Defiant Unto Death by David Gilman Read Free Book Online Page B

of the cart there was now a roe deer that would feed them for the next few days, a supplement to de Grailly’s cooks’ pottage, and another for the grateful monks.
    A wooden cross was hammered into the dirt; Blackstone’s men knelt in the mud and prayed while he stood behind them and fingered the silver goddess. Brother Clement spoke a Latin liturgy, but cast a disapproving look in Blackstone’s direction.
    â€˜Humility before God costs a man nothing but his pride,’ he said, taking the risk of chiding Blackstone as the men gathered their horses.
    â€˜I’m not proud, Brother.’
    â€˜Then what?’
    â€˜Angry.’
    â€˜With God?’ the monk quavered, alarmed that the man who stood before him, wounds bandaged and features disfigured by war, might be an agent of Satan.
    â€˜It’s none of your business,’ Blackstone said, adjusting the belly strap on his saddle.
    â€˜There are abandoned souls who haunt these desolate marshlands at night. We hear them cry out in the forests. Make your peace, lord knight, and He will save you. Cast aside that pagan goddess you wear and let your men see a holy warrior lead them.’
    â€˜What you hear are wolves calling their brothers to the kill. My goddess is of the marshlands and the trees, she’s in mountain and stream. She’s everywhere I need her.’ He pulled himself up into the saddle and tossed a sack full of silver plate and a bag of coin at the monk’s feet. ‘And she does not kill a deaf-mute boy. My brother was slaughtered like a beast ten years back, too soon for my anger to cool. But on my journey here I promised God that I’d give my share of the spoils to the first poor church I found. I keep my promises. Just in case He’s watching. Spend it wisely or I’ll hear of it.’
    Blackstone turned the horse away as Brother Clement’s disbelief gave way to joy when he tipped open the sack. He called after Blackstone: ‘My lord! We shall! An infirmary and more! Sir Thomas, you will always find a welcome here!’
    â€˜You hear that,’ Meulon said. ‘You’ll be an honoured guest in this slime pit.’
    â€˜Then let’s hope we never ride this way again,’ said Blackstone.
    Meulon turned in the saddle and looked back at the gathered monks, embracing in their joy and clasping hands in grateful prayer, eyes raised to heaven, for the bounty delivered by the scarred Englishman.
    â€˜Your share might have been better served by bribing a town’s burghers to open their gates to us. It would save another fight.’
    Blackstone dug his heels into the horse’s flanks. ‘We have all we need. No more towns, Meulon. We’re going home. We’ve missed Christmas and my son’s birthday. There’ll be no more fighting this year.’

3
    The street urchin scurried through the muddy backstreets of Paris that he had known all of his eight years, avoiding the jostling crowds on the main cobbled thoroughfares that carried carts and carriages. He sidestepped the piles of human faeces that congealed and stank in his path and in doorways. Although the city’s ordinance stipulated that each resident was to carry these deposits to disposal tips, the boy, whose only given name was Raoul, knew of no one who obeyed the Provost. Instead, Raoul, and others like him, shovelled it away for them. A crust of stale bread or a near-worthless coin was payment enough to ensure he pleased those who squatted and relieved themselves while he hovered, like one of the flies above the steaming pile, ready to scoop it up. When the stench-ridden alleyways became too fetid he carried buckets of water from the city fountains to sluice the doorways and the gutters that ran down the middle of the narrow streets. From dawn until the Angelus rang at eight at night he would move from one workplace to the next; it was a routine that would not pay a man enough to feed himself or his