by David Gilman
Gontrán nodded, encouraged by the compliment. ‘I reached the outskirts of the city and heard the news that assassins had slain the Archbishop and others. Murdered them in cold blood. I turned away from that sacred place because I could not bear the thought of such violence being committed in a place of love and forgiveness. I was planning to return home but then I remembered seeing riders’ – he shrugged – ‘a few men, no more, cloaked and riding hard towards where I had journeyed from. Towards where I live. It is not a place people go to with any ease. Once through the valley and forests there is no place for horses. The cliffs are too steep; you have to go on foot. But to where, I asked myself? There are coves along the coast from my village where men smuggle. So I was frightened of returning in case these were the people who did the killing and were making their escape.’ Gontrán seemed lost in a reverie as he put the pieces of his journey together. ‘I prayed at a roadside shrine for the souls of the dead and begged to be kept safe and I swear’ – he looked again at the attentive men – ‘I swear when I opened my eyes the hawk was sitting on top of the shrine and glared at me. Have you seen a hawk’s stare? It’s as if it’s ripping into your heart.’
Blackstone kept his eyes on the fisherman. He saw others cross themselves. He glanced at Killbere, whose concerned look told him he felt the same apprehension as himself.
Gontrán’s voice lowered, reflecting his sense of awe at what he had seen. ‘It flew low along the open path and then soared high. As if waiting for me. I turned my back on the way home, followed the path and into the forest. I kept hoping it would fly off, that my grief at the murders had twisted my mind. But every time I faltered, the hawk appeared.’ He looked up at the silent men. ‘And led me here, but I do not know why.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
Blackstone thanked Gontrán, put coins in his calloused palm and told him to go into Santiago as he had intended, because it would be the prayers of the pilgrims who would restore the spiritual faith of the city.
Blackstone checked the bastard horse’s girth, ever wary of it swinging its head and snapping with those yellowed teeth.
‘No, Thomas, this is madness. You cannot go alone,’ said Killbere.
Blackstone busied himself. ‘The men are ready, Álvaraz knows the way, it is your job to protect Don Pedro and get him on that ship and then wait for me.’
‘God’s tears. Not one man will let you ride after the bastard de Hayle and the devil’s whore alone. Not one of us!’ Killbere’s voice rose in a mixture of desperation and anger.
‘There is no time to lose, Gilbert. I’ll travel fast and I’ll catch them up.’
‘We will not do as you ask. Who knows how many the bitch has with her?’
‘De Hayle had two left alive in the cathedral. I doubt he has more with him. We hurt him badly along the way. Most of those we didn’t kill will have deserted him. He’s done no raiding here; he has no money to pay more men. It is not a request, Gilbert,’ said Blackstone, securing his shield to the saddle. ‘You must command the men. Do not defy me, I beg you. Take this wretched King to his ship and send him to the Prince.’ He laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Our honour demands it.’
Killbere’s despair was plain to see. ‘I cannot,’ he pleaded.
‘There are only a handful of men with her. They will be on foot once they reach the cliffs, and they are not us, Gilbert. We climb better than mountain goats and every one of them will lag behind the other. I’ll kill them one by one.’
‘One mistake, one fall – anything could happen and you’d lie dead on a mountainside. We can take this turd King to his ship and turn back and hunt them down.’
‘You heard what the old man said. Why do you think they’re avoiding the ports? They’re going to a deserted part of the coast because they have a boat waiting in one of the coves. There is no time for us to hunt them. One man can track them. And that is my decision.’
Meulon, Renfred, Will Longdon and Jack Halfpenny followed John Jacob and William Ashford towards them.
‘Sir Thomas,’ said Meulon stepping forward, ‘we have never disobeyed you but today we stand as one man and beg you to let us ride with you.’
Killbere threw his arm out. ‘You see, Thomas, not one man will abandon you to this madness.’
Blackstone faced them. ‘Our blazon says we are defiant unto death. Those words on our shields are there to confront our enemies, not to tear apart everything we have done together, the sacrifices we have made, or to dishonour our friends who died at our side. It was the Prince who gave us our blazon, who acknowledged our brotherhood. We swore an oath and I depend on every man here and those you command to honour it. I will take every one of you in my heart so I will not be alone, but I must give chase to the killers and deliver justice. Follow my orders and finish what our Prince asked of us.’
