Defiant Unto Death (42 page)

‘That you did not, sire, shows an understanding greater than that of even his highness, and I mean no disrespect to my sovereign lord.'

‘I wonder, Thomas. Do you respect anything or anyone?'

‘I respect a man who makes a necessary and difficult decision when an easier option is offered,' Blackstone said carefully. He wasn't yet free of any charge of impertinence.

Edward rode on in silence for another minute.

‘You want revenge, Thomas, and you wish to use me to secure it,' the Prince said finally. ‘I know what happened to de Harcourt. Our father also has his spies in the French court. Do not deny it.'

‘I do not, my lord.'

‘And Father Torellini's message from the King? Was I to surrender?'

‘The King wishes that you return safely, unharmed and without ransom. The decision to yield should be yours,' Blackstone admitted.

Prince Edward turned to look at Blackstone. ‘Don't ever lie to your Prince again. Not even by omission.'

Blackstone held his gaze. ‘Everything I said was true, my lord. We should not leave this country with dishonour.'

Prince Edward knew Blackstone would not recant his accusation of the brutal campaign he had led across France these several months. It had been bloody and merciless. It had been necessary. Scouring a man's skin to the bone while no one tried to defend him was no different from John the Good standing aside while his country was put to the torch. The dishonour lay with the French King.

‘The French King's army grows stronger by the hour; we need to know how long we have before finding a suitable place to make our stand,' the Prince told him. ‘You and Sir Gilbert will ride ahead with thirty men and find me such a place. We've a day – two at best.'

‘You'll fight then, my lord?' Killbere asked.

The Prince stared ahead to a road that led to an uncertain future.

‘It was always our intention to do so,' he said. A glint flashed in his eyes. A smile barely curved his mouth. A great battle and a chance for victory over the French King could not be denied.

Blackstone and Killbere urged their horses on as Salisbury spurred his horse to take their place.

‘I'd have had him staked out and flogged and sent back to his French whore tied backwards on a donkey,' the old warrior said.

Edward smiled. ‘No, William, you would not. You value him as much as we do. He will die to see justice done. You cannot ask more of a man than that.' Prince Edward raised a flask to his lips and swilled the dryness from his throat. ‘And his wife is no French whore. She's a Norman whose father died defending his land against us. We should thank God that Blackstone still fights on the side of the English.'

Blackstone and Killbere searched the skyline for French forces and bands of routiers. The English army needed to gain ground if they were to stay ahead of their enemy. If de Marcy's routiers were riding with the regulars they were most likely acting as their scouts. Killbere's outriders reported that French pennons could be seen beyond the hills.

‘They've outmanoeuvred us,' Killbere said. ‘Bastard French whoreson wasn't listening to any parley; he's covering his arse with steel-plated breeches.'

‘He can move faster than us. He'll be close to the Roman road at Poitiers. We can worry him enough to let Edward bring the main body forward. We have to get men up here with us.'

Killbere sent riders back to the Prince with the message that the French were close to cutting off his route to Bordeaux.

‘Whether Edward had played for time or not,' Killbere told Blackstone, ‘he's no choice now but to fight!'

But Edward sent no troops. He force-marched his army south as Blackstone rode tirelessly back and forth from the scouts, reporting everything they had seen. If the English had not been slowed by the lumbering baggage carts they might well have stumbled into the rear echelons of the French before they made their river crossing to the south of Edward's march.

The River Vienne separated the forest from the southern route of the French army. ‘Here, my lord,' Blackstone said, as he drew a line in the dirt. ‘Here is a bridge at Chauvigny; King John would turn his army across the bridge and reach the Roman road south of Poitiers cutting you off. If he gets there before you, there is no escape. If we can hold him – push him away from that route – then you can keep moving around Poitiers towards Bordeaux until you choose to fight. Give Sir Gilbert and me two or three hundred men-at-arms and mounted archers and we'll attack their rearguard. You keep the army moving through the forest and get to the road. King John won't know how close we are. Push hard, sire. We can hurt him.'

