Defiant Unto Death (29 page)

‘They have nothing to give, but they've shared this with us,' he told her.

There was the slightest movement of her head as she refused.

‘Drink from where I put my lips,' he said gently. ‘You need food.'

Reluctantly she took the bowl from his hands and did as he ordered. After swallowing the first mouthfuls she paused and looked to the old woman. ‘Thank you,' she said and then finished drinking. Her trembling eased as she trusted her fate to a leper's good will.

Blackstone took the empty bowl from her and put it back into the woman's hands. And in it he placed a purse. The woman made a muffled sound and shrank back to the others where he heard the sound of coins being spilled from the leather pouch. Two men separated from those who huddled and came forward; their clothes were tattered and hid their disfigurement but Blackstone saw their eyes looking at him and after a brief pause the men stepped outside into the rain. Blackstone could not see where they went, but saw the soldiers making their way back across the marshland, the two horsemen already riding towards the city. A voice carried from the ragged formation of men in the distance and the picket line turned for the gates.

‘The soldiers are leaving,' he told Christiana. ‘We'll wait until they're back inside the walls and then try again. Can you go on?'

She smiled and drew his hands to her lips. ‘I want to see my children again, Thomas. Take me to them.'

A shadow fell across the entrance as one of the lepers came back inside with a tied bundle and dropped it at their feet. His face was obscured by his hood from where his broken voice whispered. ‘Clothes,' he said. ‘Charity from the church. We have not worn them. They are clean. For the woman.' He gestured with the stump of a hand towards Christiana.

She leaned forward and untied the cord, unwrapping an almost threadbare woollen bodice and a cloak. Without hesitation she looked up to the man and began dressing. ‘I am grateful,' she said. And then as she pulled the warmth of the old cloak around her, she stood and addressed the shadows in the back of the hut beyond the fireplace. ‘We are not criminals and have done no wrong. And you help return a mother to her children. I will pray for you all in gratitude. God bless you and may He ease your suffering.' And she crossed herself. Blackstone saw the others do the same and heard what he took to be a murmur of appreciation for her words.

The rain and mist swept in across the plain, diminishing the great walled city as Blackstone and Christiana followed the man outside to where the other leper stood holding the rope halter of an emaciated palfrey. The undernourished horse might have ten or twenty miles left in him if he bore no weight and was not asked to do anything more than a walking pace. Blackstone lifted Christiana up onto the animal's back and took the halter the leper had let drop. Blackstone hesitated, and then extended his hand in thanks, but the leper took a pace backwards and bowed in gratitude for Blackstone's gesture.

‘Monsieur, I was once a man of the law, who was accorded dignity and respect. You have already shown your courage and compassion,' the man said, his weakness apparent from his faltering voice. ‘There is no need for you to take further risk. Five miles from here is a chapel of sanctuary where the monk cares for travellers. You will be safe there tonight.'

Blackstone led the horse onto the road; the further they could get from the city the better and by the next day he would have them both at the far reach of the river. Then, once they reached the sanctuary of the Norman barons' domains, there would be no pursuit.

Blackstone kissed the silver goddess at his throat. She had thrown her mantle of care about him and in the city he had been lucky, something a fighting man was always grateful for. He had gone into the heart of the whore and rescued his wife from those who would have trapped and killed him, and in so doing had laid to rest the uncertainty of her father's death.

The cold, hard rain became a comfort as it washed him free of his secret.

The day was closing in as the Savage Priest waited on the bridge that linked the Royal Palace to the city. Behind him, isolated from the seething streets, the King and his advisers awaited news of Blackstone's capture. The bureaucracy that plagued the King had stifled the mercenaries' raid on the Half Wheel tavern and by the time the Provost's men had been commanded to do everything that the mercenary leader instructed, the opportunity had been lost. Had those men not interfered a cordon in the streets could have seized Blackstone who, de Marcy believed, must still have been close to the tavern. The Englishman could not have been gone more than a few minutes.

