Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [46]
No one was certain if war was coming or not. The French sent ambassadors to King Henry who sent emissaries back to France, and rumors swept England like the winter rains that seethed on the west wind. Sir John, though, was confident there would be war and he made a contract with the king as scores of other men were doing. The contract obliged Sir John to bring thirty men-at-arms and ninety archers to serve the king for twelve months, and in turn the king promised to pay wages to Sir John and his soldiers. The contract had been written in London and Hook was among the ten men who rode to Westminster when Sir John added his signature and pressed his lion seal into a blob of wax. The clerk waited for the wax to harden, then carefully cut the parchment into two unequal parts, not neatly, but zigzagging his blade randomly down the document’s length. He put one ragged part into a white linen bag, and gave the other to Sir John. Now, if anyone doubted the document’s provenance, the two uneven parts could be matched and neither party to the contract could forge the document and expect the forgery to go undiscovered. “The exchequer will advance you monies, Sir John,” the clerk said.
The king was raising money by taxes, by loans, and by pawning his jewels. Sir John received a bag of coins and a second bag that contained loose jewels, a golden brooch, and a heavy silver box. It was not enough to allow Sir John to raise the extra men and to buy the weapons and horses he needed, and so he borrowed more money from an Italian banker in London.
Men, horses, armor, and weapons had to be purchased. Sir John, his pages, squires, and servants needed over fifty horses between them. Each man-at-arms was expected to own at least three horses, including a properly trained destrier for fighting, while Sir John undertook to supply every archer with a riding horse. Hay was needed to feed all the horses and had to be purchased until the spring rains greened the pastures. The men-at-arms provided their own armor and weapons, though Sir John did order a hundred short lances for use by men fighting on foot. He had also equipped his ninety archers with mail coats, helmets, good boots, and a weapon to use in the close-quarter fighting when their bows were no longer useful. “Swords won’t help you much in battle,” he told his archers. “Your enemies will be in plate armor and you can’t cut plate armor with a sword. Use a poleax! Beat the bastards down! Then kneel on the arse-sucking scabs, lift their visors, and put a knife into one of their filthy eyes.”
“Unless they are wealthy,” Father Christopher put in mildly. The priest was the oldest man in Sir John’s company, over forty years old, with a round, cheerful face, a twisted smile, gray hair, and eyes that were both curious and mischievous.
“Unless the arse-licking scab is wealthy,” Sir John agreed, “in which case you take him prisoner and so make me rich!”
Sir John ordered a hundred poleaxes made for his archers. Hook, who knew how to shape wood, helped carve the long ash handles, while blacksmiths forged the heads. One side of each head was a heavy hammer, weighted with lead, which could be used to crush plate armor or, at the very least, knock an armored man off balance. The opposing side was an ax that, in the hands of an archer, could split a helmet as though it were made of parchment, while the head of the ax was a spike thin enough to pierce the slits of a knight’s visor. The upper shaft of each ax was sheathed in iron so an opponent could not cut through the handle. “Beautiful,” Sir John said when the first weapons were delivered. He stroked the iron-clad handle as though it were a woman’s flank. “Just beautiful.”
By late spring the news came that God had done His duty by persuading the king to make an invasion of France and so Sir John’s company marched south on roads lined with the white blossom