Defiant Unto Death (12 page)

But here in Normandy, which was like his home country, the lush fields and rich orchards were a haven that could feed his family and allow him to watch his children grow.

‘You're daydreaming,' said Christiana, carrying a basket over her arm as she walked to where he had been cutting and laying the stone wall.

Blackstone looked quickly at her. ‘Was I?'

‘Yes.' She threw down a blanket next to a large piece of stone that had yet to be cut and shaped. ‘Your mouth was open, your eyes were glazed and flies were starting to gather,' she said as she sat, settling herself.

He threw down the mallet and chisel, and bent to kiss her. ‘I was thinking,' he told her.

‘It looked painful.'

‘Yet I felt no discomfort.'

‘You were grimacing,' she said and pulled back the linen cloth that covered his food.

‘Thinking can be hard work,' he said, and nuzzled her neck, breathing deeply of her scent.

Christiana shrugged him off. ‘I'm not here for sex, Thomas. It's too cold and this stubborn frost would seize my bones.'

‘I'd warm you. You would be aflame with desire and be grateful for the cold earth to cool your passion. Isn't that what a courtly-love nobleman would say?'

‘Do you want cheese or meat?' she asked.

‘Either,' he said and smiled. It made no difference what food he ate, but he could not ignore the stirring of passion for her.

She cut a chunk of rough bread and handed it to him with a wedge of cheese and an apple whose skin was beginning to wrinkle.

He rolled the apple between his fingers. ‘Have we been married too long?'

‘Are you saying I'm as wrinkled as that?'

‘I'm saying we used to rut like deer,' he told her and took a big bite of cheese, pushing a torn piece of bread into his mouth at the same time.

‘You're a peasant, Thomas,' she said, not unkindly, to which he grinned and nodded. She held the wrinkled apple. ‘It's one of the last on the rack in the barn,' she said. ‘Maybe it
is
like me. Left abandoned over winter to age alone. Letting my juices dry.'

‘You could take a lover,' he said, pulling the cork on the stone flask from the basket and taking a mouthful of cider. ‘God's blood, this could turn a man blind.' He grimaced.

‘Well, it certainly can't make you any more stupid,' she teased as she slipped a slender slice of apple between her lips.

‘Why, because I suggested you take another man to your bed? You never would. I know that.'

‘No, because the sun is burning off the mist and we are here far away from the house and children, where there are no servants or sentries, it's as secluded as I could hope for. You obviously don't need the cider to turn you blind.'

He swallowed and looked at her propped on her elbow, watching him, saying nothing, the swell of her breasts pushing against the dress. Like a child trespassing on his lord's domain, Blackstone popped his head above the wall and peered across the fields and orchards. They were alone. Blackstone pushed aside the food basket and lay next to her.

‘Why don't you just say you want to lie with your lord and husband?' he said, teasing her nipple beneath her dress with a fingertip.

‘Thomas, that's not how the game is played,' she replied, and pulled his scarred face towards her lips.

Paris and the Île de la Cité shone in the spring sunshine, a welcome change from the river fog. Notre-Dame's towers finally broke through the shroud that had covered them these past several days. The city's stench had shifted as the breeze turned and King John felt that the future would reward his determination to protect this jewel of a city, with its renowned university and Notre-Dame's magnificent homage to God. The court astrologer had predicted that momentous events would occur, that a great battle would be fought, and that could mean only one thing to the impetuous King – that Edward of England would be vanquished and hurled back across La Manche, the sea across which the bastard Duke of Normandy had once invaded and claimed the land beyond as his own. Like a blade being twisted in a wound, history since that day had inflicted its agony on the French and caused an abiding mistrust and bitterness between them and the Normans.

The King, despite the apparent physical strength of his body, was prone to chills and ill health. His chair was drawn up close to the fire when Simon Bucy entered the royal apartment. John looked at him and for a moment Bucy thought that he looked like a sick old man despite his thirty-seven years. The King pulled his ermine robe closer to his neck. He was not in the mood for the leader of the Parlement to bring him affairs of state.

