, outlawed knight, soon became a greater legend.

  The camp followers, their base lives worthless without the soldiers, went out from the forest to help the wounded. Christiana allowed one of the whores to wash her and a physician to tend her wounds. Blackstone was still on the field of battle with Killbere and the aftermath of the fighting. She did not allow the woman to bathe Agnes, which she did herself. Her daughter was fed and clothed and then slept the undisturbed sleep of childhood. Henry had made his way from the forest to find his father.

  ‘There’s no knowing where our hearts take us, Christiana,’ Blanche de Harcourt told her. ‘You chose him when he was the scourge of our nation. Now, he’s my family’s friend, and your husband. You should stay with him; he hasn’t condemned you for the violation, and he’ll stand by your shame. Why desert him now?’

  ‘I cannot explain what cripples my heart, Blanche. It is a small death that grows colder each day. My father was a gentle knight who nurtured me as a child when my mother died, and then saw me safe into your care.’ She looked down at her dirt-encrusted, broken nails, still caked with blood. ‘The filth clings to me as does the thought of his death at Thomas’s hands. That, and all that has happened. It changes everything for me.’

  ‘He didn’t know that at the time. Godfrey de Harcourt fought his own family for the world to see, but we reconciled. It was war,’ Blanche de Harcourt said, seeing the dullness in her friend’s eyes. Christiana was slipping away into that dark place of loss and grieving where no love can reach. ‘Once he learnt the truth did you expect him to tell you? He’s just killed the man who was the very reason your father sent you to us for protection. Thomas has closed the circle that was your destiny. Keep his name alive, Christiana. Have more of his children,’ she urged gently.

  Christiana shook her head.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Blanche said brusquely, desperately wanting to make Christiana realize what she was going to lose. ‘He can command you! He has guardianship over his children. If you challenge him he can take them. He could have beaten you and cast you out when he learnt what happened on the barge.’

  ‘He won’t do that because of his affection for me. I know him.’

  ‘Then you don’t deserve him,’ Blanche told her.

  ‘I know,’ Christiana answered, tears stinging her eyes. ‘Will you offer me and the children sanctuary and your protection?’

  Blackstone went among the men, sending the physicians where they were most needed, only then allowing one of the Cistercian monks to dress his own wound and remove Christiana’s piece of linen. The wide-eyed soaring bird on the token of affection now looked to be panicked, drowning in his bloodstains. Henry rode alongside his father, seeing the slaughtered men being dragged into the pit, entrails and severed limbs hooked with poleaxes and spears and tossed in after them. His father watched for his reaction but the boy remained stoic.

  It took three days for the weather to clear, during which time Christiana did not speak to or see Blackstone. The plunder was divided and each company given its share. Every man knew what every other had received. Blackstone offered release from his service to any man who desired it. Thirty or so men decided to return to France, most of them with the women they had seized along the way. The core of Blanche de Harcourt’s retinue who had survived the battle – 173 men-at-arms – would escort her back to her fiefdom of Aumale in Normandy, her rightful place of inheritance.

  Blackstone and Christiana stood in the forest; beyond them, scattered groups of men and women loaded pack horses, and armour and weapons were stacked aboard wagons. In the bright, clear light of the meadow, where Montferrat’s banner flew from the castle ramparts, Killbere and the company commanders organized their men into formation. The killing had reduced their ranks to several hundred, but they were expert, well-disciplined fighters, worth more than twice that number of untried men.

  ‘The country of the Lombards is not my home, Thomas,’ Christiana told him. ‘You’ll have an itinerant life of war now; I want my children to find a refuge and a home. If you will release us, Blanche will take us back.’

  Blackstone sought the words that might embrace her, but the struggle seemed uneven. ‘I’ll soon have wealth, and be paid as a condottiere by Florence – such a contract is generous. The hard fighting is over. A home with land and servants awaits us. I stand ready to do anything that will keep you and the children with me,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t stop fighting,’ she answered.

