Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [28]
A hunted deer would do that. When it saw no escape it would freeze, shiver and wait for the death it must sense. Now Hook shivered. Better to kill yourself, John Wilkinson had said, than be caught by the French and so Hook felt for his knife, but he could not draw it. He could not kill himself, and so he waited to be killed.
Then he realized his pursuers had evidently abandoned the chase. There was so much plunder for them in Soissons and so many victims, that one fugitive did not interest them and Hook, slowly recovering his senses, realized he had found a temporary refuge. He was in one of the Goose’s back yards, a place where the brewery barrels were washed and repaired. A door of the tavern suddenly opened and a flaming torch illuminated the trestles and staves and tuns. A man peered into the yard, said something dismissive, and went back into the tavern where a woman screamed.
Hook stayed where he was. He dared not move. The city was full of women screaming now, full of hoarse male laughter and full of crying children. A cat stalked past him. The church bells had long ceased their clangor. He knew he could not stay where he was. Dawn would reveal him. Oh God, oh God, oh God, he prayed, unaware that he prayed. Be with me now and at the hour of my death. He shivered. Hooves sounded in the street beyond the brewery yard wall, a man laughed. A woman whimpered. Clouds scurried across the moon’s face and for some reason Hook thought of the badgers on Beggar’s Hill, and that homely thought calmed the panic.
He stood. Perhaps there was a chance he could reach the church? It was much closer than the castle, and Sir Roger had promised to make an attempt to save the archers’ lives, and, though it seemed a slender hope, it was all Hook could think of doing and so he pulled himself up the yard’s wall to peer over the top. The Goose’s stables were next door. No noise came from them and so he climbed onto the wall and from there he could step onto the stable roof that trembled under his weight, but by staying on the rooftop, where the ridge beam ran, he could shuffle until he reached the farther gable where he dropped into a dark alley. He was shaking again, knowing he was more vulnerable here. He moved silently, slowly, until he could peer about the alley’s corner to where the church lay.
And he saw there was no escape.
The church of Saint Antoine-le-Petit was guarded by enemies. There were over thirty men-at-arms and a dozen crossbowmen in the open space in front of the church steps, all in liveries that Hook had not seen before. If Smithson and the archers were inside the church then they were safe enough, for they could defend the door, but it seemed plain to Hook that the enemy must be there to prevent any archer escaping and, he assumed, they would stop any stray archer trying to approach the church. He thought of running for the doorway, but guessed it would be locked and that, while he was beating on the heavy timber, the crossbowmen would use him for a target.
The enemy was not just guarding the church. They had fetched barrels from some tavern and were drinking, and they had stripped two girls naked and tied them across the two barrels with their legs spread wide, and now the men took it in turns to hitch up their mail coats and rape the girls who lay silent as if they had been emptied of moans and tears. The city was loud with women screaming, and the sound scored across Hook’s conscience like an arrowhead scraping on slate, and perhaps that was why he did not move, but instead stood at the corner like an animal that had no place to run or hide. Hook wondered if the girls were dead, they were so still, but then the nearest turned her head and Hook remembered Sarah and flinched with guilt. The girl, who looked no older than twelve or thirteen, stared dully into the