Master of War

5




Blackstone ran hard and fast, gulping lungfuls of air, his cheeks smeared with tears of exertion, his grip on his bow so tight that his knuckles ached. He and the other archers had waited for the command to attack, coiled and cursing, desperate to unleash the strength that they held in check – a witch’s brew of fear and exultation – as they yearned to surge ahead and strike.

‘Hold… hold…’ A command had been given from some arse-scratching commander in the background. ‘Wait for the trumpets. Wait…’

Better if he had been in the baggage train tethering horses than standing here with men watching their chance to get into the city being denied every moment they waited, while it was being reinforced. You had to be blind not to see the chance that was being lost.


‘Hold…’

And then the archers broke free of the command, no longer able to ignore the opportunity. Sir Gilbert’s handful of men-at-arms ran with him, chain mail hissing, armour clanking and breath heaving. Welsh spearmen yelled an incoherent cry of defiance and raced them to the gate. Elfred’s archers led the way, but after a hundred long strides the centenar raised his arm and stopped their charge, letting the heavier armed men carry through their lines. The archers, following his lead, nocked their arrows, drew cords and sent a withering hail of fire that landed twenty yards ahead of the charging men, slaying defenders, buying Sir Gilbert time to get closer. Then they ran towards the screams and the first clash of steel against shield and spear. Another thirty yards and they fired again. English archers and Welsh spearmen fell as crossbow bolts thudded into their unarmoured bodies. The defence was hard fought and the grunting, heaving sounds of hand-to-hand combat blurred into the vision that Blackstone saw before him. The lightly armoured troops fought savagely against the French men-at-arms. The ferocity of the English and Welsh attack pummelled the defenders back. Men clambered across barricades, Welshmen jabbed their long spears down into the defenders as Sir Gilbert’s men wielded sword and axe. They were breaking through. Blackstone recognized men wearing the same surcoats as those who had ambushed them. They leaned across the walls, using every piece of rock and stone as cover, as they cranked their crossbows, loosing the bolts into the attacking men.

Once again Elfred stopped the advance. Blackstone watched him jab a handful of bodkin-pointed shafts into the ground before him. Archers followed his example. A path needed to be cleared. The trajectory was low; the fire had to be rapid.

Through the roar of blood in his ears, Blackstone heard Elfred’s command: ‘Nock! Mark! Draw! Loose!’

Every archer’s hands and body followed the rhythm of the command. Richard was a half-pace behind him and followed Blackstone’s actions to the second. Half a dozen more times Elfred called the rate of fire and bodies fell in the path of the men-at-arms.

Then they charged again. Elfred had drawn his long knife and slashed at a man as he clambered across the trenches and barricades. A crossbowman aimed and loosed and the bolt struck a spearman at Elfred’s shoulder. Blackstone had drawn, but his brother’s arrow loosed first and the Italian defender fell with the shaft through his throat. Blackstone was almost at the barricade. Smoke began to funnel through the narrow streets as soldiers fought their way along the slender passageways, burning the tightly packed houses as they went. And then it was hand-to-hand. Blackstone panicked, forgot he even carried a sword, and struck a French defender in the eye with the horned nock at the tip of his bow. Jabbed, and jabbed again as the man’s hands scrabbled for the stave, crying out in agony, but Blackstone was yelling something. A voice within his head echoed others shouting their battle cry: Saint George! Saint George for King Edward! SAINT GEORGE! The force bellowing from his lungs powered Blackstone’s panic across the writhing man. A surge of bodies carried him forward. His brother was no longer with him. He turned, saw him drawing and releasing an arrow, killing a Frenchman wielding a halberd, and then the fighting and the press of men heaved him out of sight.

A glancing blow caught Blackstone on the side of his head. He tasted blood, faltered, saw the Frenchman bring his sword down from the high guard position, ready to cleave the archer from collarbone to hip. A bloody sword slashed past his face. Someone behind him had lunged a blade into the man’s armpit, piercing chain mail and heart. It was an English man-at-arms, his wounded arm lame at his side but his striking arm still swinging his sword. Blackstone looked at the man’s visor, could see nothing, but laughed anyway. Laughed at the ferocity, laughed because he was still alive. At the heightened fear.

‘Fight on!’ the man-at-arms shouted, turning away, slashing left and right, leaving the archer he had just saved.

