Cross of Fire

By David Gilman

PRE-ORDER THE NEW MASTER OF WAR NOVEL BY DAVID GILMAN, TO KILL A KING – COMING IN FEBRUARY 2024

WINTER, 1362.

After decades of successful campaigning in France, Thomas Blackstone, once a common archer, has risen to become Edward III's Master of War.

But the title is as much a curse as a blessing. Success has brought few rewards: his family – bar his son Henry – is dead, slaughtered; his enemies only multiply. Death, in so many guises, beckons.

As he battles to enforce his King's claim to French territory, Blackstone will assault an impregnable fortress, he'll become embroiled in a feud between French aristocrats, he'll be forced into pitched battle in the dead of winter... and he'll be asked to pay an impossible price to protect something much more precious to the King than mere land.

All the while, out of the east, a group of trained killers, burning with vengeance, draw ever closer.

Reviews for David Gilman

'The level of suspense is ratcheted up to a truly brutal level' Sharon Penman
'A gripping ride' Wilbur Smith
'Gilman does heart pounding action superlatively' The Times
'Like a punch from a mailed fist, Master of War is a gripping chronicle of pitched battle, treachery and cruelty' Robert Fabbri

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Feb 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781788544931

David Gilman

David Gilman has enjoyed many careers, including paratrooper, firefighter, and photographer. An award-winning author and screenwriter, he is the author of the critically acclaimed Master of War series of historical novels, and was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for The Last Horseman. He was longlisted for the same prize for The Englishman, the first book featuring ex-French Foreign Legionnaire Dan Raglan. David lives in Devon. Follow David on @davidgilmanuk, www.davidgilman.com, and facebook.com/davidgilman.author

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CROSS OF FIRE

David Gilman

www.headofzeus.com

By David Gilman

THE LAST HORSEMAN

NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS

Master of War series

MASTER OF WAR

DEFIANT UNTO DEATH

GATE OF THE DEAD

VIPER’S BLOOD

SCOURGE OF WOLVES

CROSS OF FIRE

Dangerzone series

THE DEVIL’S BREATH

ICE CLAW

BLOOD SUN

MONKEY AND ME

First published in the UK in 2020 by Head of Zeus Ltd

Copyright © David Gilman, 2020

The moral right of David Gilman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A catalogue record for this book is available fromthe British Library.

ISBN (HB): 9781788544948

ISBN (XTPB): 9781788544955

ISBN (E): 9781788544931

Cover images: Shutterstock

Map design: Vanessa Periam

Head of Zeus Ltd

First Floor East

5–8 Hardwick Street

London EC1R 4RG

WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

For Suzy

Contents

Welcome Page

By David Gilman

Copyright

Dedication

Character List

Map

Epigraph

Part One: Sworn Enemy

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Part Two: Hell’s Gate

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Part Three: The Raven and the Cross

