by David Gilman
They got to their feet. The giant hobbled his horse. ‘We have never slain children, Renfred. These men will kill every living creature. We need a prisoner to tell us who these bastards are. Fetch Sir Thomas. Do as I ask.’ Without another word, he ran, his great frame hunched as he used the forest edge for cover.
Renfred hesitated. The urge to accompany his friend tore at him. It would take hours to bring Blackstone but they needed men at their back if they were to pursue these killers. His hand smothered his horse’s muzzle. The sturdy beast shifted, ready for him to clasp the reins and put his weight into the saddle, man and horse accustomed to each other, ready to ride hard.
*
Meulon moved quietly for a man his size. He pressed his back against a cob building as desperate sounds came from within. A woman cried out; a man cursed. He heard flesh being struck and the woman’s protestations silenced to a whimpering. Meulon stepped into the hovel. A flickering lamp burned, showing one man straddling a woman as another, addled with drink, gloated. The drunk blinked, wineskin half raised as darkness blocked the open doorway. In two great strides Meulon was on him, a knife thrust upwards beneath his throat. The man gurgled and fell but the swift action barely drew the rapist’s attention. Meulon clawed his head back and drew the blade across his throat, throwing the writhing man’s weight aside so that the pouring blood did not smother the woman. She gazed open-mouthed at the black-bearded monster looming over her. He bent and snatched her up. She was too terrified to scream.
‘Stay silent and you will be safe,’ he urged her. ‘Go from here. Run for the forest. Stay there. Others are coming to help. You understand?’
Fear clouded her reason. She shook her head. The impossible had happened. Meulon pulled her to the door, held her back, checked that the killers were not close. ‘The trees,’ he said. ‘You run, you hide, and you stay there. I have friends coming to help you. Englishmen.’
She trembled. ‘English? Like these men?’
Meulon glared at her. ‘These men are Bretons.’
She shook her head. ‘English,’ she said.
‘I give you your life, woman. You must run when I tell you. Do not look back. Stay in the forest. I will send others if I can save them. The Englishmen who come are not your enemy. Understand?’
She appeared to come to her senses and snatched at his hand, kissing it in thanks, tears spilling down her cheeks. He glanced once more into the chaos outside and thrust her towards the black wall that was the forest. The moment she’d made her escape he ran for three routiers on the other side of a huddle of flaming houses who were tearing apart the insides. A man and woman lay dead at their feet. Meulon heard them cursing. They were English, without doubt. Blackstone had taught him to speak the language years before but it was Will Longdon who had taught him to curse like an Englishman. It made no difference that these mercenaries were killing Navarre’s people, or that Sir John Chandos was supposed to have stopped them from joining the Bretons or the French. It made no difference because they were going to die.
The three killers sensed rather than saw the man surging towards them as they raised their eyes, squinting through firelight. Meulon barged the first man, arcing his knife hand so that the blade cut through the neck of the second man, who fell writhing into flames as the first rolled in agony from a displaced shoulder and broken ribs. Their companion lunged with his sword at the wild giant but where the man had stood a heartbeat before was now space. He saw the blur of an arm and then felt the burning tear across his throat. As he sank to his knees, clutching his pulsating blood, his killer despatched the first routier and was out of sight. There had been no cry of alarm from any of Meulon’s victims. None of the mercenaries knew that the flitting shadow that ran among them was a killer exacting his own justice. When his victims saw his blood-flecked bearded face looming from the shimmering darkness, it was too late. That heart-lurching moment was their last.
A dozen men lay dead. Meulon urged surviving villagers to run for the forest as he killed. He had not yet drawn his sword but the tide was turning against him. Men across the village finally realized he was attacking their own. They turned, yelling commands, and ran towards him, blocking his escape.
Meulon backed against a cob-and wattle-hovel. Fire consumed the thatch and walls as he made his stand. He unsheathed his sword and held the killing knife in his other hand. The men were wary, unsure whether to rush him, and Meulon took the initiative with two great strides forward, inflicting vicious wounds on the first man. He used the burning hovel to protect his back as they lunged. He knew they would soon overwhelm him but they faltered as the roof collapsed in a torrent of sparks.
