Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [80]
Now the painted town was a battered heap of stones, mud, smoke, and shattered houses. Long stretches of the walls still stood and still flaunted their derisive banners that displayed the badges of the garrison’s leaders, images of the saints and invocations to God, but eight of the towers had been collapsed into the town ditch, and one long length of rampart had been beaten into wreckage close to the Leure Gate. The great missiles lobbed into the town by the catapults smashed houses and started fires so that a pall of smoke hung constantly above the besieged town. A church steeple had fallen, taking its bells in a mighty cacophony, and still the boulders and gun-stones hammered at the already hammered town.
And still the defenders fought back. Each dawn Hook led men into the pits that defended the English guns and in every dawn he saw where the garrison had been working. They were making a new wall behind the broken rampart and they shored up the collapsing barbican with new timbers. English heralds, holding their white wands and gaudy in their colored coats, rode to the enemy walls to offer terms, but the enemy commanders rebuffed the heralds each time. “What they’re hoping,” Father Christopher told Hook one early September morning, “is that their king will lead an army to their rescue.”
“I thought the French king was mad?”
“Oh, so he is! He believes he is made of glass!” Father Christopher said mockingly. The priest visited the trenches every morning, offering blessings and jests to the archers. “It’s true! He thinks he’s made of glass and will shatter if he falls. He also chews rugs and tells his troubles to the moon.”
“So he won’t be leading any army here, father,” Hook said, smiling.
“But the mad king has sons, Hook, and they’re all blood-thirsty little scum. Any one of them would love to grind our bones to powder.”
“Will they try?”
“God knows, Hook, God alone knows and He isn’t telling me. But I do know there’s an army gathering at Rouen.”
“Is that far?”
“See that road?” The priest pointed to the faint remains of a road that had once led from the Leure Gate, but which was now only a scar in a muddy, missile-battered landscape. “Follow that,” Father Christopher said, “and turn right when it reaches the hill and keep going, and after fifty miles you’ll find a great bridge and a huge city. That’s Rouen, Hook. Fifty miles? An army can march that in three days!”
“So they come,” Hook said, “and we’ll kill them.”
“King Harold said much the same just before Hastings,” Father Christopher said gently.
“Did Harold have archers?” Hook asked.
“Just men-at-arms, I think.”
“Well, then,” Hook said and grinned.
The priest raised his head to peer at Harfleur. “We should have captured the place by now,” he said wistfully. “It’s taking much too long.” He turned because a passing man-at-arms had greeted him cheerfully. Father Christopher returned the greeting and made a sketchy sign of blessing toward the hurrying man. “You know who that was, Hook?”
Hook looked at the retreating figure who wore a bright surcoat of red and white. “No, father, no idea.”
“Geoffrey Chaucer’s son,” the priest said proudly.
“Who?”
“You’ve not heard of Geoffrey Chaucer?” Father Christopher asked. “The poet?”
“Oh, I thought he might be someone useful,” Hook said, then slammed a hand onto the priest’s shoulder and so forced him to crouch. A heartbeat later a crossbow bolt slapped into the muddy back of the trench where Father Christopher had been standing. “That’s Catface,” Hook explained, “he’s useful.”
“Catface?”
“A bastard on the barbican, father. He’s got a face like a polecat. I can see him raise his bow.”
“You can’t shoot him?”
“Twenty paces too far off, father,” Hook said, and peered between two battered wicker baskets filled with disintegrating earth that formed the parapet. He waved, and a figure on the bastion waved back.