Viper's Blood

by David Gilman

  ‘A drunk does not know honour. He knows self-indulgent misery and violence. I have benefited from the King and the Prince; both have honoured me in their own way. Both have chosen to ignore my time in purgatory,’ said Blackstone.

  Chandos grunted. It was a good answer. ‘I can see why you have such a loyal following from your men and the favour of our sovereign lords. None of us know when we might slip into the darkness of the abyss and fewer still know whether we have the strength to admit the affliction and haul ourselves back into the light.’

  They had reached the group of men who bent over the felled trees and were tapping wedges into their length to split them. An adze was skilfully employed to fashion the logs into long planks for side rails, and then holes were drilled ready for the hewn rungs to be hammered into place. The men had cut a mortise into each end of the two rails and then tapped in the holding bars for rigidity. The scaling ladders were built for strength, able to bear the weight of fighting men as they clambered up onto the walls. Iron spikes were driven into the feet to stop the ladders slipping. Chandos’s men knew what they were doing.

  ‘You’ve how many fighting men? Twenty or so?’ said Chandos. ‘You’ll not take your archers over?’

  Blackstone shook his head. ‘Men-at-arms first. My centenar will bring some of his men up onto the wall once it’s breached; they can help cover us so we can reach the gate.’ Blackstone looked at the length of the three ladders nearing completion and guessed they were going to be thirty feet long. That was a high climb and gave the defenders plenty of time to inflict injury and death on his men.

  ‘Show me the walls,’ he said.

  *

  Sir John Chandos picked a piece of meat from his teeth and gazed out across the terrain that lay between his troops’ position in the forest and the well-defended town a few hundred yards away. A ringlet of shallow ditches had been dug in front of and behind the remains of ancient walls that lay crumbling, barely chest high in some places. An orchard had survived the town commander’s cutting down of the forest that once grew closer to the town’s walls.

  ‘There’s one gate in across that row of ditches,’ said Chandos, pointing towards the heavily built gate at the far side of a fixed wooden bridge that straddled the nearest ditch to the wall. ‘I cannot assault Cormiers in daylight because the crossbowmen would slaughter us. By the time we try and clamber up and down those ditches we would have no cover. And those tree stumps will slow us down even more.’

  Blackstone studied the walls. They had been well built and there was no sign of weakness, no postern gate to assault and none that had been walled up. No battering ram would get close enough to take down that gate. ‘Those walls are higher than thirty feet,’ he said, turning to face the man who lay next to him, each of them shielded from the watchful eyes of the sentries on the walls by low branches.

  Chandos shrugged. ‘Not by much. A couple of feet perhaps. You will breach the walls with a bit of effort,’ he said, smiling, and continued to peel an apple until the skin formed an unbroken ribbon. He cut a slice and handed it to Blackstone, who accepted. There was little point in chastising Sir John for his miscalculation. It would not have been his mistake; it was likely one of his captains.

  ‘I was told there were two hundred troops inside,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘I had scouts here watching for three days. We cannot be sure how many there are but the knight who holds the town had at least a hundred men under his command and the Dauphin sent another hundred more to secure the mint. The commander’s name is Louis de Joigny. He is by all accounts a harsh man, like so many of these French noblemen. I find them more amenable when they lie dead on a battlefield.’

  Blackstone shrugged. The regional lord’s name meant nothing. It was unimportant, though what he protected was. ‘Only soldiers? How loyal are the people?’

  ‘We’ve seen townsmen on the walls and villagers have taken refuge inside the town, so there might be militia as well. The villagers took in food. We think the town has grain and wine and we saw enough hay carts carrying fodder.’

  ‘They’ve cavalry?’ Blackstone asked. ‘If they ride through the streets we won’t have much chance of living through it.’

