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Winter, 1360
Provoked by the Dauphin’s refusal to honour the terms of his father’s surrender, Edward III has invaded France at the head of the greatest host England has ever assembled.
But the English lion’s attempt to claw the French crown from the head of its master is futile. After the defeats at Crécy and Poitiers, the Dauphin will no longer meet the English in the field and Edward’s great army is mired down in costly sieges, scavenging supplies from a land ruined by decades of conflict.
Facing a stalemate – or worse – the English are forced to agree a treaty. But peace comes at a price. The French request that Blackstone escort their King’s daughter to Italy to see her married to one of the two brothers who rule Milan – the very same brothers who killed Blackstone’s family to revenge the defeats he inflicted on them. Blackstone, the French are certain, will never leave Milan alive...
For Suzy
Everywhere was grief, destruction and desolation, uncultivated fields filled with weeds, ruined and abandoned houses… In short wherever I looked were the scars of defeat. The ruins go right up to the gates of Paris.
The Italian poet Petrarch travelling through
France after the English army’s passage
Cover
Welcome Page
About Viper’s Blood
Dedication
Epigraph
Map
Character List
Part 1: To Seize a Crown
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part 2: The Witch of Balon
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Part 3: Death of the Innocents
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Part 4: The Scent of Blood
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Part 5: The Devil’s Son
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Historical Notes
Acknowledgements
About David Gilman
About the Master of War series
Also by David Gilman
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
*Sir Thomas Blackstone
*Henry: Blackstone’s son
*William de Sainteny, child born from Christiana Blackstone’s rape
THOMAS BLACKSTONE’S MEN
*Sir Gilbert Killbere
*Gaillard: Norman captain
*Meulon: Norman captain
*John Jacob: captain
*Perinne: wall builder and soldier
*Renfred: German man-at-arms and captain
*Will Longdon: centenar and veteran archer
*Jack Halfpenny: ventenar and archer
*Robert Thurgood: archer
*Collard: man-at-arms
*Elfred: master of archers who commands Blackstone’s men in Italy
FRENCH NOBLEMEN AND MEN-AT-ARMS
*Bernard de Chauliac: captain of the French royal guard
Gaucher de Châtillon: Lord of Troissy, Captain of Rheims
*Philippe Bonnet: brigand
*Grimo the Breton: brigand leader
*Sir Louis de Joigny: commander of Cormiers
Robert de Fiennes: Constable of France
Simon Bucy: Counsellor to the Price Regent
Jean de Neuville: nobleman who led invasion of England
*Paul de Venette: brigand and citizen of Paris
Count of Tancarville: French hostage in England
Jean de Dormans: French Chancellor
ENGLISH NOBLEMEN, KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES
Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster
Earls of Northampton, Warwick and Suffolk
Sir Reginald Cobham
Bartholomew Burghesh: King Edward’s Chamberlain
Sir Walter Mauny
Sir John Chandos
Sir Richard Baskerville
*Sir Oswald de Chambres
*Sir Walter Pegyn: Duke of Lancaster’s knight
ENGLISH ROYAL FAMILY
King Edward III of England
Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales
FRENCH ROYAL FAMILY
King John II (the Good) of France
The Dauphin Charles: King John’s son and heir
Princess Isabelle de Valois: King John’s daughter
ITALIAN AND TRANSALPINE NOBLEMEN, KNIGHTS, CLERICS AND SERVANTS
Galeazzo Visconti: ruler of Milan
Bernabò Visconti: ruler of Milan
*Antonio Lorenz: Bernabò Visconti’s illegitimate son
Count Amadeus VI of Savoy
*Girard Goncenin: feral child
Marquis de Montferrat: Piedmontese nobleman, enemy of the Visconti and Amadeus
*Niccolò Torellini: Florentine priest
*Fra Pietro Foresti: Knight of the Tau
FRENCH CLERICS, OFFICIALS AND SERVANTS:
Abbot of Cluny: Pope Innocent VI’s delegate to King Edward and the Dauphin
Simon of Langres: Dominican monk and papal delegate
Hugh of Geneva: papal delegate
*Clarimonde: lady-in-waiting to Princess Isabelle de Valois
*Cataline: Clarimonde’s daughter
CITIZENS OF BALON:
*Malatrait: mayor
*Aelis de Travaux: healer
*Jean Agillot: barber
*Madeleine Agillot: the barber’s wife
*Etienne Chardon: blacksmith
*Petrus Gavray: furrier
*Charles Pyvain: cobbler
*Stephanus Louchart: pardoner
* Indicates fictional characters
France 1360
Thomas Blackstone spat blood.
The axe-wielding Frenchman’s blow missed his open helm but the fist clutching the axe slammed into his face. Blackstone’s height and strength carried him past the assault into the hacking mêlée as John Jacob, a pace behind, rammed his blade beneath the man’s armpit. The snarling roar of close-quarter battle mingled with the screams of mutilated men. Blood and entrails squelched underfoot as the city’s defenders fell beneath English violence. Step by step Blackstone and his men fought their way through the defensive ditches that had been dug around the city of Rheims. The walls were higher than heaven. Men died in their shadow, cast down into bloodstained mud. Some who fought cursed the cold and the rain, and some the King of England, who had brought his host of ten thousand men to this place of death. Sweat stung Blackstone’s eyes as he carved a path towards the Prince of Wales, the man he was sworn to protect and who was in the vanguard of the battle. Two of Blackstone’s captains, Gaillard and Meulon, huge bears of men who matched Blackstone’s size and strength, flanked the Englishman they had served these past fourteen years. Their spears thrust into the terrified French, some of whom were city militia who had never experienced the surging terror that now befell them.
