Agincourt

by Bernard Cornwell

  “We have to get past them, Tom.”

  “Jesus, we could sneak off tonight! Go back to Harfleur.”

  “The king won’t do that.”

  “Why not for God’s sake? He wants to die?”

  “He’s got God on his side,” Hook said.

  Tom shivered. “God might have sent us a decent breakfast.”

  Women brought what little food they had hoarded against this day. Melisande gave Hook an oatcake. “We share it,” Hook said.

  “It’s for you,” she insisted. There was mold on the oats, but Hook ate half anyway and gave Melisande the other half. There was no ale, just water from a stream that Melisande brought in an old leather wine bottle. The water tasted rank. Melisande stood beside him and stared at the French. “So many,” she said quietly.

  “They’re not moving,” Hook said.

  “So what will happen?”

  “We’ll have to attack them.”

  She shivered. “You think my father’s there?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  She said nothing. They waited. Waited. The trumpets and drums still sounded, but the musicians were tiring and the music was less exuberant. Hook could hear robins singing fitfully among the trees, some of which had already lost their leaves so that their branches were gaunt as scaffolds against the gray sky. The glistening wet plowland between the waiting armies was flitting with fieldfares and redwings that sought worms in the furrows. Hook thought of home, of the cows being milked, the sound of rutting stags in the woods, the shortening evenings and firelight in the cottages.

  Then there was a stir and Hook, startled back to reality, saw that the king, mounted once again on the small white horse and accompanied only by his standard-bearer, had ridden out ahead of the army. He was coming toward the archers on the right flank and his horse, troubled by the uncertain footing, was lifting its hooves high. The king had taken off his crowned helm and the small wind tousled his short brown hair, making him look younger than his twenty-eight years. He curbed the horse a few paces in front of the foremost stakes and the centenars shouted at their men to take off their helmets and kneel. This time the king accepted the obeisance, waiting until all two and a half thousand archers were on their knees.

  “Bowmen of England!” the king called, then was silent as the men shuffled closer to hear him. Cased bows and poleaxes were slung on their shoulders. Some men were armed with foresters’ axes or lead-weighted mallets. Most had a sword, though some carried nothing except a bow and a knife. Those with helmets had taken off their bascinets and others clawed back their mail hoods as they stared at their bareheaded king.

  “Bowmen of England!” Henry called again, and there was a catch in his voice, so that he paused again. The wind stirred the mane of his horse. “We fight today because of my quarrel!” the king shouted, his voice clear and confident now. “Our enemy deny me the crown that God has granted me! Today they believe they will humble us! Today they believe they will drag me as a prisoner before the crowds in Paris!” He paused as a murmur of protest went through the hundreds of bowmen. “Our enemy,” the king went on, “have threatened to cut off the fingers of every Englishman who draws a bow!” The murmur was louder now, a growl of indignation, and Hook remembered the square in Soissons where the cutting off of fingers had just been the start of the horror. “Of every Welshman who draws a bow!” the king added, and a ripple of cheers sounded from among the archers’ ranks.

  “All that they believe,” the king called, “yet they have forgotten God’s will. They are blind to Saint George and to Saint Edward who watch over us, and it is not just those saints who offer us their protection! This day is the feast of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian, and those saints want vengeance for the evils done to them at Soissons.” He paused again, but no murmur sounded. To most of the archers Soissons was a name that meant nothing, but they were still listening intently. “It has fallen to us,” the king said, “to wreak that vengeance and you must know, as certainly as I know, that we are God’s instruments this day! God is in your bows, God is in your arrows, God is in your weapons, God is in your hearts, and God is in your souls. God will preserve us and God will destroy our enemies!” He paused again as another low murmur sounded among the archers. “With your help!” the king shouted loud now, “with your strength! We will win today!” There was a heartbeat of silence, then the archers cheered. The king waited for the sound to die away. “I have offered peace to our foe! Grant me my rights, I said to them, and we shall have peace, but there is neither peace in their hearts nor mercy in their souls, and so we have come to this place of judgment!” Here, for the first time, the king took his eyes from the throng of kneeling archers and turned to look at the clay furrows that lay between the armies.

