Master of War

6




The mist was rising slowly from the river when Blackstone found Sir Gilbert sitting beneath the low branches of a tree on the riverbank. The morning light reflected dully on his chain mail draped across a fallen tree trunk, next to his washed undershirt drying on a branch. His sword lay on the ground within arm’s reach. Using a piece of linen he swabbed his arms and shoulder, marked by welts and bruises from battle. A slash across the back of his left shoulder and ribs was held by a dozen crude stitches, smeared with a greasy-looking salve. Blackstone held back; he had approached quietly and stood for a moment staring at the man’s wounds. Sir Gilbert wrung the linen and spoke without turning.

‘You stink like a hog’s groin, Blackstone. Either move downwind or wash yourself.’

Blackstone stepped forward but kept his distance. He squatted at the water’s edge, staying silent, embarrassed by his clumsiness at being seen.


‘I’m not a goddamn magician. I saw you climb the town walls. If I was a French bowman I could have had a crossbow bolt between your eyes. What do you want? I’m tired.’

‘You’re wounded,’ said Blackstone lamely.

‘It barely cut the skin. There’s a monastery on the other side of the forest. I had the monks use their dark arts. They have herbs and potions. I don’t want any of our bloodletters near me.’

‘Elfred told me you were here,’ Blackstone said, and scooped water onto his face. He looked across at the ships being loaded with the wealth from Caen. ‘We lost a lot of men.’

‘You’re still alive, that’s all you have to be concerned about. Your brother?’

Blackstone nodded.

‘He fought well. I saw him. Did you find plunder? There was plenty of gold coin in those houses.’

Blackstone shook his head.

‘How do you expect to raise your status if you don’t loot? Take what you can and increase your wealth. One day, if you survive the fighting, and when you’re older and rheumatism seizes your bow arm, you buy your own men. Then you contract them to the King. His servants have stripped the merchants’ houses. What do you think is being loaded onto those ships? How do you think the King makes money?’

‘You don’t take part in the looting, Sir Gilbert.’

‘I don’t care for it. Besides, I have a prisoner.’

Blackstone nodded. ‘I’ll take what I can find.’

Sir Gilbert laughed. ‘There’s nothing left. The ships will sail back to England, we’ll bury the dead and then we’ll march on to Paris. We haven’t yet fought the battle to win this war.’ He wiped his sword’s blade, waiting for Blackstone to tell him whatever it was that was clearly bothering him. ‘Where’s your sword?’

‘I gave it to a wounded archer, Alan of Marsh. He needed a weapon. I went back for him but he was dead. They took his bow and the sword.’

‘It was yours to give, but a man-at-arms would never gift a sword won in battle – though he might sell it.’

Sir Gilbert’s mild chastisement evaporated like the river mist. ‘Richard Whet’s dead, Torpoleye, Skinner, Pedloe…’ said Blackstone quickly, recounting the losses, creeping closer to confession.

‘Archers always pay a heavy price when they fight an armoured enemy. We won because we were reckless, stupid bastards who clawed our enemy to death. The King knows that. That’s why he loves us. It’s why we fight for him.’

‘I killed Skinner,’ Blackstone said quickly.

Sir Gilbert barely hesitated as he cleaned the blade. ‘That must have been some fight. He was a vicious bastard who’d have killed his own mother if there was a coin to be had.’

‘He raped a woman,’ Blackstone said.

‘It’s what soldiers do. Was she a whore?’

‘No.’

‘Then you saved him from the rope,’ Sir Gilbert told him. ‘Did you kill Pedloe as well?’ he asked. ‘Nothing kept those two apart.’

Blackstone shook his head.

‘Why are you telling me this? What do you expect me to do? Flog you? Have you hanged? Dear Christ, Blackstone, it’s goddamn war. Some men deserve to die more than others. I don’t give a dog’s turd for the likes of Skinner and Pedloe. The army’s got plenty of their kind. Go away. I’m not your Father Confessor and I don’t want you snivelling about a tavern fight.’

Blackstone tried to keep the secret bottled. ‘Sir Gilbert, would you have my brother serve with the baggage train? He’ll be safe there.’

‘Lose an archer like him? No. And he fights like a lion with a spear up its arse. He stays with the company.’

‘I don’t want him near me!’ Blackstone shouted, and then fell silent, sickened by his outburst.

Sir Gilbert forced the blade into the ground. It stood like a cross. For a few moments he said nothing and then he began to dress, easing the mail onto his battered body over the linen shirt.