Blackstone saw the Prince wheel, his shield slamming down a French knight. The man raised his visor and cried out, but his voice was swept away in the bellowing cacophony. His gesture was one of surrender. The Prince hesitated, but the weight of men around him forced him across the fallen man as Meulon leaned forward and pushed his spear into the man’s face. The Frenchman’s hands desperately snatched at the steel; his body bucked. Meulon wrenched the blade free; the man was already dead. Blackstone trod on his chest, unconcerned at the spume of blood that splattered his legs. He reached the Prince who, despite being flanked by his retinue, cleaved a path towards the city gates. For the past thirty-three days of the siege no one had expected such resistance from the walled city’s defenders; no one had believed that the winter rain could be so persistent; and only Blackstone believed that King Edward III in his pursuit of the French crown had made a foolish mistake in trying to take the city whose guardian, the nobleman Gaucher de Châtillon, had fortified the walls, blocked the drawbridges and dug defensive ditches. Ditches that Blackstone and his men had fought through for the past two days, and whose quagmire sucked men’s legs and sapped strength. Two days of half-starved fighting so that the English King could seize the city that traditionally crowned every King of France. New Year had passed but Edward wanted that crown.
‘My Prince!’ Blackstone yelled as the King’s son slipped. He leapt forward, slamming his shield into mail-clad footsoldiers, forcing himself between fighters who had poured from the city gates wild with fear and determination to stop the vile English horde from advancing and thinking that they might seize Edward’s son. The sight of the Prince falling to his knees gave them renewed courage but then they saw the shield bearing Blackstone’s blazon: the mailed fist clasping the sword blade. Its cruciform and declaration, Défiant à la mort, heralded death and made them falter. To stand against the renowned Englishman whose very name was enough to make men surrender before his violence was unleashed was an invitation few would accept. But the weight of those behind pushed them forward. Frenzy ruled the day; blood-lust defeated fear. They fell on Blackstone. His shield took the blows of mace and sword as he half bent his body, turning their blows away and thrusting with killing jabs of Wolf Sword’s hardened steel. As he spun around he caught sight of the Prince of Wales vomiting. He spewed across his own men and those who lay dead and dying at his feet. A banner dipped as willing hands reached for him. Rich food and plenty of it! Blackstone thought derisively. A king’s table groaning with succulent cuts and rich sauces. A sight he and his men would never see, let alone share. Most of the troops were starving. Man and horse had been deprived of supplies as the French burned food stores ahead of the English advance and the flooded rivers ran with waste, poisoned by slaughtered carcasses. Deny the English invaders supplies and they will be defeated had been the Dauphin’s command. A worthless son of a worthless French King in a worthless land in a worthless war. For Christ’s sake! What were they dying for in this country? In this ditch?
Blackstone backhanded Wolf Sword’s pommel into a Frenchman’s face contorted with hatred and purpose; then he rammed the rim of his shield beneath the chin of another. He shifted his weight, allowed a strike against him, saw the man stumble past, left him to die beneath John Jacob’s sword and then surrendered to the blood haze that filled his mind and softened the roar of the battle. He was cocooned in the place he knew well. Now the killing rage was with him again; his instinct to kill and maim enveloped him like a rising tide and swept him along, a warring demon blessed by the angels. Beneath the rolling clouds that brought the swirling curtains of rain, a darker storm swept across the battlements. English archers laid a deluge of arrows onto the city walls. Blackstone saw the bowmen in his mind’s eye, felt their effort in his heart. Nock, draw, loose! Sheaves of arrows carried by pages and anyone else ordered to feed the greatest weapon in the King’s army would be borne relentlessly to the thousands of archers. Will Longdon would be in the sawtooth line with his men, Jack Halfpenny, Robert Thurgood: men who had fought and suffered with Thomas Blackstone. All of them had swept across France during the years of war, back and forth to Italy where Blackstone and his men defended the road to Florence until finally returning to France a year before last. It was there an Italian assassin had ripped away Blackstone’s heart by slaying his wife and child.
Blackstone led the assault as the English swarmed forward under cover of the arrows that kept the wall’s defenders’ heads down. Two wooden assault towers were pushed and pulled towards the battlements as carpenters and engineers dragged cut trees and building timber forward across the defences, using them to breach the earthworks and get closer to the five city gates that had not yet been boarded up. Three divisions had assaulted the city, swarming around its walls like wolves bearing down on a beast of prey. The Duke of Lancaster had attacked from the north, the Earl of March from the east, Richmond and Northampton from the north-west, but it was Blackstone’s men fighting with the Prince of Wales’s division from the south-west who had made the most progress. The defenders, however, had taken their toll. Frenchmen had made sorties to block the ditches and fight viciously while others on the walls defied the arrows and used machines behind the city walls to rain down rocks on the attackers. Apart from the Prince’s division, the English were being held, dying where they stood: only Edward’s men were making ground, forcing a wedge through the enemy ground troops in a thirty-foot causeway across the ditch on the western side of the city. They fought shoulder to shoulder, spit and blood and men’s waste staining the ground and the stench of death and shit fouling the cold air.
