Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [50]
“And that works?” the priest asked.
“Of course it does! Did you never fetch flour from a mill?”
“Hook!” the priest protested, “I’m a man of God. We don’t actually work!” He laughed.
Hook thrust another pair of wands into the barrel, then stood back and dusted his hands. “Aye, well that’s a good piece of work,” he said, nodding at the flour.
Father Christopher smiled benignly, then leaned back and gazed at the sunlit woods climbing the hills above the thatched roofs. “God, I love England,” he said, “and God knows why young Hal wants France.”
“Because he’s the King of France,” Hook said.
Father Christopher shrugged. “He’s got a claim, Hook, but so do others. If I were King of England I’d stay here. Is this your ale?”
“It is, father.”
“Be a Christian and give me some.” Father Christopher said, then raised the pot in Hook’s direction and drank from it. “But to France we go, and doubtless we’ll win!”
“We will?”
“Only God knows the answer to that, Hook,” Father Christopher said, suddenly thoughtful. “There’s a powerful lot of Frenchmen! And if they stop quarreling among themselves and turn on us? Still, we have these things,” he slapped Hook’s bow, “and they don’t.”
“Can I ask you something, father?” Hook said, climbing down from the wagon and sitting beside the priest.
“Oh, for Christ’s blessed sake don’t ask me which side God is on.”
“You told us He was on our side!”
“True, Hook, I did, and there are thousands of French priests saying the same thing to the French!” Father Christopher grinned. “Let me give you some priestly advice, Hook. Put your trust in the yew bow, my boy, and not in any priest’s words.”
Hook touched the bow, feeling the slick tallow he had rubbed into the wood. “What do you know about Saint Crispinian, father?”
“Oh, a theological inquiry,” Father Christopher said. He drank the rest of Hook’s ale, then rapped the pot on the table as a signal that he needed more. “Not sure I remember much! I didn’t really study as I should at Oxford. There were too many girls I liked.” He smiled for a moment. “There was a brothel there, Hook, where all the girls dressed as nuns. You could hardly get inside the house because of priests! I met the Bishop of Oxford there at least half a dozen times. Happy days.” He sighed and gave Hook a sideways grin. “So, what do I know? Well, Crispinian had a brother called Crispin, though not everyone says they were brothers. Some say they were noblemen, and some say they weren’t. They might have been shoemakers, which doesn’t sound like a nobleman’s occupation, does it? They were certainly Romans. They lived about a thousand years ago, Hook, and of course they were martyred.”
“So Crispinian’s in heaven,” Hook said.
“He and his brother live on the right hand of God,” Father Christopher confirmed, “where I hope they get quicker service than I do!” He rapped the table again, and a girl came running from the tavern door to be greeted with a wide priestly smile. “More ale, my lovely darling,” Father Christopher said, and rolled one of Sir John’s coins down the table. “Two pots, my sweet,” he smiled again, then sighed when the girl had gone. “Oh, I wish I were young again.”
“You are young, father.”
“Dear God, I’m forty-three! I’ll be dead soon! I’ll be as dead as Crispinian, but he was a hard man to kill.”
“He was?”
Father Christopher frowned. “I’m trying to remember. He and Crispin were tortured because they were Christians. They were racked, and they had nails driven under their fingernails, and strips of flesh cut out of them, but none of that killed them! They were singing God’s praises to the torturers all the time! Not sure I could be that brave.” He made the sign of the cross, then smiled as the girl put down the ale. He waved off the coins she offered as change.
“So there they were,” he went on, enjoying his tale, “and the man who was torturing them decided to finish them off quickly, maybe