Alleyways seethed as men-at-arms mingled with spearmen. The French fought with desperate courage; none would yield. Blackstone clambered over another barricade, French fighters still slashing at their attackers. Elfred was already thirty paces ahead; Skinner, Pedloe, Richard Whet, Henry Torpoleye and the others were separated as the defenders drew them into side streets and there stood their ground. Blackstone’s scabbard caught in a wicker fortification and he fell headlong just as a sliver of steel slashed past his face. Forgetting Sir Gilbert’s advice had saved him. The French man-at-arms had half a dozen men dead at his feet. His helm visor was closed, his armour smeared with English and Welsh blood. His arcing blows kept men dying from his striking rhythm, a smothering close-quarter battle where the man seemed tireless in his killing. He swung his war sword with a relentless efficiency. His splattered surcoat showed a bear in profile against an azure field with a fleur-de-lys in each corner. He was a knight of high standing and he could not yield to anyone of lesser rank. And it was known that archers neither gave nor expected mercy in a fight. Blackstone regained his balance, stepped across savaged bodies, levelled his bow, and drew back. All he needed was a clear shot for one second, a brief moment when the attacking men either fell at the knight’s feet or swarmed past him to fight others. The bodkin arrowhead would take the man through his plate armour. No matter how brave his heart, it would not survive a strike from this distance.

A spearman behind Blackstone gasped as a crossbow bolt shattered his face. Gurgling terror spluttered blood across Blackstone’s neck as the man’s body slumped against him, knocking him off his feet. The arrow flew harmlessly into the side of a smouldering house as flames sought its lath walls. Blackstone regained his foothold and saw the French knight give ground before the press of English footsoldiers, who now fought with axes, knives and maces taken from the dead French. Forced against a wall, he could retreat no further and the Englishmen began to overpower him, like hounds tearing down a stag. Knives and swords stabbed and swung; spears jabbed until they cut his legs from beneath him. Then he went to his knees and they hacked him to death. It was over within seconds. Blackstone spat blood from his mouth and felt an unaccountable despair over the courageous knight’s death.

‘Richard!’ Blackstone shouted, desperate to be heard above the clash of fighting, knowing his brother would never hear his cry, but hoping others would know where the fight had taken him.

Sweat sluiced down his spine; the leather jerkin worn beneath the padded gambeson for added protection felt as clammy as a second skin. He fell into a doorway, tripping over a body. The momentary stillness of the dimly lit passage gave a brief respite from the clamour. The stench of stale urine stung his nostrils. Blackstone steadied himself, trying to cage his fear. A hand reached out and touched his ankle. He twisted around, slamming his back against the wall, knife in hand, ready to strike.

A ruptured cough came from the dying man on the floor. His hose were stained with dark blood from a stomach wound, his vital organs pierced, his death inevitable. A sucking wound in his chest bubbled with frothy blood. The grey-whiskered man was old enough to be his grandfather. His balding head was plastered with wisps of sweat-caked hair and his cap long since discarded or lost. His stave lay broken, hacked by sword blows, his arrow bag, from which fletchings of grey goose feathers protruded, was half-full. The man said something in a language Blackstone could not understand and then he realized he was a Welsh archer, one of those who had attacked with the spearmen. The dying man’s grip was fierce and Blackstone yielded to it. He wiped the older man’s face, smearing away blood and sweat from his eyes.


‘Archer?’ the old man whispered in English.

Blackstone nodded.

‘The best of men…’ the old man smiled, then faltered. ‘Kill… the bastards, boy…’ He pushed his arrow bag into Blackstone’s hands. In that moment his eyes locked onto the young archer’s face, read the fear that had still not left him.

‘It’s nothing … dying… Don’t be afraid. You’re an archer… eh?’

‘I am,’ Blackstone whispered.

‘Well then… they’re more scared… of you.’

The veteran’s bloody teeth were bared in a grin. He tugged a small medallion from around his neck, pressed it to his lips and put it in Blackstone’s hand, gripping his own gnarled fist around it. Then his grip slackened and a final bubble of air escaped from his chest wound.