Despite the rain, choking smoke swirled down the narrow confines of the ditches as the French fighters set the timber fillings alight. Men struggled from one smothering cloud to another, eyes stinging from the smoke as sudden death loomed unexpectedly from the miasma. Blackstone and his men slithered down into another ditch; he glanced up and saw the man who had first taken him to war, who had rallied the English at Crécy against overwhelming odds and who, with Blackstone at his side, had held the gap in the hedgerow at Poitiers years later when the French cavalry tried to crush them. Sir Gilbert Killbere liked nothing better than killing Frenchmen. He yearned for it. Grieved for its loss when fighting in Italy and relished the skill it took to defeat a blood enemy. Now he led a determined group of men against those who had set fire to the timbers, raising his shield above his head as another shower of rocks fell from the sky. Blackstone, Meulon and Gaillard brought their shields together and rammed back half a dozen militia, behind whom were the noblemen who urged their men on, but the city soldiers were no match for the savagery that was being inflicted on them. The Prince’s men, now led by Blackstone, edged forward yard by yard, sword and spear length at a time. If those burning timbers could be dragged to the closed gate Blackstone knew they would have a fighting chance of entering the city.
He turned away from the raised swords and axes of those who opposed him and changed direction, taking them by surprise. Forty men or more turned with him; there were still enough behind them to hold the ditch.
‘Gilbert! The fire! We use it!’
Killbere looked as fatigued as every other man. His raised visor exposed a soot-streaked face. Sweat, rain and blood trickled down his forehead from an earlier wound. He turned his back, shouted a command and the soldiers with him formed a phalanx ready to cut a wound into the Frenchmen. Blackstone, Meulon and Gaillard took the weight of one of the long timbers onto their shoulders. It was burning at one end from pitch that billowed black smoke. With the fire behind them they dragged the wooden beam forward. Blackstone would burn the bastards out, provided he and the others survived long enough to stack burning timbers and beams at those gates. The wind changed; flames threatened to lick their backs. Meulon cursed and Blackstone shifted his shield further onto his back. He altered course and tried to get the wind at an angle. For a moment it worked. The flames were subdued into acrid smoke that screened them from the Frenchmen who were now swarming forward from the ditches into the dense smoke to assault Killbere and his men.
Killbere strode forward. Two, three long strides, shield up, the blood knot from his sword biting beneath his gauntlet. An indistinct bellowing roar rose above the clash of steel and flesh as his men vented their determination to kill. They would protect Thomas Blackstone – or die rather than face the shame of life should they fail.
The gods of war favour the bold, but the King of England favoured their lives even more. As Blackstone got within 150 paces of the gate trumpets heralded the retreat. Their bright notes soared across the battlefield, their command distinct and unquestionable.
Blackstone half turned and saw the look of disbelief and disgust on Killbere’s face as the repeated demands made him falter. It gave the French the chance to retreat.
‘A pig’s arse!’ shouted Killbere and waved his sword, urging Blackstone on. The three men hauled the timber up the slope; Blackstone fell to his knees in the mud, cursed and let his anger give strength to his muscles. He was defying his King. Again. The last time – when he tried to kill the French King at Poitiers – he had suffered exile, but on this occasion he would claim that the noise of battle had deafened him to King Edward’s command. Others broke rank and tried to help Blackstone heave the rain-sodden timber forward. The pitch would flare again with a good strike of a flint and something dry to kindle the flames. But there was nothing dry. Man and ground were soaked, their breath billowing, steam rising from their bodies as the heat of sweat met the cold air. The men’s extra strength gave Blackstone and the others the power to move forward as Killbere fought on one flank and John Jacob rallied men on the other. Blackstone watched his hardened captain methodically strike down those who stood in his path, cutting a way open for Blackstone to get the timber in place. Blackstone glanced back. Others had followed their example, dragging and heaving burning tree trunks and dismantled bridge supports towards the one gate that might yield them the city. Then Edward could have his crown and they could all go home.
Closer now. Eighty paces. Eighty strides of muscle-tearing effort. The trumpets blared again. Signal flags punctuated the King’s demand. Retreat! The French would not yield a damned yard and the mud slowed the attackers. More Englishmen fell. Crossbow bolts and stones continued to rain down. The English bowmen had stopped releasing their yard-long shafts: the bodkin points no longer tore through French flesh. The King had commanded it and now Blackstone’s men were exposed and abandoned. They were too few. Blackstone saw at once that even if they reached the high gate they would die beneath the walls. He swung his shield around and let the timber go. Killbere knew it as well. They had tried and failed. Had more men stayed at their back they might have had a chance. Killbere spat and let his sword dangle from its blood knot around his wrist as he put a finger to each nostril and blew clear the snot. And then in an act of sheer disdain he turned his back on his enemy and trudged back towards the English lines.
Blackstone laughed. The battle-hardened Killbere was the same age as the King. His forty-seven years had made him despise death more than he hated the French.
‘All right,’ Blackstone said. ‘We’ve done enough here.’