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Part Four: The Road to War

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Part Five: Death in Avignon

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy-One

Chapter Seventy-Two

Chapter Seventy-Three

Chapter Seventy-Four

Author’s Notes

About the Author

An Invitation from the Publisher

CHARACTER LIST

*Sir Thomas Blackstone

*Henry: Blackstone’s son

THOMAS BLACKSTONE’S MEN

*Sir Gilbert Killbere

*Meulon: Norman captain

*John Jacob: captain

*Renfred: German man-at-arms and captain

*Will Longdon: veteran archer and centenar

*Jack Halfpenny: archer and ventenar

*Ralph Tait: man-at-arms

*Richard Quenell: archer and ventenar

*Beyard: Gascon captain

*Othon: man-at-arms

*Aicart: Gascon man-at-arms

*Loys: Gascon man-at-arms

*Gabriel LaFargue

*Meuric Kynith: Welsh archer

*Tom Woodbrook, Robert d’Ardenne, William Audley, Thomas Berford: men-at-arms

*William Ashford: King Edward’s sergeant

WELSH MERCENARY

*Gruffydd ap Madoc

ITALIAN CLERIC

*Niccolò Torellini: Florentine priest

BRETON NOBILITY AND SERVANTS

*Lady Cateline Babeneaux de Pontivy

*Lord Mael Babeneaux de Pontivy

*Jocard, Lady Cateline’s son

*Jehanne, Lady Cateline’s daughter

*Judikael: lord and ally of Babeneaux

*Gwenneg: lord and ally of Babeneaux

*Roparzh: captain

*Melita: servant woman

John de Montfort: English-backed claimant to the Duchy of Brittany

Charles de Blois: French-backed claimant to the Duchy of Brittany

Jean de Beaumanoir: lord and ally of Charles de Blois

FRENCH CLERICS, OFFICIALS, MERCENARIES AND VILLAGERS

Pope Innocent VI

Guillaume de Grimoard, Pope Urban V

Simon Bucy, counsellor to the French King

Bertucat d’Albret: mercenary leader

Garciot du Châtel: mercenary leader

*Roland de Souillac, physician

*Alphonse: Count de Foix’s steward

*Master Gregory: Count de Foix’s bailiff

*Raymond Villon: Mayor of Sarlat

*Guiscard the Lame: woodcutter

FRENCH NOBLEMEN AND MEN-AT-ARMS

Henry, Count de Vaudémont, Royal Lieutenant of Champagne

Gisbert de Dome, Lord of Vitrac

Gaillard de Miremont, Lord of Sauignac

Gaston Phoebus, Count de Foix et Béarn

Viscounts of Cardona, Pallars and Castelbou: allies and vassals of Gaston Phoebus

Marshal of the Army, Arnoul d’Audrehem

Jean, Count d’Armagnac

Monlezun, Frezensaguet, d’Aure, Jean de la Barthe, Terride, Falga, Aspet, Count de Comminges, Lords of Albret, lords of Pardhala: feudal lords and allies of d’Armagnac

Jean de Grailly, Captal de Buch: Gascon lord

FRENCH ROYALTY

King John II (the Good) of France

The Dauphin Charles: the French King’s son and heir

Charles, King of Navarre: claimant to the French throne

ENGLISH ROYALTY

Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine

Joan, Princess of Wales

ENGLISH KNIGHTS AND NOBLEMEN

Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick

Sir John Chandos: English commander

Sir William Felton: Seneschal of Poitou

TEUTONIC ORDER

*Rudolf von Burchard: knight

*Walter von Ranke: knight

*Andreas von Suchenwirt: knight

*Wolfram von Plauen: knight

*Gunther von Schwerin: knight

*Sibrand von Ansbach: knight

*Albert Meinhard: half-brother

*Johannes Hartmann: half-brother

*Indicates fictional characters

Map

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And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth.

Revelation of St John the Divine 6:8

PART ONE

SWORN ENEMY

CHAPTER ONE

Here is the corpse of Thomas Blackstone enemy of France declared a sign hanging from the scar-faced man’s broken neck.

Thirteen bodies dangled lifeless from gibbets outside the town’s walls, the dead men left as carrion. Sir Gilbert Killbere swallowed hard when he saw the sign. The taste of death clung to the back of his throat as the hollow sockets stared at him. Killbere and the ten-man scouting party eased their horses past the bodies, whose lower limbs had been gnawed to the bone by wolf and wild boar. It was too dangerous to stop in case those who had done the killing were still behind the walls. Killbere and the men rode in single file, shields raised against any sudden onslaught of crossbow quarrels from the low parapet. Saint-Ouen could barely be called a town; it was more of a hamlet, a settlement for hundreds of years since the Romans had first encircled their camp with a balustrade followed by an earth embankment and then built a low stone wall. That stonework had crumbled and fallen into disrepair but was of sufficient height for determined men to defend. The entrance was through two wooden gates, nine feet high, spiked poles bound to each other with iron brackets, which told the cautious riders that a blacksmith had once plied his trade in the town and might well have used his skills to fashion weapons for his fellow citizens.

Hunchback crows hopped across the parapet fighting noisily for the flesh dangling from the ropes. The bodies were less than a week old but their putrefaction assailed the men’s nostrils. They needed no words of command as Killbere kneed his mount towards the open gates; the men formed a protective shield behind him. Two others rode alongside the veteran knight: Renfred, the German captain, and Ralph Tait, both veterans of battles against mercenaries and Bretons at the behest of King Edward’s negotiator in France, Sir John Chandos.