  He looked back to his audience. “I have brought you to this place,” he said, his voice lower now, but intense, “to this field in France, but I will not leave you here! I am, by the grace of God, your king,” his voice rose, “but this day I am no more than you and I am no less than you. This day I fight for you and I pledge you my life!” The king had to pause because the bowmen were cheering him again. He raised a gauntleted hand and waited for silence. “If you die here, I die here! I will not be taken captive!” Again the archers cheered, and again the king raised a hand and waited till the sound stopped. He smiled then, a confiding smile. “But I do not expect to be taken captive nor will I be killed, because all that I ask is that you fight for me this day as I will fight for you!” He thrust his right hand toward the archers, sweeping his fingers around to encompass them all. His horse capered sideways in the mud and the king calmed it expertly. “Today I fight for your homes, for your wives, for your sweethearts, for your mothers, for your fathers, for your children, for your lives, for your England!” The cheer that greeted those words must have been heard at the field’s far end where the French still waited beneath their bright banners. “Today we are brothers! We were born in England, we were born in Wales, and I swear on the lance of Saint George and on the dove of Saint David that I shall take you home to England, home to Wales, with new glories to our name! Fight as Englishmen! That is all I ask of you! And I promise that I will fight beside you and for you! I am your king, but this day I am your brother, and I swear on my immortal soul that I will not forsake my brothers! God save you, my brothers!” And with those words the king wheeled his horse and rode to give the same speech to the men-at-arms, leaving the archers on the right flank cheering him.

  “By God,” Will of the Dale said, “but he really thinks we’ll win!”

  And at the field’s far end the gusting wind lifted the red silk of the oriflamme so that it rippled above the enemy’s lance points. No prisoners.

  And still the French did not move. The archers were sitting now, despite the damp ground. Some even slept, snoring in the mud. The priests still offered absolution. Father Christopher used his stub of charcoal to write the talismanic name of Jesus on Melisande’s forehead. “You will stay with the baggage train,” he told her.

  “I will, father.”

  “And keep your horse saddled,” the priest advised.

  “To run away?” she asked.

  “To run away,” he agreed.

  “And wear your father’s jupon,” Hook added.

  “I will,” she promised. She had the surcoat in a sack that held her worldly possessions, and now she took out the fine linen and unfolded it. “Give me your knife, Nick.”

  He gave her his archer’s dagger and she used it to cut a sliver of material from the bottom hem of the jupon. She gave it to him. “There,” she said.

  “I wear it?” Hook asked.

  “Of course you do,” Father Christopher said. “That’s what a soldier does. He wears his lady’s colors.” He gestured toward the English men-at-arms, most of whom wore a silken handkerchief or favor around their necks. Hook looped his own strip about his neck, then took Melisande into his arms.

  “You heard the king,” he told her, “God is
on our side.”

  “I hope God knows that,” she said.

  “I pray so too,” Father Christopher said.

  Then, suddenly, there was movement. Not from the French who showed no sign of wanting to attack, but from a group of English men-at-arms who had mounted horses and now rode along the army’s front. “We’re to advance!” the man who came to the right wing shouted. “Pick up your stakes! We’re to advance!”

  “Fellows!” It was the king himself who had gone a few paces ahead of the line and now stood in his stirrups and waved his arms to encompass all his countrymen. “Fellows! Let’s go!”

  “Oh, my God, my God,” Melisande said.

  “Go back to the baggage,” Hook told her, then began wrestling his thick stake out of the clinging earth. “Go on, love,” he said, “I’ll be all right. There’s not a Frenchman who can kill me.” He did not believe that, but he forced a smile for her sake. He felt his stomach lurch. Fear was making him cold. He felt fragile, weak, shaking, but somehow he dragged the stake free and laid it over his shoulder.

