Master of War (64 page)

‘Thomas, you cannot defy death forever.’

Days later Blackstone learnt that the traitor was an Italian mercen­ary, Aimerac of Pavia, who was King Edward’s galley master. He had betrayed his King for money and then betrayed the French for safe passage. Before dawn on the following morning Blackstone stood in the chill gloom of the two walls’ shadows. They had been told that a French army had come in the night and waited in battle order on the stretch of sand beyond the castle’s walls and the sea – exactly where Blackstone had thought they would be. As the grey light brought the day closer those on the battlements saw what appeared to be as many as four thousand infantry and more than fifteen hundred men-at-arms, who readied themselves to lead the assault.

Blackstone was five paces in front of his own front rank and three paces behind him stood Meulon, ready with shield and spear. The walls were narrow and allowed twenty men abreast to stand. Blackstone’s few English archers took the rear ranks with enough clearance to draw their war bows. Blackstone and his men were too far away from the tower gate to identify the shadowy figure who went forward, but soon afterwards the sound of the drawbridge being lowered was heard as the portcullis was hoisted up.

Blackstone turned to face the men. ‘Make no sound. They’ll send scouts in first. They’re not the ones we want.’

Minutes later indistinct figures of armed men ran beneath the portcullis and quickly checked left and right that no ambush awaited them. Deep in the grey gloom Blackstone and his men waited. The scouting party signalled for others to follow. Blackstone looked up as he heard the wind off the sea catch the fluttering French royal standard being hoisted above the tower. Two other banners were hoisted. One Blackstone did not know; the other was that of Louis de Vitry.

Blackstone and his men raised their unmarked shields.

Feet thundered across the drawbridge, creaking armour clat­tered as men ran forward shoulder to shoulder to be the first to strike into the heart of Calais and its unsuspecting garrison. Blackstone raised his sword, and heard the rattle of sword and spear as the men behind him readied themselves for the attack. More than a hundred men swarmed beneath the tower’s gate and then, the moment before the portcullis dropped, trapping them inside, and a sudden fanfare of trumpets signalled the attack, the French men-at-arms saw the darkness race towards them as Blackstone and his men hurled themselves silently into their midst. Two volleys of arrows from the rear ranks flew over the men’s heads and brought down men-at-arms at the rear, which gave the others little chance to retreat or to form themselves into defence. Metal clashed on metal and then the devil’s brew of fear and the urge to kill became a sudden roar from Blackstone’s attacking men – a sound even more terrifying after the silent attack – that echoed between the two high walls, which now trapped the leading French units. Blackstone smashed and cut his way forward at the point of the phalanx; Meulon’s spear thrust past his face as its length jammed into the open helmet of a Frenchman at his right shoulder. The heavy figure of Gaillard forced his way forward, plunging his spear into a flailing man, whose body-weight took the spear down with him. Gaillard made no attempt to retrieve it, but drew his sword to hack others. Blackstone barged a French man-at-arms, turned, locked crossguards and twisted, kicked and brought the man down, then rammed Wolf Sword between breastplate and thigh and trampled onwards, as writhing men were gutted and despatched by those following.

Gaillard was down. A knight hammered a mace across the back of his helmet, covering any retaliation with his shield. Meulon’s huge form forced his spear beneath it, and when Blackstone saw blood suddenly spurt, he reached down with his crooked arm and grabbed Gaillard’s shoulder. The stunned man rolled to one side and a sword suddenly plunged through the tightly fought mêlée and pierced Gaillard’s shoulder. His mail took most of the thrust but blood oozed. Blackstone came up from his half-crouched position and slammed his shield upwards, sweeping the man’s sword arm away, exposing his chest, and then, as if Meulon and Blackstone were one, like a chimera spawned for war, Meulon shortened his grip and rammed his spear beneath the man’s gorge. Then they moved forward: stab, cut and thrust, side by side. Unstoppable. Gaillard got to his knees and was swept up in the surge.

Faceless spectres loomed from the grey stone walls wielding battleaxe and sword as they tried to halt Blackstone’s advance, but his spearmen jabbed and wounded, as Matthew Hampton’s archers kept their distance and sent another storm of shafts into the French. Blackstone angled the attack, catching those with their backs against the portcullis, caged with nowhere to go except finally onto their knees to yield. The inner gates opened and garrison troops led by the Captain of Calais pressed forward in a steady rhythm.

