Master of War (34 page)

‘All right, let’s see if we can get your brain to work as well as that right arm of yours. Come with me.’

Jean de Harcourt strode into his library, his dogs trotting at his heels. Their master clicked his fingers and pointed and they quickly settled themselves in front of the fire, their eyes still following his movements. The library had been his father’s, but his own upbring­ing of study and learning meant that he had spent many hours under the strict tutelage of a monk whose broken, dirt-engrained nails and stinking cassock were forever imprinted in his memory, as much as the lessons learnt and the beatings permitted by his father. His father had insisted on an education beyond that given a squire before he took on the years of service to become a knight.

His was a great family whose ancestors reached back to Bernard the Dane, who was granted the territory that became Normandy. One of his forefathers, the Sire de Harcourt, commanded the archers who fought with William the Conqueror, the bastard Duke of Normandy, when he claimed the English throne. Another, Robert II, rode with Richard the Lionheart in crusade and served as a loyal and valued retainer. That both his father and his uncle, Sir Godfrey, had split the family over their diverse loyalties was a wound that would need longer healing than the young English­man’s injur­ies. And more painful. His father was old-fashioned, proud and arrogant, dismissive of a weak French King but who would never waiver in his allegiance to the crown. He was Captain of Rouen, the greatest city in Normandy. The son had begged the father to support Sir Godfrey. The English King had a legitimate right to the French throne. But his father’s deep-seated pride caught him by surprise. Jean de Harcourt was thirty years old, strong and lean, with strength to fight for hours on end, but the old man’s blow came so fast it put Jean on his knees. A Norman’s honour was his own, not for sale at a whorehouse, his father had spat at him. Jean would have gone with Sir Godfrey, but his duty lay with his father. And so it was that the family faced each other across that killing field. The battle’s savagery was beyond description and when his father went down, Jean helplessly watched him die, sword slaked in blood, visor up, blood spilling between his teeth as the arrows struck him. He went down with his charger, the churned ground holding him like a pagan spirit, refusing to release his dying body until the armoured horses in the following rank swept him up beneath their hooves, rolling and pounding his body into a battered mass of bone and blood.

Jean’s hand found the document he sought. He turned to face the soaking wet Blackstone, who stood well back from the warmth of the fire, waiting for permission to move closer. There was arro­gance and defiance in that act alone, de Harcourt realized. Blackstone would not give anyone the satisfaction of seeing his need. Well, that suited de Harcourt. He felt no compulsion to allow him such comfort. There were moments when his memory made him want to punish the English archer, not help him, and having Blackstone under his roof was causing a rift between him and his friends, nobles he needed to have on his side. It took a few moments for de Harcourt to subdue his nagging anger, but he reminded himself that fighting a war was a gamble. Good fortune had deserted them at Crécy and one young Englishman, placed in his care, could not be the whipping boy for a nation’s humiliation. Besides, he grudgingly admitted to himself, Blackstone’s character and courage demanded respect.

He tossed the scroll to Blackstone. ‘You don’t need to be able to read to understand that,’ he said and then joined the dogs at the fireside as Blackstone unfurled the scroll.

‘My ancestors brought that back when they fought the Saracens. They understood the human body in a way we do not. Our phys­icians are ignorant peasants compared to them. You can read a builder’s plan, so you should be able to comprehend that,’ he said and waited while what he hoped might be the missing keystone to Blackstone’s fighting skills was given to him. What he held was a faded drawing of a naked man, arms outstretched to touch the circle around him. Another line bisected the torso across his waist, and two matching lines in the form of a cross cut the man’s body from each shoulder down through his hip. Within each segment vital organs were shown – heart, lungs, liver, stomach – it was a drawing of God’s perfect cathedral.

‘You understand it?’ de Harcourt asked.

‘It’s geometry,’ he answered.

‘It’s heresy. The Holy Church bans dissection, but that was done by a Muslim physician before my father was born. Now when you fight a man you think of that and strike accordingly. Keep it to yourself.’ He turned his face away; he had now given the young archer everything he needed to kill effectively.

‘Is that leg ready yet to straddle a horse?’ de Harcourt asked.

