Master of War (18 page)

De Harcourt eased his grey destrier closer to where Blackstone sat with Sir Gilbert, who lay bareheaded but conscious, his half-crushed bascinet at his side.

‘So you made it, boy,’ he said, calming the highly strung horse.

‘Aye, my lord. Some of us did,’ Blackstone replied. He and his brother stood before de Harcourt.

‘And you’ve a wound,’ the Norman said.

The encrusted blood on Blackstone’s face smeared down from his scalp. ‘It’s nothing,’ he replied. ‘A glancing blow, is all.’

The older man grunted, eyed Richard, but did not allow his gaze to linger. ‘Sir Gilbert, you’ll be resting after your exertions,’ he said lightly.

Sir Gilbert, still recovering, raised his gauntlet, the sword dang­ling from its blood knot. ‘For a moment, my lord; I feel as though I’ve been kicked by a horse.’

‘Then when you feel unkicked I shall need your service, and that of your man.’ He hesitated and glanced again at the blood-smeared Richard. ‘And your dumb ox.’

‘The mute should be our talisman. He saved me a walk from the field. I was glad of it, being weary at the time,’ Sir Gilbert said. ‘And once the damned sky stops spinning I shall join you, my lord.’

De Harcourt threw down a wineskin. ‘Gascony red. It will replenish your strength and settle the heavens.’

The ford was choked with troops, and as they came ashore the marshals formed them up to defend the bank.

‘My lord,’ Blackstone asked a moment before de Harcourt turned back to the beachhead’s defence. ‘Is Christiana safe?’

‘The King abandoned some of the baggage train, for speed’s sake. The Bohemian cavalry have caught us up. They’ve killed some of the wagon masters. The Bishop’s rearguard holds them from the river but his time is short. The tide’s running fast. I gave orders that she be brought across. I’ve not seen her yet.’

The marshal turned his horse and trotted towards the Prince’s retinue. Blackstone gazed back to the meandering line of troops and equipment choking the ford. The tail end would extend beyond the southern riverbank, through the trees. How far back did the stragglers go? There seemed to be no more wagons to cross over. He took the half-dozen arrows from his brother’s bag. His look and a gesture told him to stay with Sir Gilbert. He ran to where the horsemasters and pages held the archers’ mounts.

‘Thomas!’ Elfred called.

‘She’s back there,’ he answered.

‘God’s teeth, lad. A bloody woman! The tide’s coming in! You’ll never make it back!’

Blackstone turned his horse into the water.

The last stragglers from the far bank were wading chest deep in places. Men floundered and he saw one or two stumble and sink below the breeze-scuffed surface. An arm raised in desperation, a cry lost beneath the sound of rustling reed beds. There were no more wagons to cross the ford. Infantrymen struggled through the marshlands, it was every man for himself. And nowhere was there a sign of Christi­ana. Blackstone’s horse struggled against the strengthening current. He navigated it through the eddies and found shallow water.

Horsemen cantered through the trees and down the slope, forcing Blackstone aside. They were Englishmen belonging to the Bishop of Durham’s rearguard. Men-at-arms, hobelars and archers.

‘Did you see a woman with the wagons?’ he called to one, recognizing the jupon from a man of the Earl of Arundel’s division.

The man steadied his horse, waiting his turn to ease down the slope and into the water. Like the other men he kept turning in the saddle and looking back.

‘A woman?’

‘She’s French. Cloaked, small, autumn hair.’

The man shook his head. ‘There’s no one alive back there.’

He spurred his horse forward into the water. They were the last of the Englishmen to cross the ford.

Blackstone eased his horse forward through the trees. If Christi­ana had survived she might have handed herself over to the French allies, the Bohemians, telling them she was taken against her will. But he knew that a woman of any class ran the risk of rape and murder when a soldier’s blood was up. Within minutes he was skirting the village, staying out of sight, watching as Bohemian cavalrymen picked their way through the burning wagons. Whatever food and booty had been loaded now lay on the ground, allowing the men to take what they wanted. A group of thirty or so men rode towards the riverbank through the trees not fifty paces from where Blackstone waited. His russet jacket and muddied jupon smudged his profile into the branches. He leaned low across the horse’s neck, laying a soothing hand on its flank. Once the first group had gone to the river he eased the horse carefully through the woodland, watching as the remaining horsemen, shouting in a language he did not understand, dragged a wagoner from the undergrowth and quickly slaughtered him.

