Agincourt

by Bernard Cornwell

  Melisande’s prayer took shape slowly. It had begun as an incoherent cry for help, but she forced herself to choose her words carefully as she prayed to the Virgin. Nick is a good man, she told the Mother of Christ, and a strong one, but he can be angry and sour, so help him now to be strong and alive. Let him live. That was the prayer, to let her man live.

  “What do we do if the French come?” Matilda Cobbold asked.

  “Run,” one of the other women said, and just then there was a roar from the hidden high ground beyond the skyline. They had heard the war-shout of Saint George, but the women were too far away to hear the saint’s name, only the great bellow of sound that told them something must be happening beyond the skyline.

  “God help us,” Matilda said.

  Melisande opened the sack that contained her worldly belongings. She wanted the jupon her father had sent her, but the sack also contained the ivory-stocked crossbow that Nick had given her almost three months before. She pulled it out.

  “You’ll fight them on your own?” Matilda asked.

  Melisande smiled, but found it hard to speak. She was so nervous, so frightened, knowing that what happened beyond the high horizon would decide her life’s course and that it was all beyond her control. She could only pray.

  “Go up there, love,” Nell Candeler said, “and shoot some of the bastards.”

  “It’s still cocked,” Melisande said in wonderment.

  “What is?” Matilda asked.

  “The bow,” Melisande said. “I never released it.” She stared at the crossbow, remembering the day Matt Scarlet had died, the day she had pointed the crossbow at her father. Ever since that day the bow had been cocked, its steel-shanked stave under the thick cord’s strain, and she had never noticed. She almost pulled the trigger, then impulsively thrust the bow back into her sack and pulled out the folded jupon. She stared at the bright cloth, half tempted to pull it over her head, but she suddenly knew she could not wear an enemy’s badge while Nick was fighting, and then another certainty overtook her, the knowledge that she would never see Nick again so long as she was tempted to wear her father’s jupon. It had to be thrown away. “I’m going to the river,” she said.

  “You can piss here,” Nell Candeler said.

  “I want to walk,” Melisande said, and she picked up her heavy sack and went south, away from the armies on the plateau and away from the baggage. She walked through the army’s sumpters that cropped the autumn grass, her feet soaked by the damp. She had an idea to throw the jupon into the Ternoise and watch it float downstream, but the River of Swords was too far away and so she settled for a stream that ran high and fast from the night’s rain. The stream flowed through the tangle of small fields and woods that lay just south of the village and she crouched on its bank where the leaves of the alders and willows had turned yellow and gold and there she dropped the sack, closed her eyes, and held the jupon in both hands as if it were an offering.

  “Look after Nick,” she prayed, “let him live,” and with those words she threw her father’s jupon into the stream and watched it being carried fast away. The farther it went, she thought, the safer Nick would be.

  Then the French gun fired, and that sound was loud enough to reverberate all through the valley behind the battlefield, loud enough to make Melisande turn and stare north.

  To see Sir Martin, grinning and lanky, his gray hair slicked close against his narrow skull.

  “Hello, little lady,” he said hungrily.

  And there was no one for Melisande to ask for help.

  She was alone.

  A cloud of smoke rose above the horizon, marking the distant place where the gun had fired.

  “All a-lonely,” Sir Martin said, “just you and me.” He made a gurgling sound that might have been laughter, hitched up his robes, and came for her.

  TWELVE

  The gun fired, belching smoke above the left flank of the French army.

  Hook saw the gun-stone and did not recognize what it was, but for an instant there was a dark object rising and falling above the plowland and it seemed as if the thing, it was just a dark flicker, was coming straight for him and then the gun’s noise splintered the sky and birds rose screeching from the trees as the gun-stone struck an archer’s head a few paces from Hook.

  The man’s skull was obliterated in an instant spray of blood and shattered skull. The stone kept flying, leaving a feathered trail of misted blood until it slapped into the mud two hundred paces behind the English line. It narrowly missed the destriers of the men-at-arms that were empty-saddled and under the guard of pageboys.

  “Jesus,” Tom Scarlet said in disgust. There were jellied scraps of brain trickling down his bow’s shaft.

  “Just keep shooting,” Hook said.

  “Did you see that?” Scarlet asked in indignant amazement.