The town was a ramshackle place and must have been abandoned a long time ago. Wattle and mud dwellings had succumbed to time and weather, sod-covered roofs had collapsed and there was no sign of feral dogs or loose-running fowl. There was no smell of smoke-soaked thatch. Fires had not burned in the bleak compound for years. Nothing lived. Only the scavengers.

Killbere and the two hobelars weaved their horses through the deserted hamlet but still nothing stirred. He led them around the walls until they returned to the open gates. A column of riders emerged from the treeline beyond the meadow that surrounded the town. Killbere waited and blew snot from his nostrils, wiping his hands on his jupon.

‘There’s only the stench here. Nothing more,’ he said to the approaching men. He gestured towards the bodies swaying gently in the stiffening breeze. ‘Just as well we didn’t announce ourselves when whoever did this lurked behind the walls. Looks as though someone’s been telling the world he’s you.’

Blackstone grinned. ‘And he doesn’t even look like me.’

Killbere cleared his throat, spat, and then spurred his horse. ‘No one’s that ugly, Thomas.’

*

When King Edward had summoned Thomas Blackstone to Calais after the Battle of Brignais in April of that year the scar-faced knight thought he would be arrested. Instead, he was honoured and made Master of War to serve the King and the Prince of Wales in securing the newly gained territory held by mercenaries and those who fought against the English King’s choice in Brittany. The proxy war was being fought between Edward’s ward and favourite John de Montfort and the French-backed Charles de Blois. Blackstone was tasked with clearing towns and territory ceded to Edward in the peace treaty with France and securing the loyalty of wayward Gascon lords in the Duchy of Aquitaine, ready for the Prince’s arrival, already delayed by months. The treaty with the French King Jean le Bon was worth only as much as each monarch ascribed to it. Territorial disputes had not been settled and because of that the English King had not renounced his claim to the French throne. Much of France was held by English, French and German routier captains, who commanded their mercenaries with ruthless efficiency. No sooner had Blackstone and his men defeated one band and forced them to release their towns for King Edward than the routiers rejoined others. And so the fight went on. Belligerent Frenchmen still thirsted for Blackstone’s blood and it was obvious outside the walls of Saint-Ouen that one foolhardy routier had thought to claim the legendary mantle and force those behind the walls to surrender their weapons and women. He had failed.

‘At least thirty men were inside the walls, Thomas,’ said Killbere as they rode south through the Breton march. ‘There was enough churned ground for maybe more.’

‘Either Bretons or skinners,’ said Blackstone’s squire, John Jacob. ‘Little to choose between the two.’

‘We have a quarrel with both,’ said Blackstone as he searched the open countryside beyond the town. There was no sign of campfire smoke rising in the cool autumn air over the treetops. It suggested that whoever had slain the men masquerading as Blackstone’s had come upon the abandoned town as a resting place. It had been the thirteen dead men’s misfortune that they had tried to frighten those they thought to be helpless townspeople. The horsemen’s tracks had petered out along a riverbank and as Blackstone’s men skirted the shallows, it became obvious that the riders had melted into the forest on the opposite bank.

Meulon’s bearded hulk nudged his horse forward. The throat-cutter had ridden in from the flanks. ‘No sign of them beyond the riverbank, Sir Thomas. They’re still travelling. Back home perhaps. If their lord’s domain is near, then they’ll keep going until they’re safely behind his walls. If they’re skinners, then they might be holding out against the French.’

‘Whose domain is this?’ said Killbere. ‘Has it been ceded to Edward?’

Blackstone shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Sir John made no mention of this place.’

‘If Chandos doesn’t want it for the King, then let’s be on our way,’ said Killbere. ‘No point in picking a fight just to keep warm. We have enough to do before the Prince sets foot in Bordeaux.’

Blackstone settled his gaze across the sweeping forest that swallowed the river as it curved; somewhere in there was an enemy who had claimed his death. ‘The Prince is still at his estate in Cornwall. He won’t set sail until next summer. There’s time enough for us to do his bidding.’

Killbere yanked his horse’s reins as it dipped its head to the sweet grass. ‘Near enough a year since they wed and he still can’t wean himself away. Like a child on the teat. Mind you, I am told they are tits a man would happily suffocate himself in.’ He leered. ‘If I had married Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent,’ he said, emphasizing the sobriquet given to the sensuous countess, ‘I’d spend the winter under the covers as well.’