Simon Bucy walked past the palace guards, cursing the fact that he was still expected to deal with this loathsome creature. The Savage Priest's men had infiltrated street after street as had the Paris constables, but Thomas Blackstone had disappeared and every effort was now being made to trap him on this, his only escape route.

‘De Marcy! The darkness will be upon us soon,' he said to the black-cloaked figure who had not acknowledged his presence and whose silence smacked of insolence, placing the President of the Parlement in the position of an underling.

The Savage Priest kept his eyes on the riverbank. There were only so many places from which the woman he once desired could escape. When she first came into Paris he had watched her briefly, keeping his presence hidden as he sought out that which once ensnared him. She was as beautiful as he remembered but he could not recapture the feeling he once had for her. The years had burned away that moment. Now he just wanted her, to do as he liked with her and know that his actions would inflict inconsolable pain on Blackstone.

‘The river is his means of evasion. His only way out of the city,' said Bucy. ‘You have done everything I've instructed?'

More men had been sent into the city, others stationed along the river, mingling with the merchants and the labourers who brought their barges to the banks. When darkness came torches would be lit and patrols sent out; no one would escape by river. Barges were being searched even now, rough-hewn river men forced to allow the King's men to board their vessels. The city gates were closed; extra guards had been posted on the wall and the Provost's patrols doubled. Thomas Blackstone was trapped.

Bucy walked to each side of the bridge. The Seine, the lifeblood of Paris, was going to bleed the King dry of his victory over Blackstone if the Englishman slipped away by boat. ‘I should have known better than to allow you to bring your vileness into Paris,' he said, agitated. ‘Your thugs damned near caused a riot and allowed him to escape.'

Gilles de Marcy ignored the accusation. His own frustration was a torment. A blood-lust had not been sated. ‘I was so close I could smell the bastard,' he muttered to no one in particular.

‘And the woman?' Bucy taunted, hugging his cloak tighter about him. The river's mist and its chill competed with the fearful presence of the man next to him. ‘Merciful Christ, Blackstone's wife was with Joanne de Ruymont!'

‘Then arrest her.'

‘We cannot. You know that. Your men had the woman trapped in the cemetery. In plain sight! And your thugs were so stupid they let her escape.'

‘They have been dealt with.'

The simple statement caused Bucy a shiver of revulsion. He banished from his thoughts the image of what this man would do to those who failed him. By now, no doubt, what was left of them was being fought over by street dogs.

‘There were reports of a man and woman beyond the north wall,' said the Savage Priest.

‘A servant and a labourer. The Provost's men searched. It was a false alarm. Itinerants probably,' said Bucy dismissively.

‘The Provost's men searched,' de Marcy repeated, as if the statement beggared belief.

‘He will leave Paris by the river. There is no other way for him,' insisted the King's adviser.

‘If he's not caught by dawn then he has gone. Slipped away somehow,' said the Savage Priest. ‘Loose me and my men and burn every hovel that might offer them shelter, and flay every man, woman and child between here and his manor and put the fear of Christ into all those who protect him.'

‘No one is to ride through Norman domains and do anything! Least of all you!' Bucy spat. ‘You pig-ignorant beast! You have no idea of what the King plans or what is at stake. It's far more than your desire to take all that Blackstone has or your lust for a woman you've never ravaged.'

Gilles de Marcy turned his gaze on Bucy and saw him shuffle back a half-step. ‘What drives a man, my lord,
is
lust. Our King for complete authority and power, you for status and wealth, and me to kill my enemy with a ferocious appetite that turns men's bowels to water when they hear of me. I lust for what Blackstone has and I will tear those he loves from him. What I desire has been denied me because you protect a traitor and your Provost's men got in the way,' the Savage Priest answered. ‘I will kill Blackstone but I suspect it will not be tonight.'

He walked away from Bucy towards the riverbank, and then turned.

‘Tell the King that Thomas Blackstone has escaped. He'll soon be back in one of his lairs. And when his highness is willing to cause havoc among his enemies, tell him I will lead the slaughter.'