Men behind his attackers began to scream, the sudden commotion causing confusion among those pressing Meulon. He took advantage of it and cut low, taking men’s legs from under them, and then saw why the routiers were panicking. Barely a dozen strides away, a shield bearing a familiar blazon forced routiers aside as savage blade strokes maimed and killed. Renfred’s attack splintered the group; only three of the ten men survived. They turned and ran.
Meulon’s great fist knocked the nearest to the ground. Blackstone needed at least one man alive. One was enough. Several villagers rushed from their hiding places; clubs and scythes brought down the remaining two. They hacked the killers to death, the routiers’ screams satisfying a lust for revenge.
Meulon and Renfred watched.
‘It’s done, my friend,’ said Meulon. ‘Death came close for me. I’m grateful you stayed.’
Renfred gripped Meulon’s shoulder. ‘You gave me no choice. I had a dozen and more survivors running into the trees and routiers were chasing them. I had to stop them. By the time I’d done that it was too late to do anything else but join you.’
Birdsong lilted over the sound of spluttering timbers of the burning hovels. First light cast its dull glow across the tortured village. Bodies lay scattered, little more than crumpled mounds of bloodied rags. Women and children filtered back from the forest, searching for their dead.
Meulon grunted and lifted a bloodied hand.
The light spreading across the sky exposed the blood-soaked gambeson beneath his mail. ‘You’re wounded,’ said Renfred.
Meulon sighed. ‘Aye, a knife thrust.’ He spat the sour taste from his throat. ‘Perhaps death is closer than I thought.’
CHAPTER NINE
The scrawny villager sent by Renfred reached the ruined chapel and told Blackstone that his men and twenty-three survivors from Saint-Pierre waited for him at the burnt-out village. The faint sound of a church bell clanged out the hour for prime, its dull resonance carried on the breeze from miles away. It told Blackstone that they were still in enemy territory. Only the French-held town of Villaines had a church.
Will Longdon joined Blackstone, John Jacob and Killbere. They spurred their horses ahead, leaving William Ashford to bring on the slow-moving column. When they found the charred remains of the village, Renfred hailed them from the forest’s edge.
‘I fear his wound is mortal, Sir Thomas.’
Blackstone dismounted. The villagers had made a rough shelter and a bed of ferns for the injured Meulon. Fever gripped him. A woman knelt at his side, bathing the big man’s forehead with a cloth. She stood as Blackstone approached.
‘This man saved me, my lord. Me and many others. He will die if his wound is not cared for. We have nothing.’ She bowed her head. ‘Only our gratitude. We are praying for him.’
Killbere eased her aside as Blackstone knelt next his injured captain. ‘Meulon, we’re here now and Will Longdon will stitch and bind you. We have herbs and ointment. You’ll soon be back at my side.’
Meulon licked his dry lips. His voice barely a whisper. ‘Sir Thomas. I have brought more trouble to your door. We saved more villagers.’
‘And that is not trouble, Meulon, that is a duty. You killed enough men to clear our way ahead to Sir John. Now let Will Longdon see to your wound.’
Meulon sighed. ‘His hands are as r
ough as a boar’s arse and fingers as thick as dog turds. He’ll hurt me more than the damned wound.’
‘And I’ll take pleasure in having you at my mercy,’ said Will Longdon, settling next to Meulon and opening his sack of herbal tinctures and creams, jealously guarded these past few years since inheriting them from a woman apothecary who had sacrificed her life to save Blackstone’s.
‘Aye, and when I die I shall haunt you at night and plague you during the day.’ Meulon whispered, coughing from the effort of tormenting Longdon.
Blackstone went to where Renfred waited with the bound prisoner. The routier glared at the scar-faced man who looked down at him. ‘Get him to his feet,’ said Blackstone.
Renfred yanked the man up and pressed him back against a tree. The man’s misshapen face reflected his brutal life. The flattened nose, and a cheekbone clearly broken years before and never set cleanly, gave his face a lopsided look. What teeth he had were little more than blackened stumps. It was no surprise that lice itched in his beard, making him bend his head to his shoulder to scratch.