  ‘It’s what I do,’ he said.

  ‘You command men; you do not have to fight.’

  ‘That day will come soon enough – until then, I earn their respect.’

  ‘And risk losing mine.’

  ‘I always thought I had that in equal measure to your love,’ he said quietly, reaching for her hand, feeling her small fingers beneath his own. He sensed she might be drawn back to him. ‘That river we once crossed was so dangerous, but we clung to each other and we reached the shore. This is just another river, Christiana. Hold tight and trust me again.’

  ‘I cannot. I need time for this torment to abandon me. We will be safe and I’ll pray for your well-being, Thomas. I beg you, do not force me against my will. Let us hope our time will come again.’

  She raised her face to his, and kissed his cheek. ‘Goodbye, Thomas.’

  The horsemen gathered on the trampled, bloodstained meadow. Blackstone rode at the head of his men, as did Blanche de Harcourt at hers.

  Each went forward to bid the other farewell.

  ‘I’ll keep her with me; perhaps she will find some respite,’ Blanche de Harcourt told him.

  ‘Send me word,’ Blackstone answered.

  He looked across to Henry who sat on a courser a pace behind the Countess, with Guillaume’s dagger – which he himself had retrieved – tucked into his belt. Blackstone tied the dead squire’s sword and scabbard to the saddle’s pommel. ‘Remember, son, never relinquish a sword taken in battle. Sir Gilbert told me that.’

  ‘I didn’t earn it, Father,’ the boy answered.

  ‘Every man here saw you earn it with your courage, as once did Guillaume Bourdin. He was the bravest man I have known and fought always at my side. It carries honour with it. That’s why it is given to you.’

  He reached for the boy’s hand and held it fast for a moment. ‘I want you at my side. You would soon be my squire.’

  He saw the boy’s conflict. ‘Father, who will care for Agnes and Mother if I am not with them? When they release me, I will find you – I promise … my lord.’ He turned his horse away to find his place at Christiana and Agnes’s side.

  ‘I’ll place him with a good family, close to my own
, and he’ll be given the finest of skills, Thomas. And when he’s of age, then I’ll send him to you,’ said Blanche.

  Less than an hour earlier he had held Agnes for the last time, feeling her tender body against his own, telling her a story about a great journey that must be undertaken, of how he had to travel to find out tales of goblins, faeries and monsters, and places where angels lived in the mountains.

  ‘And then you’ll come home and tell me?’ she asked.

  ‘I promise,’ he told her, feeling the sadness of all that had gone before and the desperate pain of what he was about to lose. There was little left except the brotherhood of his men and that sustained him. ‘On my honour,’ he whispered.

  She traced his scar and kissed him.

  There were no words left to say. He turned his horse towards the mountains with his men following his banner carrying the device of the gauntlet grasping the sword.

  The Marquis de Montferrat claimed the fortress as his own and sent word to Pope Innocent that no routier would pass unless a tribute was paid, half of which would be given to the papal coffers. Girolami, wounded in the battle for the castle by an unknown archer, was treated by a physician and sent back to his master Galeazzo Visconti with the news that the powerful Milanese lord had lost control of the western approach into his territory – and that the man who had inflicted this defeat was the Englishman, Sir Thomas Blackstone.

  It took days before news of the battle reached the Pope, and another ten before Father Niccolò Torellini heard of the event. Florence was at war with Milan and fighting men were needed if the Visconti family was ever to be beaten. Father Niccolò thanked God that it had been he who had once absolved the dying Englishman, for it seemed God had now placed him ready to serve. The messenger related how the English knight had buried his squire and cut the stone himself to mark the grave, and then chiselled a memorial into the rock.

  This stone marks the resting place of Master Guillaume Bourdin, esquire to the English knight, Sir Thomas Blackstone, cruelly slain in defence of the helpless by Gilles de Marcy, the Savage Priest.