by David Gilman
‘Go and collect two handfuls and then bring it to me.’ Henry nodded and turned. ‘Wait,’ she ordered. ‘I also need a cooking pot and water for this fire. Bring it all before nightfall.’
Aelis wiped Killbere’s face. ‘Now, we must treat the wound. First one thing and then tomorrow at first light another. Turn him,’ she ordered.
Blackstone eased Killbere onto his uninjured side as she opened a clay jar of astringent-smelling ointment. ‘Comfrey and thyme,’ she told Blackstone. ‘This will stay on his wound tonight, and then tomorrow if he is still alive we will use the plantain. Each has its own healing qualities.’
Blackstone nodded. He had seen such balms and poultices used before.
Aelis smeared balm on the wound and laid a clean piece of cut linen across it. ‘You will stay awake tonight, Sir Thomas, and give him six spoons of this throughout the night,’ she said, reaching for the clay pot of broth that nestled in the embers of the fire. She lifted its lid. Wisps of steam escaped. ‘Do not scald him; warm broth is what he needs. I have put herbs in it.’ She gave Blackstone the church candle. ‘Make equal marks down its length. Feed him whenever the flame reaches the mark.’
Blackstone scored the candle equally down its length with his knife and replaced it on the three-legged stool near Killbere’s mattress.
‘And what will you do?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Do you pray or cast spells? What powers do you invoke to save my friend?’
She moved away from Killbere into the corner. ‘I invoke sleep,’ she said and pulled the cloak over her. ‘I hurt and I must rest.’ She curled up. ‘If he dies then I can do no more for him so kill me or let me sleep.’
*
As the night wore on there was little sound to be heard over the roofs of Balon. The breeze had shifted, but the rain held off. It would benefit the night watch on the walls. Blackstone knew there was no need for any high degree of vigilance: unlike his own men night attack was a skill few had. The town’s granges were well stocked with food and wine and by the time the town fell into darkness every man had bathed and fed. Blackstone’s captains organized their men into pickets that alternated throughout the night.
As the long hours dragged by attending to feeding Killbere, Blackstone kept himself awake remembering the dozen years and more that had brought him to this place. Each memory was etched on his heart like a nick on a sword’s blade. And the man who lay close to death on the mattress in front of him featured strongly, at first a guardian and then a friend. The candle flickered as the flame touched the last mark. As Blackstone’s mind ranged across landscapes and places yearning for his loved ones overtook him. He turned his face away from the spectres that filtered through the shrouds of darkness. His mind told him that he must be asleep but he could not force open his eyes. His mind’s eye saw the walls cast looming shadows and, like a ghost hovering in the room, a black-cloaked hooded figure leaning across Killbere. A stab of fear pierced him. Was this the angel of death come to take the knight? A slow, hypnotic chant emanated from the figure. A chant that seemed to be Latin but was not; it sounded like an old language that might summon ancient spirits. The cloaked figure took the form of a woman rocking slowly back and forth across the wounded man. Blackstone could not see the dark angel’s face but saw that her breasts moved rhythmically. He willed himself to break free from the dream but could not. He heard Killbere grunt. The woman turned her head; the cloak fell back exposing her thighs that straddled his friend. And then as Blackstone fought like a drowning man for the surface the woman was gone.
Blackstone dragged himself awake. He lurched forward, cursing himself for succumbing to sleep, and saw and heard the candle wax spluttering. He raised his friend’s head ready to spoon the broth between his lips. Killbere’s eyes fluttered and his lips parted, uttering a whisper. Blackstone lowered his face to hear what his friend said.
‘She was here,’ Killbere murmured.
‘Who?’ said Blackstone, relieved that his friend had finally regained consciousness.
Killbere smiled. ‘My nun. She came and lay with me.’ He coughed from the effort of talking. His lips relaxed into a smile and his eyes closed as he slipped into a fever-free slumber.
Blackstone eased Killbere’s head down onto the pillow. The room suddenly turned cold. It had been no dream. He could not have shared his friend’s illusion. It was not possible. His spine tingled. He turned and looked to where Aelis lay in the corner of the room. She was gone. Her dress lay crumpled. He got to his feet and, holding the candle before him, stepped into the darkened passage. Aelis was facing him, eyes bright in the dull candlelight, her nakedness obvious beneath the cloak. Blackstone pressed his back to the wall. It was as if an apparition had appeared.