‘Hold!’ Blackstone yelled, keeping his men from rushing for­ward and finishing off the surrendering men. They had already killed more than thirty of the enemy; murdering the rest would have no further effect on the failed attack. And he wanted his men still strong, because there was no sign of Louis de Vitry in this first assault. The sweating, bloodstained men ripped buckles and swords from their enemy. Booty was their reward. Some of the surrendered were felled by blows to quieten their insults at being bested by men who wore no coats of arms. Trumpets and drums sounded in the distance, heralding an attack. Blackstone pushed through the scavenging men to John de Beauchamp.

‘Where’s the King?’ he demanded, knowing his men’s work was done between the walls. The portcullis groaned upwards as de Beauchamp barked his answer and horses clattered from the inner walls across the drawbridge.

‘He’s attacking from the south gate, the Prince from the north!’ de Beauchamp shouted, and jumped clear as the horsemen pressed between them.

‘Sir Thomas!’ Meulon cried as he saw Blackstone grab the bridle of one of the bustling horses and haul its rider down. The man fell heavily on his back, but rolled to avoid the dancing hooves. Blackstone was in the saddle and was carried through the tower gates by the swarming horsemen.

Beyond the citadel Blackstone saw many of the French retreating under the English King’s onslaught. There must have been more than two hundred English archers with the King, Blackstone realized, as a swathe of Frenchmen fell from a sudden dark cloud. He scoured the French lines for Louis de Vitry’s banner, but the mayhem of the battle obscured it. And there was still no sign of William de Fossat. Was he biding his time, waiting to strike when the clamour of battle allowed him the chance?

Beyond the marshes on the spit of sand, horses galloped at full stretch as Frenchmen stood their ground and bravely met the Prince of Wales’s assault. It would be a miracle if they held against Edward’s pincer attack. But where was de Vitry? Where? Neither flank carried his banner, so Blackstone urged the horse forward into the centre as the other horsemen split and joined each of the flanks.

And then he was suddenly pitched forward. Crossbow bolts thudded into the horse. Its momentum carried it forward barely a dozen paces as its vital organs were hit. Blackstone fell into the marshy ground, the horse rolled across him. Visions of Sir Gilbert Killbere going under his horse at Crécy flashed into his mind.
Don’t let me die like that!
the voice in his head shouted. He was trapped. His left leg was pinned. Kicking and pushing with his free leg he began to drag himself clear. He was in the eye of a great storm, where an unearthly quiet prevailed. It took only a moment for him to realize that mud and turf had rammed itself between his helmet and ears and that was what had caused the battle to become muted.

He pulled the helmet free and shook his head, pulling his mud-sodden hair from his eyes. A handful of Frenchmen had seen him go down and were running towards him, accompanied by a knight on his war horse, half a dozen strides behind them, its lumbering gallop kicking clods of mud into the air. Sword raised and visor open, it was impossible not to recognize William de Fossat’s hawk face. Blackstone’s leg sucked clear of the quagmire and, with less than twenty paces before the men were on him, he pulled himself upright and readied Wolf Sword to strike.

De Fossat dropped his right shoulder and let his sword scythe down, feeling it bite through exposed head and neck.

Meulon yelled at the men to get clear of the castle and follow Blackstone. Matthew Hampton ran from the back of the group and caught up with the bigger man whose stride was twice that of the stocky archer.

‘He’s down! D’you see that?’ he gasped. The going was already soft, but Meulon pushed forward onto one of the broad paths that offered a causeway through the soggy ground. They were still too far away to use their bows and Meulon seemed to be in a race with Gaillard as they ran through the middle of the men on each side who were being pressed from the flanks. Englishmen turned, thinking Meulon and the men were attacking French coming from their rear, but Hampton plucked a fallen pennon from the ground and punished his legs and lungs to catch up with the spearmen.

‘Saint George! Edward and England!’ he yelled as loud as his gasping lungs would allow.

It was enough for the English troops to turn back and fight their way towards de Charny’s standard.

Their advance was halted by a knot of Frenchmen who burst from a mêlée on their right, and Meulon pushed Hampton clear as one of them thrust his pike between them. Gaillard’s sword slashed the pikeman’s throat, and Talpin and Perinne quickly formed a shield wall with others either side of him and Meulon. The wedge they formed allowed them to edge forward step by step. Heaving and cursing with effort, some stumbled and fell on the uneven ground, but sheer brute strength drove them on until the French lay slashed and dying beneath their feet.

