Master of War

17




There were shouts from beyond the walls as men who had trudged from the forest, laden with firewood like beasts of burden, were held by the sentries at the far end of the bridge that spanned the moat. No one would enter the citadel until daylight made identification easier. Brigands had once talked their way into the castle, now it was obvious that Jean de Harcourt would not allow the same mistake again.

Ever since the castle had been attacked and its servants and villagers slaughtered, the household had had few replacements. A temporary steward was in command of the servants and it was obvious that everyone worked almost without rest in order to prepare for the Christmas celebrations. The war was costing the nobility money and stripping them of their resources – a level of poverty they were unused to, and which meant that some servants were not as skilled in their duties.

Blackstone had been granted the right to leave the castle provided four armed men accompanied him. That was no hardship and would not stop him from getting a better picture of the surrounding countryside should the day come when he was forced to make his escape. When King Edward had scorched across Normandy and Sir Godfrey had brought him and the others to the castle earlier, they had travelled from the north and west. Now Blackstone wanted to venture further south.

De Harcourt came into the stables as a stable-hand finished cinching a horse’s saddle. The sudden look of anger that crossed de Harcourt’s face made the man flinch.

‘Who chose this horse?’ de Harcourt demanded.

‘I did,’ Blackstone answered uncertainly.

De Harcourt snatched a riding whip from a rack and thrashed the hapless groom three or four times until he stepped back and went down on his knee. In the moments that Blackstone resisted the urge to lunge forward and grab his whip hand the punishment was over and de Harcourt threw the whip onto the straw-covered floor.

‘Get a courser,’ he commanded the servant whose welts now streaked his face and neck.

As the man scurried back into the darkness of the horse stalls Blackstone challenged de Harcourt. ‘Why did you do that? Did I pick the wrong horse?’

‘Don’t question what I do in my house, Thomas. I have given my friendship but you have no rights here other than what I grant you.’

‘If you punish a man for something that I did, then I have a right to know what I did wrong.’

‘You chose a mare. All my servants know you are knighted, and a knight never rides a mare.’

‘And you thrashed him for that? Have some pity.’

‘I barely laid the whip on him. He should have corrected your choice. Now, let the piece of shit get your horse saddled. I’ll not have you ride out from here and make me a laughing stock.’

Blackstone’s instincts were to go to the beaten man who had paid for his mistake, but he resisted the temptation in case his actions brought further punishment on an innocent man. This new-found land of privilege was a foreign shore and he wished for the day when he was as far from it as possible.


Christiana had not been pleased. Why would he wish to venture beyond the forests to the far reaches of de Harcourt’s land and influence? Violence lay in wait for the unwary traveller. Brigands and murderers could conjure themselves like night spirits in a dream. Why risk that now? Why not wait? Wait until he was stronger still and had the company of de Harcourt himself?

He allowed her anxiety to wear itself out. He was learning that there were times when her emotions ran like a swollen stream and it was best to let them flood across him. It took only a few moments for her to remember that she had no right to stand in his way, but her deep, passionate kiss in farewell left him with the taste and promise of a welcome return.


Blackstone eyed the soldiers who were to accompany him. De Harcourt had chosen the biggest and strongest from his small garrison force, knowing it would take four strong men to have any chance of stopping Blackstone should he try to disobey their master’s orders. All of the men wore de Harcourt’s livery and were several years older than Blackstone.

‘Meulon,’ he said, pointing at one of the men, ‘is in charge of your escort. He’s a good fighter – listen to what he tells you. You’ll go no further than a week’s ride. My influence extends only so far and there are towns held by the King’s men and routiers, and those mercenary bastards will take your skin as a trophy if they discover you’re an Englishman and then sell it to the King. Butchery is their business. You’re not to stray from the main tracks through the forests and if you see armed men you keep out of their way. And keep your mouth shut, your accent isn’t from these parts.’

‘I’m surprised you’re letting me go at all,’ Blackstone told him.

‘If I don’t you’ll find your own way out sooner or later, something you can probably do already,’ de Harcourt said. ‘You’ve spent nights in my library. I suppose you know every passage and doorway by now.’

