Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [3]
“Yes, my lord.”
“And if a Hook dies,” his lordship turned his gaze on Tom Perrill, “then you and your brother will hang from the oak.”
“Yes, my lord,” Perrill said.
“Murder would need to be proven,” Sir Martin interjected. He spoke suddenly, his voice indignant. The gangling priest often seemed to be living in another world, his thoughts far away, then he would jerk his attention back to wherever he was and his words would blurt out as if catching up with lost time. “Proven,” he said again, “proven.”
“No!” Lord Slayton contradicted his brother-in-law, and to emphasize it he slapped the wooden arm of his chair. “If any one of you four dies I’ll hang the rest of you! I don’t care! If one of you slips into the mill’s leet and drowns I’ll call it murder. You understand me? I will not have this feud one moment longer!”
“There’ll be no murder, my lord,” Tom Perrill said humbly.
Lord Slayton looked back to Hook, waiting for the same assurance, but Nick Hook said nothing. “A whipping will teach him obedience, my lord,” Snoball suggested.
“He’s been whipped!” Lord Slayton said. “When was the last time, Hook?”
“Last Michaelmas, my lord.”
“And what did you learn from that?”
“That Master Snoball’s arm is weakening, lord,” Hook said.
A stifled snigger made Hook look upward to see her ladyship was watching from the shadows of the gallery. She was childless. Her brother, the priest, whelped one bastard after another, while Lady Slayton was bitter and barren. Hook knew she had secretly visited his grandmother in search of a remedy, but for once the old woman’s sorcery had failed to produce a baby.
Snoball had growled angrily at Hook’s impudence, but Lord Slayton had betrayed his amusement with a sudden grin. “Out!” he commanded now, “all of you! Get out, except for you, Hook. You stay.”
Lady Slayton watched as the men left the hall, then turned and vanished into whatever chamber lay beyond the gallery. Her husband stared at Nick Hook without speaking until, at last, he gestured at the gray-feathered arrow on the oak table. “Where did you get it, Hook?”
“Never seen it before, my lord.”
“You’re a liar, Hook. You’re a liar, a thief, a rogue, and a bastard, and I’ve no doubt you’re a murderer too. Snoball’s right. I should whip you till your bones are bare. Or maybe I should just hang you. That would make the world a better place, a Hookless world.”
Hook said nothing. He just looked at Lord Slayton. A log cracked in the fire, showering sparks.
“But you’re also the best goddamned archer I’ve ever seen,” Lord Slayton went on grudgingly. “Give me the arrow.”
Hook fetched the gray-fledged arrow and gave it to his lordship. “The fledging came loose in flight?” Lord Slayton asked.
“Looks like it, my lord.”
“You’re not an arrow-maker, are you, Hook?”
“Well I make them, lord, but not as well as I should. I can’t get the shafts to taper properly.”
“You need a good drawknife for that,” Lord Slayton said, tugging at the fledging. “So where did you get the arrow,” he asked, “from a poacher?”
“I killed one last week, lord,” Hook said carefully.
“You’re not supposed to kill them, Hook, you’re supposed to bring them to the manor court so I can kill them.”
“Bastard had shot a hind in the Thrush Wood,” Hook explained, “and he ran away so I put a broadhead in his back and buried him up beyond Cassell’s Hill.”
“Who was he?”
“A vagabond, my lord. I reckon he was just wandering through, and he didn’t have anything on him except his bow.”
“A bow and a bag filled with gray-fledged arrows,” his lordship said. “You’re lucky the horse didn’t die. I’d have hung you for that.”
“Caesar was barely scratched, my lord,” Hook said dismissively, “nothing but a tear in his hide.”
“And how would you know if you weren’t there?”
“I hear things in the village, my lord,” Hook said.
“I hear things too, Hook,” Lord Slayton said, “and you’re to