Master of War (25 page)

The sun set as valley mist crept over that field of tears. English archers had mercilessly shot through the sacred war banner of France.

The Oriflamme lay in tatters.

King Edward, wearing full armour and helmet, rode along the lines of the Prince’s division. He praised them all and urged them to thank God for their deliverance. He asked that there should be no pride or boasting for their great victory and ordered the English to stay in position in case of a counter-attack. Elfred counted the cost his archers had paid. Only he, Will Longdon and Matthew Hampton had survived, along with twenty other men from those archers who had stood with the Welshmen. Sir Gilbert lay somewhere on the battlefield. Richard Blackstone was dead; of Thomas they knew nothing other than that his attack had been witnessed before he went down. They all agreed it was a vile price to pay. The men lit fires that burned across the hillside and tended to their exhaustion and wounds. The King instructed that the windmill be filled with brushwood and set alight as a beacon for all the English to see.

Its great sails flared into a burning crucifix.

Firelight and torches illuminated the Prince and the nobles. The King removed his bascinet and kissed Prince Edward, and moved into the torchlight that lit Blackstone’s body lying amidst the group of knights. A priest knelt at his side whispering the final sacrament.

‘When the priest was summoned we feared it was for our son,’ the King said, looking at the blood-soaked body bathed in firelight.

‘Were it not for this boy it might well have been. He fought for me when I fell. FitzSimon covered me in my greatest danger that was averted by this boy. No scribe will ever be able to write of his courage that we witnessed,’ said the Prince.

The King looked to the marshals of the army, Warwick and de Harcourt. They nodded. None of those gathered knew that Blackstone had fought only for his brother.

‘He’ll not last the hour, sire,’ Northampton added. ‘My God, I’ll admit we were hard-pressed. He cleaved a path and bought us time.’

‘He reminded me of myself when I was young,’ the old knight Reginald Cobham said quietly, the evidence of his own fighting slathered across his surcoat and armour.

The King put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘If he fought half as hard as you, Cobham, we were blessed indeed.’

Blackstone heard nothing but the vague whisper of prayer in his ear. Pain creased every nerve. Thick blood from his smashed face clogged his throat and nose. His breath rattled as he tried to see Christiana. She was there, her dark cloak close to his face. Her face was obscured in shadow. And she held a crucifix in front of his mouth, telling him to kiss the cross of Christ.

‘Sire,’ Northampton said as he saw the priest ease back in surprise as Blackstone raised himself towards the crucifix held by the cleric.

‘He’ll die on his own terms,’ Warwick said, admiring the strength the boy still possessed.

Blackstone heard the words
confess
,
sins
and
forgiveness
.
His right eye focused on a distant light, a fiery burning crucifix. God was showing his anger; damning him for failing Richard.

‘Forgive me,’ he muttered.

The priest traced the sign of the cross with his finger on Black­stone’s forehead then tried to release the hand that still gripped the dead knight’s sword. But Blackstone’s fist would not unclench, keeping it pressed to his chest.

‘Bless this boy, sire. Look at him, he will not relinquish the sword,’ Cobham said gently, knowing a warrior when he saw one.

The King watched. ‘We will give our thanks and take com­munion and pray for this man’s soul. Is his name known?’ he said quietly.

‘His name is Thomas Blackstone,’ de Harcourt said. ‘He’s an archer, sire. One of Sir Gilbert Killbere’s men.’

‘We were with him at Blanchetaque where he also showed honour and courage protecting a member of Godfrey’s household,’ the Prince said.

Sir Godfrey nodded in acknowledgement.

Blackstone heard his name. He stared at the blurred colours of the surcoats shimmering in the half-light. Were they warrior angels? He needed them to take him to Richard. Blackstone called on every fibre in his body to get up and meet the angels.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ Northampton said quietly without blasphemy as they watched Blackstone’s shattered body force itself up from the ground. De Harcourt stepped forward to help him. The King barely raised his hand to stop him.

‘No,’ the King whispered. ‘Let him be. It is his desire. He is defiant unto death.’