Blackstone looked at the talisman, a simple figure in silver of a woman, captured in a wheel of silver, whose curved arms met above her head. He curled the cord and pushed it into the folds of his jacket, then forced himself back into the street. Infantry and archers fought side by side with spearmen as men-at-arms hacked their way through the retreating pockets of French defenders. Not a yard was given without fierce resistance. Blackstone caught sight of Richard Whet, shielded by a drunken-leaning house’s wooden supports as he fired steadily at Genoese crossbowmen in the upper windows. French troops had barricaded the next corner in an attempt to funnel their attackers into the narrow confines of the alleys, where citizens threw tiles and stones down onto them. Bodies littered the street; streams of blood congealed on the cobbles. Half a dozen archers sheltered in whatever cover they could find and brought down defenders, while the infantry and men-at-arms fought pitched battles along the stone-strewn streets. A surge took Blackstone closer to the Earl of Warwick’s men as they crashed into the barricade while another group of men pushed along a side street. Every corner was being fought for.

‘My brother?’ he shouted as Whet took the last arrow from his bag.

‘With Skinner and Pedloe. They followed Sir Gilbert.’ He pointed down an alleyway, deeply shadowed by the tightly packed buildings. Citizens mixed with soldiers as they defended their homes. A woman shouted abuse as she used a window shutter for a shield while her companion attacked a wounded man on the bloodied cobblestones. Whet’s arrow shattered the makeshift shield and the woman fell back, her hands clutching the wound, eyes wild with pain, testament to the shock and power of the shaft’s impact.

‘I need more arrows, Thomas!’

Blackstone pushed the Welshman’s bag into Whet’s hands and ran into the alley, an arrow nocked, held by finger and thumb, ready to be drawn and loosed. The narrowness of the street made it difficult to move quickly. He made his way past bodies slumped in doorways and sprawled across the ground, their injuries bearing witness to the brutality of the fighting that had gone before him. The alleyway widened. Smoke swept across the next junction, where knights from the Prince’s division fought on foot, shoulder to shoulder with their own infantry – common and noble killing their King’s enemies together. Blackstone fired into the defenders, then moved forward, finding deeper shadows to conceal him and thus make less of a target for the crossbowmen who still sent their lethal quarrels down into the street fighting. Whenever a crossbow edged across a rooftop’s skyline Blackstone sent an arrow three inches above its crescent, and an Italian mercenary would fall back. Several Genoese had tumbled into the street pierced through the head or throat as he moved position, instinctively seeking cover, denying the crossbowmen a standing target. His desperation to find his brother propelled him through the fighting and his fear.

Men whimpered in pain from hacked flesh, torn sinew and broken bone; the shock of brutal injuries sent them into unconsciousness from which they would never awake. He saw an injured archer, little more than a boy, crawling to safety – his face familiar, his name lost in the mayhem of conflict. A French infantryman lowered his spear to ram it into the injured boy’s ribs. Blackstone yelled a warning; the distracted Frenchman turned and Blackstone’s arrow took him through his chest. He ran across the street and dragged the archer into a doorway. His screams of pain lessened as Blackstone laid him as gently as he could against the wall.

‘Thomas! Thank God! My leg, bind my leg,’ the young archer begged. Blackstone tore the red-stained shirt from a dead man and bound the broken leg, using an arrow as a splint. The archer screamed again, forcing his arm into his face, biting into his jacket. Blackstone could do little for him. The archer gulped air. ‘Do you have water? God, I’m parched. D’you have any?’

Blackstone was suddenly aware how thirsty he was. ‘No. Nothing. Have you seen my brother? He’s with Skinner and Pedloe. And Sir Gilbert.’

The archer shook his head, then rested back against the wall. ‘Sweet Jesus, this hurts. Find me wine, Thomas – find me something, for God’s sake!’

Blackstone glanced back towards the square. The French were retreating. He remembered the boy’s name, Alan of Marsh. He was from the next village to his own. His mother was a bondswoman to Lord Marldon. Blackstone fought for her name in his mind in order to offer the boy some comfort, but it eluded him.

‘Alan, I’ll find us something,’ he said and shouldered the half-open door into a darkened room. No one had ransacked it, the fighting having bypassed the small rooms that made up the ground floor of the townhouse. He kicked aside a pallet with its grimy straw mattress, and turned the reed flooring in case there were any hidden cavities in the floorboards that might yield hidden supplies. All he could find were carrots and onions soaking in a bowl of water and a few of last season’s apples still mouldering on a rack. He found a small cask, its cork reddened by the contents, but there was no sign of fresh water and the communal well could be anywhere.