‘We have a new falcon and thought to release some cages of doves. A distraction from the tedium of this gilded cage where I am kept duty-bound,' said John.

‘Sire, we have news,' Bucy said. ‘From the south.'

Bucy quickly gestured the attendants away and they pressed back against the walls, well out of earshot. He took a slow, deep breath. He needed it to calm his own trepidation before delivering what would be another mighty blow to the King's already shaky confidence. ‘Jean de Grailly led a mixed force of Gascons and English and struck north from Bordeaux away from the main force and then turned east. He has taken the city of Périgueux.'

King John's breath expelled like a deflated bladder. ‘What?' he whispered. ‘Impossible. The garrison at Saint-Clair-de-la-Beaumont holds the road and the river. De Grailly would need to take it. He could not. No one could lay siege at Saint-Clair. Sir Henri would have sent word. We would have heard.'

‘I'm afraid it's true, highness. Thomas Blackstone sailed upriver and attacked through the marshes from the rear. Sir Henri is dead and his men with him. De Grailly has garrisoned it with a hundred troops or more and Blackstone seized the weapons and the coin Sir Henri held to pay the local lords. We cannot raise further taxes and must find other means to pay those who are still loyal to us there.'

‘Blackstone,' said John, as if the very name was poison on his tongue.

Bucy stepped quickly forward, eager to alleviate the bad news. ‘Sire, I have found the man who would dare to draw out Thomas Blackstone, and by so doing enable us to diminish the Norman lords.'

The light of sudden interest sparkled in King John's eyes. He nodded for Bucy to sit.

Bucy began to relate all he had learnt from the Norman traitor. ‘He is the son of a minor family. He is educated, literate and has intelligence, even if more feral than most.'

‘We do not want these lesser nobles thinking we will grant them land and favour because they believe themselves to be capable of going against the Englishman. How many fools have dreamt of that and now look down on their folly from heaven?'

Bucy shook his head and spoke quietly. ‘It has nothing to do with his family. They abandoned him, glad to rid themselves of him. He stole from a family while he was a guest in their home—'

The King interrupted: ‘All nobles are thieves, my friend, like gutter rats snatching at scraps. They preen themselves with spittle for their enemies. A man who covets a silver goblet and is prepared to kill for it is a shallow character. To be a master thief with ambition is to steal a nation,' he added dismissively. ‘Look to Edward for a lesson in thievery.'

‘This man is more than a thief, sire. He began killing when he was young. He befriended a widow's son so he could attempt her seduction. But she rebuffed his advances.'

The King's attention was held. ‘And he killed her for it?'

‘No, her chastisement made him flee, but he helped himself to whatever jewellery he could find. When the woman's young son accused him of the theft he murdered the boy.'

‘A matter of honour because he was falsely accused or was there proof?' asked the King.

Bucy licked his lips nervously. What frightened him was not the machinations of politics but of having any close contact with the violent men who scoured the country, be they of the nobility or base-born, like the routier horsemen. Rape and slaughter were an everyday occurrence. The King granted licence for torture and the Church never questioned a confession of heresy obtained by breaking and burning a victim. And yet Bucy hesitated. He was about to deliver to his King a man so vile in nature that the devout John might refuse to have him do the Crown's bidding.

‘It was a matter of revenge against the woman. He took her son in the night and tied him to a tree within sight of his mother's bedchamber. When she awoke the first thing she saw were his slashed and bloodied remains. It was a vicious evisceration that curdled even the hearts of men who had fought in war.'

‘He would have been condemned,' said the King. ‘And hanged.'

‘He very nearly was. The scandal could hardly be contained. His family was on the point of ruin. Reparation to the injured widow would have meant the loss of their estate and financial compensation that would force them into penury.'

The King raised a glass of wine to his lips. He could see his adviser was frightened by the very thought of this man. If fear could be spread like contagion then perhaps he had found his plague carrier.

‘How was he not punished?'