‘War is a trade, and trade feeds war. Blame the damned sheep if you like,’ he said. ‘Jesus, Thomas, take that stupid look off your face. Wool from a sheep’s back pays for war. We guarantee it to the Flemish for their weavers and they give us loyalty and troops to keep Philip contained in the north. We guarantee it to the Italians who lend your King the money he needs to wage war. We pay for the privilege of fighting. They are agreements.’

‘I don’t understand what any of that has to do with me or my brother,’ Blackstone said.

‘Loyalty binds men, Thomas, and Lord Marldon’s loyalty to your father ensnares me as well. His lordship promised his friend, your father, that you and your brother would be protected for as long as Lord Marldon lived.’

‘By sending us to war?’

‘By saving your brother’s life. There was a witness.’

Sir Gilbert’s words froze the moment. The overhanging branches framed a tapestry of ships’ sails unfurling to catch the rising breeze, and a moorhen dipping its head for insects as it padded through shallow reed beds.

‘So now you know what he did,’ said Sir Gilbert.

‘A witness?’ The question was unnecessary, but it escaped Blackstone’s lips. He shook his head, not comprehending that others knew what had happened. ‘Chandler. Lord Marldon’s reeve. He saw your brother that day. You worked at the manor, Richard was at the quarry, but not all day. He went to Sarah Flaxley, saw Drayman leave her. He killed her, whether he intended to or not, and Chandler traded his silence for your land. Lord Marldon would have slain him, but he’s his reeve and is as sly as a stoat. Who was to say he had not secured that information elsewhere? In time Lord Marldon will discover whether he did or not, and Chandler will be found with his throat slit outside an alehouse.’

Sir Gilbert buckled his sword and picked up his bascinet. ‘A man’s loyalty and honour determine who he is in this godforsaken world. And your lord honoured his promise to your father. It was a trade. A piss-poor one in my opinion, but a trade it was.’

He stepped away from Blackstone.

‘Your brother stays in the company of archers. And Thomas, never relinquish a sword if it’s won in battle.’


It seemed to Blackstone that his father’s action all those years ago in saving Lord Marldon’s life had bound them all together. He was obliged to care for his brother and had he not also given his word to Lord Marldon? For Blackstone to break that chain of promise and honour would mean the end of – what? He didn’t know and it was something that gnawed away at him. Honour had become too tenuous, an ideal that had seemed binding, but was lost when the slaughter began. Was not the honour broken when his brother strangled Sarah Flaxley? The image of it still sickened him. His mind imagined the scene, and despite the carnage of the battle at Caen, his brother’s act of violent passion was the one that haunted his dreams. He banished Richard to walk as far behind him as possible. No longer did he want him at his shoulder. A part of him wished his brother had perished in the battle, then Blackstone would not have known of his crime and he would have died innocent.

The army lingered five days in Caen. A vast communal grave was dug in the churchyard of Ile St-Jean, and they buried five hundred Frenchmen, but there were so many bodies in the city they could not be counted – some said it was as many as five thousand. For days the rivers carried bodies out to sea on the tide. Of the English knights or men-at-arms only one had died, but the infantry and the archers who led the assault, and whose courage won the day, lost many of their number. The King sent orders to England to raise another twelve hundred archers and supply six thousand sheaves of arrows. The fortress, as Blackstone had predicted, proved impregnable and a contingent of men was left to contain Sir Godfrey’s old enemy, Bertrand, and the few hundred who remained behind its walls. Time, and the French force from the south, was closing in on the English King. If the spies’ reports were to be believed, King Philip rallied his army in Rouen. The English were being squeezed between river and coast. If this war was to be won Edward had to outrun the French and choose his ground. When the King attended to his prayers before each daybreak he, like his common archer Thomas Blackstone, needed a simple miracle – a bridge left intact across the Seine.


And once again God had other prayers to answer.


The army moved eastwards, scorching the land as it went. Townsfolk, villagers and villeins, knowing that the great city of Caen had fallen, fled before it. They took their livestock and food, leaving nothing for the English army. Skirmishes along the way slowed the army’s advance, but the vanguard division pushed on relentlessly, desperate to find a way of crossing the Seine. King Edward’s small army had been depleted by death and injury, disease and desertion; he now had fewer than thirteen thousand men to fight the French army, which had at least twice as many. Slowed by the baggage wagons, the English made only thirty miles in three days. Keeping the carts and wagons moving across the marshland and difficult, undulating terrain made huge demands on muscle and stamina. The commanders knew that they could not increase the pace without diminishing the army’s fighting capabilities. Horses and men were tiring. A knight’s mount carried its rider, his armour and weapons – up to three hundred pounds of weight – day in and day out. Fodder and water were crucial. The troops scavenged what little remained from the countryside, but the bread was exhausted and foraged mutton gave insufficient strength to a fighting man. Soldiers needed that and their diet of pease, grain porridge and bread to give them the stamina for battle.

