Agincourt

by Bernard Cornwell

“Did I?”

  “I’m sure I misheard, Sir John. Raise your arms, please.” Cartwright dropped a mail haubergeon over Sir John’s head. The chain mail was close-linked, sleeveless and dropped to Sir John’s groin. The armholes were wide, so that Sir John would not be hampered by its constriction. “Forgive me, Sir John,” Cartwright murmured as he always did when he knelt in front of his master and laced the front and back hems of the haubergeon between Sir John’s legs. Sir John said nothing.

  Cartwright also kept silent as he buckled the cuisses to Sir John’s thighs. The front ones slightly overlapped the back ones, and Sir John flexed his legs to make sure the steel plates moved smoothly against each other. He did not ask for any adjustment because Cartwright knew precisely what he was doing. Next came the greaves to protect Sir John’s calves, and the roundels for his knees, and the plate-covered boots that were buckled to the greaves.

  Cartwright stood and strapped the skirt into place. The skirt was leather, covered with mail and then plated with overlapping strips of steel to protect Sir John’s groin. Sir John was thinking of his archers trying to sleep in the driving rain. They would be tired, wet and cold in the morning, but he did not doubt they would fight. He heard stones scraping on blades. Arrows, swords, and axes were being sharpened.

  The breastplate and backplate came next, the heaviest pieces, made of Bordeaux steel like the rest of the plate, and Cartwright deftly secured the buckles, then strapped on the rerebraces that covered Sir John’s upper arms, the vambraces for his forearms, more roundels for the elbows, and then, with a bow, offered Sir John the plate-covered gauntlets that had their leather palms cut out so Sir John could feel his weapons’ hilts with bare hands. Espaliers covered the vulnerable place where breastplate and backplate joined, then Cartwright strapped the hinged bevor about Sir John’s neck. Some men wore a chain aventail to cover the space between helmet and breastplate, but the finely shaped steel bevor was better than any mail, though Sir John frowned irritably when he tried to turn his head.

  “Should I loosen the straps, Sir John?”

  “No, no,” Sir John said.

  “Your arms, Sir John?” Cartwright hinted gently, and then pulled the surcoat over his master’s head, helped Sir John’s arms into the wide sleeves, then smoothed the linen that was embroidered with the crowned lion and blazoned with the cross of Saint George. Cartwright buckled the sword belt into place and hung the big sword, Darling, which was Sir John’s favorite, from its studs. “You will entrust the scabbard with me, Sir John, in the morning?” Cartwright asked.

  “Of course.” Sir John always discarded his scabbard before a fight because a scabbard could tangle a man’s legs. When battle was close Darling would rest in a leather loop, her blade bare.

  A leather hood was laced over Sir John’s head, and it was done. The hood would help cushion the helmet which Sir John took, then handed back to Cartwright. “Take the visor off,” he ordered.

  “But…”

  “Take it off!”

  Once, in a tournament in Lyons, Sir John had managed to knock closed the visor of an opposing swordsman and the man’s subsequent half-blindness had made him easy to defeat. Tomorrow, he thought, an Englishman would need every small advantage he could find.

  “I believe the enemy have crossbows,” Cartwright said humbly.

  “Take it off.”

  The visor was removed and Cartwright, with a small bow, handed the helmet back to Sir John. Sir John would put it on later and Cartwright would buckle the helm to the espaliers, but for now Sir John was ready.

  It rained. Out in the dark a horse whinnied and thunder sounded. Sir John picked up the strip of purple and white silk that was his wife’s favor and kissed it before stuffing the silk into the narrow space between bevor and breastplate. Some men tied their women’s favors about their necks and Sir John, off balance, had once grabbed such a favor and so pulled an enemy off his horse and then killed him. If, tomorrow, an enemy seized the purple and white it would come free easily and not topple Sir John. Every small advantage. Sir John flexed his arms and found everything satisfactory, and so gave a grim smile. “Thank you, Cartwright,” he said.

  Cartwright bowed his head and spoke the words he had always spoken, right from the very first time he had armored his master. “Sir John,” he said, “you are dressed to kill.”

