Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [121]
“I just got here,” Michael said ruefully.
“Maybe we’ll come back next year,” Hook said, “and finish the job. Look!” He pointed far ahead to where, in the smudges of brown, golden and yellow leaves, a sheen of light glittered. “That might be the river.”
“Or a lake,” Michael suggested.
“We’re looking for a place called Blanchetaque,” Hook said.
“They have the funniest names,” Michael said, grinning.
“There’s a ford at Blanchetaque,” Hook said. “We cross that and we’re as good as home.”
He turned as hooves sounded loud behind and saw Sir John and a half-dozen men-at-arms galloping toward him. Sir John, bareheaded and wearing mail, slowed Lucifer. He was looking off to the left where the sea showed beyond a low ridge. “See that, Hook?” he asked cheerfully.
“Sir John?”
Sir John pointed to a tiny white lump on the sea’s horizon. “Gris-Nez! The Gray Nose, Hook.”
“What’s that, Sir John?”
“A headland, Hook, just a half-day’s ride from Calais! See how close we are?”
“Three days’ ride?” Hook asked.
“Two days on a horse like Lucifer,” Sir John said, smoothing the destrier’s mane. He turned to look at the nearer countryside. “Is that the river?”
“I think so, Sir John.”
“Then Blanchetaque can’t be far! That’s where the third Edward crossed the Somme on his way to Crécy! Maybe your great-grandfather was with him, Hook.”
“He was a shepherd, Sir John, never drew a bow in his life.”
“He used a sling,” Michael said, sounding nervous because he spoke to Sir John.
“Like David and Goliath, eh?” Sir John said, still gazing at the distant headland. “I hear you got church married, Hook!”
“Yes, Sir John.”
“Women do like that,” Sir John said, sounding gloomy, “and we like women!” He cheered up. “She’s a good girl, Hook.” He stared at the land ahead. “Not a goddam Frenchman in sight.”
“There’s a horseman down there,” Michael said very diffidently.
“There’s a what?” Sir John snapped.
“Down there,” Michael said, pointing to a stand of trees a mile ahead, “a horseman, sir.”
Sir John stared and saw nothing, but Hook could now see the man who was motionless on his horse in the deep shade of the full-leafed wood. “He’s there, Sir John,” Hook confirmed.
“Bastard’s watching us. Can you flush him out, Hook? He might know whether the goddam French are guarding the ford. Don’t chase him away, I want him driven to us.”
Hook looked at the land to his right, searching for the dead ground that would let him circle behind the horseman unseen. “I reckon so, Sir John,” he said.
“Do it, man.”
Hook took his brother, Scoyle the Londoner, and Tom Scarlet, and he rode away from the half-hidden horseman, going back toward the approaching army and then down a slight incline that took him from the man’s sight. After that he turned east off the road and kicked Raker’s flanks to gallop across a stretch of grassland. They were still hidden from their quarry. Ahead of the four horsemen were copses and thickets. The fields here had no hedges, only ditches, and the horses jumped them easily. The land was nearly flat, but had just enough swell and dip to hide the four archers as Hook turned north again. Off to his right a man was plowing a field. His two oxen were struggling to drag the big plow that was set low because winter wheat was always sown deeper. “He needs some rain!” Michael shouted.
“It would help!” Hook answered.
The horses thumped up an almost imperceptible rise and the landscape that Hook had held in his head revealed itself. He did not turn to the wood where the horseman was hidden, but kept going northward to cut the man off from the Somme. Perhaps the man had already ridden away? In all likelihood he was simply some local gentleman who wanted to watch the enemy pass, but the gentry knew more of what happened in their neighboring regions than the peasantry and that was why Sir John wanted to question the man.
Raker was tiring, blowing and fractious, and Hook curbed the horse. “Bows,” he said, uncasing his own and stringing it by supporting one end