Blackstone unplugged the barrel, then slumped in the doorway with the injured boy. The wine would revive him, and the raw onion tasted almost as good as the soggy apple. For a few moments neither archer spoke, exhaustion of battle and the scourge of fear depleting them. Blackstone got to his feet, feeling his leg muscles complain. He had rested too long. He wished he could crawl back inside the darkened room and sleep on the lice-infested mattress, leaving the battle to end when it must.

‘I’ll come back for you when it’s finished,’ he said, touching the boy on the shoulder. He unhooked his scabbard and drew the blade for the boy so he might have a weapon. He would be unable to use his bow to defend himself propped against the wall. The wine had eased the boy’s pain and thirst, though Blackstone knew that unless a physician could be found his chances of survival would be slender.

‘Tell my father and mother, Thomas. When you go home. Tell them I killed more than the others. And give them some plate, there’s plunder in every house. Send them something for me, I beg you.’

The boy’s parents were peasants – ignorant, superstitious and untrustworthy – and would as soon steal your firewood as kill for a pig. Consumed by superstition, they prayed to spirits of the woods and fields, and the death of their son would prove a curse because he was no longer able to bring in the harvest. But to the wounded archer it was home. Blackstone hesitated. How far adrift must a man be to lose hope?


‘I’ll come back for you – then you can tell them yourself,’ he said.

Hope was everything.


Thousands of men crammed the streets, defenders and their attackers milled back and forth as informal fighting groups gathered and attacked each strongpoint that they encountered. Blackstone ran, searching for his brother, praying not to find his body among the many that lay in huddled groups. Wherever he found a dead archer he took his unused arrows, though there were few; the archers had sold their lives at great cost to the French. Blackstone saw a dozen Welsh spearmen and as many archers – the Earl of Oxford’s; others showing Cobham’s colours. There were none of Blackstone’s own men. Few had more than two or three arrows left.

Blackstone ran among them, seeking out anyone he might know. By the time he got to their head screams and shouts came from the other side of the barricade. Men were streaming across the marshes; Welsh spearmen waded into the river in a suicidal attack against the barges and the Genoese bowmen. To their rear English and Welsh archers covered them as best they could, but the spearmen were being slaughtered. Those on Blackstone’s side of the barricade had no choice – they had to throw themselves at the French men-at-arms.

Smoke swept across the barbican towers that stood sentinel by the city gates and the defended bridge. The spearmen gathered at the edge of a tower’s walls. An older man, shoulder-length white hair tied back with cord, commanded respect, others nodding in agreement at what he said. There was no choice, they had to attack the heavily defended barricade at once. Their countrymen on the other side were going down under the hail of crossbow bolts. The man looked at Blackstone.

‘Can you and your men cover us?’ he said.

Blackstone realized that of the archers present his surcoat was the most bloody and that the head wound sustained at the barricade had encrusted his hair. He looked as though he had fought through the worst of it. He nodded.

‘As best we can. There’s no more than two volleys.’

‘Ready yourself,’ the Welshman said.

Blackstone turned to the archers without thought that there were veterans in the group. Elfred had shown him the way earlier and these men would follow the regimen of command.

‘Nock!’ No one questioned.

‘Mark!’ All obeyed.

‘Draw!’ The disciplined English killing machine was ready. The stretch of hemp cord and bent yew and ash staves sounded as one.

‘Loose!’ he cried.

The Welshmen charged.

The French heard their battle cry and turned. A dozen went down from the archers’ volley, but others stepped forward and hacked five or six of the men down. Blackstone saw the white-haired soldier thrust at a man-at-arms and then disappear from view as men around him fell beneath savage, hacking blows.

He called the order again and the last of the arrows arched and fell into the armoured men. The Welshmen had killed as many as their own fallen, but wooden-shafted spears could not withstand the cut of axe and sword. The attack might fail. Blackstone secured the bow across his back, feeling the stave press against his spine. A backbone of yew was no bad thing at that moment. He reached for his sword but the scabbard had gone. Then he remembered that he had left it with the wounded archer. All he had was his long knife. He unsheathed it and released the cry that exploded from his chest – and charged into madness.