The men hesitated, and then they too dropped their burdens. The French had not come forward, perhaps grateful that they did not have to face the ferocious assault any longer. Blackstone gazed up at the high walls shrouded in mist and smoke. King Edward might pursue the siege again but not today. He looked at his exhausted and wounded men. Some leaned on their weapons, others spat out the foul taste of death, most grinned. There was no shame. No one else had got as close.
Blackstone’s meagre shelter offered little comfort from the cold and wet. The canvas dripped and the fire smouldered. There was no dry kindling. Blackstone watched men going among the badly wounded and killing them. Bodies were being dragged into a ditch so that their stench would soon be covered in a mass grave. The French did the same with their fallen. The King’s retreat had become a truce to despatch the maimed and dying. It would not be long before peasants, wraiths from the forests, crept from cover and went among the dead to strip what they could from the corpses. English archers might kill them if they had enough arrows, but on a great expedition such as this would not waste missiles on grave robbers. The killing ground became a dream-like scene. The breeze swirled the grey drizzle around the peasants who bent like crows pecking at the dead; archers went forward to pluck arrows from the slain; and screams and moans rose and fell as knives were used to end men’s agony.
Killbere stripped off his mail and undershirt and, ignoring the chilling drizzle, bathed a wound on his ribs. It was barely a hand’s width in length and his sodden shirt had clung to it and stopped it from bleeding further, but once the fighting started again his efforts would open it. He smeared a thick pungent wax-like cream across his flank and allowed a grimace as the astringent ointment stung the raw flesh.
‘I swear by a whore’s tits that the monks are poisoning me. I gave them good coin for this after we were ambushed at Laon, and it stings like a flail. They said it was good for horses’ wounds.’
Blackstone had pulled his mail free and let the sweat-soaked undershirt cling to him in the rain. The cold prickled his skin but his mind dismissed it. Best to embrace the weather rather than fight it. He reached into his saddle pannier and took out a roll of torn linen. ‘You should have confessed your sins first and asked for absolution,’ he said. ‘Then they would have given you honey and herbs to dress your wounds and a cask of their best brandy to ease your pain.’
Killbere gave a nod towards the silver goddess that dangled from a cord around Blackstone’s neck. Arianrhod. The Celtic goddess of the silver wheel was a pagan symbol pressed into Blackstone’s hand by a dying Welsh archer when the young Englishman first went to war and fought at Caen. She protected a fighting man in this life and then carried him across to the next. ‘Sweet Jesus, Thomas, when have you ever loved scab-arsed monks or priests? And when have I ever had the time to confess my sins? There’s a war to be fought. You’ll bind the damned thing for me?’
‘If you sit still long enough.’
Killbere grunted with impatience and raised his arm so that Blackstone could wrap the linen around his ribs. ‘Cold, wet and not a decent meal in days. The supply wagons stretch back God knows how many leagues, the horses are dying, the men are starving while the King is warm and fed, and all because the…’ He winced. ‘Jesus, Thomas, you’re not swaddling a child, not so tight… all because King John has not paid his ransom. Why did we shed our blood at Poitiers for a captured King not to pay his debts? Am I a money-lender to royalty now? If he paid up we wouldn’t be in this godforsaken mess. What good is it for Edward to take the French crown? Eh? Answer me that. A country laid bare, a bankrupt nation, as useful as a eunuch in a whorehouse.’ He waved Blackstone away. ‘All right, all right. That will do well enough.’ He straightened his back and drew in breath. ‘You crush my lungs. I’ll cut it free when we go back to the walls.’
‘I doubt the King will send us back soon. We lost too many men. Gilbert, you should take yourself off to the nearest nunnery and have them attend you. Only they would have the forbearance to put up with you.’
Killbere tugged his wet shirt back on and then a leather jerkin. ‘Did I ever tell you about the nun I fell in love with?’
‘Often,’ said Blackstone and draped his own shirt over three sticks that had held the cooking pot above the flames when there had been fire. It would help ease the stench of sweat from the cloth but he would stink of woodsmoke like a cured ham.
Killbere found a piece of dried meat in a sack and squatted beneath the dripping canvas to eat it. ‘Where’s the boy?’
‘He’ll be here,’ said Blackstone and let his eyes scan the hundreds of men huddled around their makeshift shelters, sitting in the smudge smoke of meagre fires. Further still, along the treeline and beyond, were thousands more. The King and his three sons had brought the might of England to teach the Dauphin a lesson in war and politics. An agreement had been made between Edward and King John, who had been captured at Poitiers just over three years before, who still sat in London as his prisoner. Lands were to be ceded; a massive ransom was to be paid. Neither had been forthcoming and the Dauphin and the Estates General had refused to acknowledge the treaty the two Kings had made. The world would have been a better place had Blackstone managed to kill the French King at Poitiers as he had sworn to do. The world, he thought, would have been better had death not then wielded its scythe against his family.
‘He’ll be here,’ he said again, dismissing the horror that had befallen his wife and child from his mind.
Killbere grunted as he chewed the meat, and probed a maggot free with a fingernail. ‘I have not mentioned it often. Of that I am certain.’
‘What?’
‘The nun!’
‘You told me more than a year ago as we made our way down to Meaux.’
‘Ah. As recently as that. Well, I apologize. I’m starting to chatter like a damned washerwoman.’