‘It can't be done, my lord,' Warwick said. ‘We've already covered twenty miles today. We won't make it in time.'

‘And even if we could, we'd be in no fit state to fight,' Salisbury added. ‘We're desperate for water.'

‘Give him the men,' Oxford argued. His battle-hardened knights Richard Cobham and James Audley would take the fight down the enemy's throat. ‘Cobham and Audley can hamstring the bastards from their rear and Blackstone and Killbere can go at their flanks. We can wound him. Blackstone is right; it will break their marching order or at least put the fear of Christ into them.'

Blackstone stayed silent as the commanders argued and considered their options.

‘No,' Edward said finally. ‘We'll not split our forces. Find a place that gives us an advantage, Blackstone. Find it so we can choose when we fight.'

Blackstone and Killbere, who took some time to cease from cursing Edward's decision, shadowed the French army. They were out of sight behind the low hills, but the air held the murmur of armoured men, horses and equipment moving relentlessly.

The two men, with the few soldiers who remained with them, rode on in silence, pushing further south through the forest, when Blackstone suddenly gestured them to halt. They had stumbled within sight of a considerable number of men-at-arms, the French rearguard, their image broken in the distance by two hundred yards of trees. Blackstone held back the men, all nervous of their presence being betrayed by the neighing of a horse or a movement an observant French knight might see. Blackstone gauged the number of riders. Each block of French men-at-arms that passed through the gap in the trees numbered at least seventy. It took little time to realize that there were several hundred of them.

‘Jesus, Thomas,' Killbere whispered with only the slightest movement of his head. ‘We've stumbled into a hornet's nest.'

Blackstone turned and followed his gaze. Horsemen were also on their flank, making their way through the forest, turning and twisting, finding the tracks for their horses. They were too far into the trees to identify, but there was no doubt that they were routiers, and if they stayed on their present course they would ride right onto the Englishmen.

Blackstone slowly drew his sword, as did Killbere and the men. They would have to fight their way clear. Anticipation shortened Blackstone's breathing, his fist gripped his sword until his knuckles ached. It was the same before every combat – the blurred vision that swam briefly before changing to the clarity of a raptor that saw every movement and nuance of battle. When fear gave way to exultation.

Before Killbere could stop him, Blackstone eased his horse aside and rode towards the flanking men. To ride against an enemy alone was suicidal. Killbere held fast, still in the forest's cover, waiting to attack as Blackstone halted his horse on a broad track, twenty yards wide, leaving him completely exposed to the approaching men. Five, then ten, twenty and thirty men, filtered from the forest, followed by even more, and not one of them raised his voice in challenge or his sword in anger.

Blackstone turned in the saddle and called back quietly: ‘They're my men.'

The French rearguard had no time to organize a defence. As they cleared the forest and moved into the open Blackstone and Sir Gilbert swept out of the trees with Guillaume and more than a hundred horsemen. Panic-stricken horses careered into each other as knights shouted and cursed in confusion, trying to strike back at their attackers. Guillaume led men onto their flank, as Killbere's swept right, hacking and slicing the outer riders who had nowhere to run – turmoil at their backs, the English and Gascons at their front. Blackstone and the men behind him rode into the heart of the mêlée, the force of their charge carrying them deep into the Frenchmen who lumbered helplessly into each other as they attempted to turn their horses. It was a slaughter.

Within the hour more than two hundred French lay dead; others, captured by the Gascons, would fetch ransoms. The survivors galloped for safety, pursued by Blackstone's men.

The blood-splattered Guinot, Chaulion's garrison commander, reined in with Perinne and Meulon with Gaillard at his side. ‘I can't stop them, my lord. They've been sitting behind a town's walls too long.'

‘Let them be!' Blackstone ordered. ‘Meulon, Gaillard, regroup your men and cover our flanks in case there are others in the forest. Perinne, you stay with Guinot, take our wounded from the field.'

The men wheeled their horses to carry out his commands. Beyond the escaping French another group of riders had appeared on the crest of a hill. Armoured knights, their banners catching the late afternoon sun, stood motionless watching the debacle. Blackstone could not make out the coat of arms. He spurred his horse.

