Master of War (59 page)

Blackstone’s possession of the dark secret of Christiana’s father made him feel like a thief in the night who dreads a sudden knife to his throat. He poured himself more wine as a diversion, in case his guilt was apparent.

‘How so, my lord?’ he asked, raising the glass, his eyes watching de Harcourt over its rim.

‘Those who travel the roads, tinkers and monks, merchants and scavengers, they all have stories to tell. And your name is already known. Yours is a strange way, Thomas Blackstone.’ De Harcourt stretched his legs in front of the fire and rubbed one of the dog’s ears. ‘You’re more complicated than I took you to be. You burn and you kill but you don’t allow women to be raped or children to be slaughtered. You have no breeding and you mocked our notion of chivalry. And yet you practise it.’

They left Castle de Harcourt with extra provisions and a bag of silver coin, provided by de Harcourt as a dowry for Christiana. Promises of an early reunion between Blanche and Christiana were made, women’s tears were shed and de Harcourt’s priest was summoned to give them a blessing for a safe journey home. God’s protective mantle was bolstered by another ten men, who were to follow at a discreet distance and then return when their charges were in sight of Chaulion.

‘We should have stayed, Thomas,’ said Christiana. ‘It’s Christ­mas season, and it would have been my last chance to see everyone.’

He glanced at her. She seemed happy enough but who could tell with a woman? She wasn’t pouting, which was good, and her lip did not curl in self-pity, which was better.

‘I know you don’t like to dance, and perhaps you feel some envy of the lords who speak beautiful verse, but it’s soothing to one’s soul, like a prayer said in humility,’ she went on, seemingly without taking a breath. ‘And the weather will be upon us, I feel sure of it, and my cloak will be soaked. I wish it would make up its mind. Rain or snow. Nothing is as it should be. Did you know they lost their harvest last autumn in the south? It rained so hard. There’ll be famine.’

He did know. It was why de Harcourt had told him his plan. The further south, the greater the conflict. Rival captains on the same side fought for town and castle, and the French King’s soldiers engaged in running battles from citadel to citadel in a continuous war of attrition. De Harcourt knew that the regional mint was secured in the town of St Aubin and a large sum of money was being put together, most likely to pay one of the French garrisons. If Blackstone and his men could find a way to slip through the warring factions and secure the mint or waylay the money in transit, he would inflict a heavy blow against the French King’s ability to pay his troops in the south. What better way to serve one’s own King, hamper the enemy and secure much-needed money for his own men? It was a plan fraught with danger, but a plan that Blackstone would consider nonetheless.

Christiana was not yet prepared to let him free of her gentle chiding. ‘And Henry was safe at Harcourt. Safe and warm. Marcel was wonderful. Like my right hand. No, Blanche was my right hand; he was like my left. I shall miss them.’

He had learnt forbearance while at Harcourt and knew he was asking much of her. He remained silent, watching her lips that enticed him as much as when she spoke, as when she kissed him. Blackstone pulled up his horse. She didn’t notice. Her monologue continued for a few more strides and then she realized he was not at her side.

He glanced back to where the escort shadowed them a few hundred yards away. They too stopped, watching their charge to see what he was doing.

‘Is the baby all right?’ she said with sudden concern.

Henry was swaddled in his crib, fastened on one side of a pan­nier saddle that carried Christiana’s trunk of clothes on the other. There was no sound from the child and Blackstone assumed the swaying of the palfrey’s gait was as good as a rocking cradle. He let his gaze wander, taking in the spindly boughed woodland.

‘When I snatched you from those Bohemians in the forest and we nearly drowned you were feisty, like a peasant’s ratting terrier; and then when you cared for me you were brave and selfless and subdued your own suffering. But since you’ve been with Blanche it’s been like a tide creeping upriver. The dark water swallows everything that was once there. That’s what’s happened to you. You’ve become a housebound woman drowning under frivolous gossip and fine clothes.’

