“God’s sparing you, father,” Hook said.
“Perhaps He doesn’t want me in heaven?” Father Christopher suggested with a wan smile, “or perhaps He is giving me time to become a better priest.”
“You are a good priest,” Hook said warmly.
“I shall tell Saint Peter that when he asks if I deserve to be in heaven. Ask Nick Hook, I shall say. And Saint Peter will ask me, who is Nick Hook? Oh, I shall say, he’s a thief, a rogue, and probably a murderer, but ask him anyway.”
Hook grinned. “I’m honest now, father.”
“Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven, young Hook, but let us hope it’s many a long day before we meet there. And at least we’ll be spared Sir Martin’s company.”
Melisande sneered. “He is a coward. Un poltron!”
“Most men are cowards when they meet Sir John,” Father Christopher said mildly.
“He had nothing to say!” Melisande said.
Sir John had gone to the shelters where Lord Slayton’s men were camped. He had taken Hook and Melisande with him, and he had bellowed that any man who wished to kill Hook could do so right there and then. “Come and take his woman,” Sir John had shouted. “Who wants her?”
Lord Slayton’s archers, his men-at-arms, and his camp followers had been cleaning armor, preparing food, or just resting, but all had turned to watch the show. They watched in silence.
“Come and take her!” Sir John shouted. “She’s yours! You can take turns like dogs rutting a bitch! Come on! She’s a pretty thing! You want to hump her? She’s yours!” He waited, but not one of Lord Slayton’s men moved. Then Sir John had pointed at Hook. “You can all have her! But first you have to kill my ventenar!”
Still no one moved. No one even met Sir John’s eyes.
“Which man is being paid to kill you?” Sir John had asked Hook.
“That one,” Hook said, pointing at Tom Perrill.
“Then come here,” Sir John had invited Perrill, “come and kill him. I’ll give you his woman if you do.” Perrill had not moved. He was half hiding behind William Snoball who, as Lord Slayton’s steward, had some small authority, but Snoball dared not confront Sir John Cornewaille. “There is just one thing,” Sir John had added, “which is that you have to kill both Hook and me before you get the woman. So come on! Fight me first!” He had drawn his sword and waited.
No one had moved, no one had spoken. Sir Martin had been watching from behind some men-at-arms. “Is that the priest?” Sir John had demanded of Hook.
“That’s him.”
“My name is John Cornewaille,” Sir John had shouted, “and some of you know who I am. And Hook is my man. He is my man! He is under my protection, as is this girl!” He had put his free arm around Melisande’s shoulders, then pointed his sword blade at Sir Martin. “You, priest, come here.”
Sir Martin had not moved.
“You can come here,” Sir John said, “or I can come and fetch you.”
Sir Martin, long face twitching, had sidled away from the protective men-at-arms. He looked around as if seeking a place to run, but Sir John had snarled at him to come closer and he had obeyed. “He’s a priest!” Sir John had called, “so he’s a witness to this oath. I swear by this sword and by the bones of Saint Credan, that if a hair of Hook’s head is touched, if he is attacked, if he is wounded, if he is killed, then I shall find you and I shall kill you.”
Sir Martin had been peering at Sir John as though he were a curious specimen in a fairground display; a five-legged cow, perhaps, or a woman with a beard. Now, still with a puzzled expression, the priest raised both hands to heaven. “Forgive him, Lord, forgive him!” he called.
“Priest,” Sir John began.
“Knight!” Sir Martin had retorted with surprising force. “The devil rides one horse and Christ the other. You know what that means?”
“I know what this means,” Sir John had held his sword blade toward the priest’s throat, “it means that if one of you cabbage-shitting rat-humping turds touches Hook or his woman then he will have to reckon with me. And I will tear your farting bowels out of your putrid arses with my bare hands, I will make you die screaming, I will send your shit-ridden souls to hell, I will kill you!”
Silence. Sir John had sheathed his sword, the hilt thumping loud onto the scabbard’s throat. He stared at Sir Martin, daring the priest to challenge him, but Sir Martin had drifted away into one of his reveries. “Let’s go,” Sir John had said and, when they were out of earshot of the shelters, he had laughed. “That’s settled that.”
“Thank you,” Melisande had said, her relief obvious.
“Thank me? I enjoyed that, lass.”