Killbere saw Guillaume give chase and went after them. The two horsemen caught up with Blackstone as he crested the hill, but the French knights had already gone. Killbere pulled his helmet free and tousled his sweat-soaked hair. ‘We hurt the bastards, but it's little more than a sting. Where in God's name is King John?'

The three men could see no sign of the French army.

‘I don't know, but I saw their scouts on this ridge. They're close – couple of miles, maybe – hidden by those hills. If Edward comes out of that forest he'll have no battle formation and if the French are drawn up he'll have no choice but to fight on their terms. Gilbert, ride back, take Guillaume and the others, warn him to stay in the trees, guide him to as far as we reached.'

‘I'll stay with you, my lord,' Guillaume said.

‘No, ride as Sir Gilbert's escort. Take Guinot and as many of the others who still remain. There might be French scouts between you and the Prince. Avoid them.'

Blackstone didn't wait for their answer and urged his horse down the hillside.

The forests drank in the remains of the day's light, the setting sun emptying the landscape of men's hope. Blackstone eased the horse forward, letting it find its own way over the patchy ground. He turned in the saddle to look back towards the forest where several thousand men would be stumbling, exhausted. There was no water to be had in that dense woodland, and if the French army blocked the roads south, the English would be hard-pressed to gain any relief before battle commenced. Blackstone knew there was a smaller river that lay south of the Poitiers road, but if the French were already there the English could be easily surrounded and starved into submission. There seemed to be nowhere suitable for them to stand their ground. And then Blackstone saw the tall stone tower of a Benedictine abbey. The narrow river lay just below it, and he could see across the village rooftops to the hillside beyond. That ground was the best place to make a stand. The holy tower was a beacon. Perhaps God
was
on Edward's side after all.

The abbey was a sharp reminder that Blackstone's family had left a similar monastery days earlier. As the bells rang out for vespers, Blackstone allowed himself a prayer for their safety. They would be well away by now, ever closer to Avignon, where the Italian priest would ensure their safety. Once this battle was over and his sworn revenge satisfied, they would be reunited.

He turned the horse back towards the forest. Prince Edward now had his place of battle and Blackstone had the opportunity he had waited for – to kill the French King and the Savage Priest.

Christiana and the children lay huddled on the barge's wet deck. They and Father Niccolò, with the sergeant, two other men and three tethered and snaffled horses, had glided downriver for four days. A second barge with the other hobelars and horses followed the broad-beamed boat, its tiller embraced by a bargeman. By the next day they would disembark and be within a few days' ride of Avignon. The priest had shown kindness, telling Christiana and the children stories of his home, where God's sunshine blessed the food and powerful city-states ruled. There was no King to obey, and trade was made in all manner of goods. Medicine and art flourished, children were educated and gold coin was minted. As they were swept across eddies and currents, he told Christiana that he had been witness to Blackstone's wounds ten years ago at Crécy. His injuries were their common link, for soon after that his broken body had been given refuge by the de Harcourts, where Christiana had nursed him. And loved him.

Their food aboard was sparse after the first two days, and the curtains of rain and river mist, between the occasional sunshine, soaked and chilled them, exposed as they were on the open deck. Agnes had recovered enough to travel, the monks' herbal remedies restraining the fever, but the child slept more than she was awake, held close to Christiana, whose cloak kept the worst of the rain from her. Cold and wet they may have been, but they were safe. Two days earlier there had been a brief glimpse of armed men ashore who had followed the meandering riverbank for a few hours. The river was, however, too wide for horsemen to ford, and the bargemen stayed in mid-stream until the men were forced away from the water's edge when the track ran out.

They had been blessed with a warm day; the sun's rays eased aching limbs and dried wet clothing. It was now only a few hours until daylight, before the bargemen would ease the barges ashore to unload their human cargo. Glimpses of moonlight showed the pastured hills lying downstream. The gentle creaking of seasoned timbers and softly lapping water lulled those aboard into a cradling sleep, all except for the bargeman and the soldier, Rudd, who stood his watch.