She scowled in protest. ‘Thomas, I have spent—’

‘Christiana. I haven’t finished speaking yet,’ he said firmly, without anger in his voice. ‘I wish I could offer you more. I cannot. And our fortunes will be mixed. You shall have everything that is mine but you’re a soldier’s wife, not the lady of a nobleman, and there will be hardship and danger for us all. You’ll have no gentle company and at best a merchant’s wife to help with the child if that’s what you need. There will be weeks when I’ll be away. My heart and my bed are yours, but everything else demands my attention. Accept this life or go back and be with Blanche. She’ll take you gladly. I’ll visit once in a while. You’ll have the child until he’s seven and then he’s mine. You must decide what it is you want. And I pray it is me.’

He handed her the palfrey’s reins, then heeled his horse forward. It was a gamble, but one that had to be taken. It was up to her if she followed. And if she did then she would have turned her back on the comforts afforded her at Harcourt and they would face their uncertain future together.

By spring Christiana had long rid herself of the despair at the state of the house that Blackstone had taken as their home. He had lived in one room, ignoring the distressed state of the others that Saquet and his men had occupied. She demanded from Blackstone, and got, a dozen townsmen and their women to remove all traces of filth and scrub the house with vinegar from top to bottom. And once chimneys were cleaned and fires lit she scoured the area for rosemary and other herbs to burn and sweeten the fetid atmosphere of unwashed men and dogs and the fouling they had left behind. Fresh reeds alone would suffice for those rooms she visited infrequently but for all others she insisted on woven rush matting laid over the floors. No woman could trail her skirts across loose floor coverings until they had been crushed flat underfoot over months. Blackstone realized to his quiet satisfaction, and amazement, that Blanche de Harcourt’s influence had played a role. Christiana was mistress of her own house, though without putting a resentful distance between herself and the townspeople. That she was the daughter of an impoverished French knight gave her an advantage in addressing them, artisan or labourer, washerwoman or seamstress, with a simple dignity that demanded respect. Brother Simon shared his knowledge of herbs and she scattered wormwood and fleabane, crushed with chamomile, throughout the house to keep infestations under control. Servants were interviewed and put to work, as was a steward to supervise them. He was given responsibility for the household accounts and, as a member of the town’s council, he presented Blackstone with the expenditure and requirements for sustaining the town and its people through the coming year. In a few short months Christiana created a home and organized a small workforce to sustain it and its vegetable gardens. When Blackstone returned from reconnoitring for a way to secure King Philip’s mint he found a house that may have lacked tapestries and ornament, but was nonetheless a place of warmth and comfort, befitting a man who had taken the town and now gave it his protection.

During the following weeks Blackstone prepared his plan. The mint was held in a small castle at the head of an escarpment, above cliffs rising two hundred feet. The road to the main gate was guarded by a small garrison of about fifty men, which allowed no direct assault, and a siege was out of the question. Before Black­stone’s force could reach the objective they had to strike into the heartland of the warring factions, a raid that had to be swift and carefully executed. Either side might see his incursion into their territory as a direct threat. During his reconnaissance he had bribed a goatherd to show him paths scratched into the hillside by which Blackstone’s men could approach from below the castle’s most vulnerable wall and where they might scale the cliffs. Once they had breached the walls, the archers, who would stay concealed in nearby woodland, would strike at those guarding the road, and drive them inside. Matthew Hampton would hold the road and Blackstone’s men would hold the keep. Their enemy, trapped between two hostile forces within the inner and outer walls, would be held fast, unable to advance or retreat. Blackstone put the plan to Meulon and Guinot, who, since recovering, had been placed back in command of Chaulion. They would halve the garrison in early July when the weather warmed and grazing was plentiful. By then their horses would have regained their strength after winter. Chaulion and the other places held in Blackstone’s name would be bringing in their winter-sown wheat and he wanted to be back for the harvest to ensure the crop was safely stored and protected from any scavenging routiers. It seemed a good plan.

And then one day the monastery’s bell rang out its distress.

Prior Marcus stood at the crossroads with a family of travellers. They looked exhausted. The man and woman carried their worldly possessions on their backs, and five children, their ages somewhere between three and seven, Blackstone estimated, sat huddled at their parents’ bare, blackened feet supping from a wooden bowl of pottage. Talpin was guard commander and came forward to hold Blackstone’s bridle as he and the half-dozen men who rode with him dismounted.