‘I believe so, lord,’ said Blackstone hopefully.

‘Then it needs to be tested. It’s time you got out from behind these walls. I’ll have a groom pick out a horse that won’t throw you.’

Blackstone could barely believe his luck. At last he was being allowed freedom from the castle; not only that but it was to be with the hunt.

‘All right, Thomas, go and clean off that filth and change. Take the drawing to your room to study later.’

‘Thank you,’ Blackstone said, unable to find any other words to express his gratitude for the Saracen’s drawing and the chance to ride out. ‘But I’ve never used a spear against wild boar – or anything, come to that.’

‘You won’t have to. Personal protection is all you’ll need. Bring that sword of yours. You ride with the women and the pageboys.’

Blackstone’s heart sank. ‘The women? Can’t I hunt with the men?’

‘Don’t test my generosity, Thomas. The women need protecting at the rear. You and the pageboys should be able to manage that, don’t you think?’

And so Blackstone had sluiced the stench of sweat from his body and changed his clothes, but rode behind the ladies as they followed their knights. De Harcourt had found a scabbard for Wolf Sword that now hung from the horse’s pommel. It was the first time he had taken the sword from his quarters and he felt a strange mixture of pride and self-consciousness. Before he slid the pointed blade into its covering he felt a twinge of uncertainty. Sir Gilbert had taught him to keep his sword ready, but this was not combat and to parade the fine weapon was unnecessary. For a few spellbound moments he held its perfect balance, the weight positioned below the crossguard allowing the blade the freedom to do its work. It seemed a shame to hide its beauty, but he slid it into the scabbard.

Food and drink was carried by the pages and the oldest of them, including the ten-year-old Guillaume, were given the task of laying out the blankets and coverings for the midday refreshment of which the hunters would partake. The day would be short and the light gone within a few hours, but wood was gathered and fires lit for the winter picnic beneath a sapphire-clear sky. A cry went up as a roe deer was flushed from a coppice into an open meadow and the women spurred their horses to surge after their men. The startled creature darted left and right, zigzagging away from the yelling men. The dogs howled but were restrained by their handlers. A deer was an easy kill. The women shouted their encouragement.

‘Louis! It’s yours!’ Henri Livay called to de Vitry as the deer gracefully evaded his efforts to spear it.

Once again the terrified animal veered left and right, skit­tishly unset­tling the horses’ strides. Blackstone kept pace with the women whose gowns and headdresses fluttered behind them. Like angel wings, Blackstone thought as he guided the horse closer to Christiana’s. The look on her face, though, was anything but angelic. Eyes wide, gasping for breath with the excitement of the impending kill, she and Blanche de Harcourt rode side by side, laughing with lust for the deer’s death. Her passion for the hunt caught him unawares and in that moment his own longing for her deepened. A wild thought ran through his head: if he could separate Christiana from the others he’d take her to a glade and lay down a blanket where he would undress her slowly and smother her shivering body with his own. Could there be a better time to slake their lust? he wondered.

Those thoughts took his attention off the hunt for a few scant seconds, long enough for his horse to veer sharply from a tufted clump of grass for no apparent reason. As the shouts of victory and the baying cry of the speared and dying animal travelled across the field, Blackstone’s foot came free of the stirrup, his balance shifted and his wild grab at the horse’s mane could not save him from tumbling into space. It seemed a long time before he hit the ground that rushed up to greet him, but when he did it felt like a mighty hammer blow that knocked the wind out of him.

He could hear the hoof beats pounding away, their vibration trembling through the ground into his spine. Richard Blackstone had been able to feel the sound of trumpet and drum, perhaps this was what it was like when his brother died in his silent world, Blackstone thought, as he lay unmoving in silence, his ears flooded with the pulsing of his own blood. He groaned and eased himself up.

The dogs could barely be restrained by their handlers as the deer’s throat was cut by one of the runners, its blood spurting from its dying heartbeat. De Vitry’s spear was yanked from the carcass and the servants set about gutting the animal before its eyes had even glazed in death. They would be given the heart and liver as a special Christmas treat and the lungs would go to the dogs when the hunt returned home. By the time Blackstone noted all of this his horse had been caught by one of the men, and the group’s attention turned back to where he staggered to his feet. The laughter that greeted his hobbling stance felt like a barrage of arrow shafts flying across the meadow.