  What Hook saw was dead and dying horses, dead riders, and beyond them a mass of dismounted men-at-arms advancing toward him. Crossbow bolts whirred close, but there were very few enemy bowmen who had a clear sight of the English. The French crossbowmen were aligned with the rearmost battle, too far to be sure of their aim, and most could not even see their enemy. Then, as the first French battle advanced to fill the space between the woodlands of Tramecourt and Agincourt, the French bowmen lost sight of the English altogether and the missiles stopped flying.

  The first French battle was spread across the wide plowed field between the trees, but, because those woods funneled ever closer together, the line of armored men was being squeezed inward. Their ranks were already ragged, torn apart by the panicked horses that had bolted through them, but now they were jostling for space as the field contracted and all the while the arrows drove into them.

  Hook was shooting steadily. He had already gone through one sheaf of arrows and had shouted for more. Boys were dumping fresh bundles among the archers, but hundreds of thousands were needed. Five thousand archers could easily shoot sixty thousand arrows in a minute and, when the cavalry had charged, they had shot even faster. Some men were still drawing and releasing as quickly as they could, but Hook slowed down. The closer the enemy came, the more lethal each arrow would be, so for now he was content to use broadheads against the advancing French.

  The broadheads could never hope to pierce plate armor, but the blow of their strike was sufficient to knock a man backward, and each man Hook knocked back caused a ripple of chaos, slowing the French, and the enemy were struggling, not just with mud, but with the incessant arrow strikes. He could hear the arrows cracking against steel, a weird noise, never-ending, and the French men-at-arms, who were still a hundred and fifty paces away, looked as though they bent into the face of a gale, but a gale that was bringing steel hail.

  Thomas Brutte cursed when his bow cord snapped to send an arrow spinning crazily into the air. He took a spare string from his pouch and restrung the bow. Hook saw how each of the enemy banners had a dozen or more arrows caught in their weave. He aimed at a man in a bright yellow surcoat, loosed, and his arrow threw the man backward. A horse lay on its side in front of the advancing French. The stallion’s death throes made it thrash its head and beat its hooves and the French line became even more disordered as men tried to avoid the animal. Bowstrings made their dull quick noise all around Hook. The sky was dark with arrows. Most archers were shooting at the men-at-arms who directly threatened them and, to avoid that arrow-storm, the foremost ranks of the French crowded still further inward, and that shrinking of the French line became more marked as the rearmost English archers, their aim frustrated by the men to their front, went into the thick briar underbrush of the Tramecourt woods and lined the edge of the trees from where they poured bodkins into the French flank.

  The bravest of the French struggled to reach the English quickly, while the more prudent fell behind to gain the protection of the bolder men in front, and Hook saw how the French men-at-arms, who had begun their advance in a long straight line, were now coalescing into three crude wedges that were
aimed at the flags waving in the center of each of the three English battles. It would be man-at-arms against man-at-arms, and the French, Hook supposed, were hoping to punch three bloody holes through the English line. And once that line of nine hundred men broke there would be chaos and death. He spared a glance north, worried that the narrowing of the French battle would give their crossbowmen a chance to shoot past the attackers’ flank, but those French archers seemed to have gone backward, almost as though they had lost interest in the fighting.

  He picked up a bodkin and found the man in the yellow surcoat again. He drew, released, and was plucking up another arrow when he saw the yellow-clad man fall to his knees. So the bodkins were piercing, and Hook shot again and again, punching arrows into the slow-moving mass of men. He aimed at the leading rank and not all his arrows pierced their armor, but some struck plumb and tore their way through. Frenchmen were falling, tripping the ranks behind, yet still the great armored crowd struggled on.

  “I need arrows!” a man shouted.

  “Bring us goddamned arrows!” another shouted.