Blackstone’s gentle persuasion gave his captains no means of reply.
‘Wait for me,’ he said, ‘and then together we ride home.’
*
The captains returned to their men. Killbere rode at their head. Álvaraz’s men cosseted the King, riding as close escort. By the end of the day they would be at the coast and their duty fulfilled.
‘I am honoured to have been at your side,’ said Álvaraz.
‘And I yours,’ said Blackstone.
‘The map the old man drew for you is enough?’
‘Even a single horseman leaves signs that a blind man could find. They won’t expect anyone to be in pursuit.’
The two men clasped hands. ‘I will pray God keeps you safe so you may inflict His punishment on them and cast them into hell,’ Álvaraz said and wheeled his horse. The order to ride on was called and the column eased onto the road to Corunna.
Blackstone stared at Don Pedro as he rode past but the King sat upright, looking neither left nor right. Behind him the High Steward glanced at Blackstone and made the sign of the cross. A blessing or a curse? No one had treated his lord and master with such violence or contempt as the Englishman. Perhaps, Blackstone thought, the old patrician saw him as the devil’s disciple.
John Jacob drew his horse next to Blackstone. ‘I am your squire. I will ride with you as I always have. It is my obligation to accompany you. If I do not, then I am shamed.’
Blackstone smiled. ‘Who could ever shame a man like you, John? I owe you so much. When you got Christiana and my children to safety all those years ago, that can never be repaid.’
‘Sir Thomas, the past binds us all, but I have my duty. Shall we go?’
‘No, my friend, not today. I have a greater duty for you. My son Henry has always looked to you with deep regard and affection. You were his guardian at a time I could not be his father. You taught him how to serve as a page and the discipline that entailed. If I do not return I ask you to take up that role again. You cannot be with me today in case he needs you tomorrow.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
The old fisherman’s description was correct. The road became a track and then petered out. The bastard horse had pulled up short a hundred yards from the blind bend, ears forward, muscles rippling, warning of other horses nearby. Blackstone eased him forward and saw two abandoned horses grazing. Riding closer, he looked along the base of the cliffs and the area between rock and forest. Another horse stood abandoned in the treeline, with loose reins and, like the others, still saddled. A fourth nudged it for companionship. Blackstone looked at the trampled grass and saw no more tracks.
He dismounted, slung his shield across his back and drank from his wineskin. He secured the small food sack on the saddle for his return and eased the bastard horse out of sight into a small glade in the trees. He hobbled it with enough rope to allow it to graze but not to wander and then searched for a route up the rock surface, slick with running water. Picking out an animal track that weaved its way to the summit, he bent his back into the hillside, which looked to be a thousand feet high or more. Despite the cold air, he was streaked with sweat when he reached the summit
. His breathing was laboured. It felt unnatural. How many times before had he paced himself and the men on steeper hills than these?
He had kept watch on the sky, searching for the hawk that had brought Gontrán to their camp. If a man’s mind could grasp that forces of nature existed other than those he could understand, then perhaps that was why men prayed. He raised the Silver Wheel Goddess to his lips. An archer’s token of protection from a pagan goddess was as good a reason to believe in such things as any other.
There was no sign of the hawk.
*
The undulating ground was broken with rock formations and tumbling water in a fast-flowing stream that began high up in the mountains and gushed across moss-laden boulders. The ice-cold water penetrated his boots, but he stumbled across the stream bed, instinct and good luck guiding him across the treacherous, ankle-snapping rocks beneath the surface. He clambered onto the far bank. The dense hillside forests swallowed the light. Blackstone felt his strength slipping away. He looked at his left hand and saw a slight tremor, a sign of weakness creeping throughout his body. How high had he climbed? He drank from the wineskin again, hoping the rough-tasting wine would warm and invigorate him. Blackstone pressed his hand against Wolf Sword’s hilt and steadied himself against a boulder. His eyes followed the contour of the land, which bottomed out into a broad plateau, an uneven land of brutal mystery where waterfalls tumbled from increasing heights, their streams disappearing into the forest. The seething water swallowed any sound except the high-pitched keening of a hawk. Its sudden appearance made him cautious. Was it guide or bait? He raised his eyes to follow its passage on the thermal and felt dizziness claim him. He lifted Arianrhod to his lips again and asked the Celtic goddess to guide him to where Ranulph de Hayle and the witch had made their escape.