The great looping bends of the lower Seine curled across a broad valley, but no crossing had been found. Paris taunted the English King. He was within twenty miles of the capital, and from the high ground Edward could look across the five bends of the Seine and see the city’s towers. The French King had bottled up his enemy on the opposite bank. Outnumbered and outflanked, Edward’s army could soon die with their backs to the sea and leave the gates of England open for the invasion the French had always desired and planned.

Now not only the King’s survival but also that of his nation were at stake.


Godfrey de Harcourt rode south with archers and men-at-arms, following the course of the Seine. This was countryside familiar to de Harcourt, since the territory belonged to his brother, the count, and their ancestral home, the Castle de Harcourt, lay a few miles to the south-east. No bridge across the river remained intact and by now his scouting party was close to the great city of Rouen where, if the rumours were to be believed, the King of France had gathered his army in readiness to stop Edward’s advance. Marshals of the English army had been charged with finding either a bridge that could be attacked and taken, or a crossing that the French had left intact. No crossing had yet been found. Those bridges that remained were heavily defended from towers on the enemy’s side of the river. Skirmishes against them ended in failure. The French King had anticipated Edward’s advance and, by denying him access across the Seine, also denied him the chance to attack Paris. The French would drive the English northwards and trap them between river and coast.

As the sun climbed higher the tireless de Harcourt drove the men onward through wooded valleys and over gentle hills until they reached a wide track cut through the forest. It led to a clearing and a stone-built castle, whose rounded towers and battlements occupied a dominant position. Its wide, deep outer moat would make a direct attack difficult and its second one, crescent shaped that hugged the inner walls, would probably drown any attackers who survived the other defences. However, to attack was not the purpose for which Godfrey de Harcourt had swung away from the Seine. Sir Gilbert and his men waited in the trees for orders. The Norman rode with half a dozen of his knights around the perimeter. There were no defenders on the walls and the narrow wooden bridge across its fosse, broad enough for a wagon to pass through the wall’s iron-studded gates, was intact.

‘Thing is, with a place like this, it can be very tricky to get inside, if that’s what Sir Godfrey’s planning,’ muttered John Weston, examining dust-clogged snot on the end of his finger. ‘No scaling ladders, no siege engines. Just thee and me and a few cracked-arsed hobelars. And if he’s a mind to ride across yonder bridge and knock on the door he’ll either get a cauldron of boiling oil or a piss pot tipped on his noble head. So if anyone asks for volunteers I’ll be taking a shit behind that tree.’

‘Shut up,’ Sir Gilbert told him. ‘And you’ll take a shit when I tell you, you goddamned boil on the backside of humanity.’

Elfred and the others smiled at Weston who, by way of revenge, shifted in his saddle and farted. ‘That could crumble some of them fine stone walls,’ he muttered. ‘Oh, hello, he’s sent a poor sod to knock on the door.’

The men watched as a squire rode forward from the gathered knights. The hollow thud of hooves on wood echoed up to the men waiting in the coolness of the trees.

Weston kept a murmured commentary going. ‘Anyone home? We were just passing and wondered if you had any virgins who might need some attention. Not that anyone has the energy right now, not after grinding our arses on swayback nags for thirty miles.’

The herald called for the gates to be opened, citing de Harcourt’s name. There was silence. Even from where they sat in the trees Blackstone could see de Harcourt’s irritation, which was not contained for long. He bellowed, ‘In the name of Christ! Open the gates or I will burn them through.’

‘Those are iron-clad gates. We’ll be here for some time,’ Blackstone said quietly. ‘Whoever built that castle knew what they were doing. Conical towers each side of the entrance. Half a dozen side towers on the outer wall. Good field of fire from those loopholes. See how the cut stone supports the archway? The iron hinges are concealed. Windows to the side are a weak spot, but you’d need to get across the fosse. Good builders.’

‘They should surrender,’ Elfred agreed.

‘They must know the rules of war,’ Will Longdon said.

‘Cling-shit peasants,’ John Weston said, spitting in disgust.