Blackstone got to his knees, the sword point in the dirt to help steady him. He could get no further. The blurred angels waited. One, with a burning torch held behind him, reflecting holy light glinting from armour, stood closer. God had sent this archangel for him. Stinging tears blurred his vision.

‘Lord…’ Blackstone whispered, ‘take me to him…’

The King and the nobles looked uncertain for a moment. Then the King turned to his son. ‘He calls for you. Honour, him, Edward. It is your right. And his.’

The now battle-hardened sixteen-year-old Prince of Wales understood his royal duty. He stepped to Blackstone, still kneeling with the sword placed squarely to his chest, helping to keep a balance that threatened to desert him at any moment and let him fall into darkness. The Prince laid his hands on Blackstone’s head.

‘You have behaved with honour and courage, and we are grateful. You are a loyal servant to your liege lord. Accept this charge placed upon your life and may God bless you, Sir Thomas Blackstone.’

The Prince stepped back and the King gestured for men from his retinue to ease Blackstone’s body to the ground. As they laid him gently back into the Crécy mud, the King turned to de Harcourt.

‘This young knight will not die if it is in our power. Our sur­geon and physician will attend him. Godfrey, we charge you to accept responsibility for his safekeeping until such time as all efforts prove fruitless.’

‘I gladly accept the privilege, sire,’ de Harcourt answered.

‘Good,’ the King said, ‘we need brave Englishmen in France.’

The burning windmill threw long shadows across the battlefield. A cowled priest went among the dead and dying. He seemed to be offering comfort as he went to each fallen nobleman. Weary soldiers thought nothing of it. They did not see the sack at his waist or the binding on his hand that covered a missing finger.

Twisted bodies of men and horses haunted the hillside in a macabre embrace. The fog clung to the battlefield for another day as the English waited for further attacks. None came. The French armies were beaten, their lances impaling Crécy mud instead of English and Welsh muscle. King Edward sent heralds into the stench of the battlefield to retrieve the surcoats of the fallen knights and noblemen so they might be identified and given a Christian burial with all due honour and respect paid. Peasants from the surrounding villages were rounded up and made to dig mass graves, into which the dead from both sides were tumbled and buried. Richard Blackstone’s dismembered body was only one of thousands.

Godfrey de Harcourt had Blackstone carried on a bier back to the castle at Noyelles, several miles to the army’s rear. Countess Blanche’s indignation at having the English archer brought into her mother’s home once again was softened by the evidence that Thomas Blackstone had tried to help the wounded French knight to whom she had given refuge. The pageboy’s testimony and the blood-soaked jupon that Blackstone had used to staunch the knight’s wound proved his compassion.

Christiana almost fell faint with grief when she saw his shattered body. He was unrecognizable. Her mistress turned her away from the sight as they carried him to one of the rooms.

‘Christiana,’ she said softly, ‘you’re a woman in the house of de Harcourt. If you cannot attend to him then we will find you duties elsewhere.’

Christiana shook her head. ‘I’ll care for him,’ she said, ‘just as you care for your husband.’

The countess’s husband, Jean, had already been brought from Crécy with wounds far less severe than those suffered by Blackstone but, like many battle injuries, they were life-threatening. Hours earlier the two men had fought on opposing sides without knowing of the other’s existence; now they were to be nursed beneath the same roof. The women took control and ushered Sir Godfrey out, to return to his army’s march towards Calais. The castle gates of Noyelles were barred. The young Englishman was safe in the house of his enemy’s family until he either recovered or died.

War had dealt the young archer a hand that was to change his destiny.

Death hovered in the shadows, like a raven waiting to pluck the soul of the wounded Blackstone.

In that timeless place of misery he fought the rearing demons that swirled from the battlefield in his mind. His haunting screams reverberated through the corridors of Noyelles until, finally, he fell silent and they thought him dead.

Christiana could feel no pulse in his body. She called for a servant to rouse the sleeping physician, shouting to hurry the fool along until her threats carried him away into the darkness with a flickering torch to guide back the only man who could save the wounded archer. Her cries of alarm echoed down the passageways and roused servants from where they lay next to the kitchen hearth, or in doorways close to their mistress. Torches flared, doors slammed open as feet scuffed their way across stone floors. Blanche de Harcourt gathered her gown about her and urged the servant who walked a step ahead with the spluttering flame to move more quickly.

