Defiant Unto Death (52 page)

Marazin, lord of the manor, greeted Blackstone, who had gone ahead with Killbere to make certain that no trap was about to be sprung. The bearded old man who greeted them looked as noble as a dirt-caked hobelar. A broad belt held a stomach straining against a grease-slicked leather jerkin that bore witness to years of hand-wiping after meals.

‘You've a document?' he demanded, standing in the courtyard, unarmed and unafraid, as a couple of dozen crossbowmen on the ramparts levelled their weapons at the two knights.

Blackstone offered one of the sealed documents that vouched for him and which gave assurances of money and indulgences.

‘There's little by way of defence, my lord,' Killbere said. ‘A whore with a flagon and a knife could breach these walls.'

The man squinted up at the pockmarked knight. ‘You'd have experience of such women, then. We've no whores here; we're a God-fearing house, and you'd best not have any such women in your group back in those trees.'

Blackstone let Killbere answer for himself, taking a moment of pleasure as the tavern-loving fighter offered a stumbling apology.

‘I meant no offence, my lord. It was a coarse, unbecoming phrase. We are grateful for your pledge of safety.'

The man seemed to have a begrudging spirit. ‘I take the Pope's coin, I don't house scum from that Babylon called Avignon. We honour the holy mass and all times of prayer. You'll have less sleep here than in the saddle. Bring your family and sworn knights in, Sir Thomas Blackstone, and leave your horsemen outside the walls. We've food and drink for three or four days. No more. Then you'll be on your way to my kinsmen at the border.'

He turned his back. Killbere looked crestfallen.

‘A sin-free house,' Blackstone said, easing the horse away. ‘The power of prayer is something to behold. I feel we've been led here for your salvation.'

Killbere saw no humour in Blackstone's words. ‘I'll fight my way to heaven's door, Thomas, not crawl on my knees sober and chaste.' As they rode back to the trees the manor house's chapel bell rang for morning prayers. ‘I'll stay outside the walls with the men,' Killbere said.

An agreement was reached with the Seigneur. Christiana and the children, along with Guillaume and all the men, except the sixty that Blackstone would take on ahead, would stay at the manor house. Blackstone and Killbere would take Meulon and Gaillard with John Jacob and secure their next place of rest, almost within sight of the crossing point. Leaving a day ahead of the others would allow them to travel with the lumbering wagon on the uneven tracks. Guillaume and the French knights would bring the remainder of the men and Blackstone's family from the manor house and rendezvous at the chosen place. Until they left Christiana and the children would be safe under the old man's protection, and with the larger part of the force with her she would be able to travel swiftly under their escort to where Blackstone waited for them.

The Seigneur beckoned Blackstone. ‘Your well-being is of no concern to me once you leave my protection. I've honoured my part, but my men report that de Marcy and his routiers have left Avignon. They're riding from the south. And there are more horsemen on the northern hills. Hundreds of them. They've destroyed three towns and half a dozen villages, places loyal to King John. Is your Prince still raiding?'

‘No, he sailed for England. Are they de Marcy's men?'

The old man shook his head. ‘No, another band of brigands. Does it matter? They're worse than the plague; they're insensible to the fear of God.' Even if the Pope had not paid him to offer safe passage to the fearsome-looking Blackstone, he would have done so: his instincts told him that the man was to be aided and trusted. The day would come when his own alliances would not save him and any act of kindness might contribute towards an easier death. ‘The Savage Priest is a son of iniquity; his cruelty is unbridled. No church is safe, no village spared. He's drawn even more scum than he had before he sided with John. Bankers take his plunder; lawyers document a town's extorted tributes. He's equipped like a king, with his own surgeons and priests, blacksmiths and whores, so he can't travel fast. You have a chance to outrun him and reach de Montferrat.'

‘And the other routiers?'

‘There's no bargain to be made with those skinners, no ransom asked. They're looting and killing. God help anyone who ever raised a voice in support of King John. Perhaps he promised them money and didn't pay. Who knows? Landowner and peasant alike are dying because of it. And if these two armies come together, then nothing will stand in their way.'