  ‘No, the fodder was for cattle and sheep the peasants herded inside. But we could use it for our horses once we’ve taken the place. The Dauphin has played a good hand. The villagers desert their homes and go into the towns taking what they can, burning everything left behind. They leave us nothing.’ He teased fingers through his beard. ‘But if we seize the gold and silver in there at least the Dauphin can’t buy routiers to attack us. They swarm everywhere and in strength. If they sniff there’s gold here they won’t wait for the Dauphin to offer it. They’ll come to take it for themselves and we don’t have the strength to fight both.’ He nodded, pointing with the chewed twig he had used to pick his teeth. ‘The keep. That’s where the money will be.’

  Blackstone could just make out the squat roof of the town’s keep rising above the walls. The French commander’s banner showed three broad black stripes and a ram’s head.

  ‘It’s an ancient town. That’s more like an old three-storey hall,’ said Blackstone. ‘I can see they had good stonemasons for rebuilding the town’s walls but that’s older; I’ll wager we could tear that down with our hands if we had to. What we don’t want is for them to barricade themselves inside because then…’ He let the words hang. To fight inside an enclosed space meant too many men would die.

  Blackstone and Chandos fell silent. Both were at a disadvantage in trying to take the town.

  ‘The orchard,’ said Blackstone. ‘I’ll use it as far as those ditches and low walls. You’ll have to keep your men back in the trees until you see we’re inside.’

  ‘I agree. I’ll hold them in the forest but the moment I see you go over the walls we will make for the gate. I doubt we will get closer than a hundred… perhaps a hundred and fifty yards… There… that second row of ditches in front of the gate. We’re exposed until you raise it. I cannot risk getting any closer in case you fail.’

  Blackstone had seen enough. ‘Be ready, Sir John. We won’t fail.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Darkness and rain smothered any movement or sound as Blackstone’s men inched their way forward. Daylight had imprinted the town’s fortifications in Blackstone’s mind and by nightfall he had advanced with his men from the woodland five hundred yards from the town’s eastern wall. The men-at-arms sweated and cursed as they carried the cumbersome ladders, the weight slowing their advance, splinters snagging their callused hands, although the men ignored the stings. The fighters slithered their way forward, bent double and then crawling, using the orchard for cover.

  Will Longdon hunched down with twenty archers behind him, the remainder of the bowmen kept as a rearguard with the horses. Jack Halfpenny was at the end of the line of men lying flat on the wet ground. Blackstone, Killbere, Meulon and Gaillard sat with the twenty-six men-at-arms below the broken walls that had been built by Roman legionaries but had crumbled centuries before. Beyond the shallow ditch and ruined fortifications the town’s walls rose up forty feet, rebuilt by a royal captain a dozen years earlier. They were a further one hundred yard-long strides across two four-foot-deep ditches.

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Will Longdon quietly, having crawled forward to peer through the darkness at the looming shadow of the walls. ‘The damned ladders are too short.’

  ‘Did you expect Chandos’s men to ease your journey?’ said Meulon. ‘Your arse is even shorter. We’ll have to throw you over.’

  There was a glint of teeth in the darkness. Someone blew snot from his nose. Another broke wind.

  ‘Merciful God,’ whispered Killbere, ‘that stench could alert the night watch on the walls.’

  ‘It will slay the night watch,’ said Gaillard and those close to him felt him half turn in the darkness as he hissed an order to the waiting men. ‘Tighten your arses. No man under my command will shit himself. You’ve en
ough brandy in you for warmth and courage.’

  Blackstone had made sure that every man had been given enough of the brandy seized from the routiers to deaden the fear that faced them all. The town was well defended by men who outnumbered them. If Chandos’s captain couldn’t get the length of the ladders right then his estimate of the garrison’s strength might well be inaccurate too.

  A figure moved in the darkness in front of them and the men’s breathing quietened in anticipation. A voice whispered warning: ‘Sir Thomas.’ It was John Jacob and Perinne returning from their reconnaissance of the walls. They clambered over the low parapet and slumped into the ditch. Perinne pulled off his steel skullcap helmet and sucked in his breath. A reluctant moon gave brief illumination as the rainclouds scuttled away and exposed a patch of sky. Both men were soaking wet and John Jacob’s legs and chest showed that he had slithered through mud.

