Defiant Unto Death (48 page)

‘It was good to see you again, Thomas,' Killbere called.

‘And you,' Blackstone answered.

As Blackstone and his men skirted the battlefield, monks were loading the bodies of fallen knights for burial in the abbey's cemetery. Elfred and Will Longdon, along with a dozen archers, pulled arrows from the dead that still lay in their thousands. Bundles of bloodied, damaged shafts were gathered like sheaves of wheat on the back of a cart.

‘Did you call the roll of your men, Elfred?'

Elfred wiped his bloodied hands across his jerkin. ‘Aye, I lost damned near eighty of 'em. Half of those that are left won't see the winter through. I'm paying them off so they can feed themselves and their families. I've a dozen good men left. Except for him, mind,' he said looking at Will Longdon.

Longdon grinned: ‘They were good lads Master Elfred lost, but it's a greater share of the plunder for the rest of us.'

Blackstone looked at the arrows. ‘You'll salvage maybe half of those, Elfred. Most did their work too well to be saved.'

‘We'll repair 'em,' Longdon said. ‘We'll need 'em if Sir Gilbert's plan is a good'un.'

‘You're going with him?' Blackstone asked.

‘We've no choice, Thomas, if we're to earn a crust,' Elfred said. ‘You was right in what you said. France is finished now and I've no desire to go back home and be a poor man again. Aye, we'll follow the mad bastard awhile; see what becomes of us.'

‘You lost your lieutenant – whatsisname – the Gascon,' Longdon said.

‘Guinot. Yes. He went down at the end,' Blackstone answered.

‘Aye, him. Your men said as much,' Longdon said, tilting his head towards a group of horsemen who waited a few hundred yards away in the trees.

‘You've forty-odd men who've nowhere to go, Thomas, except wherever it is you're going. They've a mind to stay with you,' Elfred said.

‘You know more about my business than I do,' Blackstone answered.

‘Fighting men talk to each other. Worse'n gossipin' washerwomen, some of them,' Elfred said.

Blackstone turned in the saddle and looked back to the distant figure of Killbere walking his horse towards them. ‘You'll be following on then,' Blackstone said.

‘Dare say we will,' Elfred answered.

‘You know where?' Blackstone asked.

‘Our route takes us past Avignon,' said Will Longdon – and grinned.

The Savage Priest had escaped just in time. He rode south-east from the battlefield leaving the Dauphin and his uncle, the Duke of Orléans, to make their way back to Paris. It was not a lack of courage that lost the French the battle, but that King John had been a fool for entrusting his troops to his bewildered and uncertain son and his own brother, Orléans. The English could have been defeated. When the Dauphin's standard had fallen and it seemed that his battalion would be slaughtered, de Marcy had realized that the King's son and his brother, who commanded the forward battalions, had ignored the experienced marshals' advice. The English had moved quickly, their trumpets and flags signalling their troops to reinforce each other. And Edward had more competent commanders. The Prince's raids had obviously not inflamed God's anger otherwise he would have lost.

The Savage Priest had tried to kill the Englishman, but the fates seemed always on the scar-faced knight's side. They should have slain him when the lone knight rode out and challenged the King. De Marcy had urged John to strike him down there and then. He had refused, clinging to the honour demanded in battle that a champion was there to challenge the enemy's army, not to be slain. To John's fury, de Marcy had had the impudence to curse the King's naivety. The Savage Priest had waited with the standard and the Oriflamme as Thomas Blackstone rode back to the English lines with the French armoured cavalry at his heels. By the time the Dauphin's attack had failed, de Marcy knew the English would prevail. The King had seen the danger of his inexperienced son falling to the English and Gascon army and ordered him from the field. Perhaps there was still a use for the Savage Priest. The killer had shielded his son when they had reached the English lines and struck forward to try and slay Thomas Blackstone.

‘Take my son to safety and you'll be paid in gold,' John cried above the tumult.

De Marcy seized the opportunity. The offer allowed him to run. A worthless King offering money he did not have.

