Defiant Unto Death (16 page)

Blackstone glanced at his squire. There was as much trust and loyalty between them as there was between him and Jean de Harcourt. Guillaume always gave a straight answer and his eyes and ears were for Blackstone alone.

‘Was I too harsh in what I said or how I said it?' Guillaume asked, concerned at his master's silence.

Blackstone shook his head. ‘I already knew it. The Count admitted as much to me himself. The Norman barons are a gathering storm. They rumble with dissatisfaction and uncertainty as to how the King will deal with them or they with him. Count de Harcourt carries too much responsibility and wishes none of the Norman families to suffer needlessly. His temper is short. I grieve for him.'

‘If you grieve for him, then … is that not sentiment, Sir Thomas?'

‘Most likely,' he answered.

The young squire thought for a few moments. ‘Then you do not look back because you carry them with you,' he said, finally understanding. ‘In your heart.'

Blackstone glanced at him; then he turned his eyes back to the road. And without the young squire seeing, allowed a smile. A smile tinged with regret. He was grateful he had no part in the Norman conspiracy. His was a straightforward life of soldiering, with men who fought their enemies face to face. Being a common man had its advantages. Still, it was with a sense of unease that he rode home to his own wife and family.

Far beyond Blackstone's horizon to the east, a fire burned in the smothered light of a forest. Gaunt-faced men, teeth bared, ran gasping for breath from the terror that pursued them. Thick smoke curled beyond the treetops as their village burned. The survivors grunted with exertion, pushing aside children who slowed their escape into the clearing. Women sobbed, their stricken faces showing clearly the bitter choice they must make; cast aside the infants they carried or cleave them to their bodies and falter. Most dropped them or threw the frightened infants into the spring-flooded streams. More children could be born, but a mother needed to be alive.

Those villagers who had escaped the brutal attack tore their flesh against bramble and thorn as they squirmed desperately through the undergrowth. Bewildered children stumbled, arms raised, their filthy bodies soiled further in their distress, their cries and screams soon silenced by sword and spear. The killers laughed and shouted, alerting each other to where survivors had broken free, giving pursuit as if on a boar hunt.

The terror revealed itself to the two riders who had tried to settle their horses as they witnessed the assault but the bloodletting and screams came upon them too quickly. The killers were behind them, sweeping onto the clearing's flank, so those being pursued were caught in the grassland arena.

Had it not been for their livery and the quality of their horses the bloodied mercenaries who hacked down the escaping villagers would have slain them. The horses spooked, the men fell and quickly went on to their knees, hands clasped in prayer, calling out their master's name, yelling at the top of their lungs that they were messengers. One of the men's bowels gave way in fear, its stench adding to that of the dead and dying. A bearded blood-cloaked ruffian noticed their livery and heard their pleas.

‘Not these!' he ordered, and ran towards the villagers who were being quickly surrounded.

Two of the routiers put their boots' heels into the messengers' backs, slamming them down into the wet grass, where they were held, unmoving, stricken by fear. The encircled men, women and children retreated back to back into a circle, crossing themselves in supplication, yielding to the inevitable. The routiers barely paused for breath as they hacked into them.

The messengers were bound and dragged towards the burning village. Little more than a handful had escaped the settlement to be slain in the clearing; here in the ruins at least seventy or more villagers lay, slaughtered. The pathways between what remained of the hovels were churned to mud glistening with silken ribbons of blood. The stench of charred flesh caught the back of the men's throats as it mingled with the smell of smouldering thatch.

Wide-eyed with fear they squelched in the footsteps of their captors as they were dragged towards the small stone church that indicated the centre of the village. A fire burned, flames spurting as the deep-seated embers were fed with more dry wood, fuel that would have seen the villagers through to summer.

