Defiant Unto Death (56 page)

Longdon shrugged, and then remembered. ‘She asked if I had really fought at your side, at the crossroads that day.'

‘What?' said Blackstone. ‘The crossroads? When?'

‘Normandy. The ambush,' Longdon answered tentatively.

‘You told her about that?'

‘Yes,' said Longdon, seeing Blackstone's look of concern.

‘Why?' Blackstone asked uncertainly.

Longdon couldn't explain his need for the acknowledgement of being more than Blackstone's comrade-in-arms. ‘I … gave her the cloth, Sir Thomas. The one you carry with you. You dropped it when we fought in the forest.'

Blackstone's hand involuntarily went to his jerkin, already knowing his wife's token would not be there. ‘You returned it to her?'

‘Aye. I told her how you'd cut it from the dead knight's jupon. As a talisman.'

Blackstone groaned, as if the sky and earth were millstones and he the grain of wheat between them.

‘Jesus, Thomas. What's wrong?' Longdon asked, forgetting rank, remembering the boy who rode at his side.

‘Oh God, Will. You weren't to know. I learnt when she nursed me that her father had sent her to the Harcourt family for protection. That cloth was a gift from her. I never cut it from him – the man I killed that day was her father.'

Killbere shouted from the mounted men that they were ready to move. Will Longdon's stricken face roused Blackstone's compassion. ‘I lay no blame on you, Will,' he said, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘Get some food and drink, and catch up with us.'

Blackstone turned towards the waiting men and climbed into the saddle. Blanche de Harcourt and Killbere realized that Will Longdon had brought news from the men at Marazin's.

‘Will Longdon rode ahead of the others. They're hours behind him. Guillaume sent word that he and a dozen men are escorting Christiana and the children.'

‘On their own?' Killbere asked. ‘Is he stupid?'

‘No, Gilbert, he's fulfilling a pledge to protect my family.'

‘Where is she?' said Blanche de Harcourt.

Blackstone shook his head. ‘In one of the passes. He's buying time for us to reach him.'

For a moment no one spoke, bewildered by the task of finding a small group in those unknown mountains.

‘I'll take twenty men,' Blackstone said, ‘and backtrack. We'll meet at de Montferrat's castle.'

Killbere spat into the grass. ‘Sweet Mother of God, Thomas, we can't sit on our arses while you search for your missing woman! We could be there for days. How many damned needles in haystacks do you find in one life? No, we'll all go because if de Marcy is within farting distance we'll smell his stench or you'll be nailed to a tree with your balls in your mouth and I'll be without a damned contract with the Italians.'

Killbere did not wait for a response but jammed his heels into the horse's flanks. Blackstone saw Longdon find a fresh horse, ready to lead them back. ‘I should apologize for him, Blanche. He smothers his emotions with blasphemy and curses but he has my interests at heart.'

‘He's an Englishman, Thomas, there are not enough apologies in the world for that,' she said, wheeling her horse. ‘I only make one exception for your barbaric race – and that's you.'

The valley was a place of staggering beauty. Snow had already fallen on the high ground but thousands of feet below the peaks the sun shone warmly from a clear blue sky. A meadow this high in the passes should have been bereft of any alpine flowers, but this place was known for its beauty where the sun lingered. The plateau of wildflowers, protected by the distant giants and the warmth of the forest that encircled it, laid a welcoming carpet for any traveller or pilgrim.

A jangling bridle and a choking man who kicked, face bulging, as the rope squeezed the life out of him, broke the cathedral-like silence.

Christiana wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘These men guarded me under orders; hanging them serves no purpose,' she said.

De Marcy rode next to her. ‘The purpose, Lady Christiana, is that it gives me pleasure,' he answered.

When his men had brought her to him he had touched her face. Her smooth skin peach-gentle beneath his calloused fingertips. She had recoiled and lashed out at him but he had snatched at her neck and gripped it, ready to crush it. And then relented. He would think on how to deal with her but whatever he had once felt was already charred ash on his tongue. She was of no use to him now other than as bait for Thomas Blackstone.