None of the archers would survive. Except for their knives they were defenceless, and their padded jackets would split like skin once the French men-at-arms struck with sword and axe. The bodies of the dead and dying Welshmen littered the ground, French dead lay beside them, pierced by lance or arrow, and within another twenty paces Blackstone saw the wall of armoured men raise their swords, readying themselves for the easiest killing they would have that day.

Ten paces.

A violent storm of bloodcurdling howls blew at his back.

The black smoke shifted and from the defenders’ flank English knights stormed into attack with a ferocity that slowed Blackstone and the archers’ charge as the English set about killing their enemy. Steel clashed, shields thudded from blows. One shield took the brunt of an axe blow, its coat of arms declaring the knight’s reputation.

‘Sir Gilbert!’ Blackstone yelled, but the knight was cutting his way through the French with methodical sword strokes as blood spewed and shattered bone pierced muscle. It was a slaughterhouse. One of Warwick’s archers overtook Blackstone and leapt on a French man-at-arms hammered to the ground by a mace-wielding Englishman. He threw his weight on the fallen man and with all his strength jabbed his knife through his visor, twisting the blade as blood spurted and the man’s legs kicked in agony.

The English were clambering across the barricade from the opposite end of the bridge’s defences and suddenly Frenchmen were yielding, down on one knee, offering their swords to their English equals.

English knights blocked the archers from killing more men-at-arms; some of Oxford’s men were pulled away moments before ramming their knife blades beneath the knights’ helms into their throats.

For a moment the smoke wrapped itself around a dream-like vision as English knights encircled their French hostages, protecting them against their own men.

Caen had fallen.


Sporadic fighting continued all day, and as dusk settled houses still burned. Pockets of resistance remained – citizens and some of Sir Robert Bertrand’s soldiers who had survived the main attacks. Bertrand and a couple of hundred men were in the castle and posed no threat to the King’s forces. A company of soldiers was placed to ensure the French did not try a counter-attack in the night. By the end of the battle more than a hundred French knights and men-at-arms, and that number again of esquires, had surrendered to men of equal rank, but the streets were littered with thousands of French dead. The English had proved their courage, especially the archers and infantry, who had fought hand-to-hand against the armoured French. But the wolves tore through the city. No one was safe. No man, woman or child dare contest the rape and plunder. With a ferocity the like of which the citizens of Caen could not even have imagined, English and Welsh soldiers eviscerated their city.

Sir Gilbert had accepted the surrender of a local knight who was taken, along with other captured noblemen, aboard English ships that had sailed up the River Orne on the tide. They would be returned to England and held until their ransoms were paid. The King had issued another proclamation forbidding violence to women and children and the pillaging of churches, but the marshals and captains could not enforce it. There was no protection from looting for the rich merchant houses and the marketplaces. The soldiers needed their spoils of war, and it would serve as a lesson to citizens in other towns not to resist in the future.

Elfred had survived the battle, so too Will Longdon, both bloodied with wounds but remaining steadfast with Sir Gilbert throughout the fighting. Blackstone’s brother had been with them most of the way, but Skinner and others had come under fire from crossbowmen and had attacked a street barricade. The fighting had been intense, but it was a rolling battle and the men were separated. Archers were missing from the company and Sir Gilbert sent his men into the streets to find the dead and recall those who were plundering or caught up in the final skirmishes.

Blackstone trudged back through the streets searching for his brother, ignoring the pockets of resistance that still held an alleyway or square. Grime was etched into his skin with blood and dried sweat, and the stench of his own body made him yearn for water to scrape away the day’s filth. Every muscle ached and his bow arm felt as though it had been beaten with a mace. Soldiers slept in doorways, others dragged bodies into the streets, stripping them of coin or jewellery. Small groups of men sat drinking looted wine or gorging on bread, eggs and cheese, ravenous after the day’s efforts. Whatever meat was found in larders or smokehouses was ignored. It was Wednesday, a fast day when no meat could be consumed, even when men and women could be slaughtered.


Blackstone retraced his steps trying to find the alleyways and streets to take him back to the barricade where he last saw his brother. He came across Alan of Marsh, who still lay in the doorway but whose body had been mutilated, most probably by the town’s citizens. The sword was missing, but it was no great loss, it was, after all, a poor knight’s sword. A mass grave awaited the boy, but at least he would lie with the other archers. The grim cost of the fighting settled like curdled milk in Blackstone’s stomach. It made no difference where a man was buried. Dead was dead and putrid meat would wriggle with maggots once the flies settled.