“He probably did enjoy it,” Father Christopher said when the tale was told to him, “but he’d have enjoyed it more if one of them had offered a fight. He does love a fight.”
“Who’s Saint Credan?” Hook asked.
“He was a Saxon,” Father Christopher said, “and when the Normans came they reckoned he shouldn’t be a saint at all because he was a Saxon peasant like you, Hook, so they burned his bones, but the bones turned to gold. Sir John likes him, I have no idea why.” He frowned. “He’s not as simple as he likes to pretend.”
“He’s a good man,” Hook said.
“He probably is,” Father Christopher agreed, “but don’t let him hear you say that.”
“And you’re recovering, father.”
“Thanks to God and to your woman, Hook, yes, I am.” The priest reached out and took Melisande’s hand. “And it’s time you made an honest woman of her, Hook.”
“I am honest,” Melisande said.
“Then it’s time you tamed Master Hook,” Father Christopher said. Melisande looked at Hook and for a moment her face betrayed nothing, then she nodded. “Maybe that’s why God spared me,” Father Christopher said, “to marry the two of you. We shall do the deed, young Hook, before we leave France.”
And it seemed that must be soon because Harfleur stood undefeated, the army of England was dying of disease, and the year was inexorably passing. It was already September. In a few weeks the autumn rains would come, and the cold would come, and the harvest would be safely gathered behind fortress walls, and so the campaign season would end. Time was running out.
England had gone to war. And she was losing.
That evening Thomas Evelgold tossed a big sack to Hook. Hook jerked aside, thinking the sack would flatten him, but it was surprisingly light and merely rolled off his shoulder. “Tow,” Evelgold said in explanation.
“Tow?”
“Tow,” Evelgold said, “for fire arrows. One sheaf of arrows for each archer. Sir John wants it done by midnight, and we’re to be down in the trench before dawn. Belly’s boiling pitch for us.” Belly was Andrew Belcher, Sir John’s steward who supervised the kitchen servants and sumpters. “Have you ever made a fire arrow?” Evelgold asked.
“Never,” Hook confessed.
“Use the broadheads, tie a fistful of tow up by the head, dip it in pitch and aim high. We need two dozen apiece.” Evelgold carried more sacks to the other groups while Hook pulled out handfuls of the greasy tow, which was simply clumps of unwashed fleece straight off the sheep’s back. A flea jumped from the wool and vanished up his sleeve.
He divided the tow into seventeen equal sections and each of his archers divided their share into twenty-four, one lump of fleece for each arrow. Hook cut up some spare bowstrings and his men used the lengths of cord to bind the bouquets of dirty wool to the arrowheads, then they lined up by Belly’s cauldron to dip the tow into the boiling pitch. They propped the arrows upright against tree stumps or barrels to let the sticky pitch solidify. “What’s happening in the dawn?” Hook asked Evelgold.
“The French kicked our arses this morning,” Evelgold said grimly, “so we have to kick theirs tomorrow morning.” He shrugged as if he did not expect to achieve much. “You lose any more men today?”
“Cobbett and Fletch. Matson can’t last long.”
&nb
sp; Evelgold swore. “Good men,” he said grimly, “and dying, for what?” He spat toward a campfire. “When the pitch is dry,” he went on, “tease it out a bit. It lets it catch the fire easier.”
The camp was restless all night. Men were carrying faggots to the forward trench nearest to the enemy’s barbican. The faggots were great bundles of wood, bound with rope, and the sight of them made it clear enough what was intended at dawn. A flooded ditch protected the barbican and it would need to be filled if men were to cross and assault the battered fortress.
Sir John’s men-at-arms were ordered to put on full armor. Thirty men-at-arms had sailed from Southampton Water on the day the swans had flown low through the fleet to signify good fortune, but only nineteen were now fit to serve. Six had died, the other five were vomiting and shitting and shivering. The fit men-at-arms were being helped by squires and pages who buckled plates of armor over padded leather jerkins that had been wiped with grease so the shrouding metal would move easily. Sword belts were strapped over jupons, though most men-at-arms chose to carry poleaxes or shortened lances. A priest from Sir William Porter’s household heard confessions and gave blessings. Sir William was Sir John’s closest friend and also his brother-in-arms, which meant they fought side by side and had sworn to protect each other, to ransom each other if, by misfortune, either were taken prisoner, and to protect the other man’s widow if either were to die. Sir William was a studious-looking man, thin-faced and pale-eyed. His hair, before he hid it with a snout-visored helm, was thinning. He seemed out of place in armor, as though his natural home was a library or perhaps a courtroom, but he was Sir John’s chosen battle companion and that spoke volumes about his courage. He adjusted his helmet and pushed up the visor before nodding a nervous greeting to Sir John’s archers.