‘There he is,’ said Blackstone as he caught sight of his son, making his way through the encampment, a small sack slung over his shoulder that was seeping blood. Henry Blackstone served as John Jacob’s page, the intention being that he would one day rise to squire under the man-at-arms’s tutelage and the watchful eye of his father. Had Blackstone’s wife lived she would have argued the case for the boy to continue his studies, not learn the art of war. But she had not lived and Blackstone now had his son at his side, but he honoured her memory and ensured the boy continued with his schooling too.
‘Henry. Where’s John Jacob?’ said Blackstone. His son and his squire had been sent to check on Blackstone’s men as had Meulon and Gaillard to check on theirs.
‘My lord, he was summoned to the Prince,’ the boy answered.
Killbere looked at Blackstone and pulled a face. No words were needed. Blackstone would hear bad news soon enough. Killbere stretched around. ‘Boy, I hope you’re not carrying French heads in that sack. I’ve sliced enough of those today.’
Henry dropped the sack and knelt down, reaching inside it. ‘No, Sir Gilbert, they don’t cook so well.’ He lifted a piece of venison and smiled in triumph. ‘Will Longdon shot a deer.’
‘They’ll flog him for poaching the King’s game,’ said Killbere. ‘This is Edward’s realm now.’
‘No, Sir Gilbert. The sergeant-at-arms said that to Master Longdon but I told him he was wrong,’ said Henry.
‘By the dog’s bollocks, you did not,’ said Killbere.
‘Son, what happened?’ said Blackstone.
‘Father, I hope I did not shame you but the sergeant was going to arrest Master Longdon until I told him that our sovereign lord had yet to be crowned. It’s only the French King’s deer,’ said Henry.
Blackstone and Killbere were dumbfounded and then Killbere guffawed and laughed until a coughing fit and the pain in his side stopped him. ‘Sweet Merciful God, Thomas, you’ve a wolf pup here who knows the law of the forest.’ He grinned with pleasure. ‘Henry, you are a credit to your father.’
The boy beamed but soon lowered his eyes at the stern glance from Blackstone. ‘You challenged a sergeant-at-arms, Henry. You’re a page not a squire. And you should bear your learning lightly. You risked shaming the man in front of the archers.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Will Longdon spoke up for you?’
‘He did. He knew the man so they parted on good terms.’ He raised his eyes and dared a grin. ‘And I parted with this.’ Henry wiped the blood from his hands on the sacking. ‘Will said it ran in fear from the forest when the King’s bombard went off. Said it ran right across the line of archers. Said it was a French deer showing disrespect for English archers.’
‘And the rest of its carcass?’ said Blackstone.
‘Will’s sharing it with as many of his archers as he can.’
‘My mouth waters, boy,’ said Killbere, ‘but raw venison is hard to chew with my old teeth.’
Henry smiled and pulled out a wad of wood shavings. ‘The carpenters were cutting timber.’
‘Good lad!’ said Killbere. He reached for his aketon and picked away a couple of stitches of the padded jacket with his knife. He tugged free some of the wool and gave it to the boy. ‘Fire and food.’
‘You checked my horse? He’s fed?’ said Blackstone.
‘Yes, Father. They have him roped in a glade. They did as you instructed and kept him well away from the other horses.’
‘No injuries?’
‘Not to your horse, Father. One of the boys in the baggage train got too close and he kicked his leg. They say he won’t walk again without a staff.’
‘Serve him right. Everyone knows to keep clear of him.’ Blackstone looked up at the clouds. ‘It will blow clear for a while. Make haste, Henry. We’ll save some for John for when he comes back.’
‘You spoil your men, Thomas, I’ve always said it. Though I grant you John Jacob deserves to be treated well.’
‘And Will Longdon, and Meulon and Gaillard and Jack Halfpenny, and Robert Thurgood and –’
‘God’s tears, Thomas. You cannot feed the five thousand… Yes, yes… them as well. Come on, Henry, do as your lord and father commands. All that killing has worked up my appetite.’
As the boy set about his task Blackstone’s gaze ranged beyond the temptation of the venison and the promise of warmth that even a meagre fire would offer. John Jacob was making his way towards them through the scattered men and with him was one of the Prince’s messengers.
More censure from the man he had sworn to protect? Blackstone wondered. Perhaps the sergeant-at-arms had not been so accommodating after all. The fire crackled into life; Henry laid the skillet on top. Whatever the messenger wanted, Blackstone could see by the scowling frown on John Jacob’s face that it was not good news. Blackstone doubted he would get to enjoy the only fresh meat they had seen in days.
The Prince’s encampment lay in Villedommange, a few miles from the city walls. From its rising ground the hamlet afforded the Prince a view of the plain before him. Blackstone strode ahead of the Prince’s messenger; the only words he had uttered were that Sir Thomas Blackstone had been summoned. John Jacob had turned to accompany Blackstone as he picked his way through the resting troops, but his sworn lord insisted he stay with Killbere and Henry and eat the fresh meat that Will Longdon had supplied. Through the grey drizzle and mist Blackstone saw the pavilions of the Prince’s retinue. A forest of pennons declared there were several bannerets and more than a hundred knights who fought close to the King’s son. Their squires would number in the hundreds, and the fighting men would be reinforced by nearly a thousand mounted archers. The Prince’s pavilion sat beneath his barely fluttering banner of Drago, the Welsh dragon that had rallied men at Crécy and Poitiers. The soaked material proclaimed the presence of one of the greatest fighting princes that England had produced. King Edward’s three other younger sons, Lionel, John and Edmund, had embarked with him to earn their spurs as their father came to seize the French crown. Blackstone doubted whether any of them could ever match the fighting skills and bravery of their older brother. Edward of Woodstock was a great knight who relished the rigour of battle as much as his warrior father. Blackstone and Prince Edward had been both blessed and cursed at the battle of Crécy when, as a sixteen-year-old archer, Blackstone had thrown himself into the fray in a vain attempt to rescue his own brother from a German knight who had struck the mute boy down. Blackstone’s action had failed to save his brother but stopped the young Prince being slain. Since then an uneasy and often embittered relationship had formed between the two men. The Prince’s sharp-edged anger at Blackstone’s defiance was tempered only by respect and a grudging gratitude.