Guillaume and the remaining man, bound and tethered by rope to a routier's pommel, had been forced to keep up on foot with the horses. Five men from the escort had already been hanged every hundred paces on the approach through the forest to the fortress that guarded the pass. Now, de Marcy prepared to hang the sixth man. Guillaume sank to his knees in exhaustion. Most of the condemned men had been dragged beyond their endurance to keep up. There was no struggle left. As they pulled the man to his feet he cried out in a final attempt to save his life.

‘Will you spare me? I will fight for you as I fought for him.'

‘You didn't fight that well, otherwise you would already be dead. What use is such a soldier to me?' the Savage Priest answered as his men placed the noose about the man's neck and took up the slack, readying themselves to haul him up.

‘I have information, my lord. About Sir Thomas's lady!' the man cried desperately.

De Marcy's gesture stalled the execution. He nodded. ‘If the information has worth and serves me, then I'll let you live.'

The man nodded, ignoring the chafing hemp on his neck. ‘I was an escort on the barge that took us to Avignon—'

Christiana's despair broke involuntarily: ‘Say no more! I beg you. He'll kill you anyway.' Her horse was startled, but de Marcy grabbed its bridle and easily brought it under control. He smiled at her.

‘You have secrets from me, my lady?'

The soldier tried to approach but de Marcy's men kicked him to his knees.

Guillaume cried out: ‘Finn! Listen to what she says! He'll hang you no matter what you tell him. Go to God with a clear conscience, man.'

De Marcy looked down at the man. ‘Buy your life,' he said.

‘She's with child. One of the men on the barge raped her. John Jacob, my sergeant, killed him and swore us to secrecy.'

Guillaume's shock couldn't be hidden. Christiana turned away in shame, but de Marcy gripped her chin and forced her head back. ‘So, Blackstone's wife is a whore carrying a bastard child. You're worthless to me now. He'll never come back for you.'

‘My Lord de Marcy, he will come! He will come for his children!' Guillaume cried out, knowing he might not save Christiana's life, but that there was still hope for Henry and Agnes. ‘He gave his oath to the de Harcourt family that he would serve and protect her for as long as he lived! You know he will come!' Guillaume's desperation had created the lie. Blackstone was never likely to have made any such pledge. But he also knew his sworn lord.

De Marcy said nothing. He turned his back on the condemned man, and those at the end of the rope heaved his kicking, choking body into the branches.

The rope tightened on Guillaume's wrists as he was yanked behind the horse. They rode into the valley towards the fortress, presiding like a stern gatekeeper over a rare beauty. A thousand and more of the Savage Priest's horsemen trampled the flowers into the ground.

Alfonso Girolami held the fortress with barely a hundred soldiers. The narrow pass beneath the castle walls needed no greater defence and the garrison was as much as the remote villages could sustain. Beyond the stronghold was a dangerous route into Lombardy known as ‘La Porta dei Morti'. For those who survived its rigours and reached the warm land of the Italians, it was said they would never return to the world they had known through this Gate of the Dead.

Village women cooked, and whores were kept to service Girolami's men. The ongoing track through the mountains was treacherous, and the monks who lived nearby served as guides: a service that gave them protection from Girolami who held the fortress in the name of Visconti.

Christiana had been stripped of her dress and left wearing only an undershift. She shivered, aching with the cold, held with the children in a cage in the castle's main square. Henry and Agnes slept, embracing for warmth. Thirty feet away Guillaume was slumped on his knees, hands tied behind his back secured to a stake in the square. His breeches and shirt were bloodied from being dragged across rough ground. The cold night tightened like wet rope on his muscles.

‘Guillaume,' Christiana whispered, face pressed against the bars, fearing that even her plumed breath would attract a guard from the ramparts. ‘Guillaume …'

She waited until her voice slipped into his mind, then saw him raise his head. That brave young face she'd known for so many years, that boy who had served de Harcourt and then Blackstone, lifted and smiled at her. His parched lips offered no words, but he nodded silently.

They gazed across the moonlit square, both knowing they were to die.

‘Forgive me, Guillaume. It was I who brought you to this,' she whispered, praying he could hear her plea for absolution. ‘There has never been such allegiance as yours and you deserve an honourable death. My children and your sworn lord will speak your name whenever words of loyalty and courage are needed.'