  ‘I think I found where to go over,’ said John Jacob quietly, gratefully accepting the flask of brandy from Killbere’s outstretched hand. He took a mouthful and let the sharp liquid catch his breath. He handed the flask to Perinne without any complaint from Killbere. ‘Thirty yards down on the right. Perinne saw that the ditch’s bank rises beneath the walls. When they dug the defences they piled the dirt too high. The ladders will reach.’ He grinned.

  Blackstone grunted in satisfaction. He turned to Will Longdon. The archers’ bow cords were not yet fastened, protected from the rain beneath the men’s helmets and caps. So too the arrows’ goose-feather fletchings in their waxed linen bags. The sheaf of arrows each man carried was not enough for a sustained fight but once they were over the walls and Chandos’s men were through the gates there would be little need for the archers in the confines of the narrow streets. They would fight with knife and sword. By the time the invaders reached the keep and the town’s final defence the archers would be resupplied.

  ‘Will,’ said Blackstone. ‘Keep half a dozen men fifty paces from the walls. Use the ditches for cover. As soon as we are on the wall, kill the night watch, especially anyone in that watchtower.’

  Will Longdon screwed up his eyes at the walls. The darkness gave them little chance of seeing the night watch let alone anyone in the dim watchtower. ‘We’ll need some light, Thomas. Pray the moon breaks through.’

  ‘The night watch will silhouette against this sky. You’ll see them move even in darkness – there’s enough light behind the clouds’, said Blackstone. ‘Once you’ve killed them bring the others inside and flank us on the walls. Cover the yard below until we get across the town square to the gates. Then be at our backs.’

  Longdon nodded. ‘God be with you, Thomas,’ he whispered.

  ‘And with your aim, Will,’ he answered.

  Longdon grinned and crawled back to his men.

  ‘Gaillard, you take the middle ladder. Meulon the right. I’ll go left with John and Sir Gilbert.’ The two Normans grunted their understanding and crouched through the orchard to where their men waited. Each man leading the assault would have only his share of the twenty-six men-at-arms. It was Blackstone’s job to open the town’s gate and bring in Chandos’s men for the assault through the town.

  ‘I’ll take a dozen men for the gates,’ said Killbere.

  ‘No, I want you at my back, Gilbert.’

  ‘Standing in the dark with my cock in my hand? Thomas, I’ll fight for the gate.’

  Blackstone edged closer to the veteran knight. He whispered, ‘You’ve the chills and you tremble. Were you any other man I would have kept you back with the horses. You’re my rearguard once I’m in that yard. They’ll come from the streets and alleys, Gilbert. You can stand firm with half a dozen men and Will’s archers.’

  ‘Thomas, I –’

  ‘No argument, Gilbert. Cover my back or join Henry with the horses.’

  He heard Killbere suck his teeth in subdued protest. ‘Then let’s get on with it,’ he complained and grabbed one of the ladder’s rails. It would take three men to manoeuvre the heavy ladders across the undulating ground and then heave them up the bank of the ditch. His anger gave him the strength to show the men he was no weakling despite the aching that had begun to seize his muscles.

  John Jacob grabbed the middle of the ladder as Perinne took the end. Blackstone ran forward crouching. Men slipped and cursed, recovered and then managed to follow the towering shadow towards the wall. Within minutes the half-light showed them the rising bank identified by John Jacob. They slithered up, kept their curses to themselves and once there hugged the walls. Much depended on Will Longdon’s skill and timing in killing the night watch on the wall. At each end of the wall a man stood guard with two more in the watchtower. There was little doubt that even when the sentries were slain the action would alert those in the guardhouse, who could quickly break the winding devices for the gate, and then a defence would be rallied and Blackstone’s men caught like rats in the town square. Chandos’s men would be forced to make their way around the walls under fire. Casualties would be high and the survivors would then have to clamber up the ladders. Everything depended on those arrows finding their marks.