He saw one of the squires holding his horse and then de Harcourt’s gestures indicated that Christiana was to take the horse back to Blackstone. Clearly the men thought Blackstone deserved the additional humiliation of having his mount returned by a woman. He smiled foolishly as she got closer, and then laughed as she pulled the horse up sharply. She was scowling so much that plumes of breath funnelled from her nostrils.

‘You think this is funny?’ she said angrily.

‘You look so ferocious, Christiana, like a snorting devil,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong? Didn’t you join everyone else to laugh at my misfortune?’

She threw down his reins. ‘Can my embarrassment get any worse? You were thrashed this morning by Count de Vitry and now you fall from a docile palfrey? These people
are
laughing at you, Thomas. You’re not an English peasant any longer; you’re in the company of men of rank. Riding a horse is the least skill demanded of you.’

Blackstone took the reins and steadied the horse and spoke to her as if he were already her lord and husband. ‘Don’t act like a child. I had the better of de Vitry. Those barons are masters of hypocrisy, Christiana. They play a game of divided loyalties and one day either my King or yours will make them pay. They’re a squirming nest of adders and I wouldn’t trust any of them. Are they your kind of people?’

‘I’m my father’s only child and he served his lord faithfully and sent me here for safekeeping!’

‘That doesn’t make you one of them! Are you embarrassed or ashamed? There’s a difference.’

His challenge confused her, which made her angrier still. She wheeled her horse and rode back to where the hunting party waited for her. Blackstone pulled himself into the saddle, wishing more than anything that he was back with his own kind. How far was it to Calais? he wondered.

The day grew shorter, with only a few hours remaining before the sun dipped below the treetops. The clear sky would have made a glorious day for falconry, but none had been taken out, the sole purpose of today’s hunt being to provide meat from the forest, especially boar, for the Christmas table. Blackstone had meandered with the women, some of whom were beginning to complain about the cold as the shafts of light narrowed, taking what little warmth remained with them. Now that they moved through the forest Blackstone’s senses sharpened and he stayed vigilant. He quietly guided the horse through saplings and mature trees, remembering another forest across the river at Blanchetaque when he pulled Christiana to freedom away from the Bohemian soldiers. It was easy to hide in woodland; if a man stayed still it was almost impossible for him to be seen. Even slow movement was masked by the trees and now he feared outlaws who might run from a thicket and pull him from his horse. Then those he protected would be vulnerable and he would have failed in his duty. Turning the horse in and out between the trees he kept the splashes of colour from the women’s garments and the shadows of the pages who diligently followed them in sight. The women’s chatter still carried so that when his eyes looked through the forest, tree to tree, yard by yard, penetrating the woodland, his ears placed their whereabouts.

The men’s distant voices were muffled by the trees as they called to each other. They had obviously split up and their shouts told others where each man was, or thought they were. Henri Livay was lost, and as he called Blackstone heard a distant shout that sounded like Guy de Ruymont telling him where to ride. Then silence fell again, leaving only the crunch of horse’s hooves on the forest floor and the calls of birds going to roost.

They passed through clearings, treeless islands where foresters had once camped. Luxuriant ferns blanketed the ground where deer had not grazed. Bramble thickets crept into these places, as did the failing sun, but Blackstone saw no sign of habitation, no cold embers of fires long past, and if men still used this part of the forest they would have camped here for the warmth the sunlight offered and a soft bed of ferns. As he turned the horse into the clearing a scream shattered the quiet as dogs yelped and barked, then fell silent. The women quickly reined in their startled horses, their own cries of alarm stifled as the man’s scream intensified. Men’s distant voices cried out, desperately seeking the location of the terrifying sounds.

‘Into the clearing! Now!’ Blackstone yelled, driving the horse forward, forcing the women into the open space. Blanche de Harcourt’s spirited courser veered away violently from the mêlée as the women whipped and reined their horses into the middle of the open ground. Blackstone’s injured leg crushed against its flank, but he ignored the pain and grabbed her bridle, his strength forcing the horse to behave.