Blackstone walked with Christiana through the vineyards, knowing he was due to leave her again in a few hours. The gentle warmth of the day and the clear, bright sky seemed to ease her spirits. She spoke of living with the Harcourts and how their two families were entwined following the bloodbath at Crécy, and the joy of the life she had shared with her English archer who had risen in rank and honour. He was the breath of her life.

‘I lived with Jean and Blanche as my protectors, Thomas,' she told him. ‘That was my home after my mother died and my gentle father placed me in their care. I swore I would never be forced from my home again.'

‘I brought that upon you, Christiana, but this war was not of my doing,' he told her gently.

She brought his hand to her lips, and then placed its rough palm against her cheek, as would a child with a parent. ‘You have always fought with honour, Thomas. For your King and your Prince; for Jean and for us – but now we go to another country without cause.'

She trembled in his embrace. The past few weeks had torn France and its people apart, and the savagery that pursued their family had suddenly reappeared and the fear it brought diminished her.

In Blackstone's eyes the girl he first saw, whose hair was the colour of autumn leaves, had never changed, nor had his happiness at being with her. But now, as he listened to her sadness and regret, she seemed as beaten as the country itself. Most men would have already abandoned her to a convent after learning of her rape, but he feigned ignorance of it; the shame seemed more his than hers. He had failed her.

‘Forgive me,' he said quietly.

‘There is nothing to forgive,' she said, putting her hands across his, her small fingers barely covering his palm. ‘Unless you've given your affection to another,' she added, and smiled.

‘And who might that be? Do you see any ladies in our company? And Sir Gilbert hasn't one feminine trait worth considering.'

‘I shall tell him you said that.'

‘Dear God, don't. He'd carve me up. He's been cursing me since I was a boy in my village. I've felt the cuff of his hand more than once.'

‘But not recently,' she said, and smiled again.

‘No. He's getting old, I think. I've known him a long time. He berated me for going back across the river for you at Blanchetaque.'

‘I thought that was Elfred?'

‘I forget. It was a lifetime ago. Do you remember when I found you in the village, when the Bohemian cavalry were breathing down our necks?'

‘I was terrified, but you made me feel strong. I remember that. And when I clung to you on the back of that horse I remember you smelled. Really stank. Archers stink. It's why we French feared you.'

‘I knew I should have let you drown.'

‘I thought we would – or that they'd capture us. They nearly did.'

‘Nearly. We were young, and we were going to live forever. Nothing was going to deny me having you. That's what I remember.'

She took his arm and leaned into him. The vineyard ran down towards a small river, disappearing from view into the forest, and then reappearing again beyond the hills. Like the lifeline on her palm that lost itself in the creases and valleys of her hand. ‘You remember Malisse,' she asked.

‘The old hag who was Blanche's chambermaid?'

She nodded, and laughed. ‘Godfrey de Harcourt always said she was a witch that should be burned. Slowly. She read my palm once and told me I would marry you.' She hesitated: ‘She said we would have three children.'

‘Then perhaps we should prove her right,' Blackstone said, and pulled her face to his lips. In that moment it seemed the Christiana he had always loved returned to him. She eased away tenderly, not wishing to face him.

‘It's too late for that,' she said. ‘I'm having a child.'

Blackstone had no control over his response. His first thought was that it could not be his. She read the pain in his eyes and in that moment realized he already knew what had happened on the barge.

‘Who told you? Jacob? Henry?'

Blackstone tried to clear his mind of the images that refused to go. He shook his head. ‘Neither. Jacob defended you, said nothing. Nothing at all, only that you'd been attacked.'

‘I didn't fight,' she said, surrendering to the inevitable admission.

‘What?'

‘He had a knife at Agnes's throat. I didn't struggle. I couldn't.'

Blackstone knew he had lied to himself about the fact that the rape did not matter. She would have fought – he'd always known that. She was Christiana; she would have fought rather than be shamed. But she had not.