‘They’re the fifth lot this morning, Master Thomas – came up on the road from the south. We thought nothing of it at first, but now these wretches tell us there’s another horde following on their heels. Something’s going on. Brother Marcus isn’t telling us anything.’

Blackstone nodded, scanned the hillsides, but saw no sign of anyone else. ‘Keep the gates closed, Talpin. No matter what Prior Marcus wants, you follow my orders.’

Blackstone strode across to the family, who quickly got to their feet and bowed at his approach.

‘Sir Thomas, these people have travelled from the south where there’s pestilence. Many have died, they say hundreds, perhaps thousands,’ Prior Marcus explained.

It was doubtful the peasant could count the fingers on his hands but if he had seen a lot of bodies it did not matter.

‘Have you fed others today?’ Blackstone asked Prior Marcus.

‘They were all needy. Of course,’ the prior replied.

‘Who approached them?’

‘I don’t understand,’ Brother Marcus answered, perplexed at the question.

‘Did you attend them? Feed them?’

‘I and Brother Robert. Why?’

‘Have any looked ill? Fever, or raging thirst?’

‘No. They move ahead of the plague. It has come from the ports. They say Bordeaux burns the bodies in vast pits and in Narbonne they are blaming the Jews and hanging them. The Pope has issued a decree to stop them but terror grips the people.’

Blackstone knew how virulent the plague was. ‘My men and I were riding south a few weeks ago, we heard of a pestilence sweeping up the Rhône valley from Marseilles but I didn’t think it would turn towards us.’

‘God will prevail,’ said the prior.

‘God has abandoned us like some of your religious brethren. The Pope may well stay at Avignon, but the cardinals have fled. Lock the doors. Stay inside. Help no one,’ Blackstone told him and turned back towards Talpin and the guard. The prior tugged at his arm.

‘Not help? We cannot let these people pass without food. Look at them. They have nothing. Most haven’t eaten in days.’

Blackstone signalled Talpin to him. He answered the prior, ‘If you are lucky then these refugees haven’t brought the plague with them. You and Brother Robert will be kept in the cow byre for two or three days. If you don’t succumb you’ll be allowed back inside the monastery.’

The prior’s jaw dropped. Blackstone did not know whether it was the thought of being contaminated or the fact that he was to be kept in the stench of the byre. It didn’t matter.

‘You understand, Brother Marcus, that this pestilence will be on us quicker than the wind, and most likely carried on it. I have heard how people died. Check your armpits and groin for lumps. You have two days before the signs appear. I suggest you pray as you have never prayed before. For your life.’

Talpin stood waiting.

‘Did you touch or go near any of the travellers today?’

‘We kept them at spear length,’ he answered.

‘Keep it that way. We barricade the road.’

There was a drawn look of fear on Talpin’s face. ‘Plague?’

There was no need for Blackstone to answer.

‘And you’ll leave us out here? Alone?’ Talpin asked.

‘What you risk, so will I,’ Blackstone answered and then he told Talpin what he wanted done.

Blackstone’s father had once shown him a diseased cow with a pestilence that had killed the beasts in three of the local villages. The infected animals were isolated and left either to recover or die. It was the same with people. By the end of that day a barricade of wicker palisades, taken from the vegetable gardens, was used, along with fallen timber, brush and bramble, to cut off the road from the monastery to Chaulion, and then the bridge was closed. Two of the English archers were added to the monastery guard with orders to bring down anyone who tried to breach the palisades before they could even reach a spear’s blade. In Chaulion a ripple of fear ran through everyone when they learnt of the invisible assassin that sought them out. Many thought God had sent the dark angel for them, for past and current sins.

Blackstone had a pious monk taken into Chaulion where a chapel was made inside an old stable block.

‘We’ll clear the stench for you,’ Blackstone told him. ‘Those who wish to pray can stand in the yard. It’ll be cold and wet, but there’s nothing else we can do.’

The young monk had calluses on his hands and a weather-beaten face. He was no stranger to hard work, having been a late arrival at the monastery.

‘The stable is appropriate, Master Thomas, wouldn’t you say? And God’s love will ease their discomfort in the yard.’