Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [25]
He felt foolish for his admission, but Wilkinson took it seriously. He stared at Hook for a long time, then nodded abruptly. “You’re a lucky man, Nicholas Hook.”
“I am?”
“If God spoke to you then He must have a purpose for you. That means you might survive this siege.”
“If it was God who spoke to me,” Hook said, embarrassed.
“Why shouldn’t He? He needs to speak to people, on account that the church don’t listen to Him.”
“It doesn’t?”
Wilkinson spat. “The church is about money, lad, money. Priests are supposed to be shepherds, aren’t they? They’re meant to be looking after the flock, but they’re all in the manor hall stuffing their faces with pastries, so the sheep have to look after themselves.” He pointed an arrow at Hook. “And if the French break into the town, Hook, don’t go to Saint Anthony the Lesser! Go to the castle.”
“Sir Roger…” Hook began.
“Wants us dead!” Wilkinson said angrily.
“Why would he want that?”
“Because he’s got no money and a heap of debt, boy, so the man with the biggest purse can buy him. And because he’s not a real Englishman. His family came to England with the Normans and he hates you and me because we’re Saxons. And because he’s crammed to the throat with Norman shit, that’s why. You go to the castle, lad! That’s what you do.”
The next few nights were dark, and the waning moon was a sliver like a cutthroat’s blade. The Sire de Bournonville feared a night attack and ordered dogs to be tethered out in the wasteland where the houses had been burned. If the dogs barked, he said, the warning bell on the western gate was to be rung, and the dogs did bark and the bell was rung, but no Frenchmen assaulted the breach. Instead, as the dawn mist shimmered above the river, the besiegers catapulted the dogs’ corpses into the town. The animals had been gelded and had their throats cut as a warning of the fate that awaited the defiant garrison.
The feast of Saint Abdus passed, and no relief force arrived, and then Saint Possidius’s feast came and went, and next day was the feast of the seven holy virgins, and Hook prayed to each one, and in the next dawn he sent a plea to Saint Dunstan, the Englishman, on his feast day, and the day after that to Saint Ethelbert, who had been a king of England, and all the time he also prayed to Crispinian and to Crispin, begging their protection, and on the very next day, on the feast of Saint Hospitius, he received his answer.
When the French, who had been praying to Saint Denis, attacked Soissons.
TWO
The first Hook knew of the assault was the sound of the city’s church bells clanging in frantic haste and jangling disorder. It was dark and he was momentarily confused. He slept on straw at the back of John Wilkinson’s workshop and he woke to the glare of flames leaping high as the old man threw wood on the brazier to provide light. “Don’t lie there like a pregnant sow, boy,” Wilkinson said, “they’re here.”
“Mary, mother of God.” Hook felt the surge of panic like icy water seething through his body.
“I’ve an inkling she don’t care one way or the other,” Wilkinson said. He was pulling on a mail coat, struggling to get the heavy links over his head. “There’s an arrow bag by the door,” he went on, his voice now muffled by the coat, “full of straight ones. Left it for you. Go, boy, kill some bastards.”
“What about you?” Hook asked. He was tugging on his boots, new boots made by a skilled cobbler of Soissons.
“I’ll catch up with you! String your bow, son, and go!”
Hook buckled his sword belt, strung his bow, snatched his arrow bag, then took the second bag from beside the door and ran into the tavern yard. He could hear shouting and screams, but where they came from he could not tell. Archers were pouring into the yard and he instinctively followed them toward the new defenses behind the breach. The church bells were hammering the night sky with jangling noise. Dogs barked and howled.
Hook had no armor except for an ancient helmet that Wilkinson had given him and which sat on his head like a bowl. He had a padded jacket that might