  Hook still had a dozen. The enemy was close now, less than a hundred paces from the English line, but the arrow-storm was weakening as archers ran out of shafts. Hook drew long, picked a victim in a black surcoat, released and saw his arrow slap through the side of the pot-helm and the man seemed to totter in a circle, the arrow protruding from his brain as his lance knocked over another knight before the dying man dropped to his knees and fell full length in the mud. The next arrow glanced off a breastplate. Hook shot again, close enough now to see the details of his target’s livery. He saw a man in blue and green who had what appeared to be a gilded coronet around his helmet and Hook shot at him, then cursed himself because such a man could afford the finest armor and sure enough the arrow was deflected by the plate, though the man did stagger and was only rescued by his standard-bearer who pushed him back upright. Hook loosed again, shooting his arrow in a low trajectory that ended in a Frenchman’s thigh, and then there was only one arrow left. He held it on the stave, watching. It seemed to Hook that all the thousands of arrows had done surprisingly little damage to the enemy. Many Frenchmen were down and their bodies impeded the rest, but still the plowland seemed filled with living, mud-plastered, armored Frenchmen carrying their lances, swords, maces, and axes to the thin English line. They lumbered closer, each step an effort in the cloying earth, and Hook selected a man who seemed more eager than the rest and he sent his final arrow into that tall man’s chest. The bodkin point struck through steel plate and punctured a rib to pierce a lung and so fill the man’s helmet with a rush of blood that bubbled from his mouth and spilled from his visor’s holes.

  “Arrows!” Hook bellowed, but there were none except the few remaining in the hands of the rearmost archers, and those men saved their missiles. The archers were spectators now. They stood among their stakes, a few yards from the nearest French wedge that was just paces from the English vanguard.

  The archers had done their job. Now it was England’s men-at-arms who would have to fight.

  While the French, spared the arrows at last, gave a hoarse shout and lunged to the kill.

  The Sire de Lanferelle could vault onto the back of his horse while wearing a full suit of plate armor, he even danced in armor sometimes, not just because women adored a man dressed for killing, but to demonstrate that he was more elegant and lithe in armor than most men were without. Yet now he could hardly move. Each step was a fight against the soil’s suction. In places he sank to mid-calf and could find no purchase to drag his feet free, yet step by step he managed to keep going, sometimes leaning on his neighbor so he could wrench an armored foot out of the clinging earth. He tried to step in the furrows where water lay, because those furrows had the firmest bottoms, but he could scarce see the ground through the tight holes of his closed visor. Nor did he dare open the helmet, because the arrows were clattering and clashing and banging all around him. He was hit on the forehead by a bodkin that snapped his head back and almost toppled him, except that one of his men pushed him upright. Another arrow struck his breastplate, tearing a long rip in his jupon and scraping across the steel with a high-pitched squeal. His armor resisted both blows, though other men were not so fortunate. Every few heartbeats, in the middle of the metallic rain of arrows, a man would gasp or scream or call for help. Lanferelle did not see them fall, only hear them, and he was aware that the attack was losing its cohesion because men were crushing in from his left where most of the arrows came from, and those men squeezed the formation. Armor plate clanged against armor plate. Lanferelle himself was pushed so tight against his right-hand neighbor that he could not move his arm holding the lance and he bellowed a protest and made a huge effort to get a step ahead of the man. He was sweeping his head from side to side, trying to make sense of the blur of gray ahead. The English, he noticed, had their visors raised. They were not threatened by arrows and so could see to kill, but Lanferelle dared not lift his own visor because a handful of archers were posted between the English battles straight ahead and those men would thank God for the target of an unvisored French face.

  His breathing was hoarse inside the helmet. He reckoned himself to be a strong man, yet he was gasping as he waded through the thick soil. Sweat streamed down his face. His left foot slipped in a patch of slick mud and he sank to his right knee, but managed to heave himself upright and stagger onward. Then he tripped on something and sprawled again, this time falling beside the corpse of an unhorsed man-at-arms. Two of his men pulled him to his feet. He was sheeted in mud now. Some of the holes in his visor were blocked by mud and he pawed at them with his left hand, but the armored gauntlet could not clear the thick wet earth. Just get close, he told himself, just get close and the killing could start and Lanferelle was confident of his ability to kill. He might not be a mud-wader, but he was a killer, and so he made another huge effort, trying to get ahead of the crush so he would have room to use his weapons. He turned his head again, scanning through the visor’s remaining holes, and saw, straight ahead, a great banner showing the royal arms of England with their impudent appropriation of the French lily. The royal arms on the flag were defaced with three white bars, each bar with three red balls, and he recognized the badge as that of Edward, Duke of York. He would serve as a prisoner, Lanferelle thought. The ransom for an English royal duke would make Lanferelle rich, and that prospect seemed to give his tired legs a new strength. He was growling now, though quite unaware of it. The English line was close. “Are you with me, Jean?” he shouted, and his squire shouted yes. Lanferelle intended to strike the English line with his lance and then, as the enemy recoiled from that blow, drop the cumbersome weapon and use the mace that was slung on his shoulder, and if the mace broke he would take one of the spare weapons carried by his squire. Lanferelle felt a sudden elation. He had lived this long, he had survived the arrow-storm and he was taking his lance to the enemy, but just then a bodkin point ripped from the flank and struck plumb in one of the visor’s holes and sudden light flooded Lanferelle’s eyes as the arrow peeled back the steel and sliced a savage cut in the bridge of his nose. His head was wrenched painfully to one side as the arrow missed his right eyeball by a hair’s breadth and scored across his cheekbone to lodge in his helmet.