‘Water, my lord. I am parched. My throat’s as dry as the sole of my boot.’
‘Your stench offends,’ said Killbere. ‘You’ve soiled yourself.’
He nodded towards the prostrate Meulon. ‘The fucker damned near broke my neck. That would loose anyone’s bowels.’
‘You’re an Englishman. Who do you serve?’ said Blackstone.
‘I’m a veteran of the war, my lord. I served the King.’
‘The English or the French, you arsewipe?’ said Killbere.
‘Now, now, sir knight. I gave my blood on the field at Poitiers like many a stout-hearted man from Gloucester. And like many of my comrades I was cut loose when the war was won. I fight so I may live. Rough wine and a piece of mutton is not much for a man to ask for, eh? You know well, my lord, you and Sir Thomas Blackstone here. I know your blazon and your legend right enough. You did your fair share of slaughter.’
Renfred slapped him, splitting his lip. ‘We neither rape nor kill women, you whoreson. Do not foul Sir Thomas’s name.’
The routier spat blood. The blow meant nothing to a man used to violence. ‘Kill me and be done with it. I have nothing to bargain with.’
‘I can give you to the survivors and let them tear you apart,’ Blackstone said. ‘Or you can have wine until you’re senseless and then I’ll hang you. Choose.’
He bared his blackened teeth. ‘A good bargain, Sir Thomas. I’ll take the wine and the rope.’
‘Then who commands you? Who is Ronec?’
‘Ah. You’ve heard of him?’ The routier raised his bound hands and blew snot from his bloodied nostrils. ‘Ronec’s a clever bastard. How many use another name to bring money into our purse? Ronec is as English as you and me, Sir Thomas. Ronec le Bête, he calls himself. Married a French whore after the truce, sired a clutch of bastards here and there. The “Beast” sounds better in French than English. Puts the fear of Christ into everyone.’
‘I have fought across France and Italy for half my life and I never heard of him until yesterday,’ said Blackstone.
The mercenary shrugged. ‘So what? A man lives and dies and no one knows his name. But he has ambition. Who can blame a man for that? Besides...’ He sniggered. ‘Shield yourself behind a false name and those who pay for the slaughter keep their hands clean.’
Killbere pushed his knife under the man’s chin, forcing him onto his toes as a trickle of blood ran down his throat. ‘My lord,’ the man begged.
Blackstone pressed a hand against Killbere’s arm, lowering the blade. ‘I may not save you from the rope unless you tell me his name.’
The routier looked at the blood he had wiped from his neck. ‘He’s from a good family in Essex. Turned bad. Thieved and killed and was imprisoned by the sheriff but pardoned by the King when he invaded back in ’59. He fought in the Prince of Wales’s division at Rheims. Ranulph de Hayle. That’s who he is.’ The killer grinned, his arrogance undiminished, having bought himself a better death. ‘Sir Thomas, how about giving me one of the girls before you hang me? I’ll take her quick. That one. The youngster. No loss to you and a man can die happy with drink in his belly and his cock pleasured one last time.’
Blackstone and Killbere looked to where the man leered. A girl, no more than twelve or thirteen, offering comfort to the orphaned child she cradled.
Blackstone grabbed him by the scruff of his jupon and marched him into the open. The routier blustered and cried out but Blackstone ignored him as he turned to face the survivors in the forest. ‘This man raped and killed. He is yours to do with what you want.’ He pushed the terrified man away from him.
The routier stumbled. Got to his feet, clasped his bounds hands in supplication. ‘Sir Thomas. You promised me a good death. Hang me, lord, I beg you,’ he pleaded as the survivors emerged from the trees and headed towards them.
‘We have no rope,’ said Blackstone.
The man stuttered, wild-eyed, then turned and ran, stumbling across the open ground towards the burnt-out huts. The villagers cried out, a howl of belly-deep pain for the loss of their loved ones, and chased after him. Fear drove him two hundred yards before they fell on him. Like wolves at a kill they tore him apart.