  He did not look back at Melisande. He started walking, struggling in the thick mud, and all along the English line men were doing the same. They moved pitifully slowly, dragging their feet out of the wet, clinging soil, and going pace by difficult pace toward the French.

  And the French watched them. Just watched. “If the bastards had any sense they’d attack us now,” Evelgold said.

  “Maybe they will,” Hook said. He watched the distant enemy. Some horsemen who had been exercising their destriers were walking them back toward the flanks of the army, but there appeared to be no urgency in their actions. The trumpets did not change their tune. The French seemed content to let the English march the length of the plowland, and Hook felt his mind skittering like a hare in the spring grass. Had it really been the king who came to the archers in the night? He had forgotten to whip the center of one of his spare bowstrings where the cord engaged an arrow’s nock. Would the king really pray for Michael? Would death be quick? Piers Candeler suddenly loosed a string of oaths and kicked off both boots to negotiate the plow barefoot. Hook remembered the archer he had hanged in London and wondered if that man had felt just this same fear when he watched the Scottish army come to fight on Homildon’s green hill, and then he thought of all the other Englishmen who had carried a war bow for their king. They had fought the Scots, the Welsh, each other, and always, always, they had fought the French, and still these French did not move. Their immobility was scaring Hook. They seemed content to wait, knowing that the small English army must throw itself on their blades.

  Hook’s left foot was trapped in the soil’s suction so he did what other archers were doing, let the boot go. He pulled off the other boot and went barefoot, finding it easier. “If they move,” Evelgold shouted in warning, “we stop, string bows, and plant stakes.”

  Yet the French did not move. Hook could see still more men joining their army, most coming from the east. The mounted men-at-arms on either flank were watching the English, but not spurring the big warhorses, which had armored faces and padded cloths over their chests and rumps. The riders’ long lances were held upright. Some of the steel-tipped, ash-shafted lances had pennons attached. The horsemen had their helmets’ visors open and Hook could see steel-framed faces. He was cold even though he was sweating. He wore a padded haubergeon over his leather-lined mail coat, and that armor might stop a sword swing, but it would easily be pierced by a lance. He tried to imagine dodging a spear’s thrust in this thick mud and knew it would be impossible.

  “Slow down!” a voice ordered. The archers were getting too far ahead of the English men-at-arms who, encumbered by their armor, were making hard work of the waterlogged plowland. Yet, step by step, they advanced steadily, and the woods on either side drew closer so that the English line now filled the space between the trees. The bright group of heralds, French, English, and Burgundian, were walking their horses closer to the French, holding a position halfway between the two armies.

  “Christ on His goddam cross,” Evelgold grumbled, “but how close does he want us?”

  Then a voice bellowed at the archers to replant their stakes. The enemy was close now, only a little more than two hundred paces away, and that was no farther than the most distant marks at an archery contest, and Hook remembered those summer days with jugglers and dancing bears and free ale and the crowds cheering as the archers drew and loosed. “Stakes!” a man shouted, “plant them firm!”

  Hook’s stake slid easily enough into the soft ground. He glanced at the enemy, saw that they were still not moving, and so unslung his poleax and gave the stake’s sharpened tip three hard blows that blunted the wood even as it drove the stake deeper into the ground. He used his knife to shave away the crushed wood and thus sharpen the replanted stake, and then, at last, he uncased the bow from its horsehide sheath. All around him archers were fixing stakes or stringing bows. Hook braced his bow against the stake’s lower end and bent the yew to slip the cord’s noose over the upper nock. He took both arrow bags from his shoulder. He pulled the arrows free and pushed them point down into the soil, bodkins to the left and the half-dozen broadheads to the right. He kissed the bow’s belly, where the dark wood met the light. Dear God, he prayed, and then he prayed to Saint Crispinian, and his heart felt like a trapped bird and his mouth was dry and his right leg shivered, and still the French were motionless and Saint Crispinian made no answer to Hook’s prayer.