‘Do I have to sit and listen to your babble?’ Sir Gilbert said, turning in the saddle. ‘You damned washerwomen could wear a threshing stone down with your talk.’ He spurred his horse forward. ‘With me!’

The four men followed Sir Gilbert down to where de Harcourt waited for a response from those inside the castle.

‘My lord, there’s an old boat tied at the bank. We could put three or four men across and let them try that lower window.’

Longdon and Weston looked sourly at Blackstone.

‘There’s no defence. Whoever’s inside has no stomach for a fight,’ Sir Gilbert said finally.

De Harcourt nodded. ‘Choose your men. Make it plain; no harm to those inside. My nephew’s wife is in there. Perhaps with some of his men. Kill only in self-defence.’ He turned his horse away and rode to the sheltering trees.

Sir Gilbert looked at Blackstone and the men around him – Blackstone’s brother, Longdon and Weston. ‘You heard his lordship. Get inside and open the gates. And don’t take all day.’


The men crawled through the forest until they could slip down the bank unseen and release the boat’s painter. The moat was sixty feet wide and probably as deep. Will Longdon rowed and John Weston moaned. Once they eased along the wall Blackstone palmed the wall until they were below the window, twelve feet or so above them.

‘Can you hold it steady? I don’t want to end up in the fosse. There’s a depth to it and the banks are steep.’


‘We’ll hold it,’ Weston said. ‘Just don’t tip us over. I can’t swim. I’d go down like a stone.’

He and Longdon steadied the boat as Blackstone showed his brother what he wanted. How many times had they reached up into a tree for a wild beehive and scooped out the combs? Speed was the key, and the stings would be few. Blackstone hoped no crossbowmen’s bites awaited him inside. His brother braced his feet and leaned onto the wall. Blackstone climbed from his thigh to his shoulder and balanced. The boat rocked.

‘Steady, you dumb ox,’ Weston muttered as Richard’s weight shifted. Blackstone stretched as high as he could, his fingertips found the mullion, and then his brother took his feet and lifted him higher. The boy’s strength held as Blackstone clambered through the opening.

He tipped into a big room with chestnut beams. The smooth walls were three feet thick, and as he crawled through he saw de Harcourt’s coat of arms, once painted onto damp plaster, but now faded. A cut-stone surround boxed in a soot-laden fireplace. There was a table and chairs turned over, and a worn carpet that lay across the flagstone floor had been pulled back. This had to be a room where the nobility had sat and eaten, but where someone had scavenged. A wooden chest lay on its side, its contents looted, probably silver plate, Blackstone thought as he went to the door and eased it open. Stone steps went up one way to the next storey and on the other turned down into a shadowed passage. He went back to the window and beckoned Longdon and Weston. They tried to climb as Blackstone had done, but it needed two men to hold the boat steady. They came close to tipping.

‘We can’t,’ Will Longdon told him. ‘Come back down, Thomas, we can’t get men inside.’

Blackstone leaned over the sill. He gestured to Richard.

‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ he called down. ‘Wait for me.’

‘Wait?’ John Weston asked. ‘Wait how long? There could be Genoese bastards in there as we speak, hiding in the damned shadows.’

‘If I don’t come back by the time you’ve imagined fashioning a bodkin onto a shaft and fletched it, then tell Sir Gilbert we need more men.’ He ducked out of sight.

‘Now he thinks I’m a damned bowyer and fletcher as well as boatman. Hey, hey…’ he tugged at Richard’s sleeve. ‘Sit down. Down.’ He gestured. ‘And whatever you do, don’t move.’ He smiled at the scowling boy. ‘If you please,’ he added.

Blackstone had already gone from the window. He nocked an arrow and stepped onto the half-landing outside the doors. He decided to climb higher; that way he might have the advantage if armed men waited in ambush below in the castle’s bailey.

Light streamed down from an upper terrace. He tried to remember Lord Marldon’s fortified manor. It did not have the grandeur or scale of this castle but he guessed French nobles would live like their English cousins, who had, after all, inherited much of the results of Norman castle building. He stepped warily, knowing the rising steps would impede his drawing the bow fully.

The steps opened out into a broad walkway with rectangular-cut windows that allowed him to look down across the horseshoe-shaped bailey, which was big enough to hold all of Sir Godfrey’s raiding party twice over and still have room for horses and livestock. But now it held shadows pressed tight against the rough stone walls. The darkened shapes were armed men.

