PROLOGUE

Port of Calais, France

May, 1347

A plague upon you, Edward of England! A plague upon you, Philip of France! Anointed you may be, but not by God’s hand. By men of the Church whose garments are of finest cloth, fingers drip gold, and hearts are more given to pirating than ever was mine. Unworthy of kingship. Unworthy!

Amaury de Chanson, once hailed as Le Fléau de l’Anglais—The Scourge of the English—for the ease with which he pirated England’s merchant ships until three years past, heard his knuckles crack as he hunkered behind boulders this side of the dimly lit shore fronting the sea between France and the island kingdom.

He was angrier than was good for those who joined him at middle night to once more forage outside the walls of their besieged Calais. For eight months, the garrison had resisted the King of England’s efforts to capture their port city to provide a permanent gateway into France, which would ensure no end to the war between the countries.

At the outset, it was easy to defy the English who marched on Calais after their shocking victory at Crécy over French forces of far greater number, the garrison and citizens mocking them from atop their walls as the enemy erected an immense camp named Villeneuve-le-Hardi—Brave New Town. Then came uncertainty when the relief promised by the King of France was delayed. Next fear as the enemy sought to breach the walls with all manner of assaults, including trebuchets and cannon. Now with food so scarce the dozen foragers were nearly gaunt, fear had become desperation. Once starvation began putting men and women in the ground, apathy would prove their end.

Amaury had not needed Calais’ commander to whisper that in his ear a sennight past when, following a meeting of leading citizens, he drew aside the youngest member and confided if the English continued preventing supplies from reaching them as done since gaining control of the harbor, Calais was doomed. Thus, soon he must smuggle another message to King Philip, warning when the last of their food was exhausted, cannibalism would be their only means of survival. Since he could not support that, the English would be let in.

Hence, once more Amaury and his men—some former pirates the same as he—had slipped out at blackest night. The last time they did so, their reward was a good haul of fish, but since the English patrol was out in force along the shore three nights now, other plans had to be made. They were perilous, but if Amaury and his men succeeded, they would have enough food to last for days.

Once their path was clear, they would venture to the outlying English troops who, distant from their king, were less disciplined as witnessed twice during earlier forays. If all went well, men who overly imbibed would snore through the loss of food supplies. But if they roused…

Amaury set a hand on his belted sword. He knew how to incapacitate and slay. The first did not overly trouble, but taking life to save himself or another was not to be shrugged off as eventually he might have had he not met Alainne. To gain the merchant’s widowed daughter-in-law, he had ceased pirating, which his estranged family named an ungodly profession though the King of France approved providing their prey was the English.

Feeling the fatigue of a mind and body deprived of sustenance, he lowered his lids and saw again the wife lost to him after less than two years of marriage. Though she passed a month before the siege commenced, she had not left him entirely alone. Soon their son would attain his second year.

If he does not starve, Amaury reminded himself of his purpose and opened eyes he should not close lest a shadow on the shore become an English patrol. For the sake of those hungering inside Calais, he and his men must overcome whatever came against them. If he himself did not, his son’s only hope was Séverine, his niece by marriage who became a mother to Mace following Alainne’s death.

God willing, she of ten and five is mature enough to do as instructed should ill befall me, he thought as he searched for untoward movement. My family’s heirlooms will sustain them and ensure Mace is trained into a godly warrior. When he is fully grown, she will give him what remains as well as my letter.

“Fléau?” asked the one who, though he was not to name Amaury that, reverted to their pirating days, confident the need to make as little noise as possible precluded retaliation.

Amaury glanced at the scrawny man who could climb masts and negotiate rigging as if born a spider. He had never liked Hugh who resented one so young being given command of their ship when its captain was injured capturing a vessel secretly outfitted with English soldiers.

Due to avid curiosity, Amaury had a head for things that had tested his sire’s patience. Blessedly, he also had a mind for warring, an exceptional build, and quick reflexes. Thus, for cutting a swath through the enemy and saving their captain’s life, fellow pirates proclaimed him Le Fléau de l’Anglais as they bound the crew and soldiers and put casualties into the sea. When later the vessel was recovered by an English warship, the tale told by its survivors was carried to King Edward. Thus, Le Fléau de l’Anglais became the most hunted of pirates.

