Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [138]
“You spoke, Sir John?” Cartwright said.
“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