Men-at-arms barred Blackstone’s way. He stood without protest as a steward went ahead of him into the pavilion. The rain became heavier, tapping out a staccato rhythm on the taut wet canvas. Rain dribbled down Blackstone’s neck but he stood unwavering as the men-at-arms hunched their shoulders. The tent flap was raised and the steward beckoned him forward. Blackstone entered into the half-light of the sumptuous lodgings of a prince at war. The flap was tied back and the burning candles made the damp air heavy with their sweet smell of beeswax. To one side a trestle table draped in a white linen cloth was covered with an assortment of silver and gold plate that bore the evidence of what must have been a feast. Some cold meats and a hank of bone, bowls half filled with bread. Fresh bread, his nose told him. The Prince sat on a bow-armed backless stool, a fresh shirt visible beneath his half-buttoned doublet embroidered with a curving vine and a bird about to take flight. He looked as though he had spent the day hunting, not fighting for his life.
‘Thomas,’ said the Prince.
‘Sire.’ Blackstone went down on one knee.
The Prince beckoned him forward. ‘A good day’s sport, Thomas.’
‘Aye, your grace,’ said Blackstone, remembering the slaughter and the stench of it, all less than three hours before. The fair-haired Prince made light of the battle, thriving as he did on the desire to fight, knowing perhaps, Blackstone thought ungraciously, that there were men around him who would throw themselves against the enemy so that no harm would befall him. Good sport providing you weren’t killed or maimed.
Edward waggled a finger and from the near-darkness at the back of the tent a servant stepped forward with a silver tray and a goblet of wine and offered it to Blackstone. He accepted it with a curt nod of his head and the servant faded away as quickly as he had appeared. Blackstone hoped the Prince did not want a drinking companion for the night; without food in his belly his head would soon be reeling – and then his tongue would loosen and he would be on more dangerous ground than facing a French cavalry charge.
The Prince nodded again, meaning Blackstone to sit on a nearby stool – one without the comfort of cushions or embroidered arms.
‘You stink, Thomas. Have you no water to bathe?’
‘No water and no fire even if we had, my lord. Nor is there food for my men or sufficient fodder for the horses,’ he went on, unable to stop himself. He quickly tried to cover his accusation by bringing the goblet to his mouth.
‘We are aware of their discomfort,’ said the Prince, ‘and our gratitude to our men will not be forgotten when we take the city.’
Blackstone lowered his eyes to avoid confrontation.
‘You may speak freely, Thomas. We are not always in agreement, but over the years we have learnt to tolerate some of your more outspoken thoughts. We see no purpose in denying you the right to speak freely here.’
‘I did not come here to offer my thoughts. I came at your command.’
The Prince nodded. He would draw out Blackstone one way or another either by threat or promise. The scarred Englishman was too valuable to his father’s cause. ‘We have food here for you,’ he said and once again beckoned the servant forward. ‘Fill a plate for Sir Thomas,’ he commanded.
Blackstone’s mouth filled with spittle at the thought of the tender cuts of meat. He raised a hand. ‘My lord, with respect I would rather not. I eat when my men eat,’ he said, wondering if behind the offer of food a stern rebuke for Henry’s impertinence with the sergeant-at-arms lay in ambush.
The Prince of Wales gazed at him for a moment, tugging his fingers through his beard. It was not matted with filth and blood like most of his men, and harboured no lice. Since retiring from the field he had bathed and washed with honey and rosemary soap. Blackstone’s gesture was in its own small way an act of defiance. A gesture to tell a royal prince that Thomas Blackstone could not be bribed or bought. He would rather suffer the pangs of hunger than yield to enticement.
‘And if we command you to eat?’
‘Then I would obey,’ answered Blackstone.
For a moment it looked as though the Prince would do just that but he waved aside the servant. ‘So be it. We can hear your stomach rumble from here.’
‘It rumbles louder than the bombards that fail to break the walls or smash the city gates,’ he answered, again unable to contain the criticism that he had promised himself to keep locked firmly behind clenched teeth. ‘We had a chance to reach that gate. Enough men were with me: we could have burned it down.’
The Prince bristled. It usually took longer for Blackstone to irritate him. But today he was tired from the fighting and its lack of success. ‘You were recalled because we were losing too many men. You defied that command.’
‘I did not hear the trumpets, my lord,’ Blackstone lied, ‘and I was concerned that… that you were given sufficient time to leave the field when I saw you were stricken.’ He gave his response simply without any hint of derision that the Prince had eaten too well too soon before undertaking the rigours of combat.