He remembered the first ambush when he had killed the old knight, whose movement had given away his position. Blackstone needed to remain as still as possible so that, even if the Bohemians looked his way, they would see nothing but the trees and under­growth. Easing himself from the horse he let his hand rest on its muzzle. The cavalrymen were little more than a hundred paces away and he could have killed half of them, but the others would have flushed him out. He tethered the horse and waited. The men turned their attention to the few houses, abandoned when the English camped there before the crossing. And then he saw her. As the men went into the first house she passed the hovel’s small window, her dark cloak and hair caught by the mottled sunlight. Blackstone moved quickly along the treeline towards the back of the house. He unslung his bow and nocked an arrow. If she was trying to move ahead of the searching troops she would have to come out the back of the house. A man’s voice called out. A warning shout. Blackstone could hear the soldiers run quickly through the room. She cried out as her cloak’s cowl caught a wicker door. She twisted away, but the cavalryman had her in his grasp. The Bohemian looked up when he saw the movement of the English archer drawing back his bowcord less than thirty paces away. The shout of surprise never left his lips. He fell back into the man behind him, who yelled a warning. Christiana ran to Blackstone.

‘Run straight ten paces, then right! My horse is twenty paces back in the trees!’ he told her. She hesitated only for a moment; Blackstone was already drawing back another arrow. He loosed into a man who ran around the building, the arrow striking with the force of a poleaxe. The Bohemians’ shouts and cries added to the men’s confusion. He ran back along the treeline, shadowing Christiana, making certain that the remaining men saw him and not her. Two of the men climbed onto their horses. The first fell across his saddle, Blackstone’s arrow piercing shoulder and heart; the second alerted the other Bohemians to their attacker’s position. In his haste to charge down the lone English archer he had failed to lower his visor. In less than ten paces he fell back across his startled horse with Blackstone’s fletching at the end of his nose. With only two arrows remaining Blackstone ran across the end of a second building and loosed into a knight trying to calm a panicked horse. Now the other men turned, uncertain as to how many were attacking them. Blackstone cut diagonally across the open space, less than forty paces from the remaining men who were now mounted. The moment he was in the trees he scoured the half-light for Christiana. His horse was being reined in as she called his name. He turned back to face the advancing Bohemians and knew the moment his last arrow flew that the leading man was as good as dead and that the three others would swerve to avoid him. Precious seconds had been bought.

He leapt up behind her and kicked the horse’s flanks. Branches whipped at their faces as they bent low across the willing beast’s neck. The sound of pursuit was not far behind. And then they were free of the trees, the horse sliding on its haunches down the thirty-foot embankment to the water’s edge.

‘Hold on!’ he shouted. If either fell now they would die under the swords and hooves of the cavalrymen.

The horse plunged into the water, finding the ford’s firm stone riverbed. The Bohemians reached the bank and, expert horsemen that they were, guided their horses more easily down the slope, gaining vital yards on the lumbering horse carrying two instead of one. Blackstone used his stave as a riding whip, urging the horse on, pushing him towards the deeper current, deep enough when the tide was full for a trading ship to sail through. The current pushed them. Blackstone slung his bow across his back.

‘Grab hold of its mane,’ he told her as he eased her into the water. The horse snorted, eyes wide, and kicked in panic, propelling it forward from the men in pursuit. Blackstone turned and saw the horsemen falter. If they fell into the tide they would surely drown under the weight of their armour.

They were halfway across and in danger of being swept out to sea or tumbled beneath the rising waves. Buffeted by the wind, the water was now above the saddle. Blackstone coughed sea water. The exhaustion of the day finally began to sap his strength. On the north shore the English army stretched out in defensive forma­tion. He could see the banners of his King and his Prince, the fluttering pennons of the knights and the dark lines of the spear­men. ‘Sweet Jesus, help me,’ he whispered to himself. His grip on the horse’s mane began to slip, his eyes stung from the salt water.