Master Jordan of Canterbury, roused by his attendants, berated them loudly for interrupting his sleep. He recanted, keep­ing his curses to himself, when told of the urgency and the young archer’s lack of breath in his body. Why his great King had suffered him to attend to this broken boy was beyond his comprehension. In the name of God, he was Edward of England’s personal physician who attended him in the splendour of Windsor Castle, where gold-spun tapestries hung next to the paintings of great Italian artists. The privies had running water, there was warmth and comfort, and even on a war expedition the King of England dined as a monarch should. Not so here. Not so the simple platters of meat and rough-grain bread – not a decent piece of well-milled white loaf to be had. But now he, Jordan of Canterbury, who, lest anyone forget, also attended the King’s mother, Isabella, at Hertford Castle – so great was his standing within the royal family – was now obliged to stay in a Norman castle. These bare timber and stone walls held the cold like a corpse fished from the river in winter. These sur­round­ings mocked the concept of noble luxury. He shivered in his misery and yearned for King Edward’s hearth. When he arrived, breathless from the steps that led up to Blackstone’s room, he was forced to wait a moment before lowering his face to that of his patient. His own heart needed to ease its pounding before he could determine if Blackstone’s had been taken by the Almighty. He felt the archer’s cold skin for any sign of fever or warmth that might indicate life. There was none.

‘A bowl and water! Here!’ he commanded one of his attendants.

The room’s confinement seemed doubly crowded as the shadows of those present jostled one another. He turned to Christiana, who stood in the doorway, gaunt with despair, as Blanche de Harcourt comforted her with an arm around her shoulder. The countess’s feelings about the common archer were well known.

‘My lady, it might be that God has released both the de Harcourt family and me from our onerous duty,’ he said.

His smile of feigned sympathy and shared aggrievement was met with her snapping response. ‘My lord and husband lies in his bed, still sleeping from the draught that eases the pain of his own wounds. I serve him and his commands as you serve your King, Master Jordan. Is his command onerous?’

The physician bowed his head, chastised, and hoped that his remark would not filter back to the King through his attendants’ gossip.

He was saved from further embarrassment by the servant return­ing with a half-filled bowl of water. Master Jordan took it and then balanced it carefully on Blackstone’s chest. They waited in the flickering light, peering at the smooth surface for any sign of vibration from the heart. There was nothing. The physician turned away to go back to his warm bed, his duty done.

Thomas Blackstone was dead.

Deep within himself the wounded archer felt a soft embrace and comfort, a gentle warmth he had never before experienced. It was a place of safety so temptingly close. All he had to do was yield to its seductive embrace. He slid further into its comfort and the soft glow of oblivion. But the animal instinct within him clawed at his mind. To turn away from that place meant a return to the bear pit of pain. The warmth was death, the pain meant life. Like a fragment of broken spearhead, his mind thrust back into the entanglement of despair.

‘My lord!’ the attendant called.

There was the faintest of ripples across the water’s surface.

Noyelles was safe for the time being. The English had moved north to besiege Calais, and ironically, Blackstone’s presence had guaran­teed the de Harcourts’ safety. For three days Christiana and Master Jordan had attended to Blackstone. With the help of servants they had cut away his blood-soaked clothes and bathed his naked body until the wounds could be laid bare. Fever had gripped him and as the furnace threatened to consume him they tied his wrists and ankles to the bed’s frame so that in his delirium he would not aggravate his wounds. Christiana had followed the physician’s instructions, swabbing the gaping wounds with a mixture of egg yolks, rose oil and turpentine, lay­ing a thick poultice of the mixture down the leg whose muscle lay slashed. Now the leg wound was cleansed but still malleable for closing.

The physician prepared to stitch and bind the gaping wounds. ‘I cannot save his face. It will be disfigured when the muscles tighten against the stitching. ’Tis a pity, I can see he had strong features.’ He eased away the poultice from the leg wound and from a bowl of wine withdrew a yard of gut, stripped from a pig’s intestine. His assistant threaded it into a curved needle.