‘And that you shielded us is why we summoned you. To give our thanks,’ said the Prince.
‘No thanks are ever needed, my prince. I am honouring a pledge.’
The Prince’s temper almost bubbled over the rim of his patience. ‘We are not to be wet-nursed, Thomas. We are not obliged to have you at our shoulder at every waking moment.’
‘That would make the royal bedchamber too crowded, my lord,’ Blackstone said and smiled.
The Prince was gracious enough to allow his knight’s boldness. ‘And the royal bed, Thomas. We would not share our women with you so it would be a long and lonely night that you would endure.’ He sighed. ‘Thomas, you vex us,’ he said finally.
Blackstone remained silent.
‘You were lured to England by our grandmother, Thomas, and then ensnared. Our father knew her political skills and the influence she had before her death.’ The ghost of Isabella the Fair, once Queen of England, still haunted those who knew her and had fallen under her influence.
‘I was at the command of a woman who could scare a French cavalry charge better than English archers, even when she was ill and dying. She took my arm for support once and I could not deny her anything. I doubt any man could. She told me where my wife and children were in exchange for my promise to protect you. Would you dishonour me by insisting I abandon that promise?’
Edward lowered his chin to his chest. He gazed at the brazier’s flames. No one could demand Blackstone’s pledge be relinquished. The Prince’s life was entwined with Thomas Blackstone’s as surely as a woodbine wraps itself around a tree trunk. It was a cause of frustration engineered by his grandmother, the woman who had embroiled the English Crown in intrigue and political manipulation until the day she died. She was still honoured by his father despite rumours spread by those who believed he had banished her from court. Her cleverness had been such that the boy archer, Blackstone, knighted by the young Prince those years before, was now obliged to ensure that he, Edward of Woodstock, heir to the throne of England, would survive as long as Blackstone drew breath. The mother of the greatest of English kings had even made Blackstone fight him in the St George’s Day tournament the year before last. Blackstone had fought without colours as an unknown knight and would have beaten him, had he not allowed his Prince to win. It had not been obvious to the onlookers but Edward had known. He let the memory fade.
‘We were grieved when your wife and child were slain, Thomas. We offered our prayers.’
Blackstone bowed his head. The Prince would not have demanded his presence simply to thank him for his guardianship in the ditch, nor to express sympathy, nor to offer chastisement for refusing to answer the trumpets’ call. There was yet more to come but only when the Prince was good and ready.
‘Can you see a way into the city, Thomas? Is there a weakness in its structure? Does your stonemason’s eye tell you how the walls can be breached?’
‘The bombards are useless. They are not powerful enough. Our chance was to get fire beneath the gates. That chance has gone now, my lord, and the French will expect it. They will stop us even getting close. We cannot mine beneath the walls: the rock is granite that would take years to tunnel through. And even if we did breach the outer walls Gaucher de Châtillon will have chains across the streets to slow us down, burning pitch and oil on the rooftops and men at every alleyway to harass and kill us. Have you forgotten Caen? The bloodiest street fighting I have ever seen – but Rheims will be worse.’ He paused his litany of bad news and gave his final verdict. ‘We have the greatest army: one that can defeat anyone brought against us in the field. But we do not have the means to defeat this city. The King should abandon the siege.’
‘He will not,’ the Prince said.
Blackstone got to his feet as the Prince, distracted by his thoughts, tore at a piece of bread and then changed his mind before it reached his lips. ‘My lord, I beg you. Talk to him. Get Lords Lancaster and Northampton with you. They’ll see the truth. There’s no crown to be had in Rheims. To lay siege here will take a year to starve them out and in that time the French will raise an army greater than anything we saw at Crécy or Poitiers. We are ninety miles from Paris and we will have to fight for every walled town. Our supply wagons are leagues to the rear. Blacksmiths and forges, carpenters, building supplies, ovens, corn mills, boats: they cannot move quickly enough. You have ten thousand troops to feed but you have almost no food left. Half of them are mounted archers who will soon have no arrows. No matter how many sheaves the King has brought, they will be wasted here. You cannot lose your archers to starvation and lack of arrow shafts. Not so soon after we have invaded.’
His comments agitated the Prince, who began to pace back and forth in the tent. He tossed the crust aside. He knew Blackstone was telling the truth. He also knew that Blackstone wanted to convince him because he was the only person likely to sway the King’s mind.
‘We left England too late. October committed us to a winter campaign and now we are paying for it,’ said Blackstone.
‘Our King is paying for it!’ the Prince bellowed, his patience exhausted. ‘The cost of this war is not coming from the Treasury, it is borne by our father. He is paying for this war and he decided when he should invade. It is not for you to criticize your King! You were lying a sodden drunk in a rat-infested cellar when we called for you. Were it not for the loyalty of your men who found you, and the desire of our father to bring you to war, you would be lying dead, choked on your own vomit.’
Blackstone lowered his head: to remain facing the enraged Prince would have been foolish. Let his blood settle and allow him to wipe the spittle from his face. Blackstone waited until the Prince calmed.
‘It was no cellar, my lord. I was lying senseless with grief and drink in the back room of a rat-infested inn.’