Blackstone had not realized such a close watch had been kept on his movements during the hours of darkness. ‘I’m a stonemason, I like drawings of buildings, and you had them from your father’s days,’ said Blackstone by way of a stumbling apology.

‘Understand this, once and for all, Thomas. I gave my word to my uncle that you would be under my protection and he gave his word to your King, don’t ever forget that. This is a debt of honour.’

‘But you haven’t asked me to give you my word that I won’t try and escape. You think I’m not worthy of honour?’

De Harcourt looked at him and smiled. ‘I don’t have to ask you. You’ll come back,’ he said and signalled for the gates to be opened.

‘You don’t know that.’

‘Yes, I do. Christiana is here.’

De Harcourt turned back towards the house, his dogs loyally following. Blackstone was as free as he wished, but the Norman baron was right; the ties that bound him lay within the castle’s walls.

Blackstone’s wounded leg protested as he heeled the horse forward across the narrow wooden bridge, making those same clattering sounds that had echoed when Sir Gilbert Killbere had thundered to the attack only a few months earlier, in what seemed another lifetime. Now the young archer himself rode out as a knight, with four armed men as escort and Wolf Sword at his side.


Blackstone made no objection to his escort’s silence as they travelled along the known roads that petered out into tracks used by villagers to and from their hamlets. The surly guards kept twenty paces behind him, but he occasionally heard them grumbling about the duty they had been given. Each night they camped it was obvious from the snippets of conversation he heard that they had no love for the Englishman, but also that Jean de Harcourt would not be disobeyed. Even if they killed him on the road and made it look as though they were ambushed by brigands, their own lives would be forfeit. Blackstone was as safe as he could be for the time being.


In the clear morning air the dusting of snow that had frozen in the night crunched underfoot, and because the day was windless the distant drifting smoke from village fires told him where each settlement lay. The landscape drew itself as a map in his mind; angled edges of forests gave way to rolling hills, a skein of geese that followed the winding river told him which direction the water took once it disappeared into the distant woods. But the further they rode from the castle, the more nervous his escort became. They drew up closer to him and two of them took it upon themselves to ride fifty paces ahead. As they reached a crossroads the countryside opened up before them in a vast swathe of meadowland on each side of which stood broadleaf forests, their now-bare branches writhing starkly upwards – witches’ claws beseeching the darkening sky. Superstition was religion’s bedmate. Even Blackstone felt there was something sinister lurking just out of sight within the trees, and when a crow glided down from the treetops across their front and then settled in a nearby branch, its beady-eyed stare gazing down at them, the men crossed themselves, and Blackstone kissed the silver charm at his neck. Superstition warned them all that death disguised itself in the devil’s form and that a hooded crow was a portent of something more sinister than bad luck.

Blackstone turned his horse away and went in the opposite direction. There was no point in proving bravery against evil spirits. As the horsemen followed him he heard their murmur of agreement. It seemed the Englishman was now less of a liability. Neither they nor the man they guarded could guess that their misplaced confidence in playing safe would soon disappear like their plumed breath.


They reached the edge of de Harcourt’s influence on the fifth day. Village hovels squatted like fat sows in mud. Chickens pecked the dirt and a cur yelped from a peasant’s brutal kick. As they rode through the thoroughfare men’s hollow-eyed stares gazed back at them from fearful yet resentful eyes. The shelters tumbled back from the opening into the forest so it was impossible for Blackstone to know how many people lived in the village of Christophe-la-Campagne.

The fields were empty of sheep. They’d have been slaughtered a month ago and most likely eaten; any spare mutton would be salted for the coming dark months. Blackstone saw little sign of activity. Winter sowing of barley would have been done by now and the mounds of turnips piled next to many of the hovels were proof that their winter food had already been gathered.

There was the bitter smell from a forge in the air, so a blacksmith was at work somewhere, though there was no tell-tale clanging of hammer against metal. Sodden roofs still dripped from the night’s frost, the houses held in the shade, too low in the landscape to get warmth from the sun’s shallow arc. Smoke snagged the reed thatch like silk on a thorn bush.

This place was no different from any other that Blackstone and the mounted archers had burned to the ground on their way to Caen.