The twice-married widow of Sir Thomas Holland, the Countess of Kent was a woman who enjoyed the freedom afforded by her privileged status. Music, jewellery and parties were a passion, and it was a common belief it was her sensuality that had snared the Prince. Blackstone wasn’t so sure. She was already the mother of five children and the Prince could have had his pick of any young woman across Europe.

‘He married for love, Gilbert. Even against his father’s wishes. I like him the more for it.’

Killbere leaned across his pommel. ‘Love, Thomas, is for children.’

‘And I was little more than Henry’s age now when I fell in love with Christiana.’

Killbere looked to where Henry Blackstone waited behind John Jacob, ready to do the squire’s bidding as would any page. The lad was what, fifteen, sixteen? Killbere wasn’t sure and doubted that even Blackstone would remember birthdays. It took a woman to count her child’s summers but Blackstone’s wife was dead, murdered, these past four years. ‘You were already a fighting man by then. God’s blood, Thomas, sentimentality is not for the likes for us. How did we get onto this morbid subject?’

‘You were thinking about sex.’

Killbere’s eyes lit up. ‘So I was.’

Blackstone heeled his horse towards the river ford. ‘And if you can’t remember that then you’re becoming a senile old bastard that will soon need a nurse to tend to you.’

‘As long as she’s young and wide-hipped.’ He grinned. ‘Thomas! Why are we riding this way?’

‘To see who wants me dead,’ answered Blackstone.

Killbere sighed and shook his head as he heeled his mount. ‘That would be most of France,’ he muttered.

CHAPTER TWO

The streets of Paris seethed. Shopkeepers barracked passers-by. Butchers and fishmongers swept flies from the tables bearing their wares as they hacked bone and cut muscle or gutted fish caught that morning. The noise from those jostling the criss-crossing streets and alleys sought escape from the narrow confines where half-timbered houses’ cantilevered floors blocked out much of the light to those in the passageways below. The pungent smell of human waste mingled with the sweet aroma of freshly baked bread and sweet cakes. Beasts of burden were whipped and cajoled and urged to give way as the eight men on horseback made their way towards the Grand Pont and the royal palace on the Île de la Cité. These knights did not move aside for man or beast. Each knight led a spare horse bearing his armour and supplies; men used to travelling great distances in pursuit of their goal knew the value of having an extra horse. Some of these knights had visited other cities like Prague, Berlin, Cölln and Rothenburg. Wolfram von Plauen, who led them along the Grand’Rue, had survived the Rothenburg earthquake in ’56 that had destroyed Staufer Castle, his mentor’s stronghold. It had been a lesson in humility. No matter how strong a man’s belief in God, if the Almighty deemed it time to deal man’s pride a blow there was no force on earth to stop it. And the French had suffered a devastating blow to their pride when the English slaughtered thousands of their finest at Crécy and Poitiers. Now the humbled French King had crawled back to Paris on his knees, riddled with debt and shame. And as von Plauen gazed in wonder at the grandeur that was Paris, called by some the most beautiful city in Christendom, he knew it was centuries of men’s pride and greed that had built it. His stern countenance betrayed no sense of his wonder. A hundred thousand souls lived behind its walls and in its suburbs and they had withstood the war brought on them by the English King. God had smiled on the venal Parisians. Wolfram von Plauen did not.

Iron-rimmed wheels trundled past the German knights as handcarts bore the fruit of bow-backed peasants’ labour on the way to market. An idiot dressed in an undershirt danced barefoot on the cobbles at the end of a rope. Perhaps it was the ragged-looking man’s father who urged the demented soul to jig like a monkey while he held out his cap for any meagre offering. Destitution and starvation lurked ever present like the evil in men’s souls. And yet, von Plauen acknowledged to himself, the Basilica of Saint-Denis and the Notre-Dame were testament to the glorification of the divine.

They reached the Grand Pont and gazed across the Seine where barge traffic unloaded their cargo on the riverside bank. Men hurried back and forth from warehouses to vessel, bowed under the weight of sacks of grain. Scurrying ants who laboured day and night to keep the city fed. Von Plauen gazed across the bridge to where the royal household’s banners and pennants curled from the river’s chill breeze. The once mighty French King and his son the Dauphin as trapped in their island palace as surely as in any grand prison.

