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By Root 1300 0

was to shear through plate armor it needed all the power of the yew, and that meant drawing the cord to the ear, and then the arrow slanted across the eye, and it had taken Hook years to learn how to think his arrow to the target. He could not explain it, but no archer could. He only knew that when he drew the cord he looked at the target and the arrow flew there because he wanted it to, not because he had lined eye, arrow, and target. That was why the French had no archers other than a few huntsmen, because they had no men who had spent years learning to make a length of yew and a cord of hemp into a part of themselves.

North of the Heron, somewhere among the tangle of moored ships, a vessel burned, sending a thick plume of smoke across the summer sky. Rumor said there had been a rebellion against the king and that the rebels had planned to burn the fleet. Father Christopher had curtly acknowledged that there had indeed been some rebels, lords all of them, but they were now dead. “Beheaded,” he said. The burning ship, he thought, was probably an accident. “No one will burn the Heron,” he had reassured the archers, and no one did. Also north of the Heron was the Lady of Falmouth and she was being loaded with horses that were swum out to the ship’s side and then hoisted aboard in great leather slings. The horses rose dripping, legs dangling limp and eyes rolling white with fear, then were slowly lowered into padded stalls in the Lady of Falmouth’s hold. Hook saw his black gelding, Raker, lifted dripping from the sea, then Melisande’s small piebald mare, Dell. Men swam among the horses, deftly fixing the slings. Sir John’s great destrier, a black stallion called Lucifer, glared about him as he was lifted from the sea.

Next day Sir John Cornewaille arrived from London with the king. The French, it seemed, had sent a last embassy, but their terms had been rejected and so the fleet would sail. Sir John was rowed to the Heron in a small boat and he bellowed orders and greetings as he clambered over the side. A moment later trumpets sounded from the Trinity Royal as a barge, painted blue and gold, and with white-shafted oars, carried the king to the great ship’s side. Henry was in full plate armor, burnished and polished and scoured until it reflected the sun in white flashes of dazzling light, yet he climbed the ladder as nimbly as a ship’s cabin boy as the trumpeters in the stern castle raised their instruments and blew another fanfare. Cheers sounded from the Trinity Royal, then other ships took up the acclaim, which spread through the fleet of fifteen hundred vessels.

That afternoon, as the wind blew steady from the west, a pair of swans flew through the fleet, their wingbeats loud in the warm air. The swans flew south and Sir John, seeing them, thumped the ship’s rail and gave a cheer.

“The swan,” Father Christopher announced to the bemused archers, “is our king’s private badge! The swans are leading us to victory!”

And the king must have seen the omen for himself, because, just after the swans had beaten their way past his ship, the sail of the Trinity Royal was hauled up the mast. The sail was painted with the royal arms; red, gold, and blue. It reached halfway and the wind billowed it from its long yard, and the sound of its thrashing reached the Heron before, suddenly, it dropped again. It was the signal to leave and, one by one the ships hauled their anchors and set their sails. The wind was fair for France.

A wind to carry England to war.

No one knew where in France they were going to war. Some men suggested the fleet would go south to Aquitaine, others thought it would be Calais, and most had no idea at all. A few did not care, but just leaned over the side and retched.

The fleet sailed for two days and two nights beneath skies of small white clouds that scurried eastward and beneath stars as bright as jewels. Father Christopher told stories on board the Heron and Hook was enthralled by the tale of Jonah and the whale, and he searched the sun-glinting sea for a sight of another such monster, but he saw none.