‘How many people live here?’ he turned and asked one of the men.

‘No one knows. They breed like fleas on a dog’s back,’ the man answered and spat into the mud.

‘Does your master safeguard them?’ Blackstone said. ‘Are they part of the manor?’

‘I don’t know, my lord, some of these places are in our jurisdiction, there’s no abbey close by, no other manor house. Maybe they’re Lord de Harcourt’s scum, maybe somebody else’s. We shouldn’t stay here. They hate the English and there’s enough of them to cause trouble.’

‘You think they’d start a hue and cry against me?’

‘A mob gets going here and we’d have shit for dinner. They’re like damned creatures of the night coming out of nowhere. And a peasant with a billhook can take a horseman’s leg off as good as any cursed English man-at-arms, begging your pardon, sir.’

Blackstone ignored the taunt. If this were England Blackstone would know which village belonged to which manor. County fairs and feast days would bring the villeins together and news and gossip would pass between them and each hamlet would learn from the other. Here, these peasants lived in the darkness of the forest and seemed turned in on themselves, probably fornicating with their own and with a sour disposition towards any stranger.

Blackstone eased the horse towards the edge of the village. ‘You should find out about these people. They need to know you and who you serve. Your lord might need them one day. Your King might need them.’ And, Blackstone thought to himself, so too might he if he came this way again.

‘Aye, m’lord, we saw how useful the likes of these were when they were called up on the arrière ban. Fodder for your arrows and trampled by our knights. Used like battering rams to break your shield wall.’ He spat again. ‘As much use as a nun wearing a chastity belt in a whorehouse.’

Blackstone pulled the horse up next to a farm building that was more substantial than the others.

‘You smell that?’

‘A shit pit.’

‘No, there’s food,’ Blackstone said dismounting.

‘Don’t go there,’ one of the other men warned him. ‘These bastards don’t like any stranger no matter where they’re from.’

‘It’ll cause no harm,’ Blackstone replied as the men turned in their saddles and confronted him.

‘Even the King’s men aren’t safe since we lost Crécy. They think we ran from the English,’ another told him.

‘I saw no cowardice at Crécy. I saw none braver than those who came against us,’ Blackstone answered.

‘Master Thomas, try telling that to the likes of this lot.’

The soldiers were obviously in agreement about leaving this place. ‘Peasants carry disease and even the air they breathe can kill a man,’ another chimed in.

Meulon pulled up next to Blackstone. ‘It’s not wise and we can’t secure a picket on a village this size. Time we were getting back. We’re past halfway, I reckon,’ he said.

But Blackstone had already swung down from the saddle.

‘Master Thomas! If there’s trouble?’

‘Piss on them!’ Blackstone laughed, speaking English, feeling the momentary joy of an insult in his own language and then relented into French. ‘Wait for me,’ he commanded, and before anyone could stop him he was already making his way through the animal pens, the oxen’s body heat steaming the cold air. Despite the stench of the animals and slurry pits he could still smell cooking. As he squelched across the yard he saw smoke rising from a ventilation hole in the barn’s upper floor. Pulling the cloak that Christiana had given him tighter around his shoulders, he took the wooden steps one at a time using the strength of his right leg to push himself upwards. By the time he reached the top of the stairs he felt the trickle of sweat run down his spine from the effort. He pushed open the slatted wooden door and peered into the loft’s gloom. It took only a moment for the movement of those inside to alert him that half a dozen men and women sat hunched around the fire and the blackened pot that hung above its flames. It was a sight he’d seen many times in his own village in England. A shared meal above a cattle byre in the middle of winter. A place where villeins, bondmen and free, could talk about their abbot’s greed, the constable’s brutality and the manor’s unwelcome tithes. Their narrow lives knew nothing beyond their village or shire, and what conversation there was usually turned upon a broken plough or lame oxen unable to mark a furrow or what depth they should plant this year’s winter barley after its past failure. Harsh weather was either God’s desire to make them pray harder or the devil’s curse for someone’s misdeed, drunkenness or fornication. It was a small place of sanctuary away from the eyes and ears of the reeve or manor’s steward.


