Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [97]
Sir John’s courtesy toward women overcame his anger. He grunted what might have been an apology, and then Melisande was explaining herself, talking in fast French, gesturing toward the camp, and as she spoke Sir John’s face showed a renewed anger. He turned on Hook. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what, Sir John?”
“That a bastard priest has threatened her?”
“I fight my own battles,” Hook said sullenly.
“No!” Sir John thrust a gauntleted hand to strike Hook’s shoulder. “You fight my battles, Hook,” he punched Hook’s shoulder again, “that’s what I pay you for. But if you fight mine, then I fight yours, you understand? We are a company!” Sir John shouted the last four words so loudly that men fifty yards down the trench turned to watch him. “We are a company! No one threatens any one of us without threatening all of us! Your girl should be able to walk naked through the whole army and not a man will dare touch her because she belongs to us! She belongs to our company! By Christ I’ll kill the holy bastard for this! I’ll rip the spine out of his goddam throat and feed his shriveled prick to the dogs! No one threatens us, no one!”
Sir John, with his real enemies safely back behind their smoke-rimmed ramparts, was looking for a fight. And Hook had just given him one.
Hook watched as Melisande spooned honey into Father Christopher’s mouth. The priest was sitting, his back supported by a barrel that had come from England filled with smoked herrings. He was skeletally thin, his face was pale and tired and he was plainly as weak as a fledgling, but he was alive.
“Cobbett’s dead,” Hook said, “and Robert Fletcher.”
“Poor Robert,” Father Christopher said, “how’s his brother?”
“Still alive,” Hook said, “but he’s sick.”
“Who else?”
“Pearson’s dead, Hull is, Borrow and John Taylor.”
“God have mercy on them all,” the priest said and made the sign of the cross. “The men-at-arms?”
“John Gaffney, Peter Dance, Sir Thomas Peters,” Hook said, “all dead.”
“God has turned His face from us,” Father Christopher said bleakly. “Does your saint still speak to you?”
“Not now,” Hook admitted.
Father Christopher sighed. He closed his eyes momentarily. “We have sinned,” he said grimly.
“We were told God was on our side,” Hook said stubbornly.
“We believed that,” the priest said, “we surely believed that, and we came here with that assurance in our hearts, but the French will believe the same thing. And now God is revealing Himself. We should not have come here.”
“You should not,” Melisande said firmly.
“Harfleur will fall,” Hook insisted.
“It probably will,” Father Christopher allowed, then paused as Melisande wiped a trickle of honey from his chin. “If the French don’t march to its relief? Yes, it will fall eventually, but what then? How much of the army is left?”
“Enough,” Hook said.
Father Christopher offered a tired smile. “Enough to do what? To march on Rouen and make another siege? To capture Paris? We’ll scarce be able to defend ourselves if the French do come here! So what will we do? We’ll go into Harfleur and remake its walls, and then sail home. We’ve failed, Hook. We’ve failed.”
Hook sat in silence. One of the remaining English cannons fired, the sound flat and lingering in the warm air. Somewhere in the camp a man sang. “We can’t just go home,” he said after a while.
“We can,” Father Christopher said, “and we most certainly will. All this money for nothing! For Harfleur, maybe. And what will it cost to rebuild those walls?” He shrugged.
“Maybe we should abandon the siege,” Hook suggested morosely.
The priest shook his head. “Henry will never do that. He has to win! That way he proves God’s favor, and besides, abandoning the siege makes him look weak.” He was silent for a while, then frowned. “His father took the throne by force, and Henry fears others might do the same if he shows weakness.”
“Eat, don’t talk,” Melisande said briskly.
“I’ve eaten enough, my dear,” Father Christopher