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By Root 1245 0

who had apparently escaped Soissons and were now walking southward, yet still Hook did not want to risk an encounter with a Frenchman and so he stayed hidden until nightfall. He had decided to head westward, toward England, though being an outlaw meant that England was as dangerous as France, but he did not know where else he could go. He and Melisande traveled by night, their way lit by the moon. Their food was stolen, usually a lamb Hook took in the darkness. He feared the dogs that guarded the flocks, but perhaps it was Saint Crispin with his shepherd’s crook who protected him, for the dogs never stirred as Hook cut an animal’s throat. He would carry the small carcass back to the deep woods where he would make a fire and cook the flesh. “You can go away on your own,” he told Melisande one morning.

“Go?” she asked, frowning, not understanding him.

“If you want, lass. You can go!” He waved vaguely southward and was rewarded with a scowl and a burst of incomprehensible French, which he took to mean that Melisande would stay with him. She did stay, and her presence was both a comfort and a worry. Hook was not sure if he could escape the French countryside, and if he did he could see no future. He prayed to Saint Crispinian, and hoped the martyr could help him once he reached England, if he reached England, but Saint Crispinian was silent.

Yet if Saint Crispinian said nothing, he did send Hook and Melisande a priest who was the curé of a parish close to the River Oise and the priest found the two fugitives sleeping under a fallen willow among a thick stand of alders, and he took them to his home where his woman fed them. Father Michel was embittered and morose, yet he took pity on them. He spoke some English that he had learned when he had been chaplain to a French lord who had held an English prisoner in his manor. That experience of being a chaplain had left Father Michel hating everyone in authority, whether it was king, bishop, or lord, and that hatred was sufficient to let him help an English archer. “You will go to Calais,” he told Hook.

“I’m an outlaw, father.”

“Outlaw?” Eventually the priest understood, but dismissed the fear. “Proscrit, eh? But England is home. A large place, yes? You go home and you stay far from where you sinned. What was your sin?”

“I hit a priest.”

Father Michel laughed and clapped Hook on the back. “That was well done! I hope it was a bishop?”

“Just a priest.”

“Next time hit a bishop, eh?”

Hook paid for his stay. He chopped firewood, cleared ditches, and helped Father Michel rethatch a cow byre, while Melisande assisted the housekeeper to cook, wash, and mend. “The villagers will not betray you,” the priest assured Hook.

“Why not, father?”

“Because they fear me. I can send them to hell,” the priest said grimly. He liked to talk with Hook as a way of improving his English and one day, as Hook trimmed the pear trees behind the house, he listened as Hook haltingly admitted to hearing voices. Father Michel crossed himself. “It could be the devil’s voice?” he suggested.

“That worries me,” Hook admitted.

“But I think not,” Father Michel said gently. “You take a lot from that tree!”

“This tree’s a mess, father. You should have cut her back last winter, but this won’t hurt her. You want some pears? You can’t let her grow wild. Trust me. Cut and cut! And when you think you’ve cut too much, cut the same amount again!”

“Cut and cut, eh? If I have no pears next year I will know you are the devil’s man.”

“It’s Saint Crispinian who talks to me,” Hook said, lopping another branch.

“But only if God lets him,” the priest said and made the sign of the cross, “which means God talks to you. I am glad no saints talk to me.”

“You’re glad?”

“I think those who hear voices? Either they are saints themselves or they are for burning.”

“I’m no saint,” Hook said.

“But God has chosen you. He makes very strange choices,” Father Michel said, then laughed.

Père Michel also talked with Melisande and so Hook learned something about the girl. Her father was a lord, the priest said, a lord called le Seigneur