‘No payment, sire,' he said, wheeling his horse. Let the King of France make his desperate bid to subdue the English; de Marcy would benefit by forgiving the debt and gain the gratitude of the Dauphin. Sooner or later the feeble son would become King and remember de Marcy's service to the Crown. The benefit was twofold: as France bled to death on its own soil there would be no force capable of stopping de Marcy's routiers. Towards the southern coast, the rivers and the ports bustled with Mediterranean trade. The towns and monasteries would be fat with plunder. It was time to take the killing further south.

More than twenty years before either Blackstone or de Marcy was born a conflict of authority arose between King Philip of France and the Italian Pope, whom he accused of heresy, sodomy and consorting with a pet demon. The Pope threatened him with excommunication, whereupon the King tried to kidnap the Holy Father. Italian outrage increased when, after the assault, the Pope suffered a fatal heart attack and a Frenchman was, through the King's influence, elected as his successor. Fear of Italian reprisals convinced the Pope to move his See to Avignon, which, although a fiefdom of the Kingdom of Naples, was within the French sphere of influence.

The following six French Popes built not only fortress-like walls at Avignon but a profitable business selling church offices. It became a financial empire. Pardons, indulgences and absolution were to be had for a price – everything was for sale. The papacy took a percentage of every offering made at every altar, but one of the most lucrative sources of papal income was the selling of benefices. Several hundred bishops' sees and hundreds of thousands of lower offices were sold. And forgiveness for heinous crimes was granted – at a price.

The most extreme measure the Church could command – the threat of excommunication – was used to squeeze further income into the coffers. A sliding scale of fees was in place and the vast wealth was handled by Italian bankers. Travellers told how counting coin, raked like ears of wheat, was a common sight in the papal palace at Avignon. That which was spiritual became temporal – and venal. It was this place of power and authority that would offer sanctuary to Blackstone's family.

The bargeman brought Christiana's party ashore after four days. They travelled across country until they crested the high ground that revealed the mighty River Rhône curving beneath the fortified city of Avignon, its walls built on the cliffs that rose up from the riverbank. The sergeant had never been this far south before and was dependent upon the priest to guide them through the city towards the jumble of crenellated walls, formidable but still meagre compared to the soaring towers and battlements of the papal palace that rose behind them. As they rode closer he could see that although the fifteen-foot-thick walls would make a strong fortification against assault, other parts of the walls were in disrepair and being rebuilt. Any defence was only as strong as its weakest part. The rock face would give enough purchase for men to clamber and escalade ladders would take attackers across those first low ramparts. His soldier's instincts told him that, if he were assaulting this city, that was where he would put the main force. Once inside the walls the townsmen would die in their homes, and the Pope, for all his power, would succumb to fire and slaughter.

Narrow twisting streets, crammed with buildings, trapped the fetid air that rose from the teeming humanity confined in the labyrinth. It was a spectacle none of the riders other than Father Niccolò had witnessed before. He barely gave a glance to the heaving crowds who infested the alleyways and passages. Merchants jostled each other; artisans plied their trades; astrologers' painted boards with moons and stars swung from poles as prostitutes loitered outside Italian banking houses. Circus-like sideshows gathered crowds; an armless woman showed how she could sew and spin wool, and toss a ball and throw dice with her toes. The babble of human voices – shouting, talking, enticing – echoed up the stone buildings. Beggars stretched out filthy hands to the riders, but Torellini used a switch to strike them away from his robes. The soldiers ignored them, or turned an ankle, raking those too slow to move with a spur.

Sergeant Jacob raised his voice to clear the way. When the iron-shod hooves clattered onto cobblestones the press of bodies in the narrow streets was forced to part – those that could not move aside were pushed and crushed by the weight of the horses, as boats pushed aside the water.