‘Would you rather Agnes had her throat cut?' she asked calmly.

‘No. Of course not. No.' He had convinced himself that the assault did not matter because he had never lost his love for her. The child was not his. It was a bastard child from a rapist. His stomach plunged with the same wrench that he felt before going into battle. He loathed his own reaction and fought it.

‘I'll not purge it away, Thomas. The infant cannot be condemned for what happened. Can you understand that?'

‘Yes, I understand.'

‘Then do I stay with you and my children or shall I seek refuge in a convent and throw myself on the mercy of the Church?'

As the sun's rays glanced across the treetops and caught the copper-leaved vines, he reached out and touched her hair. Who would forgive Thomas Blackstone for the sins he had committed?

‘You have no need of mercy or forgiveness from any man. Least of all me. We have been blessed with each other and with our children. The ways of the child are not the way of the father. We'll stay together and see what becomes of us.'

It was the best he could do. A thread of hope for them both, a slender lifeline.

It was not enough, and they both knew it.

Blackstone led sixty men and the laden wagon through the scented pine forests, climbing towards the route indicated by de Montferrat's kinsman at the manor house. When the trees allowed them a view of the sky they could see mountain peaks guarding the valleys that would lead them into Italy. Killbere had said little on the twenty miles travelled, other than to comment on Blackstone's sullenness. He had uttered a reply about being sick of France and wishing for new horizons, but then curtailed his answer to command more outriders to scout ahead. The forest became denser, and gullies and ravines ran like veins down the edge of the track, hidden by tangled undergrowth and fallen boughs, offering opportunity for ambush. De Montferrat's kinsman had warned Blackstone of banditry from villagers who lived on what could be seized from travellers. They made no threat against the kinsman and their raids were infrequent, and for that reason he never ventured into the mountains to exact retribution. Blackstone wondered, when he had been warned, if the man might have been taking tribute from them. It made no difference; he had been warned.

‘If they come, they'll come at us from above,' Killbere said, looking at the slopes that swept away into the treeline above the track. ‘I'd rather we were on a ridgeline than down here. At least then we'd see the bastards.'

‘The old man said the routiers were north of us. There's no horseman going to attack in a place like this,' Blackstone answered, thankful that his mind had been turned away from dark thoughts of Christiana.

They camped on a curved plateau, where the road ran straight for three hundred paces in either direction until it curved from sight. That gave a clear view of anyone using the road. On the other side of the track a wall of rock ran several feet high before the forest's bony roots gripped its crumbling surface. Beyond the rock face the trees grew denser the higher the ground went. The plateau where they settled was covered thinly with trees, and the slope that fell away went down forty feet to a tangled bed of fallen boughs, thorn bushes and wild berries.

As Elfred and Will Longdon's men unhitched the wagon and hobbled the mules, Meulon and Gaillard instructed their sergeants to post sentries at each curve in the road and for others to find an animal track and go into the forest. The sentries were to lay a rope to guide their relief to where they stood guard. Blackstone wanted no one stumbling through the night.

‘Safe as anywhere, I suppose,' Killbere said to Blackstone.

‘Trouble is, nowhere's safe. Where would you attack a camp like this from?'

‘A sudden rush from each end of the road.'

‘That's what I thought. We'd have nowhere to run, our backs'd be against this drop. And if they had a few crossbowmen and got them up there in the trees, we'd be like trout in a fish trap.'

‘I'll put the men in small groups and each can defend its ground,' Killbere answered.

Blackstone nodded: ‘And tell them that if it's a hit-and-run raid to let whoever attacks escape down that end of the track. We don't have enough men for ambush or pursuit at night. And no fires.'

Killbere strode away calling for Jacob and Elfred.

Blackstone looked at the sixty or so men securing their horses, and finding their place to fight should it come. Being adrift in enemy territory in a poorly defendable camp would give few men sleep that night. But exhaustion and cold would take them, and that's when Blackstone, were he to attack a camp like this, would strike – two hours before first light, when men found that half-troubled sleep and they ached from curled bodies desperate for comfort.