Charred buildings altered the shape of the streets and his memory faltered. He had taken a wrong turn somewhere and came across a man-at-arms commanding a group of infantrymen piling bodies of French dead in the street, readying them for burial. Blackstone was ordered to help and for the next two hours dragged and stripped corpses, laying them in a row the length of the street. As the soldiers slowed, giving way to their exhaustion, Blackstone slipped down a darkened passageway and made his way to the streets where he had fought. He asked every Englishman he met if they had seen his brother during the fighting. A weary group of Welsh spearmen said they saw the boy’s hulk smashing his way down the street behind his captain. The archer was using a polehammer like a scythe. Then another spearman added that he had seen the knight whom he knew to be Sir Gilbert Killbere attack a barricade and swore he had been killed in the fighting. Blackstone said he had survived. The white-haired man who had asked Blackstone for help at the bridge barricade came into the group. He was haggard from battle. The others made room for him. He looked sharply at Blackstone and then extended his hand.

‘I am Gruffydd ap Madoc.’

‘Thomas Blackstone.’

They talked of the fighting and Blackstone gratefully shared the bread and cheese they offered. He told them about the Welsh archer who had given him courage. He was nameless and the spearmen did not know him either. But from what Blackstone described of the man’s wounds they agreed he had fought well. He showed them the medallion the dying man had pressed into his hand.

Gruffydd examined it and laid it back in Blackstone’s hand. ‘Keep it. The old man wanted you to have it. She’s a protector of men in this life and she will carry your soul across to the other side when it’s time. She is called Arianrhod, Goddess of the Silver Wheel. It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not. She is with you.’


As the men curled into sleep where they lay, Blackstone went further into the ravaged city. Fires still burned and cries and moans still echoed through the labyrinth of streets. A proclamation was not enough to stop women being raped and their husbands slaughtered. He ignored the rampaging groups of drunken soldiers; they were too dangerous to approach. Blood-lust and rape drove them through house after house. He allowed only a glance at small, frightened children, half naked and snot-nosed, wandering helplessly near their homes, waiting for a mother to return, bewildered by the stench of gutted bodies and howls of anguish from women being ravished.

Rape was a hanging offence – but not that night.

Firelight showed the three-storey house leaning at its threatening angle. This was where crossbowmen had held the streets, and more than a dozen of their bodies littered the cobblestones, all killed by one archer. Blackstone retraced his steps and found Richard Whet twisted in a doorway. The wood was splintered, three crossbow bolts embedded in the hardwood planking. Whet must have come under attack and attempted to retreat and this was where he fought his last. No arrows remained in his bag and the spare arrow bag Blackstone had given him was also empty. Blackstone saw the bolt in Whet’s shoulder that would have disabled him, leaving him barely able to defend himself. What chance of survival did his brother have when so many other archers had been slain?

Blackstone made his way through the shadows, ducking into doorways and stepping over bodies as small marauding gangs of English soldiers ripped their way through the townhouses. Slowly but surely he began to identify the area where he had fought. The surge of emotion from the battle had blurred the streets and buildings, but now his mind focused and he recognized a corner house here, a craftsman’s sign there. As he moved towards one of the burning houses hasty footsteps rapidly approached down one of the side alleys. Men were shouting, but they were French voices. From the end of the darkened passage a priest ran as if the devil himself were after him, then tripped over a body that lay sprawled across the cobblestones. The cowled figure tumbled, arms outstretched, falling full-length, hard and painfully, to the ground. Half-stunned by the impact he tried to raise himself, but the three men pursuing him were already upon him. They were armed townsmen and had obviously been part of the city’s defence against the English attack, but now they were intent on killing the priest. One of them struck the black-cloaked figure with a pole, the other kicked the huddled body and the third readied himself with a billhook to hack the man to death.

Almost without thought Blackstone pulled an arrow from a body lying less than two paces away. The loosed arrow took the Frenchman down as he was about to decapitate the priest. The other men faltered from the shock of the arrow hissing from the darkness and striking their companion. Blackstone came at them knife in hand. In what seemed an effort to save himself one man shouted something and pointed at the priest. The words came thick and fast but Blackstone recognized only some of them; an accusation that the priest was stealing from the dead. But with less than fifteen paces before he reached them the Frenchmen turned and ran back down the alleyway.