Though grumblers adjusted to his command when their former captain did not recover sufficiently to return to the sea, Amaury knew to be cautious in gifting them trust, and that was borne out during his final pirating days when one of the crew sought to slay him. For it, the brother-in-law Hugh detested went down into the depths.

Returning to the present, Amaury prompted, “What is it, Hugh?”

“We should go.”

All appeared clear, but for hairs prickling the back of Amaury’s neck, he made his fellow foragers wait on clouds darkening the half moon’s brilliance.

When they drifted past, he confirmed the shore remained clear ahead, straightened, and peered between boulders at the shore behind. Providing it was also clear, when the moon went dull again they would run to their next cover and?—

Catching distant movement before rocks spilling into the sea, he confirmed it was not a patrol trudging the sand. Two long boats had come ashore, those manning them hurriedly offloading large sacks while another boat glided in.

Though there was no reason for the English to stealthily replenish supplies when they did so regularly in full view of the besieged, these men must be approached with caution. Were this a trap, Amaury and his men must have a chance of escape. Were this the relief long promised, it would not do to surprise their saviors who might think them English, leading to a clash sure to alert the enemy.

Be French, Amaury silently beseeched as he turned to those cloaked and hooded the same as he. “Three boats ashore,” he rasped and heard their gasps. “It appears they unload food, but we go slow and make for the wall if anything seems amiss.”

“The garrison may not have time to lower the bridge for our crossing,” Hugh said.

Since the drawbridge that spanned Calais’ marsh water moat could not be let down for clattering chains alerting the enemy, each time Amaury and his men departed the wall these past weeks, they did so on a makeshift bridge lowered by ropes and raised until their return. Unfortunately, to ensure the enemy remained unaware of the garrison’s ability to send out foraging parties, all must be done quietly when no English patrols were in sight.

“If there is not enough time, we swim,” Amaury said.

When someone at the rear harrumphed, its derision was not what made him look more closely at his hooded companions. It was what sounded a feminine note.

Before he could address his suspicion, Hugh hissed, “Cease your moaning, men. Do we get muck in our boots, so be it.”

There being little to admire about him beyond his mastery of sails and rigging, Amaury might have expanded on Hugh’s qualities if not for the questionable support of one likelier to scorn swimming. Unfortunately, needing to reach the boats ahead of an English patrol, he let it be.

“Once we have cloud cover again, we divide,” he said. “ Charles, take five and swing wide, approaching from the north. I shall take the rest and come in from the south.”

“Oui, my lord,” said the man who had been the personal guard of the father of Alainne’s first husband. When his employer died, Charles transferred his allegiance to the reformed pirate who, having wed Alainne and increased the merchant’s revenues, inherited the business. Thus, before the English came to pluck the jewel of Calais from the French crown, Amaury had become one of the most prosperous merchants, proving wrong those who expected little from one believed merely an excellent sword-wielding pirate. Not that it mattered now the only real business conducted inside the city was that of survival.

When the clouds once more sided with the foragers, Amaury and his men divided. Communication restricted to hand signals, they converged on those offloading sacks whose low murmurings revealed they were of Scotland—France’s ally for mutual hatred of the English.

Once the foragers identified themselves and fighting stances eased, Amaury and the leader he guessed a border Scot for an accent straddling England and Scotland organized the foragers to ensure the sacks reach the besieged in two trips. It meant overburdening weakened bodies, but two trips were so risky that a third was unthinkable, even if food must be left behind.

For the clouds holding the moon hostage, the initial trip was without event. Though all foragers were needed for the second trip, to ensure the first sacks made it into Calais, Amaury assigned two men to get them across the bridge being lowered down the wall. Hence, those who returned to the boats had to carry more, and Amaury shouldered one beyond the others for being unable to leave the last sack of milled grain. What had yet to be unloaded was perishable fruit and vegetables.

