Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [40]
“Shoot it in,” Venables suggested. He was a middle-aged man in the service of the Tower’s constable and he was a friendly soul, liking to spend his day chattering to anyone who would listen to his stories of battles long ago. He carried an arrow bag up to the stretch of mud and grass outside the keep and dropped it with a clatter. Hook put the bracer on his left forearm, tying its strings so the slip of horn lay on the inside of his wrist to protect his skin from the bowstring’s lash. A scream sounded and was cut off. “That’s Brother Bailey,” Venables said in explanation.
“Brother Bailey?”
“Brother Bailey is a Benedictine,” Venables said, “and the king’s chief torturer. He’s getting the truth out of some poor bastard.”
“They wanted to torture me in Calais,” Hook said.
“They did?”
“A priest did.”
“They’re always eager to twist the rack, aren’t they? I never did understand that! They tell you God loves you, then they kick the shit out of you. Well, if they do question you, lad, tell them the truth.”
“I did.”
“Mind you, that doesn’t always help,” Venables said. The scream sounded again and he jerked his head toward the muffled noise. “That poor bastard probably did tell the truth, but Brother Bailey does like to be certain, he does. Let’s see how that stave shoots, shall we?”
Hook planted a score of arrows point down in the soil. A faded and much punctured target was propped in front of a stack of rotting hay at the top of the stretch of grass. The range was short, no more than a hundred paces, and the target was twice as wide as a man and Hook would have expected to hit that easy mark every time, but he suspected his first arrows would fly wild.
The bow was under tension, but now he had to teach it to bend. He drew it only a short way the first time and the arrow scarcely reached the target. He drew it a little further, then again, each time bringing the cord closer to his face, yet never drawing the bow to its full curve. He shot arrow after arrow, and all the time he was learning the bow’s idiosyncrasies and the bow was learning to yield to his pressure, and it was an hour before he pulled the cord back to his ear and loosed the first arrow with the stave’s full power.
He did not know it, but he was smiling. There was a beauty there, a beauty of yew and hemp, of silk and feathers, of steel and ash, of man and weapon, of pure power, of the bow’s vicious tension that, released through fingers rubbed raw by the coarse hemp, shot the arrow to hiss in its flight and thump as it struck home. The last arrow went clean through the riddled target’s center and buried itself to its feathers in the hay. “You’ve done this before,” Venables said with a grin.
“I have,” Hook agreed, “but I’ve been away too long. Fingers are sore!”
“They’ll harden fast, lad,” Venables said, “and if they don’t torture and kill you, then you might think of joining us! Not a bad life at the Tower. Good food, plenty of it, and not much in the way of duties.”
“I’d like that,” Hook said absent-mindedly. He was concentrating on the bow. He had thought that the weeks of travel might have diminished his strength and eroded his skill, but he was pulling easily, loosing smoothly, and aiming true. There was a slight ache in his shoulder and back, and his two fingertips were scraped raw, but that was all. And he was happy, he suddenly realized. That thought checked him, made him stare in wonder at the target. Saint Crispinian had guided him into a sunlit place and had given him Melisande, and then the happiness soured as he remembered he was still an outlaw. If Sir Martin or Lord Slayton discovered that Nicholas Hook was alive and in England they would demand him and would probably hang him.
“Let’s see how quick you are,” Venables suggested.
Hook pushed another handful of arrows into the turf and