  ‘All right,’ said Blackstone. Men eased the ladders up, ramming the spiked ends into the ground. No sooner were they planted than Blackstone was already climbing hand over hand, shield across his back, Wolf Sword held in the ring at his belt, its naked blade free of its scabbard, unhindered when drawn. A lesson learnt more than a dozen lifetimes ago at the battle for the great city of Caen. A lesson given by the man who grunted his way behind him. Sir Gilbert Killbere.

  The gods of war laughed at the Englishman and sent a gust of wind to push the clouds from the moon. Rain swept across the rooftops and with snare-drum urgency on slate roofs declared its retreat into the forest beyond. Caught in the glare of the moon Blackstone reached the top of the wall and clambered over. Neither sentry left or right had looked around, but as Blackstone drew Wolf Sword the scrape of hardened steel against the holding ring made one man turn. Blackstone was upwind. In an instant the man had twisted around, face contorted, his mouth widening into a call to arms. Blackstone knew he would never reach him in time, but strode towards him as his men breached the parapet behind him. Before the man’s scream echoed across the cobbled square an ash shaft whispered through the air and took him through the jaw. Barely a breath later two more arrows thudded into him. The man crumpled, his spear clattering. The sound would have been heard by the other sentry behind Blackstone on the far end of the wall, but he was already dead, struck down by the deadly skill of the archers. There were distinct sounds of steel-tipped arrows tearing bone and flesh as the night-watch sentries went down at their posts. Had they survived moments longer those on the far walls would have seen Blackstone’s men. Somewhere in the darkness a dog barked. And then another. The barking increased as if each dog were calling its warning to its neighbour.

  The watchtower sentry was the more difficult target, but Blackstone knew he had to ignore him; he was Will Longdon’s mark. Blackstone raced along the walkway towards the gate and those he hoped still slept in the guardhouse. The sentry cried out when he saw the invading shadows. His shout of alarm was dulled by the wind but it would have been heard. Blackstone saw the man’s hand reaching for the bell rope. Arrows thudded into the wooden structure, the archers’ aim thrown off by the shadows in the watchtower. Another cry of alarm, its urgency stifled by the wooden roof and the wind. Blackstone’s eyes locked on the man. There were seventy paces to the steps that led down into the square, another 140 or more to the gates. Kill him! his mind yelled. Goddammit, Will. Kill him! The shadow that was the watchtower sentry suddenly bucked, head whipping back, arms splayed. An arrow had taken him through the eye and pierced his skull. The shaft pinned the man’s head to one of the wooden posts and for a few seconds made his arms flap in a macabre simulacrum of flight. The man’s death throes tore his body free and one flailing arm caught the bell’s rope.

  Blackstone went down the steps into the square two at a time. T
he cobbles glistened from the night’s rain, moonlight glinting, its sheen soon to be tainted with blood. Across the open space another set of steps rose up to the opposite parapet where a windlass was positioned above the gate entrance. A chain descended to the base of the heavy, iron-studded top-hung gate so that it could be raised horizontally.

  No commands were given and none were needed. Footfalls chased after him. He turned and saw his men streaming down the steps and as Perinne and John Jacob followed him Killbere and the others ran into the square.

  ‘Thomas,’ yelled Killbere. ‘Be quick!’

  Hundreds of fireflies shimmered from the dark alleys. Burning torches. And what had been silence a few heartbeats before was now overtaken by a rising roar of men’s voices as from the streets and alleys men and women advanced in a surging line, torches held high. Fear and anger mingled in their throats. They carried pitchforks and scythes, falchions and iron bars. Women held kitchen knives ready to stab, their voices an eerie pitch that could raise the dead. Anger and fear drove them against the English invaders. And the French troops who pushed their swords into their backs. The garrison were using them as shields against the Englishmen.

  Blackstone saw the threat. They would be overwhelmed. A greater fear needed to be inflicted. He raised his sword arm towards Longdon and his archers on the walls. ‘Kill them!’