Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [163]
He forced his knees between her legs.
“I’ve been wanting to do this,” he said, kneeling above her, “forever such a long time.” He gave a spasm, then leaned forward, propping himself on his left hand while still holding the knife to her throat with his right. A second pouch was about his neck, tied next to a wooden crucifix with a leather cord, and both cross and pouch swung free, annoying the priest. “Don’t need those, do we?” he asked. “They just gets in the way, girl.” He used his knife hand to take the pouch and crucifix from his neck. The pouch clinked as he dropped it on the stream’s bank and the sound made him grin. “That’s Frenchie gold, little girl, gold that I found in Harfleur, and if you’re nice to me I’ll give you a groat or two. You are going to be nice, aren’t you? All quiet and nice like a good little girl?”
Melisande pushed her hand deeper into the sack and found what she wanted.
“I shall be nice,” she said in a frightened voice.
“Oh you will,” Sir Martin said hoarsely, putting the knife back to her throat, “you surely will.”
Sir John stepped back. Two paces were sufficient. At first he thought he had called the command too soon, then feared it was too late because his feet were stuck in the mud, but he wrenched them free and stumbled back two paces and the opposing Frenchmen gave a shout, thinking the English were trying to run away, then their lances thrust into empty air and the momentum of the lunges unbalanced them, and that was when Sir John struck. “Now!” he bellowed. “Strike!” and he rammed his own lance forward, spearing the iron-tipped point into the groin of the closest enemy. The English lances, like the French, had been cut down, but the French had cut their shafts shorter and so did not have the reach of the English weapons. Sir John’s lance slammed into metal and he leaned into the blow and saw the enemy fold over the point, and he pulled the lance back, watching the man fall, then struck it forward again.
The French, wasting their first blows on air, were stumbling. They were tired and could not pull their feet out of the sticky furrows and the force of the English lance blows was toppling them. To Sir John’s left and right there were men on their knees, and he slammed the lance hard into the visored face of a man in the second rank to throw him backward. Then he hurled the lance down and reached behind with his right hand. “Poleax!”
His squire gave him the weapon.
And the killing could start.
A lance struck Sir John’s head. His visor was missing and the Frenchman had tried to skewer Sir John’s eyes, but the blow glanced off his helmet and Sir John pushed a step forward and swung the poleax in a short cut that smacked on the man’s helmet, crushing it, and so another man was down in the mud. A whole rank of men had stumbled, and Sir John made certain they stayed down by cracking the lead-weighted hammer on their helmets. The man who had folded around Sir John’s lance was trying to rise again and Sir John chopped the ax blade hard against his backplate, then shouted at his squire to finish the man off. “Open his visor,” he shouted, “kill him!” Then Sir John planted his feet and began picking his enemies.
Those enemies were already encumbered. The first rank of Frenchmen was mostly on the ground where they were bleeding in a tangle of bodies and discarded lances, and the following ranks had to stumble over those obstacles and as they tried so they were met with ax blades, mace heads, and lance points. It might not have mattered if the French had been able to negotiate the obstacles in their own time, but they were pushed onto them by the press of men behind and so they stumbled haplessly into the English blades. “Kill them!” Sir John bellowed. “Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!” That was when the battle joy came to him, the