Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [5]
“Sweet Jesus Christ,” Nick Hook broke the silence.
“Go to church if you want to say prayers, you bastard,” Tom Perrill said.
“I’ll shit in your mother’s face first,” Hook snarled.
“Quiet, you two,” William Snoball intervened.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Hook growled. “London’s not our place!”
“Well, you are here,” Snoball said, “so stop bleating.”
The tavern stood on a corner where a narrow street led into a wide market square. The inn’s sign, a carved and painted model of a bull, hung from a massive beam that was anchored in the tavern’s gable and reached out to a stout post sunk in the marketplace. Other archers were visible around the square, men in different liveries, all fetched to London by their lords, though where those lords were no one knew. Two priests carrying bundles of parchments hurried by on the street’s far side. Somewhere deeper in the city a bell started to toll. One of the priests glanced at the archers wearing the moon and stars, then almost tripped as Tom Perrill spat.
“What in Christ’s name are we doing here?” Robert Perrill asked.
“Christ is not telling us,” Snoball answered sourly, “but I am assured we do His work.”
Christ’s work consisted of guarding the corner where the street joined the marketplace, and the archers had been ordered to let no man or woman pass them by, either into the market square or out of it. That command did not apply to priests, nor to mounted gentry, but only to the common folk, and those common folk possessed the wisdom to stay indoors. Seven hand-drawn carts had come down the street, pulled by ragged men and loaded with firewood, barrels, stones, and long timbers, but the carts had been accompanied by mounted men-at-arms who wore the royal livery and the archers had stayed still and silent while they passed.
A plump girl with a scarred face brought a jug of ale from the tavern. She filled the archers’ pots and her face showed nothing as Snoball groped beneath her heavy skirts. She waited till he had finished, then held out a hand.
“No, no, darling,” Snoball said, “I did you a favor so you should reward me.” The girl turned and went indoors. Michael, Hook’s younger brother, stared at the table and Tom Perrill sneered at the young man’s embarrassment, but said nothing. There was little joy to be had in provoking Michael, who was too good-hearted to take offense.
Hook watched the royal men-at-arms who had stopped the handcarts in the center of the marketplace where two long stakes were stood upright in two big barrels. The stakes were being fixed in place by packing the barrels with stones and gravel. A man-at-arms tested one of the stakes, trying to tip or dislodge it, but the work had evidently been well done, for he could not shift the tall timber. He jumped down and the laborers began stacking bundles of firewood around the twin barrels.
“Royal firewood,” Snoball said, “burns brighter.”
“Does it really?” Michael Hook asked. He tended to believe everything he was told and waited eagerly for an answer, but the other archers ignored his question.
“At last,” Tom Perrill said instead, and Hook saw a small crowd emerging from a church at the far side of the marketplace. The crowd was composed of ordinary-looking folk, but it was surrounded by soldiers, monks, and priests, and one of those priests now headed toward the tavern called the Bull.
“Here’s Sir Martin,” Snoball said, as if his companions would not recognize the priest who, as he drew nearer, grinned. Hook felt a tremor of hatred as he saw the eel-thin Sir Martin with his loping stride, lopsided face, and his strange, intense eyes that some thought looked beyond this world to the next, though opinion varied whether Sir Martin gazed at hell or heaven. Hook’s grandmother had no doubts. “He was bitten by the devil’s dog,” she liked to say, “and if he hadn’t been born gentry he’d have been hanged by now.”
The archers stood with grudging respect as the priest drew near. “God’s work waits on you, boys,” Sir Martin greeted them. His dark hair was gray at