Blackstone’s arrival startled the serfs, the men and women who collected the dung, cut the wood and swept yards. Even a household’s servants were of higher standing than these people, who would have walked miles to a manor house each day for their menial labour and the hope of not being raided by brigands or stripped of what little they had by excessive tithes and taxes.

The huddled mass scrambled to their feet and lowered their eyes, as women bent a knee and men bowed, tongues licking the dribbling food from their lips. Blackstone suddenly felt the discomfort of being an intruder. But now he was inside the room and didn’t know what to do. Some of them cast furtive looks at his scarred face; his disfigurement might be seen as a mark of Cain. A priest’s admonition, aided by tales of retribution, to give more to the Mother Church was a villein’s constant shadow. Blackstone realized that if he turned away without uttering a word it would create fear in these people’s hearts that they might have been overheard murmuring disloyal comments about their masters.

‘I smelt the food,’ he said awkwardly, ‘it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten pottage.’

Meat was a rich man’s diet, it was barley that gave strength to fight or do a hard day’s work and he had craved it since recuperating in the closed world of the castle’s rooms and corridors. He stepped closer to the pot. ‘What is it? Peas and barley?’

One of the women stepped forward, her eyes still averted. ‘It is, my lord.’

Her deference caught him unaware, adding to his discomfort of now being treated as a higher rank. It suddenly occurred to him how differently he was dressed from these villagers, who were caked in dried mud and dung, their faces lined with dirt.

‘Can I taste the food?’

The question created an immediate reaction. Their fear was written on their faces.

The woman stuttered, ‘My lord, there is nothing we should not have. There’s humble pie from a pig’s innards and only the vegetables we are permitted.’

‘Don’t be afraid, I’m not here to entrap you. If you’ve snared your lordship’s conies or lured the fish from his river, it’s of no concern to me,’ he said. He slowly reached forward and took the wooden spoon from the woman’s hand. He almost felt her shudder.

‘My lord, it’s not right. It’s been at my own lips,’ she said, resisting the tug of his fingers.

He saw the flutter of confusion on their faces as he took it from her and dipped the spoon into the simmering pot, gathering the boiled grain. ‘Woman, I’m no lord of the manor, I’m a common man made good by a Prince’s hand.’

As he put the spoon to his lips and blew the heat from it, one of the men dared to speak.

‘Then you are no longer a common man, my lord,’ he said.

Blackstone’s hand faltered. Was that the truth? His brush with death had snatched him from his modest past and brought him to another world. The broth settled on his tongue. He tapped the spoon clean on the edge of the pot and handed it back to the woman. The stench of animals and man mingling with acrid smoke that stung his eyes and clung to his clothes was his past.

‘The heart of a man stays what it is,’ he said.

Two of the men shuffled nervously towards him, blocking the door.

‘Your accent, it’s not from around here, my lord. Are you from Paris? One of the King’s men?’

The atmosphere had suddenly changed, a threat had emerged without Blackstone realizing it.

‘No. I am a guest with Count Jean de Harcourt,’ Blackstone said quickly, seeing that de Harcourt’s name checked any further advance.

‘A man at arms, my lord? At Crécy? Would that be where you took that wound?’ another asked.

Before any of them dared question him again, one of his escorts was at the door.

‘You’d better get out here and see this. There might be trouble,’ he said, gripping a short-handled battleaxe. The men stepped back and let Blackstone pass. As he got outside he saw that his guards had gathered close together, forming protection around a man lying sprawled in the mud, while a gathering crowd was murmuring discontent.

‘Who the hell is that?’ Blackstone demanded, leading the way down the steps as his escort covered his back.

‘A squire or some such thing. We can’t see his livery because of the mud and bloodstains but he’s no peasant, that’s for sure,’ his escort said. Blackstone had no time to register his surprise. ‘When you get to the bottom of the steps cut through the animal pens and look to the right,’ his escort told him.

Blackstone forced his way through the few startled cattle and got back into the village thoroughfare, its deep rutted tracks still crisp with morning ice. Now that he looked more carefully towards the end of the village and the light had shifted he could see that a man had been hanged and his mud-caked body was the colour of red earth, only it wasn’t dirt that matted his hair and tunic but a caved-in skull and half-ripped face that had bled down onto his body.