Blackstone stepped back quickly. He edged to the corner and looked down on the men. They were unmoving. He reasoned they were disciplined but were not de Harcourt’s nephew’s men. They were deserters or mercenaries who wore no collective surcoats or garb. Around to one side he could see a dozen or more bodies. Bloodied, they had been thrown into the corner of the yard. By the look of their dress they were servants. Blackstone calculated that he could kill at least a dozen of the thirty or so men, and then what? He would still be unable to reach the gate and open it and the men would soon co-ordinate an attack and kill him. Best to slip away and report to Sir Godfrey. He pressed against the wall and ran quickly back the way he had come. As he turned in at the door he saw a movement at the turn of the stairs. A hand had moved in the shadow. Blackstone ran down the remaining steps until he reached the join between the walls. It was a narrow chasm in the rough-hewn stone, barely wide enough for a slender child to enter.

‘Help me,’ a girl’s voice whispered.

Blackstone overcame his uncertainty and reached into the gap. His arm felt that of the girl and he pulled her gently towards him. She was scraped and bruised, her cloak covered in lime dust from the walls. She was small, with delicate features, and as she came closer to him he saw that her eyes were green and her hair the colour of a broadleaf in autumn. As she eased into the stairwell, her weakness made her stagger against the wall. But she raised a hand to ward off Blackstone’s help.

‘English?’ she asked quietly, glancing down the stairs, afraid the intruders might hear even a gentle whisper.

Blackstone nodded.

‘I heard Sir Godfrey’s voice. You are with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you take me to him?’

Again she glanced down the stairs and Blackstone extended his arm to her.

‘Let me help you.’

She hesitated, the sight of the dishevelled archer a barrier to overcome. His hand had not wavered but she refused to take it. She shook her head. ‘Show me,’ was all she said.

Blackstone turned away. It was up to her whether she decided to follow him. As he reached the window he sensed she was only a few steps away. She stood in the middle of the room, caught between that which she knew to be fatal behind her and the chance of escape with men who could cause her as much harm.

Blackstone leaned across the sill. The boat was still there.

‘Will,’ he called softly, raising a hand to warn of the danger. Will Longdon and Weston looked up, uncertainty creasing their faces. Richard followed their gaze, a lopsided grin when he saw his brother. ‘Armed men inside,’ Blackstone said. ‘Servants are butchered. There’s a girl. Wait.’ He ducked back from the opening.

Weston wobbled the boat in his anxiety. ‘A girl!’ he hissed. ‘Christ! Tom, leave her!’ But Blackstone had gone from view.

The girl looked at him. She had not moved, deciding which action might be the less fearful. Blackstone once again extended his arm. She shook her head. ‘I cannot swim,’ she said.

‘You don’t have to,’ he assured her. Still she hesitated. ‘I can’t wait. If you want to see Sir Godfrey you have to trust me. And you must stay silent. My brother is in the boat. Don’t let his disfigurement frighten you.’

She took his hand and in a quick movement Blackstone lifted her and swung her across the opening. She clenched her jaw, squeezing her eyes closed, and let him swing her out quickly. Her weight caused him no difficulty and he reached down, lowering her into his brother’s waiting arms as Longdon and a cursing Weston steadied the boat.

The three men stared at her as she sat in the bow. None of them had been so close to a woman with such delicate features or soft-shaded hair. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Weston muttered. ‘My lady…’ he added. For once words failed him.

‘Will!’

They looked up. Blackstone was clambering down and needed his brother’s shoulders. Longdon steadied Richard as Blackstone eased himself down the wall.


John Weston shipped the oars, eager to pull away. ‘How many men?’

‘Two dozen or more,’ Blackstone said.

‘I’d wager a couple more of us in there and we’d have taken them,’ Longdon said, turning back to watch the empty window.

‘Like killing ducks on a pond, Will. But they were too many for one man and they’d have got to me and you’d have been examining the bottom of this moat with your dying gaze,’ Blackstone told him. They bumped into the bank. The men jumped clear, Blackstone’s brother extended his hand to help the girl, but she turned to Blackstone and put out her hand to him.


Her name was Christiana; she was sixteen years old and served her mistress, Countess Blanche de Ponthieu, wife of John V de Harcourt, Sir Godfrey’s nephew.

‘Where is your mistress?’ Godfrey de Harcourt asked her.

‘When she heard the English were trying to cross the Seine she feared for her mother. She’s gone to Noyelles, my lord,’ Christiana answered.

Years of family tension gnawed away at de Harcourt. For the first time Blackstone saw him ease his lame leg. ‘Courage was never her problem. My nephew married a headstrong woman, there’s no denying that. And these men?’