His years of fighting and trust in his instincts strengthened him. He concentrated on the wind rustling across the treetops, the same whispers that brought the hawk’s call. Turning his head, he closed his eyes and let his mind’s eye travel along the swirling breeze. Splashing water faded, the hawk’s cry diminished. He stood motionless, waiting for the forest to yield its secrets. Like a man being swept out to sea on a rip tide, he surrendered to wind and water that bore him on their journey until he heard a sound that did not belong to nature. The slightest almost imperceptible resonance as metal clanged against rock. He opened his eyes. He was facing downstream. De Hayle was using the river to guide him to freedom. The routier had no skill at living in the forest, did not trust the ageless instincts of animals using a track to find their way. All that Blackstone understood. He ran into the trees. To follow de Hayle along the stream would expose him against the skyline. De Hayle would have left a crossbowman in ambush and the rocky terrain meant Blackstone would be unlikely to see him.
He pushed hard through the bracken, going deeper into the trees, instinct guiding him towards the bend in the river where he could cut off his quarry. The forest’s gloom yielded to sunlight dancing this way and that as the treetops swayed, letting through the rays. His eyes went from tree to tree, penetrating ever deeper into the forest, searching for any sign of where the forest ended and the open ground began. He needed to be close to de Hayle and the temptress so he could kill them quickly. His lungs burned, but his mind forced him on. Every fifty paces he stopped, leaned against a tree and drew deep breaths, sucking air into failing lungs. He willed himself to beat back whatever the unknown weakness was that suddenly ailed him. To fight it and use his anger at the killings to put strength into his sword arm.
The forest’s half-light caught the speckled camouflage of a deer’s white tail as it ran from view. Had it been his presence that alerted it or something else? Bears would be hunting and if he stumbled on one grubbing in the high undergrowth, he would have little chance of surviving a sudden attack. He rested again. Sweat stung his eyes. Nausea rose up. His throat stung from its acid.
In that moment he saw the haunted face of the High Steward making the sign of the cross. And he knew the man had poisoned him. He hurled the wineskin away, forced his fingers down his throat and vomited. The more of the poison he could spew out the more chance he had of keeping death at bay.
As he raised his head a shadow swept through the trees. A shadow so fast he barely had time to snap his head back. The raptor caught his shoulder – was it a talon that slashed his neck, or had he stumbled back onto a ragged branch? The strike was as swift as a bodkin-tipped arrow’s flight. The hawk’s screech chilled him. It had already hurtled through the trees out of sight. Was it the witch? Had she been circling above in the form of a hawk? Watching his every movement? Seeing where he plunged into the forest to gain the advantage? Was her witchcraft so powerful that she took on other forms? The supernatural was as real as any man’s belief in God. What proof was there that God existed? What proof was needed that devils and imps roamed the earth and witches took whatever form they needed to snare their victims? Fear of the unknown was more dangerous than facing men determined to kill you. Blackstone spat the sour phlegm from his throat. It was only fear. And fear could be despised and banished from a man’s mind and heart. He pressed on with added determination. If he was to die alone in this harsh wilderness, he would strike down evil. Then he would fall into whomever’s embrace awaited. God or the devil.
A cool trickle of blood from the tear on his neck settled beneath his collar. The hawk’s strike had turned him away from his original route. He was disoriented. He pressed on and then faltered. A shape took form ahead in the forest. It was a broken-down hut, its caved-in roof smothered with moss and leaf mould. Some kind of shelter for wild men of the woods perhaps? Hermits or fugitives? Whoever had lived here was long gone.
He moved closer. The green growth of the forest floor had crept over any structure, including a circular mound in his path. He stepped forward and the ground gave way beneath his weight. He fell waist deep, his back slamming against the hard side of the pit, his shield ripped free. His boots crunched on something brittle. He pulled aside the weeds and growth. It was the remains of a charcoal pit. Layers of leaves would have been packed over a fire and then covered with soil until villagers reduced the burning timber to charcoal.