‘It is a place of corruption, Wolfram,’ said one of the men riding with him. ‘Money changers and goldsmiths pave the way across the bridge to the palace. These French are creatures who cherish wealth and possessions.’ Walter von Ranke was a younger man recently accepted into the brotherhood of the Teutonic Order. The vicissitudes of the world had not yet tempered his zeal for righteous justice.

Wolfram pointed to Notre-Dame’s twin towers. ‘It takes money to build such a magnificent edifice to God, Walter. Let us be generous with our thoughts towards them.’ He heeled his horse across the bridge. ‘We need them to tell us where the man we seek hides from our justice.’

*

The Dauphin was irritable and had retired to his chambers. When the King of France was held hostage in England his absence from Paris had allowed the Dauphin Charles the right to rule. No longer. Now the Dauphin’s life hovered between France and purgatory. His tongue had lashed the King’s counsellor Simon Bucy all morning. And now it looked as though Bucy’s day would get worse. Beneath the tumbling clouds that threatened rain he watched the horsemen approach along the Grand’Rue from his office high in the palace. Their route led directly from the city’s north walls through the heart of Paris to the Grand Pont. Teutonic Knights were not ambassadors of goodwill, or pilgrims making their way on the Via Francigena, the route to Rome. They were troublemakers. Of that he was convinced. These stern, unsmiling brethren believed the Almighty guided their swords for justice and retribution. Bucy turned to warm his hands at the fireplace, seeking a modicum of comfort from what would surely be some kind of demand. The Germans would be admitted and relinquish their swords; the captain of the guard would escort them to the chamberlain who would soon knock on Bucy’s door because it was Simon Bucy who had the ear of the King – and of the Dauphin. During the King’s captivity in England, Bucy, who had once led the Parlement, had been a key adviser to the Dauphin Charles.

The knock on the door came sooner than he expected. Bucy followed the chamberlain to the grand entrance. Behind the massive carved oak doors stood pillared arches bedecked with banners from France’s history: past glories soon to be regained if only the Dauphin could convince the King to act more assertively in the face of English demands and to cease his irrational behaviour. Wolfram von Plauen and his companions bowed as Bucy entered the hall. The chamberlain would already have given them a courteous welcome. There was no need for Bucy to extend any further goodwill.

‘I am Simon Bucy, adviser to the King.’

‘My lord, I am Wolfram von Plauen and I seek an audience with your gracious King, may God keep him safe in these troubled times.’

May God keep us all safe, thought Bucy, without a flicker of irritation. After the French army’s defeat at Brignais against the routiers in April the King had made the extraordinary decision to travel to the Pope in Avignon and seek permission to marry the Countess Joanna, Queen of Naples. A vain attempt to strengthen the Crown by taking possession of Provence, which she ruled. His ransom still unpaid, hostages still held in England, defeat still burning in French souls, routiers flaying the land and King John had gone to the Pope. At such a time! If he could not secure the marriage, he would take the cross and raise a crusade. What madness had possessed him? It had been this final act that had swung the loyal Bucy to support the Dauphin’s dream of reclaiming France against the English.

‘The King is in Avignon. He has gone to…’ He hesitated. The least said about the monarch’s behaviour the better. Best to keep these hospitallers believing John II to be the most Christian king. ‘… to raise a crusade against the infidel.’

The Germans looked suitably impressed. ‘Such a righteous desire augurs well for our own quest, my lord.’ Wolfram’s blue eyes settled on the older man. ‘For justice.’

Ever the diplomat, Bucy graciously bowed his head despite the anxiety he felt about having Teutonic Knights in the city. Revenge was on their minds, but against whom? ‘We will extend our help wherever possible. Continue.’

‘Henry, Count of Vaudémont, the King’s Royal Lieutenant in Champagne, waged a private war against German princes beyond your eastern frontier. The Duke of Lorraine and the Count of Bar and their people suffered grievous harm at his hands and the routiers he employed.’

Bucy stoically showed no sign of his discomfort. De Vaudémont had caused vexing problems for the Crown. When his private war ended the routiers had swept back into France, some seizing strongholds south of Paris as they raided along the Loire.

‘We have undertaken to admonish the Count of Vaudémont,’ said Bucy, even though no action had been decided by the absent King.