The injured priest groaned, blood on his face, knuckles and hands skinned from the rough cobbles. Blackstone looked quickly around him; if men still fought and killed on the streets he didn’t want a sudden attack from the encroaching shadows. He dragged the injured man to the corner of a house.

‘All right, Father, you’re safe for now. King Edward has offered his protection to the clergy,’ he said in faltering French. He bent down and pulled the cowl back from the priest’s face, revealing a gaunt man in his twenties. For a moment Blackstone felt a shock of uncertainty, the man’s eyes were like dark pools in his skull. Strands of long hair, matted with blood and dank street water, clung to the sides of his face like a cat’s claw. The rescued man gave a snort of derision, then pushed himself back against the wall, clasping a clergyman’s crucifix around his neck.

‘You’re English, but you speak French,’ he said, wiping blood away from his mouth. He snorted blood and spat. ‘I never imagined I would owe my life to a bastard Englishman.’

Being a priest did not necessarily imbue a man with gentleness or gratitude. A benefice could be bought or given. This man’s words stank of ill-concealed hatred despite his life being spared. Blackstone pushed a foot into his chest and held him there.

‘What’s in the sack, priest?’ he said.

‘A feast,’ he answered. ‘Benedic nos Domine et haec tua dona.’ His insolent smile suggesting a common archer would not understand, but Blackstone had heard the blessing before and cut the tied bag, spilling its contents into the half-light. Rings and trinkets, stuck together with black, congealed blood, fell onto the cobblestones. Some of the rings were embedded in the skin of engorged fingers hacked from victims’ hands. In the moment of uncertainty at what Blackstone saw at his feet, the priest twisted and kicked, freeing himself. Blackstone swung with his knife and caught the man’s outstretched palm, severing his little finger, which hung from a shred of skin. Blackstone would have struck again, but the priest was agile and danced away like a soldier avoiding a sword strike. And then he ran without another word or curse. Blackstone gave chase, slamming into the side of a building, rolling free and propelling himself after the looter. As he jumped across fallen bodies, he snatched another arrow, never taking his eyes from the fleeing shadow as he ran through the twisting darkness. As the cloaked figure reached the heavy studded door of a church he turned and looked back towards his pursuer. Sanctuary was a step away. Blackstone’s arrow would have pinned him to that holy place, but it seemed as if the man had a sixth sense. He stepped away as the shaft thudded into the door where he had stood a moment before. Then the door was slammed shut and a bolt thrown. Blackstone put his shoulder to it, but the wood was solid and unyielding. There would be other doors into other passageways. The man was gone. Mutilation of the dead was nothing unusual, but the guise of a priest was cunning. And yet, the man wore a clerical crucifix around his neck and had spoken in Latin, which was a schooled language reserved for the nobility or the clergy. Blackstone decided that it obviously made no difference who you were when there was killing to be done.


Tiredness gnawed at him; he cared little for the body looter, but as he turned back towards the streets a window shattered amidst a woman’s screams as men’s voices jeered and laughed. It would be another alleyway assault, except for one sound that carried louder than the others and started Blackstone running towards the commotion. The diminishing light from the burning buildings crept far enough towards the end of an alley, fading into darkness ten paces from a house where the glow from torchlight threw grotesque shadows into the street. Blackstone unsheathed his knife and edged into the doorway. In the flickering light three drunken men, half-naked ghosts of pale skin, dried bloodstains and soot grime on face and arms, held a naked woman across a table. One of the men fell spluttering against the wall as he poured red wine from a jug into his mouth and across his face; the second held the woman’s arms behind her head as the third slavered over her breasts, pouring wine across them, then slathering his face and tongue as his naked arse plunged back and forth. The man with the wine jug was Pedloe, the one holding the woman’s arms was Skinner and the rapist was Richard Blackstone, grunting and baying like a rutting animal. The sound Blackstone had heard.

Blackstone moved quickly out of the darkness and yanked his brother’s shoulder. Caught by surprise Richard swept around, his extended arm smashing into Blackstone, the force of the blow sending his knife skittering away. The sudden shock of the attack stunned Skinner and Pedloe, but Blackstone’s brother had already turned and leapt upon the intruder, his hands smothering Blackstone’s face in the gloom, grappling for his throat. Blackstone could barely see Richard’s glazed, drunken eyes, and crying out would have no effect. Blackstone bucked and kicked under his brother’s weight as the other men held the woman and peered drunkenly into the shadows trying to identify their assailant.