‘Thomas! No!’ Christiana cried, feeling him fall back. She turned and clutched at his sleeve. His mind raced, fragments of thought challenging each other. His father’s war bow. That’s what worried him. The salt water on the cord. An unimportant thought that thrust itself into his mind. He fancied he heard voices. He saw her mouth opening, calling his name but heard nothing. And then his head cleared and he heard other voices growing louder, not as one cry but rather a swinging cadence as the men on the shore urged him on.

‘Swim, lad, swim!’

‘Come on, boy!’

‘Blackstone, Blackstone!’

‘Keep going, man! Keep going!’

They were well past the halfway mark; another three or four hundred yards and they would be safe. Blackstone twisted his head behind him, and saw that one horseman had dared to challenge the fast-flowing tide. His horse, a powerful destrier, still had enough clearance in the water to pursue them. The cavalryman held his sword ready to strike. In another fifty yards he would be on them.

Blackstone’s fear gripped him. He pulled himself alongside Christiana, she was failing, slipping away from him. Grabbing the horse’s mane with one hand he supported her with the other. Horse and archer head-to-head focused on the shoreline. Blackstone urged the horse onwards as Christiana succumbed to the cold and fear that sapped her body of will and energy.

The Bohemian horseman was now less than thirty yards behind him and still beyond the killing range of the archers on the shore. The shoreline seemed no closer. Blackstone could hear the cavalryman shouting at him in what was obviously his battle cry. He saw the current twist yards ahead, swirling in a snake’s tail carrying mud­died water in a loop. If he could get into that stream he could gain another thirty yards.

‘Let go of the horse,’ he commanded.

Christiana looked uncertainly at him – the horse was their strength, their lifeline – but Blackstone kicked and pulled her away from the labouring beast. Her body turned and now she too could see the approaching horseman, so close that his expression under his open-faced helmet was visible. He snarled as he approached for the kill. There were less than ten yards before the sword would strike them. With enormous effort Blackstone pulled his arm back and powered them through the water. The abandoned horse drifted in the way of the attacking Bohemian, slowing him for critical seconds. And then a sudden turbulence in the current snatched them away from the man.

The horseman was still beyond the range of the English archers, but only by twenty yards or so. As Blackstone pulled Christiana higher into his shoulder, so that her body lay across his, he saw black rods fall through the sky and land between him and the courageous horseman. There could be no stronger warning that if the man continued his pursuit he would be in range and the next volley would kill him.

The Bohemian halted, fought the current for a moment, then raised his sword and shouted something. The destrier’s strength allowed the rider to turn and make his way slowly back to where the other horsemen waited.

The tide swept them along the shore and now men moved right to the water’s edge. Blackstone used the last of his strength to push Christiana towards the shore. Their feet found the riverbed. He dragged her onto the bank, and both slumped into the wet sand. Further down the bank the horse clambered ashore.

‘Useless bastard!’ a voice shouted at him. ‘Bloody useless!’ It was John Weston running into the shallows with Will Longdon as Elfred was easing the exhausted girl to her feet. A cheer from other soldiers washed over him as the two men dragged him onto firm ground.

‘You swim like a goddamned chicken,’ Will Longdon said.

Blackstone looked up to where Godfrey de Harcourt’s esquire had come forward to help Christiana. She pulled herself away momentarily, looking back at Blackstone with concern.

‘By St Agnes’s teeth, I hope she’s not going to come back and stroke you like a damned pup,’ Weston said. ‘Not in front of the whole damned army.’

Christiana saw he was alive and allowed the escort to help her away.

‘I’ll wager you’d not have come back for me if I’d been left behind,’ Longdon said, hunching down next to the saturated Black­stone, who vomited salty estuary water.

‘Not even if you wore a wimple and had teeth,’ Blackstone told him.

Godfrey de Harcourt came forward. ‘A damned stupid risk. I can ill afford to lose a horse and even less an archer. Feed the horse and whip the boy.’

It was a fair judgement. Blackstone had taken it upon himself to go back and find the girl. But then a murmur swept along the line of men. The archers had paid dearly for getting the army across the ford. The hum of discontent quietened as a figure stepped through the ranks. Men moved aside as the young Prince of Wales and thirty of his entourage came down to the water’s edge.