Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [181]
He stared, incredulous. English archers were murdering the prisoners. For a moment Lanferelle thought the archers must be mad, then he saw that a man-at-arms in royal livery commanded them. French prisoners, their hands tied, tried to run away, but the archers caught them, turned them and slashed long knives across their throats. Blood was spraying from the cuts to soak the grinning archers, and more bowmen were hurrying to the slaughter with drawn blades. Some English men-at-arms were dragging prisoners away, evidently intent on preserving their prospects of ransoms, while the noblest and most valuable captives, like Marshal Boucicault and the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, were being guarded against the massacre, but the rest were being ruthlessly killed. Lanferelle understood then. The King of England was frightened of the prisoners attacking the rear of his line when the last French battle made its assault and to prevent that he was killing the captives, and though that made sense it still astonished Lanferelle. Then he saw archers coming toward him and he patted Jules’s shoulder. “Pretend to be dead, Jules,” he said. He could think of no other way of preventing the man’s killing for he could not defend him without weapons, and so he hurried away in search of Sir John. Sir John, he was sure, would protect him, and if he could not find Sir John he would try to reach the Tramecourt woods and hide in its briar thickets.
Some prisoners tried to fight back, but they were unarmed and the archers felled them with poleaxes. The bowmen moved deftly in the mud, killing with a horrible efficiency. The English destriers, almost a thousand saddled stallions, were at the southern end of the field and a handful of prisoners tried to reach them, but some of the pageboys who guarded the horses mounted and drove the fugitives back to where the archers killed. There was panic and blood and screams as men died and as others were herded toward the slaughter-men. More archers came to the killing, and the prisoners blundered through the thick plow in search of an escape that did not exist. It did not exist for Lanferelle either. He reached the right flank of the English line where a small forester’s cottage stood at the treeline. It was burning, and he heard the screams of dying men coming from the flames and thick smoke. The archers who had set the cottage ablaze saw Lanferelle and headed toward him and he swerved northward, but only to see more archers between him and the English line where Sir John’s standard flew. Then, to his relief, he recognized the tall figure and dark face of Nicholas Hook.
“Hook!” he shouted, but Hook did not hear him. “Melisande!” He called his daughter’s name in hope that it would pierce the turmoil of screaming. Trumpets were playing again, summoning Englishmen to their standards. “Hook!” he bellowed in desperation.
“What do you want with Hook?” a man asked, and Lanferelle turned to see four archers facing him. The man who had spoken was tall and gaunt with a lantern jaw and held a bloodied poleax. “You know Hook?” the man asked.
Lanferelle backed away.
“I asked you a question,” the man said, following Lanferelle. He was grinning, enjoying the fear on the Frenchman’s face. “Rich, are you? Cos if you’re rich then we might let you live. But you’ve got to be very rich.” He slashed the poleax at Lanferelle’s legs, hoping to cut into a knee and topple the Frenchman, but Lanferelle managed to step back without tripping and so avoided the blow. He staggered for balance in the mud.
“I’m rich,” he said desperately, “very rich.”
“He speaks English,” the archer said to his companions, “he’s rich and he speaks English.” He lunged with the poleax and the spike rammed against Lanferelle’s left cuisse, but the armor held and the point slid off Lanferelle’s thigh. “So why were you shouting for Hook?” the man asked, drawing the poleax back for another thrust.
Lanferelle raised his hands in a placatory gesture. “I am his prisoner,