Those archers were armored and armed. Most men, like Hook, wore a padded haubergeon sewn with metal plates over a mail coat. They had helmets and a few had aventails, the hood of mail that was worn beneath the helmet and fell across the shoulders. Their bow arms were protected by bracers, they wore swords and carried three arrow bags, two of which contained the tow-headed fire arrows. Some chose to carry an ax as well as a bow, but most, like Hook, preferred the poleax. All the men, whether lords, knights, men-at-arms, or archers, wore the red cross of Saint George on their jupons.
“God be with you,” Sir William saluted the archers, who murmured a dutiful response.
“And the devil take the French!” Sir John called as he strode from his tent. He was in a high mood, the prospect of action giving his eyes a gleam. “It’s a simple enough job this morning!” he said dismissively. “We just have to take the barbican away from the bastards! Let’s do it before breakfast!”
Melisande had given Hook a lump cut from a flitch of bacon and a piece of bread, which he ate as Sir John’s company filed downhill toward the siege-works. It was still dark. The wind was brisk and cool from the east, bringing the scent of the salt marshes to cut the cloying smell of the dead. The arrows clattered in their bags as the archers followed the winding paths. Fires glowed in the siege lines, and on the defenses of Harfleur where, Hook knew, the garrison would be repairing the damage done during the previous day. “God bless you,” a priest called as the bowmen filed past, “God be with you! God preserve you!”
The French must have sensed something evil was brewing for they used a pair of catapults to lob two light carcasses across the ramparts. The carcasses were great balls of cloth and tinder soaked in pitch and sulfur and they wheeled and sparked as they arced through the night sky, then fell in a great gout of flame that burst bright when the wicker-strapped balls landed. The firelight reflected off helmets in the English trenches and those gleams provoked the crossbowmen on the walls to start shooting. The bolts whispered overhead or thumped into the parapets. Insults were shouted from the walls, but the shouts were half-hearted, as though the garrison was tired and uncertain.
The English trench was crowded. The archers with the fire arrows were ordered to the front, and behind them more archers waited with bundles of faggots. Sir John Holland, the king’s nephew, was in charge of the attack, though again, as when he had led the scouting party ashore before the invasion, he was accompanied by his stepfather, Sir John Cornewaille. “When I give the command,” the younger Sir John said, “the archers will loose fire arrows at the barbican. We want to set it alight!”
Iron braziers had been placed every few yards along the trench. They were heaped with burning sea-coal that gave off pungent fumes.
“Drown them with fire!” Sir John Holland urged the archers, “smoke them out like rats! And when they’re blinded by smoke we fill in the ditch and take the barbican by assault!” He made it sound easy.
The remaining English guns had been loaded with stones coated with pitch. The Dutch gunners waited, their linstocks glowing. Dawn seemed to take forever. The defenders got tired of shooting crossbow bolts and their insults, with their bolts, faded away. Both sides waited. A cockerel crowed in the camp and soon a score of birds was calling. Pageboys carrying spare sheaves of arrows waited in the saps behind the trench where priests were saying mass and hearing confessions. Men took it in turns to kneel and receive the wafers along with God’s blessing. “Your sins are forgiven,” a priest murmured to Hook, who hoped it was true. He had not confessed to Robert Perrill’s murder and, as he took the host, he wondered if that deception would condemn him. He almost blurted out his guilt, but the priest was already gesturing the next man forward so Hook stood and moved away. The wafer stuck to his palate and he said a sudden, silent prayer to Saint Crispinian. Did Harfleur have a guardian saint, he wondered, and was that saint beseeching God to kill the English?
