Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [9]
And this Lollard girl was as beautiful as Hook’s imagined angels. She had no wings, of course, and her smock was muddied and her face was distorted into a rictus by the horror she watched and by the knowledge that she too must hang, but she was still lovely. She was blue-eyed and fair-haired, had high cheekbones and skin untouched by the pox. She was a girl to haunt a boy’s dreams, or a priest’s thoughts for that matter. “See that gate, Michael Hook?” Sir Martin asked flatly. The priest had looked for the Perrill brothers to do his bidding, but they were out of earshot and so he chose the nearest archer. “Take her through the gate and keep her in the stable there.”
Nick Hook’s younger brother looked puzzled. “Take her?” he asked.
“Not take her! Not you, you cloth-brained shit-puddling idiot! Just take that girl to the tavern stables! I want to pray with her.”
“Oh! You want to pray!” Michael said, smiling.
“You want to pray with her, father?” Snoball asked with a snide chuckle.
“If she repents,” Sir Martin said piously, “she can live.” The priest was shivering and Hook did not think it was the cold. “Christ in His loving mercy allows that,” Sir Martin said, his eyes darting from the girl to Snoball, “so let us see if we can make her repent? Sir Edward?”
“Father?”
“I shall pray with the girl!” Sir Martin called, and Sir Edward did not answer. He was still gazing at the nearest unlit pyre where the Lollard leader was ignoring the priest’s words and looking up at the sky.
“Take her, young Hook,” Sir Martin ordered.
Nick Hook watched his brother take the girl’s elbow. Michael was almost as strong as Nick, yet he had a gentleness and a sincerity that reached past the girl’s terror. “Come on, lass,” he said softly, “the good father wants to pray with you. So let me take you. No one’s going to hurt you.”
Snoball sniggered as Michael led the unresisting girl through the yard gate and into the stable where the archers’ horses were tethered. The space was cold, dusty, and smelled of straw and dung. Nick Hook followed the pair. He told himself he followed so he could protect his brother, but in truth he had been prompted by the dying archer’s words, and when he reached the stable door he looked up to see a window in the far gable and suddenly, out of nowhere, a voice sounded in his head. “Take her away,” the voice said. It was a man’s voice, but not one that Nick Hook recognized. “Take her away,” the voice said again, “and heaven will be yours.”
“Heaven?” Nick Hook said aloud.
“Nick?” Michael, still holding the girl’s elbow, turned to his elder brother, but Nick Hook was gazing at that high bright window.
“Just save the girl,” the voice said, and there was no one in the stable except the brothers and Sarah, but the voice was real, and Hook was shaking. If he could just save the girl. If he could take her away. He had never felt anything like this before. He had always thought himself cursed, hated even by his own name-saint, but suddenly he knew that if he could save this girl then God would love him and God would forgive whatever had made Saint Nicholas hate him. Hook was being offered salvation. It was there, beyond the window, and it promised him a new life. No more of being the cursed Nick Hook. He knew it, yet he did not know how to take it.
“What in God’s name are you doing here?” Sir Martin snarled at Hook.
He did not answer. He was staring at the clouds beyond the window. His horse, a gray, stirred and thumped a hoof. Whose voice had he heard?
Sir Martin pushed past Nick Hook to stare at the girl. The priest smiled. “Hello, little lady,” he said, his voice hoarse, then he turned to Michael. “Strip her,” he ordered curtly.
“Strip her?” Michael asked, frowning.
“She must appear naked before her God,” the priest explained, “so our Lord and Savior can judge her as she truly is. In nakedness is truth. That’s what the scripture says,