‘My lord, the routiers were Bretons, Gascons and Navarrese led by Gruffydd ap Madoc, a Welshman. Their torture, rape and slaughter must not go unpunished. We seek him,’ said von Plauen.

Bucy’s keen lawyer mind snapped taut as a crossbow cord. Ap Madoc had led the mercenaries that saved Blackstone at Brignais. These Teutonic Knights were God’s gift. Perhaps He favoured them after all. They were better than any paid assassin. Planting a lie now could yield great benefit. ‘The man you seek, this Welshman, another led him – an Englishman, Thomas Blackstone. Blackstone and ap Madoc are the men who wreaked such indiscriminate violence against the innocent. Find the Englishman and you will find his friend.’

Wolfram von Plauen looked at the other knights. This was news they had not expected. ‘Our thanks, my lord. Where can we find this Thomas Blackstone?’

Where indeed? Bucy raised a hand, a gesture to buy time for thought. This was too good an opportunity to miss. Now that the treaty was in place and Blackstone was the English monarch’s Master of War, the French could not act against him; however, if Germans killed the man, no blame could be laid at the Crown’s door. Where was Blackstone? How could Bucy enable these zealots to find – and kill – him?

And then he knew. Bucy suppressed the excitement that surged in his chest. His day had improved beyond his best expectations. The clouds parted. The sun bathed the palace in its warmth.

‘The English King’s emissary, an Italian, Father Niccolò Torellini, is travelling under safe conduct with an escort across France to Avignon. He will go via Chartres. If anyone knows where Thomas Blackstone is, he will.’

CHAPTER THREE

Blackstone led the men into the forest, avoiding the direction of the other horsemen’s tracks, and made camp. Twenty-five mounted archers, the most valuable men of any fighting company, settled in the camp’s centre under the command of the veteran archer Will Longdon, who would normally be centenar of a hundred bowmen. It was through choice that Blackstone kept his column lightly armed and ready to traverse quickly across the wasted land that was France. Those archers and an equal number of men-at-arms were easier to feed and equip and served Blackstone well as a raiding party that could move across distances quickly, strike where necessary and move on. Once they’d conquered a town they left the garrisoning of it to others under the local seneschal’s command. Blackstone’s chosen were worth more in fighting skills and experience than brigands three or four times their number. If the French or Bretons rose in force, then Blackstone’s rallying call would bring men from far and wide to do his bidding and swell his ranks.

Meulon and Renfred set their men on the perimeter as a protective shield around the camp. Horses were hobbled and picketed and beyond the ring of armed men they set listening posts to challenge anyone probing their defences and alert the camp. Fear of night creatures, demons and dispossessed souls would keep most superstition-racked men at bay but if a bold commander struck, as Blackstone had done in the past, then death might visit the band beneath the cloak of darkness.

Will Longdon beckoned to his ventenar, Jack Halfpenny. ‘We have meat enough for another two days,’ he told the young archer, ‘but if Thomas is planning to take us further afield then we need more. There’ll be boar and deer in these woods. We’ll make our way to the river and find where they come to drink at dusk.’

Killbere bit into an apple. ‘Will, you get lost in these woods and we’ll ride on without you. Jack, you tie a piece of rope to him and keep him in sight, you hear?’ he growled through the apple’s pulp.

‘Sir Gilbert, when we come back with venison you will be grateful you have such good hunting men to ride with you,’ Longdon answered.

‘Scab-arsed poachers more like. Don’t go shooting a tough old buck – bring us tender meat, you hear?’

Killbere and Will Longdon were veterans who had served together longer than any of the men under Blackstone’s command, since before Killbere had even taken the young Blackstone to war.

‘Best keep a night light burning, Sir Gilbert. Shall I rouse you when we return to give you the comfort of knowing we have made our way back safely?’

Killbere tossed the apple core at them. ‘Get your arse moving, you insolent bastard – and don’t go shooting blindly; Thomas is out there.’