  As were thirty thousand Frenchmen.

  “What you should do,” Hook told Melisande, “is go away. Go tonight. Take all our coins, whatever you can carry, and go.”

  “Go where?” she demanded.

  “Find your father,” Hook said. They were talking in the English encampment, which lay in the lower ground south of the long plowed field. The small cottages of the village had been taken by lords, and Hook could hear the sound of hammers on steel as the armorers made the last adjustments to expensive plate. The sound was sharp, drowned by the seethe of the unending rain. To the east of the village the army’s wagons were parked, their spoked wheels lit by the few fires that struggled to survive the downpour. The French army was out of sight from the low ground, but their presence was betrayed by the dull glow of their campfires reflecting from the underside of the dark clouds. Those clouds were suddenly thrown into clear view by a fork of lightning that zigzagged into the eastern woods. A moment later a clap of thunder filled the universe like the sound of some monstrous cannon.

  “I chose to be with you,” Melisande said stubbornly.

  “We’re going to die,” Hook said.

  “No,” she protested, but without much conviction.

  “You talked to Father Christopher,” Hook said remorselessly, “and he talked to the heralds. He reckons there are thirty thousand Frenchmen. We’ve got six thousand men.”

  Melisande huddled closer to Hook, trying to find shelter under the cloak they shared. They had their backs to an oak tree, but it offered small protection against the rain. “Melisande was married to a king of Jerusalem,” she said. Hook said nothing, letting her say whatever it was she needed to say. “And the king died,” she went on, “and all the men said she must go to a convent and say prayers, but she didn’t! She made herself queen, and she was a great queen!”

  “You’re my queen,” Hook said.

  Melisande ignored the clumsy compliment. “And when I was in the convent? I had one friend. She was older, much older, Sister Beatrice, and she told me to go away. She told me I had to find my own life, and I didn’t think I could, but then you came. Now I shall do what Queen Melisande did. I shall do what I want.” She shivered. “I will stay with you.”

  “I’m an archer,” Hook said bleakly, “just an archer.”

  “No, you are a ventenar! Tomorrow, who knows, maybe a centenar? And one day you will have land. We will have land.”

  “Tomorrow is Saint Crispinian’s Day,” Hook said, unable to imagine owning land.

  “And he has not forgotten you! Tomorrow he will be with you,” Melisande said.

  Hook hoped that was true. “Do one thing for me,” he said, “wear your father’s jupon.”

  She hesitated, then he felt her nod. “I will,” she promised.

  “Hook!” Thomas Evelgold’s voice barked from the darkness. “Time to take your boys forward!” Tom Evelgold paused, waiting for a response, and Melisande clutched Hook. “Hook!” Evelgold shouted again.

  “I’m coming!”

  “I’ll see you again,” Melisande said, “before…” her voice trailed away.

  “You’ll see me again,” Hook said, and he kissed her fiercely before relinquishing the cloak to her. “I’m coming!” he shouted to Tom Evelgold again.

  None of his archers had been sleeping because none could sleep in the drenching rain beneath the thunder. They grumbled as they followed Hook up the gentle slope to the great stretch of black plowland where, for a long while, they blundered around searching for the picquet they were to relieve. Hook finally discovered Walter Magot and his men a hundred paces ahead of where the sharpened stakes were still p
ositioned. “Tell me you left me a big fire and a pot of broth,” Magot greeted him.

  “Thick broth, Walter, barley, beef and parsnips. Couple of turnips in it as well.”

  “You’ll hear the French,” Magot said. “They’re walking their horses. If they get too close you sing out and they go away.”

  Hook peered northward. The fires in the French camp were bright despite the rain, their flames reflected in rain-driven flickers from the water standing in the furrows and the same distant firelight outlined men leading horses in the field. “They want the horses warm for the morning,” Hook said.

  “Bastards want to charge us, don’t they?” Magot said. “Come morning, all those big men on big goddam horses.”

  “So pray it stops raining,” Hook said.

  “Christ, pray it does,” Magot said fervently. In rain like this the bowstrings would get wet and feeble, stealing power from the arrows. “Stay warm, Nick,” Magot said, then led his men away to the dubious comforts of the encampment.