When the border Scot saw Amaury look longingly at what would be returned to the ship anchored offshore, he said, “I say we stash those amid yon rocks.” He jutted his chin. “If it is too dangerous to retrieve this night, then the next.”

Though an English patrol might discover them, Amaury said, “Much appreciated.”

The man near his own age and of intense blue eyes nodded, and when the last sack was set atop Amaury’s back, flipped up his fallen hood and said, “Godspeed, silvered one.”

His words gave Amaury pause, not because silver was seen in the hair of one not yet twenty and four, because Alainne had called him her silvered one nearly as often as she used his Christian name. In the beginning, mostly he was drawn to her outward loveliness. In the end, his heart was as entranced by inner beauty marred only by an inclination to use her wiles, rather than reasoning, to bend him to her will. Had they more time together…

“The longer you linger over what ails your mind, the farther you fall behind the others,” the border Scot warned.

After thanking him and his fellows for doing what King Philip could not or would not, Amaury departed. Following in the footsteps of those who, also lumbering beneath sacks, had gone from sight, he looked to the sky and saw the clouds thinned and more gaps advanced on the moon. As thought, there could be no third trip. And he must advance faster.

Watching for movement, he counted strides that strained beneath weight he would have borne easily a year past. Eight strides to the boulders…five…three…now cover. He longed to pause, but as it would waste clouded moonlight, continued. Four strides later, he inserted himself between immense rocks just as the half moon’s brilliance shone through a gap .

He could not have asked for a better excuse to stop. As he waited, great his regret for the loss of momentum. But worse regret was to come. Had he risked moonlight, still those who sprang at him from behind and to the left would have done so, but he would have had time and space to cast off the sacks and a chance to outrun them.

No sooner did he drop the sacks and reach for his sword than two of the English so forcefully put him to ground it knocked the breath from him—but not the sense to defend himself no matter how hopeless it was for one whose rations had been quartered to battle well-fed warriors.

When he sought to throw off his assailants and bring his dagger to hand, one snarled, “Do not kill him!” Shockingly, the voice belonged to a woman. “Curse you, Hugh, do not!” More shockingly, this was no English patrol.

Here enemies he had not expected for believing the death of one of his crew was far enough in the past he need no longer concern himself—that it would never be more than imagined daggers in his back when he and this woman passed in Calais. How wrong he had been. One of this night’s foragers was not Richarde as thought, that good-sized man either yielding his place to the woman who concealed herself beneath hood and mantle or her forcefully taking it from him.

As Amaury resisted calling for other foragers to aid him lest he summon an English patrol, he struck the jaw of an assailant and drew his dagger. When that one cried out and reared back, he slashed at the scrawny Hugh springing at him with a fisted blade.

Knowing he had drawn blood as the one likened to a spider bellowed, Amaury slashed again and saw Hugh’s sister whose build was more manly than that of her brother reverse her dagger and swing the hilt toward her prey’s head.

This time Amaury’s blade missed flesh, but his arcing arm carried him onto his side and up onto hands and knees. And down again when Gertrude landed a kick to his ribs and mocked, “Le Fléau, indeed!”

Unable to contain his shout, he rolled away, knocking Hugh’s legs out from under him. Then she ran at him again, only to falter over Scottish voices and the appearance of three come from the shore.

Having heard the struggle, they thought to give aid, doubtless believing the same as Amaury their opponents were English rather than foragers attacking one of their own. After pausing to assess the scene, the Scots advanced with drawn weapons.

Despite searing pain, Amaury got his feet under him, but then Gertrude’s brother jumped on his back, returning him to the ground. Though Hugh could have rammed a knife into his former captain, his sister wanted worse for the man who put her husband overboard.

As the Scots neared and two assailants ran at them, Hugh thwarted attempts to dislodge him by clamping his knees against Amaury’s pained ribs, making his head go light.

Fight! he silently commanded and struggled to get on his back to pin the man beneath him. But strength receded alongside consciousness, and the last he saw was Hugh’s sister drop a Scotsman on his face, the last he heard the voices of an English patrol raising the hue and cry, the last he thought…

Here God’s punishment for my pirating—my boy made fatherless.