  The archers were spread out. Their stakes did not make a solid line facing the French, but instead were sunk in scattered lines, filling a space as wide and deep as the marketplace where Henry had burned and hanged the Lollards. There were a couple of paces between stakes, space enough for a man to move, but too tight for any horse to maneuver freely. The archers’ crude ranks stretched back so that the men in the rear could not see the enemy because of the archers in front of them, but that did not matter yet because at two hundred paces they would need to shoot high in the air if their arrows were to reach the French. Hook was in the foremost rank and he turned to see Thomas Perrill hammering in his stake some paces behind and to his right. There was no sign of Sir Martin and Hook wondered if the priest had gone back to the camp. That thought made him shiver for Melisande’s safety, but there was no time to worry about that because Tom Evelgold was shouting at his men to face front.

  Hook thought the enemy was at last advancing, but the French were not stirring. Their center was a long thick line of dismounted men-at-arms in bright surcoats and polished armor, while their flanks were two masses of horsemen armed with lances. The flags were silken-bright against the gray sky and, in the very center of the French line, where the banners were thickest, the oriflamme was a red streak of wind-driven ripples telling the English that the enemy would show them no mercy.

  Hook tried to find the Sire de Lanferelle in the enemy ranks, but could not see him. Instead he saw the weapons. He saw swords, lances, poleaxes, falcon-beaks, mauls, battleaxes, and maces. Some of the maces had spiked heads. He laid a broadhead across the bow’s thick-bellied stave and suddenly wanted to empty his bowels again. He closed his eyes for an instant and said another fervent prayer to Saint Crispinian, then planted his bare feet in the slimy earth. He braced himself.

  “Sweet Jesus Christ,” Thomas Scarlet said.

  “Oh God, oh God,” Will of the Dale muttered.

  Sir Thomas Erpingham, gray-haired and bareheaded, had mounted his small horse and ridden a few paces ahead of the English line. The horse picked its feet high, unhappy with the sticky soil. Behind Sir Thomas the English men-at-arms waited. The nine hundred were arrayed four deep, with the king, resplendent in shining armor and with a jeweled crown of gold ringing his battle-helm, standing in their center. Sir Thomas, in a green surcoat blazoned with the red cross of Saint George, turned the horse so that his back was toward the French. He waited a few heartbeats.

  “Be with me now,” Hook prayed aloud to Saint Crispinian.

&nbs
p; He wished the saint would talk to him, but Crispinian was still silent.

  “Draw!” Thomas Evelgold ordered in a low voice.

  Hook lifted the bow. He drew the hemp-string all the way to his ear and felt the savage power in the bent wood. He aimed at a horse directly ahead of him, but knew it would be luck if the arrow struck where he aimed. If the French had been fifty paces closer he would have picked his targets and been sure of hitting each one, but at extreme bowshot he would be lucky to land the arrow within four or five feet of his target. He held the string back and his right arm quivered.

  Five thousand archers had drawn their bows. Five thousand arrows were held on five thousand strings.

  A flock of starlings flew up beyond the Tramecourt woods, their wingbeats sudden and loud. They resembled a swirl of dark smoke above the trees and then, as suddenly as they had appeared, they went. All along the French line the visors were being dropped. Hook had seen faces, but now could see only faceless steel.

  “God be with us,” an archer muttered as Sir Thomas stood in his saddle.

  Sir Thomas Erpingham threw the green baton high so that it circled in the damp air. There was silence above the field of Agincourt, a silence in which the green baton flew, its golden finials bright against the dull sky. “Now,” Sir Thomas shouted, “strike!”

  The baton fell.

  Hook released.

  The arrows flew.

  The first sound was the bowstrings, the snap of five thousand hemp cords being tightened by stressed yew, and that sound was like the devil’s harpstrings being plucked. Then there was the arrow sound, the sigh of air over feathers, but multiplied, so that it was like the rushing of a wind. That sound diminished as two clouds of arrows, thick as any flock of starlings, climbed into the gray sky. Hook, reaching for another broadhead, marveled at the sight of five thousand arrows in two sky-shadowing groups. The two storms seemed to hover for a heart’s beat at the height of their trajectory, and then the missiles fell.