‘The solution was suggested by the killer himself. Were his family to buy a benefice from the Archbishop, their land would be retained, he would be saved from the hangman's noose and the widow could not contest the forgiveness that would be granted.'

‘And the killer was made the archpriest of the diocese?'

Bucy nodded. ‘And in so doing the Church gave him the opportunity to secure his own authority and wealth.'

Both men fell silent. The solution of the benefice offered a blessedly simple way for the killer to gain influence, and his family were well rid of a brutal and troublesome son who guaranteed their ruin. Bucy recounted what he knew.

‘This man sold sinners to the Bishop; those accused of blasphemy he whipped and tortured; he exchanged holy oils for gifts, rosaries for carnality and, when visiting the dying, would strip them of their jewellery. The abomination ended only when the Bishop realized that his priest was taking more from his victims within the dioceses than the Bishop himself. The killer lost his benefice, but by then he was well used to the pleasures that money could buy.'

Bishops were powerful, archbishops more so, and the Pope may as well have been the voice of God incarnate. The Church's power and authority could often be a direct challenge to the authority of the Crown despite a king being thought divine, but that they should have taken into their fold such an evil creature and stripped him of office only when they discovered he was more successful at extortion than themselves gave the King dispensation to use him. Doubts crossed the King's mind. A brutal murderer might not be the answer to weakening the Norman lords' power by killing Thomas Blackstone.

‘Simon, it is not enough to let a rabid dog loose across the countryside. A man like this will never be assuaged by blood; he will kill simply for the enjoyment of killing. He is not the man we seek. His desires make him too unreliable.'

‘Sire, there is more.'

The King's eyebrows lifted. A slaughterman who tortured his victims could have no further qualities that could be put to good use.

Bucy said, ‘Ten or eleven years ago he became obsessed with the daughter of an ageing knight, Guyon de Sainteny.'

King John remembered loyalty as much as he did treachery.

‘De Sainteny? He was a Norman. Yes, he served our father against Godfrey de Harcourt and the English. What happened to de Sainteny?'

Bucy barely withheld the sigh that threatened to escape from his chest. The King was easily distracted.

‘I don't know, sire. Killed in the fighting before Crécy, no doubt. He was of little importance. What we know is that he was poor and a widower who could not keep his child in safety. Even a convent was no sanctury.'

‘Then this creature violated his daughter? Is that it?'

‘No. He attempted to entice her into marriage. He threatened Sir Guyon but the old knight was made of sterner stuff and knew he would never be able to offer the protection his daughter needed because he was often away from home serving his sworn lord, so he sent her to a household that he would never dare challenge.' Bucy paused for effect. ‘Countess Blanche de Harcourt.'

The glass of wine was held suspended without reaching the King's lips. Bucy knew in that moment that John's interest was finally caught.

‘Harcourt?' the King murmured. He sipped the wine, his mind whirring with anticipation of taking the first steps towards wounding the Norman lords, enticing him to consider engaging this beast of a man.

‘If he kills Blackstone let him have all that Blackstone possesses. His territory. His towns. It is what he desires. Or part of it, anyway. Pardon him and use him,' Bucy urged him.

The King faltered. His agreement would give the killer official status and a lawful source of income. John thought about it. The fear this man created from the violence he inflicted was worth more than could be bought.

‘Is he Satan's spawn?'

‘He professes to be the instrument of God's anger, sire.' Bucy hesitated, considering whether he should mention the killer's sobriquet to the devout monarch. ‘He is known as “le Prêtre sanguinaire”.'

King John swallowed hard, the flutter in his chest a quiver that rippled through him. ‘His name?'

‘Gilles de Marcy.'

It meant nothing to John. A fear of God was most men's inheritance. But clearly not this man. Great lords stripped their wealth and prostrated themselves before the Church as they neared death in an attempt to renounce worldly desires and success. Such desperation for absolution and to expunge pride from their souls was a final plea for mercy before being swept into the heavens with Satan's imps biting and clawing at the ankles. But a man who claimed to embrace such heavenly vengeance was possessed … of what?