‘Sir Thomas?’ she said quietly, her eyes questioning.
‘Where have you been?’ he said, forcing the uncertainty from his voice.
‘I needed to relieve myself,’ she said.
‘You’ve discarded your dress.’
‘I was hot. The fire gave enough warmth.’
‘How long have you been out of the room?’
She reached out and took the candle from his hand. The hot wax dripped onto his skin but he ignored it.
‘Not long,’ she answered. And then brushed past him.
There could be no explanation other than Aelis had been the woman he had seen with Killbere. He turned after her, an inexplicable desire to take her surging through him. He snatched at her arm, forcing the candle to fall and extinguish. The glow from the firelight caught her face. She showed no sign of fear. His mouth went to hers and his hand cupped her breast. And then he hesitated.
‘You are no different than the others,’ she said, as if his attempt had been no surprise.
He pushed her away, his fist gripping her cloak. ‘You lay with him.’
‘I drew the poison from inside him. He has already been bled. His vomit, his seed. All must be taken. And to do that I use whatever skills I have been given. Condemn me or pay me. There is a price for what I do.’
‘You’re a common whore,’ he said, unable to disguise the lust for her in his voice. ‘Get dressed.’
‘I am Aelis de Travaux. The daughter of a man who healed the sick and never caused harm. My mother nurtured my skills and my father gave me his knowledge. Your friend has benefited from this. You promised payment if he lived through the night. See for yourself,’ she said without turning to face the small window.
Blackstone looked past her and saw the light seeping into the grey sky. The town’s night watchman’s cries declared the town to be safe and that the good citizens of Balon should be out of their beds.
‘How much to save a good man?’ Blackstone said derisively.
‘I give you his life freely. The price I want is for those who injured me and my father to pay for the hurt.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The town went about its business, avoiding the macabre twisted figure of the man they had burnt to death. Blackstone ordered the mayor to bring before him the four men who had raped and tortured Aelis.
‘My lord…’ the mayor began. He was barely able to keep the stammer from his voice, yet was trying to assert his authority in front of the scarred Englishman. ‘These men have families and are tradesmen and as such are vital to our town’s welfare. I beg you not to cause them harm.’
Blackstone looked up to where Aelis stood at a window. ‘I made a bargain with the dead man’s daughter.’
The mayor shuffled nervously, wringing his hands. ‘Then you made a bargain with the devil’s daughter,’ he said vehemently. ‘I will not deliver these men to you.’
Blackstone considered the man’s defiance. ‘You have no manorial lord. The French knights who once lived here have deserted their land or been killed by the English or routiers. You have declared for King Edward of England as protection, and I serve the King. Are the men who raped and tortured her in the same tithing?’ He saw the look of concern on the mayor’s face. Each town’s population was divided
into tithings and each of those units swore to uphold the law. If one of its members committed a crime the others were obliged to bring him to justice. If they did not then they suffered a collective punishment.
‘Lord,’ said the mayor, swallowing two or three times in panic. ‘The tithing seized the old man at the behest of our priest.’
‘Who has already gone to hell most likely,’ Blackstone answered. ‘Bring all those men to me.’
‘We were forgiven our actions because they were done in the name of our Lord Christ.’
‘And de Travaux’s goods? Who took them? Who stole a dead man’s few possessions and a condemned girl’s clothing and potions? Was that done in His name?’
‘We were pardoned!’ insisted the mayor, jaw set firm. Blackstone sensed the man felt himself to be on firmer ground. His chin tilted. ‘We would have done penance before God; we would have fasted and prayed for doing what was necessary to rid ourselves of evil.’
‘And I want him as well,’ said Blackstone. And then to dismiss any doubt in the man’s mind: ‘The pardoner.’
The mayor realized he had no more bargaining power, no further means of protecting the town’s citizens. He seemed dazed, as if struck.