A large public square was blocked on the far side by massive gates that led into the papal palace. It was a place where the faithful could gather to view His Holiness Pope Innocent VI crossing in hypocritical humility on a white donkey, as his gold-embroidered robes were lifted from the dirt by retainers. He rode beneath a canopy followed by equerries carrying the white wool band worn by the pontiff on his shoulders as a symbol of authority and might. Father Niccolò slowed their advance as a procession of cardinals in their wide red hats walked without haste, accompanied by servants, across the vast square, parading as if they were royalty.

He approached the guards at the palace gates, and then returned to John Jacob. ‘You and your men will not be allowed to travel any further into the city. I will see that Lady Christiana and the children are held safely until Sir Thomas arrives.' He handed Jacob a purse of gold coin. ‘As agreed,' he said.

‘Can't they come with us?' Christiana asked. She had barely spoken since the assault on the barge. Henry had stayed with the men, listening to Sergeant Jacob tell stories about England, his village, the wars he had fought – and about Henry's father and those who would follow him if his cause was their persuasion, or if the purse was large enough. Christiana had stayed silent and held Agnes close to her for the final days of their journey. She maintained a quiet dignity despite her features being more drawn and sallow, but her mask of bravery hid the greater shame of the rape and the despair of knowing that her son had witnessed it. How long would it be before Blackstone found them and father and son spoke of the journey to Avignon?

Father Niccolò offered her reassurance. ‘My lady, I have property behind these walls. There are gardens with cool fountains and fragrant herbs that please the air. My benefactor Rodolfo Bardi owns them, and they are at your disposal. But common soldiers armed for war are not permitted. Sergeant Jacob and his men have fulfilled their duty both to their King and to your husband.'

‘Go with him, my lady,' Jacob told her. ‘I'll wait with my men in one of the taverns until we hear of what's happened to Prince Edward. That's as much as I can do to give you peace of mind.'

Torellini saw sense in the sergeant and his men staying for a few more days. The political intrigues of the papal city might force the expulsion of Blackstone's family if Prince Edward were triumphant against King John. A banker considers the risks, and a priest calls upon God, but Father Niccolò was close to both. If Blackstone had not reached the Prince in time and been told that he could sue for peace if that meant his safe return to England, then the English might have been defeated and Edward held for ransom. That would enforce the Pope's strength across Europe and ensure the authority that King John had vested in him. The gates swung open.

‘Look for the sign of the three horseshoes. They'll stable the horses in their yard and offer beds and food. You've money enough,' Father Niccolò told Jacob.

‘Aye, we've been well paid, and we'll sell Rudd's horse,' Jacob answered, and then turned to Christiana, whose expression was that of someone on a drifting boat in a fast-flowing river. ‘We're close by, my lady, and Sir Thomas will come for you,' he told her.

The priest led Christiana and the children through the gates into the shadowed streets of the papal city. The sharp smell of incense wafted through the air, as if blessing the clinking gold coin being loaded into sacks.

Blackstone and Guillaume rode slowly, trailing a pack horse carrying what booty could be taken from the battlefield. Blackstone had stripped a fallen French knight of some fine armour to replace his own that was lost when de Marcy burned his manor house. Some of the daggers and swords of the fallen had jewelled hilts and grips. They had bundled twenty such weapons together, to use for barter or to dig out the stones and sell them. Food and clothing were also tied across the pack animal; there would be little to scavenge as they rode across a landscape already scoured by roving bands of men making their way home.

Hours later as they rested they saw parties of knights, some wounded, and others being dragged on stretchers, as they filtered away from the conflict. Many would die on the road home, even those of nobility and wealth, who had given their pledge to pay ransom. Three thousand Frenchmen lay dead on the field at Poitiers, and another three thousand had surrendered. Word of the English victory travelled rapidly.

Blackstone pulled their horses off the track where three French knights and their squires rested. One of them was mortally wounded and they had slowed their journey to accommodate his injuries. Blackstone had his men give them water and food and heard how villagers, enraged by learning how many had surrendered, had attacked them and their wounded comrade – whom they considered cowards – with stones, pitchforks and axes. Vanquished French knights would obtain neither food nor comfort from the towns and villages they passed through on their way home.