He looked towards the man who lay motionless in the mud. ‘Is he alive?’

‘Just about, he’s had a beating and a half,’ his escort answered.

‘Get him onto a horse,’ Blackstone said, grabbing hold of his saddle horn and hoisting himself up, his leg still unable to bear the full weight of being bent into a stirrup.

‘Take him?’ the man challenged.

‘Do it. Now.’ Blackstone’s command was forceful enough for the soldier to obey without further challenge. Those villagers who were gathering around the horsemen grew more restive, their curses more vocal and threatening. As Blackstone and two others used their horses to keep them back, the unconscious man was draped across a horse’s withers and once the men were mounted, Blackstone urged them away at a canter until they had crested a meadow’s knoll a mile away and could see that they were not being pursued.

They lay the man down and dribbled water onto his cracked lips.

As Blackstone tried to wipe some of the dirt from his face, his hand brushed aside the man’s hair.

‘Look at this,’ Blackstone said. A fleur-de-lys was branded on the beaten man’s forehead, still raw from the hot iron.

Meulon bent down.

‘Is he French? Blackstone asked.

‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s Gascon,’ Meulon answered. The Gascons from the south-west were loyal to the English King. ‘If these villagers catch anyone they think is a thief or spying for the routiers they brand them.’

Blackstone brushed some of the dirt away from the man’s tunic. The wounded man’s eyes fluttered and then stared like a fox dug from its earth.

‘English?’ he whispered desperately, barely audible.

‘Yes,’ Blackstone answered, already knowing that the livery was King Edward’s.

The relived man smiled. ‘Thank God… your face scared the shit out of me,’ he whispered before slipping back into unconsciousness.

Blackstone gave up his cloak to give the man warmth as the soldiers cut down saplings and stripped their bark to weave a litter for the fallen man, so they could drag him slowly home.

‘My Lord de Harcourt will have me flogged for bringing an enemy into his walls,’ Meulon moaned as they got closer to home.

‘No, he won’t,’ Blackstone said, ‘he’s given refuge to one already.’


They were less than a day’s ride from home when the horsemen appeared. One of the escorts saw a half-dozen men ride across an open meadow before disappearing behind hedgerows.


‘They’ll be further down the road on a blind bend,’ one of the soldiers said. ‘I saw at least six of them, and they’re not wearing livery. They’ll be brigands. Shit, this is going badly. They outnumber us and they’re vicious bastards.’

Meulon turned in the saddle and looked about for an escape route. ‘We cut the litter free and make a run for it up the hill and through the forest.’

‘We’re not leaving him,’ Blackstone said.

Meulon pushed his horse next to Blackstone. ‘Listen, Master Thomas, this is no time to be a hero,’ he said disrespectfully. ‘Those savage bastards outnumber us six to four.’

‘Six to five,’ Blackstone answered.

‘For Christ’s sake, this isn’t a practice session with a wooden sword, you’ve never fought like this. They want our weapons and horses.’

‘Then we’ll tell them they can’t have them,’ Blackstone answered.

‘Oh, aye, brigands like nothing better than a bit of chat. If we had bread and cheese we could share that with them as well,’ he snarled, then turned to the others. ‘Cut the litter free. We make for the forest.’

‘Wait!’ Blackstone shouted. ‘We’re not leaving this man. If you run I stay – and you can explain yourself to your lord as to how I died.’

He could see his argument had struck home. The men wheeled their horses in confusion and Blackstone pushed to the front. ‘I’ll take two of you forward. We leave the litter here in the trees,’ he said and pointed to two of the men. ‘Use the other side of this hedgerow for cover. Tether your horses and go on foot. Take your crossbows and swords only, leave your shields behind. If there’s six of them they’re jammed between the hedgerow banks and the slope of the forest. You flank them.’

The men looked undecided for a moment and then Meulon spat, ‘I’ll do it. We’ll stay close to the hedge. Come on,’ he said to one of the men, then passed his shield to Blackstone. ‘You’ll need this, and if you get yourself killed at least I can say we tried to save you. You’re a mad bastard, Master Thomas. I just hope you don’t get us all killed.’