Blackstone pulled aside his brother’s grip and in that instant Richard focused and recognized who it was he was close to killing. Blackstone grabbed his shirtfront, yanked his head down and butted him across the nose. Recognition and sudden pain rocked Richard back. He sprawled, staring at the blood on his hand from his shattered nose. Blackstone was already on his feet as Skinner snarled, threw the woman aside and came at him, his knife held low in a knife-fighter’s stance then slashed upwards – a disembowelling stroke. With his stonemason’s strength Blackstone grabbed his wrist, defeating even the veteran archer’s power. He held him, held him still, forcing him down onto his knees and reached out with his free hand, grasping for a weapon, for anything to stop the writhing man. Skinner’s drunkenness gave him the added force to twist free and slash across Blackstone’s chest. His padded jacket was slit like a wineskin, only the leather undershirt stopping the blade from reaching his flesh.

Blackstone stumbled backwards, blindly reaching out again, keeping his eyes on the killer as Skinner attacked. His hand found an arrow bag and, as Skinner lunged forward for the kill, Blackstone extended his arm and a bodkin-pointed shaft pierced his attacker’s gullet. Skinner gasped and tried to speak, but choked on his blood. He went slowly to his knees, his hands grasping the shaft, his eyes wide with incomprehension, unable to do anything but die. Pedloe, sobered by the fight, reached for his own knife; in two strides he would be at Blackstone’s blind side. The shadow that fell across him twisted his head in one violent motion. Blackstone heard the grinding snap from his brother’s grip on the man’s neck. Pedloe was dead before his body touched the floor. The two archers lay in the pooling blood.

After a moment’s silence Blackstone dragged his gaze away from the dead men. ‘Get dressed,’ he said quietly. His brother stared back. Blackstone gestured and the boy understood. Blackstone knelt next to the woman, who cowered away from him, muttering for mercy. He found her clothes and gently draped them across her nakedness. She flinched as the cloth touched her skin, but then clung to it. Blackstone attempted to wipe the sweat and dirt from her face but she recoiled. He showed her the palm of his hand, to calm her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. She stayed frozen in fear. Blackstone reached for his brother’s belt on the floor and opened the pouch. ‘I have money,’ he said, ‘I have money,’ he repeated, letting his voice soothe her. His fingers searched for the silver penny, as his voice and eyes kept trying to calm the terrified woman. He held the coin between finger and thumb and offered it to her. She shook her head. Perhaps she thought that despite the rape he was trying to pay for more sex. He placed it next to her on a stool and stepped back. There was nothing more he could do.

He turned to his brother, who was now dressed, and threw him his belt. As he buckled it around his jacket and gathered his weapons Blackstone saw a looped cord with a small drawstring leather pouch on the floor. He must have snatched it from beneath his brother’s shirt in the struggle. He picked it up. He had seen it before. His fingers trembled. He knew this purse. He knew what he would find inside. If there was a God he had to perform a miracle now. He had to make Blackstone be wrong. He had to make the two beads and the three periwinkle shells in the purse disappear. The drawstring purse would never have been parted with freely. It held small treasures given to a village girl by her runaway brother. Gifts that smelled of the sea and beads from a lady’s broken bracelet. The promise of another life across a different horizon from her own. A more distant horizon than the corn and rye fields where she lay with men and dreamed of buying her freedom from servitude as a bondswoman.

Blackstone had touched that purse when he lay across her milk-white breasts and caressed their aroused nipples. Sarah Flaxley had been a young man’s joy, a girl of easy virtue who cared only that she was loved with a passion that helped ease her loveless life. Drayman had been hanged for the girl’s murder. His approval against Richard Blackstone had been thought an act of revenge. He had pleaded innocence of the girl’s murder, but had attempted to indict the killer.

Shadows flickered as the tallow lamp burned low. Blackstone looked to his unmoving brother who gazed at the purse with a silent, sickening guilt. He touched his heart, pointed lamely at the purse and touched his lips. He loved her, he said.

Blackstone let the pouch fall to the floor and the shells cracked under his feet as he walked into the night. God had not heard his prayer.

Thousands of other souls needed Him that night.