His head slumped back onto his chest, and Christiana snuggled up to her children, the silence of the night taunting her thumping heart.

As sunlight flooded the square, de Marcy strode out flanked by men and the Italian, Girolami, a stocky man of rough features with wind-burnt face and cropped hair, his jerkin buckled tight against a swordsman's chest. Despite the castle being his domain he walked a pace behind the Savage Priest.

‘Cut him down,' de Marcy ordered, and then walked to the cage as men cut Guillaume's ropes and supported him.

‘How shall I kill him?' he asked Christiana, who knelt like an animal, unable to stand in the small cage as Henry shielded Agnes.

‘Don't kill him. He's worth ransom to my husband. He has gold and he'll pay for his squire's life.'

‘Answer the question or I'll slit his throat now,' de Marcy said without emotion.

Guillaume's eyes found hers. He nodded at her.

‘Let him die with a sword in his hand,' she said.

‘But he's weak, look at him, he can barely stand, and if a man is to fight he must have strength. So I'll help him. I shall be merciful and give him the vigour he needs.' He stepped back, allowing two soldiers to open the cage and drag Christiana into the square. Agnes cried out for her mother but Henry held her close to him, whispering words to soothe and reassure her. The villagers, whores and soldiers crowded around the square's edge as a soldier placed a knotted rope into the Savage Priest's outstretched palm.

‘We shall see if punishing the whore that he was sworn to protect will spark a fire within him,' he said as the men threw Christiana onto the ground. ‘You will crawl for forgiveness around this square twelve times beneath my punishment, which is the ritual laid down by the Church, but if you beg for mercy, then I shall kill him where he stands.'

De Marcy lashed the knotted rope down onto her back, the pain punching through her ribs. She cried out, trying to smother the scream that would terrify her daughter, and as each bruising blow fell, forced herself to remain silent, allowing little more than a gasp to escape her lips.

De Marcy worked his arm in a rhythmic thrashing until she could crawl no more. Her discoloured skin and blood-flecked welts showed through her linen shift, and blood from a misjudged blow seeped through her auburn hair. The exhausted Guillaume begged de Marcy to stop the beating and, perhaps tired of the monotony, the Savage Priest granted the wish. Guillaume knew it would hasten his own death. De Marcy had Christiana taken to the battlements and Guillaume released into the meadow, where several hundred men camped on the castle's flanks jeered at his enfeebled state.

De Marcy followed and tossed Guillaume's sword at the squire's feet.

‘My men want entertainment, Master Guillaume. They need to see how I kill. It is a requirement that they understand my cruelty. Fear of me condemns them to a life of service. Do what you can before you die,' he said.

Guillaume picked up the sword thrown at his feet. Exhaustion was banished from his mind. How often had he and Blackstone sparred until both could stand no longer, and how many times had they fought against the odds, denying fatigue until their enemy lay defeated?

He attacked.

De Marcy was taken by surprise. His own skills with a sword were better than most, but Guillaume struck with the heart of a veteran fighter. The Savage Priest was forced onto the back foot, fighting hard against the raining blows. It was Guillaume's weakened body that finally betrayed him. He parried a blow, but where once he would have shouldered his enemy off balance, his strength now deserted him. De Marcy wheeled and plunged his sword into an unprotected shoulder. Guillaume dropped his sword, and fell to his knees. De Marcy stepped back, not yet ready to kill.

‘Come, boy, you're still alive. Your pain tells you so.'

‘Guillaume!' Christiana cried from the battlements.

De Marcy glanced at her. ‘The whore cries for her lover. Did you take your pleasures with her once she'd played her part with a common soldier on that barge?' the Savage Priest taunted him.

Guillaume grasped the sword's grip in his left hand and lunged, but de Marcy was waiting, parried the blow and then forced his blade into Guillaume's thigh muscle. He fell, squirming face down in his own blood, and de Marcy's voice came from behind him: ‘Your suffering is not yet finished.'

Guillaume's young life's memories were as fleeting as a valley mist burned away by a searing sun. He tried to cling to them, but they melted and left him only with pain.