Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [111]
Sir John left his right arm about the Frenchman’s shoulders as he led him toward the archers. “This is the Sire de Gaucourt,” he announced, “the leader of our enemies these last five weeks, and he has fought bravely! He deserves better than this, but our king commands and we must obey. Hook, give me the noose!”
Hook held out the halter. The Frenchman gave him an appraising look and Hook felt compelled to nod his head in respectful acknowledgment.
“I am sorry,” Sir John said in French.
“It is necessary,” Raoul de Gaucourt said harshly.
“Is it?” Sir John asked.
“We must be humiliated so that the rest of France knows what fate waits for them if they resist your king,” de Gaucourt said. He gave a wan smile then cast an appraising eye over the English army that waited to watch his humiliating walk to the king’s throne. “Though I doubt your king has the power to frighten France any more,” he went on. “You call this a victory, Sir John?” he asked, beckoning at the battered walls he had defended so bravely. Sir John did not answer. Instead he lifted the noose to place it about de Gaucourt’s head, but the Frenchman took it from him. “Allow me,” he said, and put the rope about his own neck.
The other Frenchmen had ropes placed about their necks, and then Sir John, satisfied, pulled himself back into Lucifer’s saddle. He nodded to de Gaucourt, then spurred his horse along the path made between the watching English soldiers.
The Frenchmen walked the path in silence. Some, the merchants, were old men, while others, mostly soldiers, were young and strong. They were the knights and burgesses, the men who had defied the King of England, and the nooses about their necks proclaimed that their lives were now at Henry’s mercy. They climbed the hillside, then knelt humbly before the throne canopied in cloth of gold. Henry gazed at them a long time. The wind lifted the silk banners and drifted smoke from the city’s ruins. The assembled English nobles waited, expecting the king to announce the death sentence on the kneeling men. “I am the rightful king of this realm,” Henry said, “and your resistance was treason.”
A look of pain showed briefly on de Gaucourt’s face. He ignored the accusation of treason and instead held out a thick bunch of heavy keys. “The keys of Harfleur, sire,” he said, “which are yours.”
The king did not take the offered keys. “Your defiance,” he said sternly, “was contrary to man’s law and to God’s law.” Some of the older merchants were shaking in fear and one had tears running down his face. “But God,” Henry went on loftily, “is merciful.” He lifted the keys at last, “and we shall be merciful. Your lives are not forfeit.”
A cheer sounded from the English army when the cross of Saint George was hoisted over the town. Next day Henry of England walked barefoot to the church of Saint Martin to give thanks to God for a victory, yet many who watched his humble pilgrimage reckoned that his triumph was a virtual defeat. He had wasted so much time before Harfleur’s walls and the sickness had torn his army apart, and the campaign season was almost over.
The English army moved inside the walls. They burned their encampment and dragged catapults and cannon through the ruined gate. Sir John’s men quartered themselves in a row of houses, taverns, and warehouses beside the wall-enclosed harbor where Hook found space in the attic of a tavern called Le Paon. “Le paon is a bird,” Melisande had explained, “with a big tail!” She had spread her arms wide.
“No bird’s got a tail