*

Late sunlight flooded the glade where Blackstone’s tethered horse bowed its misshapen head into the sweet grass shaded from the sun. It had been a hot summer that burned the grass and the warmth had lingered into the autumn that now settled on Blackstone as he perched on a log considering whether he should pursue the routier who had claimed to have killed him at Saint-Ouen. They were already late for an agreed rendezvous with the Seneschal of Poitou, Sir William Felton. There was no love lost between him and Blackstone. It gave Blackstone some comfort to know that despite Felton being awarded the victory Blackstone had orchestrated against the Bretons at le Garet earlier that year, before defeating the French at Brignais, the King and Sir John Chandos knew the truth of the matter and had privately acknowledged it. The honour of Master of War bestowed on him by King Edward could be a blessing or a curse. The Prince of Wales and Aquitaine would be a difficult master to serve. Honour could turn to disgrace with an unguarded word or action and he was under no illusion that the recently married Prince would not be even more demanding with a wife at his side.

Blackstone’s meandering thoughts were suddenly interrupted. The bastard horse raised its head; its muscles quivered. Blackstone knew the warning signs. He quickly climbed into the saddle and waited, eyes searching the treeline. They were downwind but he heard nothing more than the breeze rustling the treetops and the hardening leaves whispering their impending fall to earth. The horse quivered again and pawed the ground, its great strength yanking the reins as it tossed its head towards the breeze.

‘All right,’ Blackstone muttered. ‘Let’s see what it is.’ He eased the horse across the glade. If there was danger lurking, then being in the open meant he would not be caught unawares by any sudden attack. As they reached the far side he looked through the trees, picking first one to focus on, then further ahead another, until his gaze penetrated a hundred yards into the forest. There was no sign of threat. He picked out an animal track and guided the bastard horse forward. A sound like a bird cry rose faintly on the breeze. Pushing further through the trees he caught the soft gurgling of the river tumbling over boulders. He could feel his horse’s tension beneath him. As they emerged from the edge of the forest, he saw the river curved left then right. Downstream was devoid of any threat but the horse was insisting on moving upstream. They were still downwind and he concentrated on trying to make out anything untoward over the shallow water dashing across the pebble riverbed. And then he heard it again. An animal cry. High–pitched, thrown into the breeze. As they rounded the bend he saw movement on the opposite bank.

He nudged the horse back into the safety of the trees; the bastard horse’s cinder-burnt mottled coat that made men believe the belligerent beast had been sired in hell camouflaged any movement as Blackstone weaved through the shadows between shafts of sunlight. A magpie snickered, a flash of blue and white causing men’s faces to look upward. A dozen of them on the far bank. More men, perhaps, further back in the trees where Blackstone couldn’t see them. A sudden bellow of laughter and shouting. A taunt. A sharp, flat crack travelled on the breeze. A man’s open hand slapped a figure being pushed this way and that. A circle of men. Two of them tormenting a raven-haired woman, cloak half ripped from her chemise, blood-red velvet on the ground leaving her nothing but her torn dress. The men laughed as they tossed a bundle of clothing between them as the woman tried to reach it. It was a rag doll. Flaxen-haired, limp. A child. The men were tormenting the woman by throwing it back and forth.

A distant memory caught Blackstone unawares: when he had fought across the river crossing at Blanchetaque before the Battle of Crécy to find a girl who had been abandoned in the forest. The girl would become his wife but the sixteen-year-old archer did not know that at the time when he rode into the forest and skirted the French and Bohemian knights who hunted for her. Her rescue and his final swim back with her against a turning tide had brought both praise and criticism but it defined the young Blackstone’s daring and courage. Now he weaved quietly between the trees watching another woman fearful for her life and that of her child.

The bastard horse was eager to press on but Blackstone restrained it and guided it into the shallows. When they reached the middle of the river he brought it to a halt. Its ears were up. One twitched left and right listening for any other threat, but its eyes, like Blackstone’s, stayed rigidly fixed on the men. The belligerent beast stood four-square. Blackstone knew that if he gave it its head and charged into the men, then the woman would probably be the first to die and then the child – if it was still alive. And a dozen men, like a pack of wolves, could bring him down. He would draw them in. Blackstone hoisted his shield onto his arm and drew Wolf Sword from its scabbard.

And waited.

One man on the far side of the tormenting circle tilted back his head as he raised a wineskin to his mouth. It was then that he saw the lone knight waiting in the middle of the river. Dappled light caught the water and reflected the eyes of a wild-looking horse that pawed the shallows. He spluttered wine and then said something that made the others turn and stare. Moments later three of them broke away and mounted their horses tethered in the trees. They spurred their mounts as their comrades shouted encouragement. Shouts carried across the water: voices bellowing that they would kill the interloper. Laughter. It was going to be easy.

