Cross of Fire Read online

  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

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  5–8 Hardwick Street

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  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

  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 E
urope.

  ‘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.