Defiant Unto Death Read Online Free

you my life, but nothing more.’
    â€˜You’ll earn the Prince’s blessing,’ Blackstone told him, in the hope of stinging the man’s loyalty.
    â€˜Ay! The Prince! God bless him! He’d take the shirt off a man’s back if it meant he could freeze the poor bastard to death. The Prince has no need of my ship to go up in flames though!’
    The scarred knight had him outnumbered. Jennah spat and rubbed his cropped head, scattering flakes of scurf into the wind. His salt- and wind-cracked hands had healed too many times to remember, but they had strength enough to grasp a knife and a knotted rope to fight the man who wanted to burn his ship.
    Blackstone knew the threat was a brave man’s stand. Jennah was three strides away but Meulon and the men drew their swords. Blackstone raised an arm and halted any violence against the sailors, whose death would have been slaughter, for they could have made only token resistance.
    â€˜You’ll not have my boat, by Christ’s tears you will not, Sir Thomas,’ said Jennah, readying himself. ‘A knight would fight for his pennon or banner; he’d have to be dead before he let his sword fall from his fist. It’s no different for a mariner. We swore an oath. The Saint Margaret Boat is my vessel. Heart and soul.’
    It would have been an easy task to disarm the angry man but killing him would serve no purpose. Blackstone did not have the skill to use the tide and nudge the ship beneath the walls, and to blackmail the old man with the killing of one of his innocent crew was not an option that Blackstone would consider – it could only ever be a bluff. Besides, Master Jennah had kept his part of the bargain and brought the fighting men to the shore.
    Blackstone said: ‘How long before the tide turns?’
    â€˜Three hours at most,’ answered Jennah, still holding the knife warily.
    Blackstone nodded and turned to the waiting men. ‘Meulon. Send Gaillard ashore with a cask.’ Blackstone turned back to Jennah. ‘Lower your blade, Master Jennah. You’ll take no harm from me. Your ship is yours. Men need no better reason to defend that which they love.’
    Jennah hesitated, but when Blackstone went down onto the deck he slid the blade back into its sheath. He watched as one of Blackstone’s soldiers, as big a man as Blackstone himself, but with a heavier build to his shoulders, clambered over the side of the ship carrying a tar barrel. There was no doubting the man’s strength or determination as he attempted to make headway through the soggy ground that sucked his legs down to the knee. With the rundlet on his shoulder he tried to keep his balance, but within ten paces he fell. He staggered to his feet, hefted his burden back onto his shoulder again but made no more than three or four paces before he squelched down again.
    Meulon took the signal from Blackstone and gently whistled a single note, then beckoned Gaillard back to the ship. Every fighting man knew that if Gaillard’s strength could not even reach twenty paces, then none would ever reach the base of the wall, more than three hundred cloth yards away, and then negotiate the quagmire and stream.
    Blackstone weighed their chances. Attack too soon and the garrison would send a messenger for reinforcements. Then, no matter how strong de Grailly’s force might appear, they could be ambushed on the narrow road and the English would suffer a defeat that could have a devastating effect on the Prince of Wales’s war of attrition. Attack too late and Blackstone and his men could be cornered like rats behind the walls. His successful raid, which had occupied the past several weeks, meant that his men were ready for the comfort of their women and a good fire in a grate rather than wet ground and bitter fighting. Now they could end with their heads on poles. He cursed himself for being too ambitious.
    He should have been halfway home by now.