‘Villagers came and asked us for protection. It was a trick. When we opened the gates they attacked. They killed everyone. There are more bodies this young archer never saw. I have been hiding for two days.’

Sir Godfrey showed a tenderness towards the girl that no man under his command would ever experience. ‘We will take you to the English. For now you are safe. What about my brother and my nephew?’

‘They took their men-at-arms and joined the King’s forces. More than a week ago.’

‘At Rouen?’

She nodded.

‘Is there a crossing?’

‘How would I know, my lord? I am only in service to my lady,’ Christiana answered.

‘Of course,’ said de Harcourt. Her unwavering voice made it clear that if she knew of such a crossing she would not betray it to the English, or those fighting with them, even though they now offered her sanctuary. He acknowledged Blackstone.

‘You did well. Stay with her.’

‘My lord.’ Obeying Sir Godfrey he ushered Christiana into the forest where the horses were tethered as the other men were called forward by Sir Gilbert. He settled her on dry bracken and found her wine and bread with salted cod. She had not eaten since hiding from the killers, but she ate carefully and without haste. Blackstone knew that he would have been like a ravening wolf. He sat in the dappled shade, watching her whenever she looked away. This was one fight he was happy to miss. Minutes later Elfred and the archers filtered back into the trees.

‘You lucky bastard,’ Will Longdon said as he unsheathed his bow. ‘We’ve to be awake in the treeline and kill these scum while you snuggle up to the princess here.’

‘You make sure your bow stays sheathed,’ John Weston said, with a toothless grin.

Elfred walked through the trees. ‘Thomas, you’re to stay with the girl. Shall I leave Richard with you?’

Blackstone hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Keep him at your shoulder, Elfred. He trusts you.’

‘He don’t want his baby brother hanging around here tonight, do you, my lad?’ Weston said, leering at the girl who was facing the other way.

‘John, I hope your eyes stop watering before you have to draw your bow. I’ll think of you sitting cramped with your arse in nettles while I’m tucked up here, protecting the lady,’ Blackstone told him with a grin.

‘Sod me if he isn’t going to do exactly what I said he was,’ Weston muttered.

The men moved away. Blackstone took his blanket and gave it to Christiana. ‘The forest gets chilled at night,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about the men. You’re under Sir Godfrey’s protection.’

‘And yours?’ she asked, taking the blanket and tucking it around her.

‘And mine,’ he answered, feeling suddenly awkward and foolish.


Godfrey de Harcourt and his handful of men-at-arms rode once again to the end of the bridge. Dusk was falling and the grey light crept across the silent castle.

‘Madame!’ de Harcourt shouted. ‘I apologize for my earlier threat. I know you must be fearful because the English are close, but I implore you once again to open the gates. I am here, as I promised, to give you the gold for my brother’s ransom!’

He turned to Sir Gilbert who rode at his side.

‘You think they’ll know I fight with Edward?’

‘I think, my lord, they are arse-sucking scum who would be as confused as many others about your family entanglements,’ Sir Gilbert answered. ‘I am orphan born and orphan I shall die.’

De Harcourt grunted. ‘Count yourself fortunate.’

He raised himself in the stirrups as if to add volume to his bellowing.

‘Good lady! I have only six men-at-arms as escort. It is dangerous for me to linger, but we will camp here, where you can see us, until the morning. But then I leave and I take my gold with me. He is your husband, for pity’s sake, and a fine knight. Let us give the English that which they demand.’

He turned his horse. ‘Flies would be less likely to settle on a dung heap than for them to ignore the chance of gold.’


Sir Godfrey and the men-at-arms tethered their horses, built a fire in full view and settled beneath their cloaks for the night. Huddled around the flames, they offered themselves as bait. Within the forest edge Elfred and the archers waited while Blackstone sat a few feet from the sleeping girl. Moonlight came and went beneath scattering clouds, and when the soft light filtered through the branches he could see her sleeping like a child, hair against her face, her lips slightly parted. He felt that, if he were sleeping, this would be a dream of finding a beautiful forest child, abandoned by Mother Nature.

He pulled back from the illusion. She served a countess. There was no point yielding to the feelings that confused and bedevilled him. He returned his gaze to the shadows and the faint movement of the branches where the archers stayed out of sight. If he were the men inside he would wait until first light, when the fire had sunk to embers and the morning chill kept men, aching in their armour, curled for a few moments more of warmth beneath their cloaks.

And that is what the killers did.