Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [139]
Cartwright bowed his head and spoke the words he had always spoken, right from the very first time he had armored his master. “Sir John,” he said, “you are dressed to kill.”
As were thirty thousand Frenchmen.
“What you should do,” Hook told Melisande, “is go away. Go tonight. Take all our coins, whatever you can carry, and go.”
“Go where?” she demanded.
“Find your father,” Hook said. They were talking in the English encampment, which lay in the lower ground south of the long plowed field. The small cottages of the village had been taken by lords, and Hook could hear the sound of hammers on steel as the armorers made the last adjustments to expensive plate. The sound was sharp, drowned by the seethe of the unending rain. To the east of the village the army’s wagons were parked, their spoked wheels lit by the few fires that struggled to survive the downpour. The French army was out of sight from the low ground, but their presence was betrayed by the dull glow of their campfires reflecting from the underside of the dark clouds. Those clouds were suddenly thrown into clear view by a fork of lightning that zigzagged into the eastern woods. A moment later a clap of thunder filled the universe like the sound of some monstrous cannon.
“I chose to be with you,” Melisande said stubbornly.
“We’re going to die,” Hook said.
“No,” she protested, but without much conviction.
“You talked to Father Christopher,” Hook said remorselessly, “and he talked to the heralds. He reckons there are thirty thousand Frenchmen. We’ve got six thousand men.”
Melisande huddled closer to Hook, trying to find shelter under the cloak they shared. They had their backs to an oak tree, but it offered small protection against the rain. “Melisande was married to a king of Jerusalem,” she said. Hook said nothing, letting her say whatever it was she needed to say. “And the king died,” she went on, “and all the men said she must go to a convent and say prayers, but she didn’t! She made herself queen, and she was a great queen!”
“You’re my queen,” Hook said.
Melisande ignored the clumsy compliment. “And when I was in the convent? I had one friend. She was older, much older, Sister Beatrice, and she told me to go away. She told me I had to find my own life, and I didn’t think I could, but then you came. Now I shall do what Queen Melisande did. I shall do what I want.” She shivered. “I will stay with you.”
“I’m an archer,” Hook said bleakly, “just an archer.”
“No, you are a ventenar! Tomorrow, who knows, maybe a centenar? And one day you will have land. We will have land.”
“Tomorrow is Saint Crispinian’s Day,” Hook said, unable to imagine owning land.
“And he has not forgotten you! Tomorrow he will be with you,” Melisande said.
Hook hoped that was true. “Do one thing for me,” he said, “wear your father’s jupon.”
She hesitated, then he felt her nod. “I will,” she promised.
“Hook!” Thomas Evelgold’s voice barked from the darkness. “Time to take your boys forward!” Tom Evelgold paused, waiting for a response, and Melisande clutched Hook. “Hook!” Evelgold shouted again.
“I’m coming!”
“I’ll see you again,” Melisande said, “before…” her voice trailed away.
“You’ll see me again,” Hook said, and he kissed her fiercely before relinquishing the cloak to her. “I’m coming!” he shouted to Tom Evelgold again.
None of his archers had been sleeping because none could sleep in the drenching rain beneath the thunder. They grumbled as they followed Hook up the gentle slope to the great stretch of black plowland where, for a long while, they blundered around searching for the picquet they