‘He’s there!’ Gaillard cried, as fighting men parted showing the knight on horseback bearing down on Blackstone.

Blackstone had no shield, so he reached for a broken spear. Wolf Sword’s blood knot held, and the horse was seconds away from trampling him. He heard de Fossat grunt as his sword severed bone and flesh of the attacking men. Two went down and a third had no chance beneath the war horse’s iron-shod hooves. He was not there to kill the Englishman after all.

‘Move on! Man! Move on!’ de Fossat cried, yanking the horse around as Blackstone parried a sword blow from one of the men with the broken shaft and then cut him and the other man down. ‘Louis is there! There!’ he cried, pointing with his sword. ‘He comes for you!’

Blackstone spat blood, his dry mouth barely able to hawk the clot from it. He’d taken a blow to the face at some stage, but had no memory of it. He moved forward towards the company of men that bore down on him and the half-dozen horsemen in their midst who rode next to Louis de Vitry and his banner.

‘Sir Thomas!’ a voice bellowed behind him. He turned. Matthew Hampton and Meulon with Gaillard, Talpin and Perinne led the others like a horde of barbarians, their eyes staring wide through mud and blood-spattered faces, their beards matted with snot and spittle.

‘De Vitry!’ he yelled at them and turned to begin his lone attack. Sidestepping the bodies he ran for the drier ground to his left, as the causeway paths across the soggy ground would let him get closer more quickly and force de Vitry’s men to alter their own direction. Half of them would still be running straight and, as they turned to curve back, the middle body of men would be closer to Blackstone. And that was where Louis de Vitry rode.

William de Fossat pushed his horse next to the running man. ‘Take hold!’ he yelled, casting aside his shield, changing his sword arm, allowing Blackstone to grab hold of the stirrup strap with his left hand and to keep his own sword arm free. The horse could only sustain an erratic trot as it found its footing, but Blackstone’s feet barely touched the ground. Man and horse were propelled into the seething mass as arrow shafts fell among them. Matthew Hampton had steadied the archers as Meulon and the others threw a protective shield wall around them. Now they moved forward again when they saw Frenchmen pull de Fossat down, the speared horse whinnying, eyes rolling back in agony as it crashed to the ground. Blackstone danced away from the thrashing hooves, saw de Fossat honour his word as he fought a common enemy at Blackstone’s side. De Vitry yelled something, but Blackstone could not hear amid the mayhem. The banners had turned, they were sweeping behind the two knights. A baying howl rose up from Meulon and Blackstone’s men. They were being cut down as they forged towards their master’s side. Waterford died from a spear thrust, Talpin had two Frenchmen beat him to death with mace and axe. Blackstone watched as his wall builder fell under the men’s savagery. Then, by some miracle, Meulon’s lead took the men forward.

Blackstone had stood his ground, picked up a fallen shield and moved closer to de Fossat. Neither looked at the other as the hordes seemed to increase rather than lessen despite their having taken a vicious toll on de Vitry’s men.

‘Down, Thomas! Down! Down!’ a voice suddenly cried behind Blackstone’s right shoulder as Matthew Hampton lunged forward. Blackstone turned, four of de Vitry’s men levelled crossbows. Too late, Blackstone brought up the shield as Matthew Hampton ran forward and took two of the bolts into his chest. A third ripped through Blackstone’s shield and pierced his side. It burned like acid into his skin and muscle. He sucked in air, tested his weight. Could he still stand? Move? Attack? Three steps and then five – the pain blistering his mind, the sword swinging, as the scalding wound drove him on, spurring his strength. De Fossat lay unmoving in the mud, blood spilling across his breastplate.

Trumpets sounded somewhere close. The Prince’s men were closing the net. Louis de Vitry had promised to kill the man who had humiliated him. His lands had been returned, a bounty would be given. And he, among all Norman lords, would hold more power and control than any of them. But even as he spurred his horse forward towards the wounded Blackstone, he knew the battle was lost. Now there would be only ignominy. He had chosen the wrong side and sold himself to a French King who could never win. There could be only one satisfaction left to the embittered count: kill Thomas Blackstone.