Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [174]
“I hoped we would meet,” Lanferelle said.
“You wanted to die?” Hook snarled. The panic still rippled in his body, but there was also a relief that he had survived, then he had to parry desperately as two blades darted toward his unarmored legs. Tom Evelgold came to his help, as did Will of the Dale.
“Tom’s dead,” Will said, then swept his big ax around to knock a lance aside.
“How’s Melisande?” Lanferelle asked.
“So far as I know,” Hook said, “she lives.” He thrust again and had the ax knocked aside again, but he had not put all his strength into the blow and recovered fast to sweep the lead-weighted head back to hit Lanferelle’s arm, but still without sufficient force and the Frenchman scarce seemed to notice.
Lanferelle smiled. “She lives,” he said, “and you die.” He began stabbing his weapon in short, very controlled strokes that came fast, sometimes low, sometimes high, and Hook, unable to parry and without time to counter-strike, could only retreat. Lanferelle had crusted blood beside one eye, but his face was strangely calm, and that calmness scared Hook. The Frenchman watched Hook’s eyes all the time, and Hook knew he would die unless he could somehow get past that flickering blade. Tom Evelgold had the same idea and he managed to shove a lance to one side and push past the blade so that he was on Lanferelle’s right, and the centenar, holding his poleax two-handed like a leveled lance, screamed a curse as he rammed the blade forward with its spike aimed at the Frenchman’s faulds. The spike would go through the plates, through the mail, through the leather to rip open Lanferelle’s lower belly, except at the last moment Lanferelle raised the butt end of his pole to deflect the lunge and so take its huge force on his breastplate. The Milanese steel withstood the blow and threw it off, then Lanferelle jerked his head forward, smashing his raised visor hard into Tom Evelgold’s face as another Frenchman skewered a sword into the Englishman’s thigh and twisted it. Evelgold staggered, blood pouring down his leg and spreading from his crushed nose. He had been blinded by the head butt and so did not see the poleax spike that drove into his face. He made a high-pitched whining noise as he fell, and another ax chopped into his belly, cleaving haubergeon and mail, opening his guts, and then the Frenchmen were past him, treading deliberately and carefully, driving deeper through the stakes and so ever closer to the English rear.
“Get close,” Saint Crispin shouted at Hook.
“I can’t,” Hook said.
Tom Evelgold shuddered. A French man-at-arms slid a sword point into his gullet and there was a thick gush of blood and then the centenar was still. More and more Frenchmen were following Lanferelle, thickening his wedge, and though archers fought them, the enemy was at last driving forward. The stakes helped by giving them something firm to lean on in the treacherous ground and the archers were being outfought. Hook tried to rally them, but they did not have the armor to stand against trained men-at-arms and so they retreated. They had not broken, not yet, but they were being pushed farther and farther back.
Hook tried to stand. He traded blows with Lanferelle, but knew he could not beat the Frenchman. Lanferelle was too fast. He did not have Hook’s strength, but he was much quicker with his weapons. “I am sorry for Melisande,” Lanferelle said, “because she will grieve for you.”
“Bastard,” Hook said, and rammed the poleax forward, had the lunge deflected, and he pulled the weapon back and this time the ax head caught on Lanferelle’s ax head, and Hook hauled back hard and for the first time saw a look of surprise on the Frenchman’s face, but Lanferelle simply let go of the shaft and Hook almost tumbled backward.
“But women recover from grief,” Lanferelle