  He could see suddenly. He could see through the ragged hole torn by the arrow that he wrenched free with his left hand. He could not see much, but a sudden noise to his left made him turn to see a tall man pitch forward with blood bubbling from his visor’s holes, and then Lanferelle looked back to his front and the Duke of York was only a few paces away and so he dropped his left hand to brace the lance, took a deep breath, and shouted his war cry. He was still shouting as he charged, or rather as he churned his way through the last paces of muddy plowland. The shout mingled anger and elation. Anger at this impudent enemy and elation that he had survived the archers.

  And he had come to the killing place.

  Sir John Cornewaille was also
angry.

  Since the day the army had landed in France he had been one of the commanders of the vanguard. He had led the short march to Harfleur, been in the first rank of the men who had assaulted that stubborn city, and he had led the march north from the Seine to this muddy field in Picardy, yet now the king’s relative, the Duke of York, had been given command of the vanguard, and the pious duke, in Sir John’s view, was an uninspiring leader.

  Yet the duke commanded and Sir John, a few places to the duke’s right, could only submit to the appointment, but that did not mean he could not tell the men of the right-hand battle what they should do when the French came. He was watching the enemy men-at-arms approach, and he was seeing how they struggled in the mud, and he was awed by the thickness of the arrow-storms that converged from left and right to pierce and wound and kill. Not one French visor was open, so they were half blinded by steel and almost crippled by the mud, and Sir John was waiting for them with lance, poleax, and sword. “Are you listening!” he shouted. Ostensibly he was calling to his own men-at-arms, but only a fool would not heed Sir John Cornewaille’s words when it came to a fight. “Listen!” he bellowed through his unvisored helmet. “When they reach us they’re going to rush the last few paces! They want to hit us hard! They want the fight over! When I give the word we all step back three paces. You hear me? We step back three paces!”

  His own men, he knew, would obey him, as would Sir William Porter’s men-at-arms. Sir John had trained his men in the brief maneuver. The enemy would come at a rush and expect to lunge their shortened lances straight at English groins or faces, and if the English were suddenly to step back then those first energetic blows would be wasted on air. That was the moment Sir John would counterattack, when the enemy was off balance. “You wait for my command!” he shouted, and felt a brief moment of concern. Perhaps it was dangerous to step backward in such treacherous ground, but he reckoned the enemy was more likely to slip and fall than his own men. Those men were arrayed in three crude ranks that swelled to six where the Duke of York’s big company was arrayed around their lord. The duke, anxious face showing through his open helm, had not turned to look when Sir John shouted. Instead he had stared straight ahead while the tip of his sword, made of the best Bordeaux steel, rested lightly on the furrows. “When they come to strike!” Sir John bellowed, watching to see if the duke showed any response. “Cheat their blow! Step back! And when they falter, attack!” The duke did not acknowledge the advice, he still stared at the French horde that was losing its order. The flanks were crushing inward to escape the arrows, and the leading men were skewing what was left of the French formation by deliberately advancing on those places in the English line where the banners proclaimed the position of high nobility who might expect to pay extravagant ransoms. Yet, disorganized though the French were, this first battle was still a horde. It outnumbered the English men-at-arms by eight to one; it was an armored herd spiked with lances, thick with blades, a grinding wave of steel that seemed to shrug off the arrows as a bull might ignore the stings of swarming horseflies. Some Frenchmen fell, and whenever a man was put down by a bodkin point he would trip the men behind, and Sir John saw the crowding and jostling, the pushing and shoving. Some men were struggling to be in the front rank, wanting to win renown, others were reluctant to be the first to strike, yet all, he knew, were anticipating ransoms and riches and rejoicing.