CHAPTER TEN
Meulon refused any assistance to mount his horse. No words of concern or cajoling persuaded him to accept help in front of the men and surviving villagers. Will Longdon was brushed away. Pride overcame pain.
‘There’s a piece of the blade in him, Thomas,’ said Will Longdon. ‘Its tip must have snapped off. I cleaned the wound and pressed plantain into it to cleanse the cut, then crushed wild garlic to make a poultice and keep poison at bay. He’s bandaged with a strip of clean linen, but if we do not get the knife point out of him... and... and I cannot tell if it chipped his rib... and if it has, then—’
Blackstone pressed a hand onto his centenar’s shoulder. ‘I know, he’ll die. Will, you have done everything you could. Now we must find a barber-surgeon.’
Killbere pressed his foot into the stirrup. ‘And where do we go for that? We’re days from Chandos and Meulon will be dead in three if he’s lucky.’
‘Villaines will have someone,’ Blackstone said.
Killbere reached out and caught his friend’s arm. ‘Thomas! We cannot turn him over to the French. Even if they have a surgeon they have no cause to help us. They would cut his throat rather than attend him.’
Blackstone tugged the reins so the bastard horse did not bite Killbere’s mount. ‘We have saved French villagers close to their domain. Once they fall under Villaines’s protection they will pay taxes. In offering them sanctuary we give the town income.’
‘And that is all you are going to offer whoever commands the town? Scrag-arsed, half-starved peasants?’
‘I have more to offer.’
‘And you’re going to share this with me?’
‘Not yet.’ Blackstone spurred the great beast. There was little enough time to find a surgeon.
*
Blackstone drove the survivors from the two villagers at a harsh pace. Yet they kept up for they knew if they did not they would be abandoned and that meant death from other routiers, and they were determined to remain under the protection of the English knight who had given them life and allowed them to exact revenge. Their sweat and exertion were repaid as they came in sight of the town’s castle. It had been damaged during the war but the town’s defences had been rebuilt by the capable captain in command.
Meulon’s grim insistence on staying on his horse was thwarted when he fell from the saddle, unconscious, several miles along the road. The men fashioned another litter and bore him at the head of the column between Blackstone and Killbere. Meulon’s face was drained of colour by the time they reached the fortified town. Blackstone halted the column half a mile from the gates. ‘Who commands here?’ said Killbere.
‘I don’t know. This territory falls under the Lord of Mayenne, but whoever it is he�
��s strengthened the town’s defences and it looks as though he was in the fight at Cocherel,’ Blackstone said, pointing to a handful of abandoned supply wagons that stood in the open fields in front of the gates. ‘Those bear de Grailly’s blazon.’
‘Thomas, he might be holding Beyard as a prisoner. Those routiers at the bridge said he had been taken for ransom by some lord or other.’
‘We’ll soon find out. Gilbert, spread the men out. I want those in the watchtowers to see us clearly.’ Blackstone turned in the saddle. ‘John, you will accompany me with Meulon’s litter.’
‘Once they know who you are, Thomas, your life is not worth a cobbler’s boot nail,’ said Killbere.
‘Gilbert, do as I ask. We have to save Meulon – whatever the risk.’
Killbere nodded. He knew as well as the next man that Meulon might not survive another day without help. He and John Jacob wheeled their horses to follow Blackstone’s orders.
Blackstone turned the bastard horse towards the huddled survivors. He pointed to two of the men. ‘You will follow me. Bring the woman and the child on the litter. Everyone else will follow. I’ll speak to the mayor and the council or whoever commands here. I will bargain for your sanctuary and the care of those who need it. You follow behind me. Do not rush the gates. These people might not accept you. Understood?’
There was a murmur of understanding. Villagers raised their voices in thanks for Blackstone’s protection.
Killbere reined in. ‘Thomas, those parapets may be low but they’re bristling with crossbows. It might not be much of a town but what defences they have look to be effective. Enfilade there and there. And I’ll wager they’ll have barricades as a second line of defence.’
Blackstone looked at the men, who stood in plain sight. ‘If John Jacob and I don’t come out by nightfall then choose their weakest place and come at them under cover of darkness. They’ll be vulnerable then.’