There was no sign of monk or priest and the church seemed not to have been violated, unlike the screaming women being assaulted and raped by routiers. A man stood by the flames tormenting the embers with a stick as he watched their approach. His dark cloak concealed his mail and his bare head was free from the aventail. A broad silver-studded belt held a silver-pommelled sword, which indicated he was a rich man or a killer who had taken it. A heavy wet patch of blood darkened the black cloth further beneath an ebony crucifix. Both men averted their eyes. They were kicked to their knees, hands clasped, despite their bound wrists, utterances of prayer and pleas for mercy. Neither man dared raise his eyes to face what they thought to be the devil's disciple.

The man who had soiled himself shuddered, unable to control his fear; he rambled incoherently, spilling his words as he told the mercenary leader whom he served and why they were sent and how his own master was a voice for the King. The second man finally gathered courage, raised his head and delivered the message that his lord had told must be given clearly to this murdering brigand.

‘We are to tell you, my lord de Marcy, that Thomas Blackstone has killed Henri, Count of Saint Clair-de-la-Beaumont, and seized the fortress, handing it over to King Edward's allies. He is rich in coin and weapons.'

De Marcy's brow furrowed. Blackstone. The Englishman went from strength to strength. Blackstone raided with impunity and then returned to the sanctuary of the Norman lords. And now the French King was suddenly willing to use Bucy as a go-between. Gilles de Marcy knew he was a pariah. The nobility abhorred his actions; some of them had tried at times to entrap him and put a rope around his neck. But it was they who suffered the terror from his retribution. They and their families. He fingered the ebony crucifix at his neck. Divine violence was his to dispense. It served his purpose to employ God's anger for his own benefit. It was a blessing that protected him. The closest he had come to being apprehended was buried in the past, a few weeks after the English had invaded and fought their way across Normandy into the streets of Caen where a quick-witted archer had slashed the finger from his hand. A chance encounter. A brief moment of pain. But he had escaped from a despised enemy. The memory slipped away from his thoughts.

De Marcy stabbed at the messenger's livery with the charred stick.

‘Bucy sent you?' he said, dark eyes settling on the messenger's terrified face, who quickly averted his gaze.

The men nodded vigorously.

‘To tell me of the Englishman's success? News I would hear soon enough from travellers I rob and kill?'

‘My lord,' said the stronger of the two men, ‘our master wishes you to enter Paris and meet with him.'

‘With my men at my back? He wants us inside the walls?' he said disbelievingly.

‘Alone, lord, with a small escort. To meet with him in secret.'

‘And what is his offer?'

‘For you to be the instrument of the Englishman's death. To succeed where others have failed. To be offered a pardon, wealth and acceptance as the King's man.'

The Savage Priest's attention hovered on a ring on his finger. Ten years ago the great killing field at Crécy had given him enough wealth from the slaughtered French nobility's jewellery and weapons to hire men of his own. And now the King summoned him – welcoming his thirst for killing. De Marcy grunted and worried the stick's smouldering tip into the man's chest. These messengers would have no more information other than what they had given. Was it a trap? Mercenaries were bleeding the countryside dry. King John did not have the resources to fight them, but drawing in those who commanded the routiers, one by one, that could diminish their strength.

‘Who else has been summoned?'

‘Lord?' the messenger asked uncertainly.

‘Who else has been sent for, to rid the King of the Englishman?'

The man shook his head. He looked bewildered. ‘None. We are our master's messengers, we have served him all our lives, we are trusted. No others from our master's house have been sent. But I cannot answer for what my King might have done.'

That was the truth, de Marcy decided. Bucy was the King's confidant, he was a power behind the throne, and the King would not send his own messengers and risk being seen to align himself openly with such a ruthless mercenary. The politicians were fools; they saw armed men as blunt instruments. A commander needed his wits about him to draw out his enemy, to outflank him, to have the animal instinct to savage a foe after he had out-thought him. These men carried no sealed document, there was nothing to link the King to their mission, but Bucy would not dare sanction a pardon without the King's permission.

‘And nothing else was said?'

The man hesitated. ‘A benefit that would please you.'

‘He offers me a place at high table?' the mercenary sneered.