A stir in the trench made Hook turn to see the king edging through the crowded ranks. He wore full battle armor, though he had yet to pull on his helmet. His breast and back plates were covered with a surcoat on which the royal arms were blazoned bright, crossed by the red of Saint George. The king carried a broad-bladed war-ax as well as his sheathed sword. He had no shield, but nor did any other knight or man-at-arms. Their plate armor was protection enough and iron-bound shields were a relic of olden days. The king nodded companionably to the archers. “Take the barbican,” he said as he walked along the trench, “and the city must surely fall. God be with you.” He repeated the phrases as he worked his way along the trench, followed by a squire and two men-at-arms. “I shall go with you,” he said as he neared Hook. “If God wants me to rule France then He will protect us! God be with you! And keep me company, fellows, as we take back what is rightfully ours!”
“String your bows,” Sir John Holland said when the king had gone past. “Won’t be long now!” Hook braced one end of his big bow against his right foot and bent it so that he could loop the string about the upper nock.
“Shoot high with the fire arrows!” Thomas Evelgold growled. “You can’t do a full draw or you’ll scorch your hand! So shoot high! And make sure the pitch is well alight before you loose!”
The gray light seeped brighter. Hook, gazing between two gabions of the battered parapet, could see that the barbican was a wreck. Its great iron-bound timbers that had once formed such a formidable wall had been broken and driven in by gunfire, yet the enemy had patched the gaps with more timbers so that the whole outlying fort now resembled an ugly hill studded with wooden balks. The summit, which had once stood close to forty feet high, was half that now, yet it was still a formidable obstacle. The face was steep, the ditch deep, and there was room at the top for forty or fifty crossbowmen and men-at-arms. Banners hung down the ruined face, displaying saints and coats of arms. Once in a while a helmeted face would peer past a timber as the men on the ragged top watched for the expected assault.
“You start shooting your fire arrows when the guns fire!” Sir John Cornewaille reminded his men. “That’s the signal!
Shoot steadily! If you see a man trying to extinguish the fires, kill the bastard!”
The coals in the neare
st brazier shifted, provoking a spurt of light and a galaxy of sparks. A page crouched beside the iron basket with a handful of kindling that he would pile on the coals to make the flames to light the pitch-soaked arrows. Gulls wheeled and flocked above the salt marsh where the bodies of the dead were thrown into the tidal creeks. The gulls of Normandy were getting fat on English dead. The wafer was still stuck in Hook’s dry mouth.
“Any moment now,” Sir William Porter said as though that would be a comfort to the waiting men.
There was a creaking sound and Hook looked to his left to see men turning the windlass that lifted the tilting screen in front of the nearest gun. The French saw it too and a springolt bolt whipped from the ramparts to thump into the lifting screen. A gunner pulled a gabion away from the cannon’s black mouth.
And the gun fired.
The pitch that coated the stone had caught fire from the powder’s explosion so that the gun-stone looked like a sear of dull light as it whipped from the smoke to flash across the broken ground and crash into the barbican.
“Now!” Sir John Holland called and the page piled the kindling onto the coals so that bright flames burst from the brazier. “Don’t let the arrows touch each other,” Evelgold advised as the archers held the first missiles in the newly roused fire. More guns fired. A timber on the barbican shattered and a spill of earth scumbled down the steep face. Hook waited till his pitch bouquet was well alight, then placed the arrow on the string. He feared the ash shaft would burn through, so he hauled fast, winced as the flames burned his left hand, aimed high and released quickly. Other fire arrows were already arcing toward the barbican, their flight slow and awkward. His own arrow leaped off the string and trailed sparks as it fluttered. It fell short. Other arrows were thumping into the splintered timbers of the barbican. The cannon smoke drifted like a screen between the archers and their target.
“Keep shooting,” Sir John Holland called.
Hook took the rag he used to wax his bow from a pouch and wrapped it about his left hand to protect himself from the flames. His second arrow flew true, striking one of the broken balks of wood. The burning missiles curved through the early light in showers of fire, and the barbican was already dotted with small flames as more and more arrows fell. Hook saw defenders moving on the makeshift rampart and guessed they were pouring water or earth down the barbican’s face and so he took a broadhead and shot it fast and true. Then he loosed his last fire arrow and saw that the flames were spreading and smoke was writhing from the broken barbican in a hundred places. One of the banners was alight, its linen flaring sudden and bright. He loosed three more broadheads at the ramparts, and just then a trumpet called from a few yards down the trench and the men carrying the bundled faggots pushed past him, climbed the parapet, and ran forward.