They tethered their horses and readied their crossbows, then clambered up the bank and pushed through the hedgerow. Blackstone gave them time to make headway and then turned his horse. He said a silent prayer that the lesson he had learnt at that first crossroads in Normandy would work here. Sir Gilbert Killbere had put his life into the hands of his archers that day and the ambush gave them victory. Now Thomas Blackstone was asking two Frenchmen to make sure he survived.

‘I’ll do the talking,’ Blackstone said.

‘And if they don’t listen?’ one of the men asked.

‘We kill them,’ said Blackstone.


Blackstone took the lead, easing the horse forward as the two remaining soldiers flanked either side, half a length back. If he had read the situation correctly the brigands would have no room to manoeuvre, so if there was a fight Blackstone could surge forward in a spearhead. That idea fled as soon as they turned the bend. The brigands had already blocked the road, jamming themselves in with no other means of passage. Steam rose from their horses; they must have been following Blackstone’s group for a while and pushed their horses hard to catch up with them. Blackstone realized that they too had read the ground: there would be no surge forward from Blackstone and his men.

The unshaven men looked as though they had crawled from an alehouse’s mud floor. Their leather jerkins shone through years of grease and sweat; they wore caps and open-faced bascinets and looked like any bunch of deserters who lived rough and took what they could to survive. Their horses were of poor quality, and probably stolen from villages that had the least capable of beasts, but for these men swayback horses were as good as they could get until they stole better mounts. And any garrison’s horse, better fed and watered with a farrier and blacksmith to keep them well shod, was worth killing for.

Blackstone and his men held their sword blades on their right shoulders and kept their horses moving forward at the walk until they were a half-dozen horse lengths away from the brigands. The trick now was to make them manoeuvre so they would each hinder the other. Blackstone stopped his men at a slight curve in the road, a passing place for carts. If he could bring the enemy to him they had the better place to fight. He summoned the courage to find the words that might entice the men to fight. Bravado could carry the day.

‘Did your mother’s claws rip that face of yours when they pulled you from her belly?’ one of the brigands said, and who was obviously their leader.

‘It was given by a better man than you,’ Blackstone said, testing the man for provocation. ‘And I killed him for it.’

‘A boy like you?’ the man sneered.

‘An English archer like me,’ Blackstone answered and saw their expressions change into unconcealed hatred.

‘What’s this, then? You ride with a Norman lord’s men?’

‘I ride with those I choose. Your business lies elsewhere. Shouldn’t you be clearing shit pits for a monastery or does your stench outweigh that of a monk’s bowels?’

The brigand’s face twisted. ‘You’re going no further on this road, you English scum,’ the man answered.

‘It’s an open highway, and we carry no coin,’ Blackstone said, buying as much time as he could until he thought his crossbowmen should be in position.

‘No matter, this is our road now, and we take what we want, when we want it. Where are the other two men?’ the man asked.

‘If you know there are other men, then you know we have a wounded man with us on a litter. They’re back down the road guarding him.’

The brigands’ leader thought about it for a moment and then grunted, satisfied at the explanation. ‘Then they’ll not put up a fight once you’ve surrendered your horses and weapons. Then you’ll be free to go.’ He was an ugly man with sagging skin, pitted with blackheads, and yellowing eyes from too much drink, but the broken nose and scarred hands told Blackstone that he was a fighter at best and a cold-hearted killer at worst. No man, woman or child’s death would touch him. No one spoke or moved, each man readying themselves for the fight. The brigands’ horses pressed against each other, forcing their riders to pull back and jostle for position.

‘You’re not a man to bargain, then?’ Blackstone said.

‘Bargain?’ The man laughed and looked to his men. ‘You have something to trade?’

One of those at his side pointed his sword at his leader. ‘Guescin here would rob and rape the Virgin Mary even if she bargained with the devil not to!’ The men laughed, murmuring their agreement, and waited smiling, as the Englishman in front of them held his place and his nerve.

Blackstone felt his leg wound tighten and the fear creep into his stomach. His mouth dried. He would be first to strike. What he did would determine the outcome of the confrontation.