The messenger faltered. Bucy had spoken the woman's name almost as an afterthought when he had given them their orders. ‘Sainteny. Christiana de Sainteny. I do not understand everything that I am commanded to say, but that name was given to me.'

The Savage Priest's reaction to the name that was a long-abandoned desire was barely visible, but his breath faltered. His pulse quickened. How easily the years had erased the youth who had first laid eyes on the auburn-haired girl. That once shining instant had never left him. A boy, already a killer, had seen a woman whose beauty had cleaved a path through his darkness. A rare moment of light in a life of lust and violence. It lasted less than the blink of an eye. Whatever it was that had seized his heart had also squeezed it dry when she had rejected him.

It was a decade or more past. A scurrying de Marcy was shouldering his way through the crowded market place, eager to leave the stench of the alleyway behind him. The girl was carrying a basket over her arm, her back to him; he was no more than a half-dozen strides away when he saw the stooped figure of the old beggar neatly slice the purse from the cord around her waist. Why de Marcy faltered in his escape across the square he never knew. A petty thief was none of his concern, but he altered his stride, gripped the old man's arm, his strength forcing the beggar to open the palm of his hand. In the instant when the old man yelped with pain the girl he came to know as Christiana de Sainteny turned.

Nothing had ever explained that moment. Her green eyes flashed in alarm and then quickly understood when she saw the purse. She had said something about not causing the beggar harm and while de Marcy held him she took back her purse and pressed a coin into the old man's still-open palm. Under the girl's beseeching gaze de Marcy released the beggar. She smiled and thanked him and then turned to go about her business, her fingers tucking a strand of auburn hair beneath her cap. Like a prisoner held in a dark pit who sees a shard of light, a glimpse of sky, and then has it taken away, he reached out and caught her arm. She turned again and before he could utter the words that fought his tongue those same eyes blazed with anger. She saw the bloodied hand that gripped her and he realized he had not cleaned the gore that clung to it after the murder he had committed in the alleyway only minutes before. She pulled free, her shout of alarm alerting others. Reality brought de Marcy to his senses; a hue and cry would have him cornered and at the end of a rope before the day was over. He pulled his hood over his face and escaped into the crowd.

The months passed and de Marcy tracked her down. His persistence in his pursuit of her was met with increasing hostility from her father and those who served him. The threats held no fear for de Marcy. He offered what inducements he could – even marriage – but then one day she was gone, spirited away to a place of safety. And now she was being used to draw him in. How he did not yet know, but here was an opportunity to be welcomed back into the nobility and an offer of wealth with the bonus of a woman he had once coveted. He grimaced at the soiled messenger.

‘Your stench offends me.'

He barely raised his eyes to the man behind the kneeling victim. The mercenary rammed his spear into the man's back and forced his body into the fire. Flames leapt as the squirming man was pinned like a writhing insect, his screams smothered by the searing embers.

‘Tell your master what you have seen today,' he said to the second messenger who was staring in horror at his companion's fate. ‘And tell him that I am coming.'

Simon Bucy, the King's adviser and friend, observed, when he arrived at the church, that a dozen men loitered in various parts of the cloisters. They were not grouped together, but stood separate, and he could see that they acted as guards for the man who was waiting inside. Bucy had agreed to meet the Savage Priest and it was obvious that the mercenary did not trust those he was dealing with. Had it been a trap set by King John, using Bucy and his offer as bait, then it was clear that the mercenary had planned his escape.

As Bucy strode along the uneven flagstones towards the iron-studded doors, the men's casual demeanour changed and the brigands became more alert. Bucy's escort of a half-dozen soldiers moved closer to his shoulder, but Bucy raised a hand.

‘Captain, you will wait here.'

The captain of the guard hesitated; it was easy to kill someone of importance in the gloom of a church and, from what he had heard of the man that Bucy was about to meet, his fears might well be justified.

‘I am charged with your safety,' the captain insisted.

‘And you will stay here until I call you. I am on the King's business, and no ill fortune will befall me today. Do not approach any of those men; I want to create no opportunity for anyone to cause trouble. So keep your men here and keep them silent.'