Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [144]
“I promised not to kill him in the battle,” Hook said.
“That’s not enough, Nick. You want to go to God’s judgment with hatred in your heart?”
“I can’t make peace with them,” Hook said, “not after they killed Michael.”
“Christ forgave His enemies, Nick, and we are to be like Christ.”
“I’m not Christ, father. I’m Nick Hook.”
“And God loves you,” Father Christopher sighed, then made the sign of the cross on Nick’s head. “You will not murder either man, Nick. That is a command from God. You understand me? You will not go into this battle with hatred in your heart. That way God will look gently on you. Promise me you will think no murder, Nick.”
It was a struggle. Hook was silent for a while, then he nodded abruptly. “I won’t kill them, father,” he said unhappily.
“Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. You swear that?”
There was another pause. Hook was thinking of the long years, of the embedded hatred, of the loathing he felt for Sir Martin and for Tom Perrill, and then he thought of what he had to face this day and he knew that if he were to go to heaven then he must give Father Christopher the solemn promise. He nodded abruptly. “I swear it,” he said.
Father Christopher’s hands tightened on Hook’s bare scalp again. “Your penance is to shoot well this day, Nicholas Hook. Shoot well for God and your king. Te absolvo,” he said. “Your sins are forgiven. Now look up at me.”
Hook looked up. The rain had finally stopped. He stared into Father Christopher’s eyes as the priest took a sliver of charcoal and carefully wrote on Hook’s forehead. “There,” he said when he was finished.
“What’s that, father?”
Father Christopher smiled, “I’ve written IHC Nazar on your forehead. Some folk believe it protects a man from sudden death.”
“What does it mean, father?”
“It’s the name of Christ, the Nazarene.”
“Write it on Melisande’s forehead, father.”
“I will, Hook, of course I will. Now ready yourself for the body of Christ.” Hook received the sacrament and then, as other men were doing and as the king had done, he took a pinch of wet earth and swallowed it with the wafer to show he was ready for death. The gesture proclaimed he was prepared to receive the earth as the earth might have to receive him. “God bless you, Nick,” Father Christopher said.
“I hope we meet when it’s over, father,” Hook said, pulling the helmet over his aventail.
“I pray that too,” the priest said.
“The shit-eating bastards must come soon,” Will of the Dale grumbled when Hook rejoined his men, yet the French showed no sign of wanting to attack. They waited, their deep ranks almost filling the wide space between the woods. The English heralds, resplendent in their liveries and holding their long white wands, had ridden halfway to the enemy’s line where they had been met by French and Burgundian heralds and now they all made a bright group that sat on their horses at the edge of the trees beside a tumbledown hovel with a mossy roof. They would observe the battle together and at its end they would decree the winner.
“Come on, you goddam bastards,” a man grumbled.
But the goddam bastards did not come. Their trumpets howled, but the long steel ranks showed no sign of being ready to advance. They waited. The trapper-bright horses milled about to hide the crossbowmen behind. A brief ray of sunlight shone on the center of their line and Hook saw the oriflamme, the red forked pennant that announced to the French that they were to take no prisoners. Kill everyone.
“Evelgold! Hook! Magot! Candeler!” Now it was Sir John Cornewaille’s turn to pace in front of the archers. “Come here! The four of you!”
Hook joined the other three sergeants. It was extraordinarily hard to walk through the deep plow because the clay soil had turned to a viscous reddish mud that clung to his boots. It was even harder for