Blackstone waited and then pressed his left leg into the bastard horse’s side, kicking his right behind the girth. The war horse needed no further command. It suddenly swung its hindquarters left and struck the first of the oncoming horses, forcing it to veer. The horseman swayed in the saddle, struck blindly, but his blade only met Blackstone’s shield as Wolf Sword swept in a perfectly aimed arc at the exposed man’s throat below his helmet’s chinstrap. There was no need to wait and see the man die: Blackstone heard the splash and was already swerving to strike the second attacker. The man raised himself in the stirrups to gain an advantage over Blackstone’s height. His intended killing blow whispered across Blackstone’s head and gave him no chance of recovery as the momentum of horse and body forced his groin onto Wolf Sword’s point. The blade ran through him and out of the small of his back. His scream startled a coven of crows that voiced their alarm as they flapped wildly from the canopy. Wolf Sword’s blood knot bit into Blackstone’s wrist, keeping it secure in his fist.

The third man tried to steer his horse away from the snarling scar-faced knight but Blackstone’s next blow severed the man’s sword arm and bit into his rib cage. The killing had taken less time than the men on the riverbank took to reach their horses. One of them shouted commands. They cuffed the woman to the ground; she lay unmoving, as did the rag-doll child. The horsemen bellowed with wine-fuelled courage as they urged their horses towards the riverbank. Nine against one. Blackstone spurred his horse. It surged into the approaching men as they splashed into the shallows, their horses suddenly uncertain of the riverbed beneath their hooves. The bastard horse barged into the two leading horses before they or Blackstone delivered a blow, forcing them past Blackstone with their riders fighting to regain control and turn them back. The ragtag formation that followed were too scattered to attack Blackstone en masse. The nearest fell as Blackstone’s sword swept across the horse’s flanks. The wounded and terrified animal balked; the blade took the man’s leg below the knee. Horse and rider went down in a spurt of blood. The bastard horse turned without command, as aggressive as its master as it fought the bit and bared its yellow teeth. The wide-eyed horse it confronted reared as its rider cursed, savagely yanking the reins. The vital seconds he took to steady his mount cost him his life. The rim of Blackstone’s shield struck beneath the man’s chin and the crack of jaw bone and spine flopped him backwards into the water. River boulders caused another attacking horse to stumble, throwing its rider into the water and then rolling on top of him. The horse recovered but the man lay unmoving, face down. Two more riders challenged Blackstone. Seeing he would be vulnerable if they attacked both sides at once they came hard at him. It was a mistake. Their action blocked their companions from smothering Blackstone completely. Blackstone spurred his horse to force them apart. His shield took the blow from one rider but the strength behind the strike forced Blackstone back from its impact, giving the second man the opening he needed to swing his flanged mace at Blackstone’s open helm. Momentarily stunned, Blackstone slumped as his horse’s momentum took him past his attacker and the other men wheeled their mounts around.

Blackstone recovered, shaking his head to clear his blurred vision. He was boxed in. There were now four men behind him and two in front. He urged his horse towards the riverbank and killed the nearest man to his front; then the bastard horse was on firm ground. Blackstone freed himself from the stirrups and planted his feet on the riverbank. He needed an advantage and fighting on foot gave it to him. Not only did the horsemen have to expose their horses as they clambered up the low bank but they would have to bend low to strike him. Blackstone’s agility avoided the first horse whose rider was already sweeping down his sword, but Blackstone was no longer in the same place. Half-turning he spun around before the horse reached him and struck the man’s blind side, thrusting the point of his sword into the man’s buttocks as he leaned forward. The screaming man twisted and fell. A horse’s shoulder caught Blackstone. It threw him to the ground. He rolled, struck upwards and found the beast’s soft belly. It bellowed, stumbled and fell,

Reviews for Cross of Fire

[chasebolling · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another Great Book

Thomas Blackstone has been one of my favorite characters and I was excited to read Cross of Fire. I wasn't disappointed. Gripping combat, realism and a well executed plot definitely delivers the goods.