Blackstone nodded to Meulon and the big man stepped up to the mayor and handed him a piece of parchment. ‘Don’t try and bring us villeins who have come here for safety from their villages,’ Meulon growled. ‘We know peasants can be bought to take another man’s punishment. Not this time.’ He shoved the scrap into the mayor’s tunic. ‘We know who they are. Jean Agillot, Etienne Chardon, Petrus Gavray and Charles Pyvain.’
Meulon’s big hands turned the nervous mayor around and pushed him with enough force for him to take a few stumbling steps.
‘Bring them now,’ said Blackstone, ‘or lose our protection and have your gates burnt and your walls pulled down and then see how quickly the mercenary wolves find you.’
The mayor nodded and walked away. Across the square some of the townspeople had started to cluster, unsure of why their mayor had been summoned by the English knight. Their worst fears were confirmed when they saw the bowed head of the usually arrogant Malatrait, a man used to enforcing his authority over others, and his voice calling for the town’s constable. Heads turned, mouths uttered rumour and whispers spread like smoke through the alleyways.
‘We might be poking a stick into a wasps’ ‘nest,’ said John Jacob.
‘They won’t resist,’ said Blackstone.
‘Still,’ said Will Longdon, ‘we should have the men on the walls, don’t you think?’
Blackstone nodded. ‘Nothing too aggressive, Will. No arrows nocked and ready. Have the bows strung and the men warned. What we’re going to do to these four men will put the fear of Christ into these people. John, Meulon, have half the men-at-arms around the square. Renfred and the others at the stables. If the town rises up I don’t want the horses hamstrung.’
Blackstone stepped back and sat on a water trough. His captains waited with him.
Jack Halfpenny took Robert Thurgood onto the walls.
‘Christ, Jack, what do you think Sir Thomas has planned?’
Halfpenny directed his archers to where he wanted them. ‘You can be sure it’s going to cause pain,’ he said, nodding towards the two Norman captains, Meulon and Gaillard, who were sharpening their knives.
*
The four men appeared one by one over the next hour. Blackstone made them stand in the square. Drizzling rain began to fall and a chill wind blew flurries across the open space, but as each man was brought the crowd increased. Yet they kept their distance. Three of the men looked to be in their later years, men of forty; the fourth was younger, probably early thirties. The biggest of the men, Etienne Chardon, wore a black-streaked leather apron, his face behind the thick beard smudged with smoke, his hands blackened by coal. The town’s blacksmith stood fearlessly before Blackstone, his muscled arms at his side. Each man looked like the tradesman he was: the barber slightly built; stooped shoulders for the cobbler; and barrel chest for the furrier. Behind them stood the constable, the mayor and several other men bonded by the same tithing as those who had been brought before Blackstone.
Blackstone walked along the line of men, gauging their level of fear. He stopped in front of the blacksmith. ‘You heated the irons to burn the woman,’ he said. He looked at the furrier. ‘You burned her,’ he said, and then stood in front of the cobbler. ‘You waited your turn while our blacksmith friend clubbed her down and raped her and you,’ he said to the barber, ‘what did you do?’
‘I… I… lord? I did nothing.’
‘Nothing to save her. You raped her,’ said Blackstone, ‘after you hacked off her hair.’
‘She enticed us, my lord. She flaunted herself. She taunted us. She cursed us all and we did what any man would do. We were afraid of her.’
‘She was the devil’s whore,’ said Petrus Gavray, the furrier.
‘And so you dipped your cocks into the well of darkness. If you were that afraid how did you know she didn’t have teeth in her cunny that would tear your cocks to shreds? If she was the devil’s whore weren’t you afraid of that? Or did you feel inflamed by torturing her? Was it her tits that made you lust after her?’
They were interrupted by John Jacob and two other men-at-arms. Jacob had with him a man dressed in a cloak of fine cloth and a beaver-skin hat on his greying head. His boots looked new. The two men-at-arms led a mule with a small chest and two large bags tied across its saddle.
‘He was at the inn,’ said John Jacob. ‘But his mule was packed and ready to leave.’ He released his grip and pushed the pardoner closer towards the accused men and Blackstone.
‘When your mayor sends word for you to attend you should obey,’ said Blackstone.