  Hook crouched under the lash of wind and rain. Lightning staggered across the sky to stab down in the valley beyond the vast French camp and in its sudden light he had a vision of tents and banners. So many tents, so many banners, so many men come to the killing place. A horse whinnied. Scores of horses were being walked in the plowland and Hook, when they came close, could hear their big hooves sucking in the wet soil. A couple of men came too close and both times he called out and the French servants veered away. The rain slackened from time to time, lifting its veil of noise so Hook could clearly hear the sound of laughter and singing from the enemy camp. The English camp was silent. Hook doubted many men on either side would be sleeping. It was not just the weather that would keep them awake, but the knowledge that in the morning they must fight. Armorers would be sharpening weapons and Hook felt a shiver in his heart as he thought of what the dawn must bring. “Be with us,” he prayed to Saint Crispinian, then he remembered the advice of the priest in Soissons Cathedral, that heaven paid closer attention to those prayers that asked for blessings on others, and so he prayed for Melisande and for Father Christopher, that they would live through the next day’s turmoil.

  Lightning staggered across the clouds, stark and white, and the thunder cracked overhead and the rain settled into a new and venomous intensity, falling so thick that the lights of the French camp faded. “Who goes there?” Tom Scarlet suddenly shouted.

  “Friend!” a man called back.

  Another flicker of lightning revealed a man-at-arms approaching from the English encampment. He was wearing a mail coat and plate leggings and the sudden lightning lasted long enough for Hook to see the man had no surcoat and, instead of a helmet, wore a wide-brimmed leather hat. “Who are you?” Hook demanded.

  “Swan,” the man said, “John Swan. Whose men are you?”

  “Sir John Cornewaille’s,” Hook answered.

  “If every man in the army was like Sir John,” Swan said, “then the French would be wise to run away!” He almost had to shout to make himself heard above the rain’s malevolence. None of the archers responded. “Are your bows strung?” Swan asked.

  “In this weather, sir? No!” Hook answered.

  “What if it rains like this in the morning?”

  Hook shrugged. “We’ll shorten strings, sir, and shoot away, but the cords will stretch.”

  “And eventually they’ll break,” Will of the Dale added.

  “They unravel,” Tom Scarlet said in explanation.

  “So what will happen in the morning?” Swan asked. He had crouched near the archers who were clearly uncomfortable in the presence of this stranger.

  “You tell us, sir,” Hook said.

  “I want to know what you think,” Swan said forcibly. There was an embarrassed silence because none of the archers wanted to share his fears. A gust of laughter and cheering sounded from the French camp. “In the morning,” Swan said, “many of the French will be drunk. We’ll be sober.”

  “Aye, only because we’ve got no ale,” Tom Scarlet said.

  “So what do you think will happen?” Swan insisted.

  There was another silence. “Drunken goddam bastards will attack us,” Hook finally said.

  “And then?”

  “Then we kill the goddam drunken bastards,” Tom Scarlet said.

  “And so win the battle?” Swan asked.

  Again no one answered. Hook wondered why Swan had sought them out to have this forced conversation. Eventually, as none of his men spoke, Hook did. “That’s up to God, sir,” he said awkwardly.

  “God is on our side,” Swan said very forcefully.

  “We do hope that, sir,” Tom Scarlet said dubiously.

  “Amen,” Will of the Dale put in.

  “God is on our side,” Swan said even more forcefully, “because our king’s cause is just. If the gates of hell were opened in tomorrow’s dawn and Satan’s legions come to attack us, we shall still win. God is with us.”

  And Hook remembered that far-off sunlit day in Southampton Water when the two swans had beaten past the waiting fleet and he remembered, too, that the swan was one of the badges of Henry, King of England.

  “You believe that?” Swan asked, “that our king’s cause is just?”

  None of the other archers answered, but Hook recognized the voice now. “I don’t know if the king’s cause is just,” he said harshly.

  There was a silence for a few heartbeats and Hook sensed the man who called himself Swan stiffen with indignation. “Why should it not be?” Swan asked, his voice dangerously cold.