Simon Bucy, his mind plagued by the prospect of failure, watched as the black-cloaked figure reached the far bank and disappeared into the warren of alleyways. He would pray until dawn that Blackstone would be captured, but he prepared himself to tell the King that the opportunity to seize the Englishman and weaken the Norman lords had been lost.

The lit torches on the boats moved through the mist glowing like fireflies, and the river went silently by.

It took several days for them to reach safety. Blackstone kept away from main routes that bore traffic to and from the city and, once they crossed the river – paying the ferryman extra for his silence – they made good time on their journey home. They spent their nights holding each other against the cold, lying beneath makeshift shelters that Blackstone made, eating whatever could be snared. The sense of danger never left them, and it drove them together in a passion that was desperate in its intensity. To have come so close to losing the other gave each of them a hunger that could only be satisfied by almost frantic lovemaking. On a clear, bright day they walked free of the forest, still served faithfully by the old horse, and gazed down across the frost-laden meadow to the riders who called them by name.

Guillaume and half a dozen men had spent days riding beyond the edge of his lord's domain waiting for any news or sight of his master. The squire had taken extra mounts with him to carry Blackstone and Christiana on the final leg of their journey home. There was a raucous welcome from the men, their language tempered out of respect for Christiana. Once their questions were answered about his escape and he had been assured that no horsemen had come near his domain, Blackstone instructed one of the men to guide the swayback home at a walking pace. It deserved a reward of oats and fresh fodder, and it would see out its days in the comfort of Blackstone's stables.

Once home extra guards were posted while the other Norman lords followed Jean de Harcourt's example and sent out patrols that covered their territory in case King John chose to strike at them. But no such attack came and by the time the Norman barons' spies reported back from Paris it was obvious that there would be no incursion against them. King John still needed their support in case of war with Edward, and he was prepared to let Blackstone wriggle off the hook.

Christiana's relief and joy at being safely returned to Agnes and Henry helped assuage her guilt at deserting them to pursue the chance of finding her father. Blackstone trod carefully as he watched the tears shed in private give way to acceptance of his death. It was better, he decided, not to attempt to comfort her by praising the old man's loyalty to his sworn lord and his death in service to the French King. The fact that he had died opposing the English invasion could only sharpen her grief, given that she was married to one of those men who had stormed ashore a decade before. The warning voice in his head told him that to try and talk about a soldier's death might cause a slip of the tongue – an old knight leading his men, lying in ambush, outfoxed by his enemy. Within a few words the truth could easily slip out and within a breath she would be asking how he knew these things.

He stayed silent and waited until she settled back into the security of family life before explaining that the man behind William de Fossat's death and their pursuit in Paris was the same man who had once pursued her. She took the news badly and he regretted telling her, but had he not, then someone else would have spoken of the plot to entrap Blackstone that had been brought about by those incidents from her past.

Over the days that followed he comforted and reassured her and saw her fear turned into a resilience and then anger that such a creature could still cast his shadow across her life. When she and Blackstone married he had cut a silver penny in half as a token of his love for her, with the promise that wherever the two halves might be then so too would they. She wore hers as a necklace and his had been embossed into Wolf Sword's pommel. One morning when she returned from prayer she carried his sword and scabbard from where Guillaume burnished and cleaned his lord's weapons and armour and placed it in her husband's hands.

‘You must kill this Savage Priest, Thomas. One day, when you have news of him, seek him out and rid us of him. Show him no mercy and cast him into hell,' she told him.

She had once defied her guardians by marrying Blackstone and he had defied his birth.

They were as one again.

There was no complaint from Christiana when Blackstone rode out with his men to patrol the forest tracks that might lead assassins to their door. Blackstone had sent orders for additional vigilance to Meulon and Guinot and the other commanders of his towns and then when two weeks had passed without incident or warning he allowed his men to stand down from their duties and share time with their families – something he was obliged to do himself. It was a time to be grateful as the mood settled into laughter and joy as the children became more boisterous the closer the time drew to celebrate Henry's birthday.