‘Two of these men are better than all of your dog-shit routiers put together. Get off the damned road now before I set them on you,’ Blackstone said, hoping that his men behind him had not grimaced at the thought of leading the attack.

The mercenary sniffed the air. ‘Has one of you shat themselves? I can smell their fear from here. Come on, boy, let’s have you on the ground and on your knees and begging for your lives.’


‘I’ll trade your life for the road,’ Blackstone said. ‘Give way or I’m going to kill you first and then your men.’

The man’s face creased in uncertainty, as if working out a complex puzzle. It was the provocation Blackstone had wanted.

His thumb pressed into the sword’s corded grip.

His fear was gone.

The man yelled, spurring his horse forward. Those to his side were startled and their moment of hesitation gave Blackstone the advantage. He kicked back his heels and the animal surged. The brigand’s sword was halfway down its arc when Blackstone’s blade swept beneath it and took him across the throat. The momentum barged his horse into the brigand to his left, his shield blocking the man’s attack as the dead man’s horse veered, throwing its head to one side and blocking another of the men. Blackstone twisted, felt the blade turn in the shield, yanking the man forward as one of Blackstone’s escorts rammed his spear into the man’s exposed ribs. Then crossbow quarrels thudded into the two brigands at the rear, and as they fell they trapped the surviving men. One managed to turn his horse, but Meulon had pushed through the hedgerow and struck at him from the top of the bank, his blade slicing across the man’s skull, splitting it from ear to neck.

Blackstone was exposed on his right as a horseman pushed past his leader’s panicked horse and now positioned himself to attack. The man who was supposed to protect Blackstone on that side took two hefty blows despite his efforts to block any attack on Blackstone and was struck from the horse. As the soldier fell the brigand’s sword swept around ready to take Blackstone’s head. He threw himself across the horse’s mane, the flat edge of the blade skimming his shoulder, tearing his gambeson without cutting flesh. The man had turned with the stroke and Blackstone threw his weight forward, ramming Wolf Sword into the man’s liver and lungs. The force of the lunge held the blade and, as the man fell it was yanked from Blackstone’s hand and unbalanced him from the saddle. He went down among the hooves, his memory cursing him for not tying a blood knot from his sword’s crossguard. He curled into a protective ball, as men’s screams and cries of agony competed with the whinnying of the terrified horses. His leg felt as though molten lead had been poured into the wound, and a hoof caught his head. For a dizzying moment he felt the world swirling. Instinct forced him to push himself into the bank for protection and then someone was there between him and the horse.

‘Get up!’ Meulon shouted. ‘They’re all dead except one.’

Blackstone accepted the man’s extended arm and hauled himself up. Meulon looked at him questioningly as Blackstone pulled the hair back from his face and saw the smear of blood on his hand. He’d been lucky.

‘I’m all right,’ Blackstone told him.

‘It seems you know how to use this, Sir Thomas,’ Meulon said, acknowledging Blackstone’s rank for the first time as he handed back the recovered Wolf Sword.

Blackstone walked down the track to where one of the escorts guarded the surviving brigand. Another of de Harcourt’s men held the horses as the soldier who had been at Blackstone’s side sat, ashen-faced, against the bank.

‘Gaillard. He’s taken a cut through his mail, he’ll bleed a bit longer and then it’ll congeal. He’ll survive, though he deserves no sympathy for making such a piss-poor mess of it. God’s blood! He only had to ride at your side. I’ll make sure he loses pay and gets a flogging because of it.’ The injured man’s face hardened at the thought of more pain and of losing what little he earned.

‘He did well,’ Blackstone lied, ‘he slowed the man attacking me. Give him some wine and we’ll attend to his wound before we leave this place.’

The wounded man gritted his teeth and got to his feet. ‘My thanks, Sir Thomas.’

Meulon nodded. ‘You’re a lucky bastard, Gaillard, in more ways than one,’ he said, knowing full well that it was more usual for a man-at-arms to blame a common soldier for any misfortune that befell him, and that Blackstone had almost gone down under the routier’s sword.