Blackstone rummaged beneath his feet and found chunks of blackened, crisp charcoal. Perhaps the hawk was not the witch but a guardian angel who had made him turn towards the abandoned charcoal burners’ site. He bit into the charcoal, its crust clinging to the roof of his mouth. He swallowed and gagged, but, forcing spittle into his mouth, he ate more. The charcoal would help absorb the poison in his gut. He pushed a handful to sustain him beneath his jerkin and, clambering free, went back to the animal track that led towards the edge of the forest. He had gone thirty paces before realizing he had left his shield in the pit. Dizziness claimed him. He knelt, shook his head, felt his heart pounding.
The cloud-filtered sun had moved behind his right shoulder so he knew he had not travelled far before he smelled the chill of cold water and moss on the wind. The whooshing rhythm of water over rocks became more pronounced. He edged forward. The broken ground, pockmarked with boulders and rocks, embraced the stream. Thirst gripped him and he was a stride away from stumbling from the forest and gulping the clear mountain water, when the raptor’s faint cry made him turn instinctively towards it. Had Arianrhod summoned her own guardian spirit to protect him? Ahead he saw the crossbowman huddled behind boulders, back to Blackstone, watching the worn ground next to the stream. The track would have led Blackstone directly into view barely thirty yards away as he crested the skyline.
There was no one else in sight. It was too risky creeping towards the unsuspecting bowman. He strode towards him, archer’s knife in hand, the rushing water covering any footfall. The tall trees shifted in the wind, and as the low sun struck his back, his shadow loomed ahead of him. The man turned. Stiff from his cramped position, he moved slowly, but was quick enough to level the crossbow and loose a snap shot. The quarrel skimmed Blackstone’s side, but his jerkin an
d mail offered enough protection for its wayward trajectory to glance off him. The bowman was on his feet, knife in hand, unafraid, lunging. A veteran of war, a man used to closing with the enemy. Except that the enemy had never been this scar-faced Englishman. Blackstone parried the right-handed strike and turned his fist so that the knife’s pommel struck the bowman beneath his chin. His head snapped back and, legs buckling, he fell. Blackstone’s weakened grip was still enough to keep the archer under his knife. The man’s eyes blinked.
‘De Hayle and the woman. Where are they?’
The bowman shook his head. Blood seeped between his teeth.
‘Why would you be loyal to those who abandon you?’ said Blackstone.
‘I’m sworn to him. Death comes to us all,’ spat the routier. An Englishman.
‘Tell me and I won’t kill you. You have my word.’
‘A knight?’ spluttered the pinned man.
‘Thomas Blackstone.’
The bowman blinked, realizing who had bested him. He nodded. ‘Towards the cliff. There’s a path down. A boat’s waiting.’
‘How many more men?’
De Hayle’s man shook his head. ‘None. Him and the woman. Alone. We lost a man on the cliff face back there.’
Blackstone punched him unconscious and turned him over, slashing his knife across one leg. Blackstone had spared him. Hamstrung, he could not give chase or ever fight in a war again but, if he made it down the mountain, he would find a living begging somewhere with his one good leg and a crutch.
Blackstone raised his face to the wind. There was more than the damp smell of moss and water on the air. The wind brought the unmistakable tang of the sea.
And justice.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Blackstone battled the paralysing waves threatening to engulf him. He knelt by the stream, forced himself to chew and swallow more charcoal and then plunged his head beneath the icy water, trying to wash the numbness from his mind. He cupped water and drank deeply. His mind taunted him: a ghost within warning he would soon die. That he was too weak to fight and win. But he would not let go, not now. His eye caught movement on the edge of the forest. His hunter’s instinct kept him unmoving. The witch and de Hayle. The two killers he tracked were moving along the edge of the forest on the plateau between forest and clifftop. His archer’s eye put them at twenty yards short of four hundred. The woman led the way towards the cliff and what must be a path down to the shore. Close to where the pair walked, the stream broadened as another tributary joined it in a display of power. White water smashed against boulders, calmed and then gathered pace and strength as it raced towards the cliff edge and fell as a waterfall to the beach far below.