  “Because on the day before we crossed the Somme,” Hook said, “the king hanged a man for theft.”

  “The man stole from the church,” Swan said dismissively, “so of course he had to die.”

  “But he never stole the box,” Hook said.

  “He didn’t,” Tom Scarlet added.

  “He never stole that box,” Hook said harshly, “yet the king hanged him. And hanging an innocent man is a sin. So why should God be on the side of a sinner? Tell me that, sir? Tell me why God would favor a king who murders an innocent man?”

  There was another silence. The rain had eased a little and Hook could hear music coming from the French camp, then a burst of laughter. There had to be lamps inside the enemy’s tents because their canvas glowed yellow. The man called Swan shifted slightly, his plate leggings creaking. “If the man was innocent,” Swan said in a low voice, “then the king did wrong.”

  “He was innocent,” Hook said stubbornly, “and I’d stake my life on that.” He paused, wondering if he dared go further, then decided to take the risk. “Hell, sir, I’d wager the king’s life on that!”

  There was a hiss as the man called Swan took a sudden inward breath, but he said nothing.

  “He was a good boy,” Will of the Dale said.

  “And he never even got a trial!” Tom Scarlet said indignantly. “At home, sir, at least we get to say our piece at the manor court before they hang us!”

  “Aye! We’re Englishmen,” Will of the Dale said, “and we have rights!”

  “You know the man’s name?” Swan asked after a pause.

  “Michael Hook,” Hook said.

  “If he was innocent,” Swan said slowly, as if he were thinking about his response even as he spoke it, “then the king will have masses sung for his soul, he will endow a chantry for him, and he will pray himself every day for the soul of Michael Hook.”

  Another sharp fork of lightning stabbed the earth and Hook saw the dark scar beside the king’s nose where a bodkin arrow had hit him at Shrewsbury. “He was innocent, sir,” Hook said, “and the priest who said otherwise lied. It was a family quarrel.”

  “Then the masses will be sung, the chantry will be endowed, and Michael Hook will go to heaven with a king’s prayers,” the king promised, “and tomorrow, by God’s grace, we will fight those Frenchmen and teach them that God and Englishmen are not to be mocked. We will win. Here,” he thrust something at Hook
, who took it and found it was a full leather bottle. “Wine,” the king said, “to warm you through the rest of the night.” He walked away, his armored feet squelching in the thick soil.

  “He was a weird goddam fellow,” Geoffrey Horrocks said when the man called Swan was well out of earshot.

  “I just hope he’s goddam right,” Tom Scarlet put in.

  “Goddam rain,” Will of the Dale grumbled. “Sweet Jesus, I hate this goddam rain.”

  “How can we win tomorrow?” Scarlet asked.

  “You shoot well, Tom, and you hope God loves you,” Hook said, and he wished Saint Crispinian would break his silence, but the saint said nothing.

  “If the goddamned French do get in among us tomorrow,” Tom Scarlet said, then faltered.

  “What, Tom?” Hook asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Say it!”

  “I was going to say I’d kill you and you could kill me before they torture us, but that would be difficult, wouldn’t it? I mean you’d be dead and you’d find it really hard to kill me if you were dead.” Scarlet had sounded serious, but then began to laugh and suddenly they were all laughing helplessly, though none really knew why. Dead men laughing, but that, Hook thought, was better than weeping.

  They shared the wine, which did nothing to warm them, and slowly, gray as mail, the dawn relieved the dark. Hook went into the eastern woods to empty his bowels and saw a small village just beyond the trees. French men-at-arms had quartered themselves in the hovels and now were mounting horses and riding toward the main encampment. Back on the plateau Hook watched the French forming their battles under their damp standards.

  And the English did the same. Nine hundred men-at-arms and five thousand archers came to the field of Agincourt in the dawn, and across from them, across the furrows that had been deep plowed to receive the winter wheat, thirty thousand Frenchmen waited.

  To do battle on Saint Crispin’s Day.

  PART FOUR

  Saint Crispin’s Day

  Agincourt

  ELEVEN