The prisoner was on his knees in the mud, his hands tied behind his back. Greasy hair plastered his face from the sweat of the fight. Meulon yanked his head back, the man gasped, exposing the broken and blackened stumps that had once been teeth.

‘Who do you fight for?’ Blackstone asked him.

‘We serve no one,’ he answered, and then fell to Meulon’s kick.

‘Lying bastard. Half a dozen scum like you don’t survive on your own. There’s more of you. Where?’ Meulon demanded.

The man shook his head in denial, and earned another kick for his resistance.

Blackstone raised a hand. ‘That’s enough. Listen to me,’ he said, ‘I’m going to set you free.’

Meulon couldn’t believe what he’d heard. ‘We string this piece of shit up and leave his body as a warning to others who trespass on my lord’s territory!’

‘No, I do this my way,’ Blackstone answered. ‘Get him on his knees and untie him.’

Meulon stepped in front of Blackstone, his face close to the Englishman. ‘We make an example of him, as would my Lord de Harcourt.’

‘He’s not here,’ Blackstone said and tried to step aside, but Meulon positioned himself again.

‘We kill him,’ Meulon hissed. The other men couldn’t hide their disgust and murmured their agreement.

A fragment of memory shot into Blackstone’s mind of Killbere’s strength and authority, of the man who made the decisions without favour. ‘Do as I say and do it now,’ Blackstone told him without raising his voice. ‘I know what needs to be done.’

Once again Meulon hesitated, but Blackstone had not moved and showed no sign of changing his mind. Finally, Meulon obeyed and dragged the man by his hair onto his knees and cut free the bonds.

‘Now, tell me who you serve, and you’re free to go,’ Blackstone told him.

‘You’ll kill me anyway,’ the man said defiantly.

‘No. I will not kill you. I give you my word.’

‘And what’s that worth?’

‘My honour has been well earned,’ said Blackstone. ‘It means everything.’

The man hesitated. ‘I need a drink.’

‘No drink, only your freedom as I promised. Now who do you ride for?’

The man thought about it for a moment. What was there to lose? ‘Routiers hold Chaulion.’

Blackstone looked to Meulon to explain. ‘Eighty miles or more to the south. It controls one of the crossroads,’ Meulon told him.

‘Who’s there? How many?’ Blackstone demanded as Meulon’s fist was raised ready to punish.

The man flinched. ‘Germans, French, Gascons – all kinds. English deserters as well. More than sixty men, sometimes more. Saquet leads them. He’s their leader. Saquet, le poigne de fer.’

‘The “Iron Fist”. I’ve heard of him,’ Meulon said, ‘he’s a Breton, murdering bastards every last one of them, they’d sell their mothers for a jug of wine. He’s one of the worst. They call him that because he likes to kill a man on the ground by smashing his skull with his fist.’

Blackstone knew that de Harcourt’s men would gut and hang the man as a warning for others not to stray into their lord’s domain. They looked at him expectantly. Sometimes harsh actions were necessary. He faltered, trying to decide on what act would serve its purpose. Finding the lesser of the evils was what separated wanton torture and killing from exacting a harsh lesson on an enemy.


‘Bring him over here,’ he ordered.

Meulon dragged the man by his hair and beard across to a fallen tree. Blackstone raised his sword ready to strike. The man’s knees sagged beneath him; spittle and snot clung to his beard as he begged for his life.

‘No, no! You gave your honour!’

‘I always keep my word. I’ll give you your freedom. Meulon, his arm, there,’ Blackstone said, pointing to the tree stump. Meulon and another of de Harcourt’s men held the man down and forced his arm across the stump.

‘You tell this “Iron Fist” that he will not come again into this territory and that Sir Thomas Blackstone, sworn to his sovereign lord, the English King, will seek him out and kill him, and that this is fair warning.’

Blackstone’s blade severed the fingers cleanly from the man’s sword hand.

Blackstone had the brigand’s wound bound, but before they sent him on his way he was given another lesson: they gathered the slain men’s swords and spiked their bodies to the trees as a warning. Meulon and the others stayed silent once the work was done. Whatever doubts they had harboured about the Englishman seeped away like the blood spilled on the track.