The Prince gazed at him. Blackstone stood slightly taller. His scar had faded but it still cut a path through his weather-beaten face. The scar had been etched in battle, on the day they were both plunged into the violent hell of Crécy, but the deeper scars that Blackstone bore now were from a more savage beast than war. They were wounds that had brought a great fighter to his knees. That he was here now, before him, and had thrown his life once again into the fray to act as the Prince’s shield, was most likely the act of a benevolent God.
‘Very well. We will tell our father that his son’s wet-nurse believes this great quest should be abandoned. We will not face his anger. We shall use you as the whipping boy.’
Blackstone lowered his eyes. Once again his name would be brought to the King’s attention, embroiling him in court politics.
The Prince continued: ‘When you fought as an independent captain you seized towns by escalade. Your men have the skill to go over a town’s walls and seize it.’
‘That can’t be done here. The walls are too high, the ditches too deep. Escalade can come at a high cost in lives. Even your assault towers cannot breach those walls. Ladders would not do it.’
Waving aside the servant the Prince poured himself a drink. He hesitated for a moment and then poured another, which he handed to Blackstone, who knew the real reason for being summoned was about to be revealed.
He took the drink from the Prince’s hand.
‘Not here, Thomas. There’s another prize to be had.’
‘God’s tears, Thomas, I’m in no mood to be dragged on a wild goose chase. I am happy here,’ said Killbere. ‘There’s a chance the King will assault the city again.’
Blackstone led the way through the soldiers huddling beneath soaking wet blankets, red-eyed from their smudge fires. He could see Meulon and Gaillard in the distance gathering his men. Some needed a kick to roll them from their blankets, but not the archers: he glimpsed Will Longdon quietly leading them from the field. Their paths would cross at the treeline. John Jacob and Henry trudged behind Killbere, a couple of levies carrying the men’s armour and weapons. It was another half-mile to where their horses were tethered behind the lines.
‘Gilbert, the King has released me for now from my duties with the Prince. We have work to do for him.’
‘Ah,’ Killbere grunted, and then spat out the acrid taste of smoke, ‘but I am already doing my work for him. I kill dog-breath Frenchmen who shit their braies when they see our blazon. I take no surrender. I leave the bodies of our King’s enemies as a bridge of tears for their wailing widows and orphans. I cannot do any more than I do already. I am happy here.’
‘In the cold and wet without food in your belly and rough wine on your tongue,’ said Blackstone. ‘And no plunder on our pack horses, or women straddling your thighs. Christ, man, you can’t sit in this mud and yearn for it.’
‘Women, you say?’ said Killbere, opening his stride to catch up with Blackstone. ‘There are women where we’re going? Don’t tell Will Longdon, he’ll run to this place of mystery you’re taking us. The last time I saw him he was starting to look at the baggage boys. Lads younger than Henry here. He’s an irritating turd when he’s not dipped his shaft for a while.’ Having made his plea he waited for an answer but Blackstone was giving nothing away. ‘Where are these women, did you say?’
‘All in good time, Gilbert. Henry, run ahead and warn them to have our horses saddled. The archers need good mounts. I don’t want any horses with saddle sores. Tell them I have the Prince’s command. Run, boy.’
Henry loped forward.
‘He obeys without question, Sir Thomas,’ said John Jacob.
‘So does a beast of burden if you thrash it hard enough,’ said Blackstone. If John Jacob had any problems with Henry Blackstone then it would be he who would cuff the boy.
‘He’s no dull-witted page, he’s got learning and he knows what’s what,’ said John Jacob, and then, in answer to the unspoken question. ‘I’ve never had to raise a hand to him.’
‘He’s twelve years old. He needs discipline. All boys do,’ said Killbere. ‘A good thrashing once a week is to be expected. A boy needs to feel the switch on his back. Never did me any harm.’
‘Aye, Sir Gilbert, but he’s got something of Sir Thomas in him. He’s stubborn and he’ll make your balls ache with some of his questions. He craves knowledge and he wants to please his father.’
Killbere’s grunt passed for a laugh. ‘Thomas makes your balls ache because he doesn’t answer any questions. And he’s been stubborn since I hauled his arse ashore at Normandy back in ’46. Christ, Thomas, where are we going?’
Blackstone smiled and nodded ahead to where Meulon and Gaillard waited at the forest’s edge. ‘I’ll tell you when the captains are gathered, Gilbert.’
Meulon the throat-cutter grinned. ‘The men are ready, Sir Thomas. They’re happy to be rid of this siege.’
‘Sitting on our arse with only two days of killing gives a man no hope of plunder,’ said Gaillard.
‘We could have breached that gate, Sir Thomas,’ said Meulon. ‘Damned if we couldn’t. It was wrong to blow the recall. Another hour and the bastards would’ve been under our swords.’
Blackstone placed a hand on Meulon’s shoulder in commiseration. ‘At least now we won’t be sitting on our arses in the rain.’
The small troop of men followed Blackstone through the trees into the clearing where the rear echelon was encamped. Will Longdon waited for his sworn lord. He should be in command of a hundred archers, but Blackstone’s centenar had only half that number standing behind him. Cock-sure, arrogant, tough bastards, thought Blackstone as his gaze fell on them. There was no one like them in the army. Christ, he thought, if they were let loose in the streets of Rheims they would run faster than their arrows and be twice as lethal. A part of him was thankful that the city walls would not be breached because he knew some of the men would disobey his order not to rape. Enough wine and blood-lust would countermand any commander’s order. And then he would have to hang the rapists.