‘I am not of this town. I obey only Mother Church. I carry the safe conduct of the Lord of Avignon, His Holiness Pope Innocent.’
Blackstone raised his face to the drizzle, content for its coolness to keep him refreshed after the disturbed night’s lack of sleep. ‘I know the old Pope. I was at Avignon in ’56. He’s a lawyer who sides with whatever will profit him the most. Back then he yielded to the mercenary forces of Gilles de Marcy. Heard of him?’
‘The Savage Priest?’ said the pardoner. ‘Yes. Who has not?’
‘Then you know who slew that vile corruption of the Church,’ said Blackstone, giving the pardoner a questioning glance.
The pardoner looked at the scarred-faced Englishman and crossed himself, realizing that of all men who could instil fear in a Frenchman’s heart it was the Savage Priest’s killer who stood before him.
‘You’re no messenger of the Pope,’ said Blackstone. ‘You trade indulgences. Are those boots payment for releasing this man from the crime of rape and torture?’ He pointed to the cobbler.
‘The merits of Christ are infinite!’ the pardoner insisted. ‘I offer a particle of the heavenly wealth bequeathed to us by St Peter. In my reliquary I carry a feather fallen from the wing of Archangel Michael.’ He stood his ground and faced Blackstone. ‘The Church cares for those sick in body and spirit! Those who give alms are assured a foothold in heaven. You claim to know the Holy Father – if you spoke with him then you would know Latin. Do you? Does any man here among you?’ he said, raising his voice and gazing at the gathered soldiers.
‘No,’ said Blackstone. ‘Latin is for educated men.’
‘No! Of course you do not because your trade is killing.’ He turned to the gathered crowd, who had edged closer. He began spouting Latin, making the sign of the cross in a gesture of forgiveness and benevolence. Some of the women knelt; men crossed themselves.
Meulon spoke quietly. ‘Shall I fetch our crow priest, Sir Thomas? I still have him locked in a room.’
‘We don’t need him,’ said Blackstone. He turned and sought out Henry, who stood back with the men. He caught the boy’s eye. Henry moved quickly to his father’s side. ‘What’s he saying?’ he asked his son.
Henry listened to what sounded like a tirade against the soldiers. ‘It’s not Latin, Father. I think he is making up a language of his own. It sounds like Latin. But… no, it is not.’
‘What’s your name?’ Blackstone bellowed, forcing the pardoner to halt mid sentence.
The pardoner turned back to face him. ‘Stephanus Louchart.’
‘Well, Stephanus Louchart, we welcome a man of learning in our midst.’ He touched Henry’s shoulder. ‘Speak to him in Latin, boy. Make certain you say the words correctly.’
Blackstone and the men stood quietly as Henry spoke quickly and clearly. None had any idea what the boy said and it was soon obvious that neither did the pardoner. His face fell.
‘You snare the fearful with lies and benefit from them,’ said Blackstone. ‘I should throw you from the walls and let your bones break on the rocks below.’
‘Harm me and you will hang by your tongue over the fires of hell when death comes for you, as surely it will.’
‘As surely it will,’ said Blackstone and signalled John Jacob.
John Jacob and the men tipped out the contents of the small chest and saddle panniers. Clothing, jewellery, the tinkling of coins in leather pouches and the smashing of clay wine flasks quickly took everyone’s attention.
Blackstone stepped forward, grabbed him and threw him to the ground. The expensive beaver hat fell off his head and the rain began to drape strands of hair across his terrified features.
‘This man, Stephanus Louchart, will reclaim the charred body of the man you burned. He will dig his grave and the priest I brought will pray for the dead man’s soul. By way of penance for his sins this pardoner will relinquish what he’s taken from you in payment. He will forsake his fine clothing, which will be distributed to the poor, and he will be flogged in his undershirt and driven from this town riding backwards on a donkey. There are wolves in the forest. If he is an emissary of the Pope then God’s grace might protect him.’
Blackstone turned to face the six men of the tithing who stood behind the four accused. ‘You’ll be hanged.’ The men’s shock allowed Blackstone’s men to quickly bind them. He faced the accused. ‘You’ll also die at the end of the rope but before the rope tightens you’ll be gelded.’
