Читать книгу Azincourt - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 11

Even in summer the hall of Calais Castle was chilly. The thick stone walls kept the warmth at bay and so a great fire crackled in the hearth, and in front of the stone fireplace was a wide rug on which two couches stood and six hounds slept. The rest of the room was stone-flagged. Swords were racked along one wall, and iron-tipped lances rested on trestles. Sparrows flitted among the beams. The shutters at the western end of the hall were open and Hook could hear the endless stirring of the sea.

The garrison commander and his elegant lady sat on one couch. Hook had been told their names, but the words had slithered through his head and so he did not know who they were. Six men-at-arms stood behind the couch, all watching Hook and Melisande with sceptical and hostile eyes, while a priest stood at the rug’s edge, looking down at the two fugitives who knelt on the stone flags. ‘I do not understand,’ the priest said in a nasally unpleasant voice, ‘why you left Lord Slayton’s service.’

‘Because I refused to kill a girl, father,’ Hook explained.

‘And Lord Slayton wished her dead?’

‘His priest did, sir.’

‘Sir Giles Fallowby’s son,’ the man on the couch put in, and his voice suggested he did not like Sir Martin.

‘So a man of God wished her dead,’ the priest ignored the garrison commander’s tone, ‘yet you knew better?’ His voice was dangerous with menace.

‘She was only a girl,’ Hook said.

‘It was through woman,’ the priest pounced fiercely on Hook’s answer, ‘that sin entered the world.’

The elegant lady put a long pale hand over her mouth as if to hide a yawn. There was a tiny dog on her lap, a little bundle of white fur studded with pugnacious eyes, and she stroked its head. ‘I am bored,’ she said, speaking to no one in particular.

There was a long silence. One of the hounds whimpered in its sleep and the garrison commander leaned forward to pat its head. He was a heavy-set, black-bearded man who now gestured impatiently towards Hook. ‘Ask him about Soissons, father,’ he ordered.

‘I was coming to that, Sir William,’ the priest said.

‘Then come to it quickly,’ the woman said coldly.

‘Are you outlawed?’ the priest asked instead and, when the archer did not answer, he repeated the question more loudly and still Hook did not answer.

‘Answer him,’ Sir William growled.

‘I would have thought his silence was eloquence itself,’ the lady said. ‘Ask him about Soissons.’

The priest grimaced at her commanding tone, but obeyed. ‘Tell us what happened in Soissons,’ he demanded, and Hook told the tale again, how the French had entered the town by the southern gate and how they had raped and killed, and how Sir Roger Pallaire had betrayed the English archers.

‘And you alone escaped?’ the priest asked sourly.

‘Saint Crispinian helped me,’ Hook said.

‘Oh! Saint Crispinian did?’ the priest asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘How very obliging of him.’ There was a snort of half-suppressed laughter from one of the men-at-arms, while the others just stared with distaste at the kneeling archer. Disbelief hung in the castle’s great hall like the woodsmoke that leaked around the wide hearth’s opening. Another of the men-at-arms was staring fixedly at Melisande and now leaned close to his neighbour and whispered something that made the other man laugh. ‘Or did the French let you go?’ the priest demanded sharply.

‘No, sir!’ Hook said.

‘Perhaps they let you go for a reason!’

‘No!’

‘Even a humble archer can count men,’ the priest said, ‘and if our lord the king collects an army, then the French will wish to know numbers.’

‘No, sir!’ Hook said again.

‘So they let you go, and bribed you with a whore?’ the priest suggested.

‘She’s no whore!’ Hook protested and the men-at-arms sniggered.

Melisande had not yet spoken. She had seemed overawed by the big men in their mail coats and by the supercilious priest and by the languorous woman who sprawled on the cushioned couch, but now Melisande found her tongue. She might not have understood the priest’s insult, but she recognised his tone, and she suddenly straightened her back and spoke fast and defiantly. She spoke French, and spoke it so quickly that Hook did not understand one word in a hundred, but everyone else in the room spoke the language and they all listened. She spoke passionately, indignantly, and neither the garrison commander nor the priest interrupted her. Hook knew she was telling the tale of Soissons’s fall, and after a while tears came to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks and her voice rose as she hammered the priest with her story. She ran out of words, gestured at Hook and her head dropped as she began to sob.

There was silence for a few heartbeats. A sergeant in a mail coat noisily opened the hall door, saw that the room was occupied, and left just as loudly. Sir William looked judiciously at Hook. ‘You murdered Sir Roger Pallaire?’ he asked harshly.

‘I killed him, sir.’

‘A good deed from an outlaw,’ Sir William’s wife said firmly, ‘if what the girl says is true.’

‘If,’ the priest said.

‘I believe her,’ the woman said, then rose from the couch, tucked the little dog into one arm and walked to the rug’s edge where she stooped and raised Melisande by the elbow. She spoke to her in soft French, then led her towards the hall’s far end and so through a curtained opening.

Sir William waited till his wife was gone, then stood. ‘I believe he’s telling the truth, father,’ he said firmly.

‘He might be,’ the priest conceded.

‘I believe he is,’ Sir William insisted.

‘We could put him to the test?’ the priest suggested with scarcely concealed eagerness.

‘You would torture him?’ Sir William asked, shocked.

‘The truth is sacred, my lord,’ the priest said, bowing slightly. ‘Et cognoscetis veritatem,’ he declaimed, ‘et veritas liberabit vos!’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘You will know the truth, my lord,’ he translated, ‘and the truth will set you free.’

‘I am free,’ the black-bearded man snarled, ‘and it is not our duty to rack the truth out of some poor archer. We shall leave that to others.’

‘Of course, my lord,’ the priest said, barely hiding his disappointment.

‘Then you know where he must go.’

‘Indeed, my lord.’

‘So arrange it,’ Sir William said before crossing to Hook and indicating that the archer should stand. ‘Did you kill any of them?’ he demanded.

‘A lot, my lord,’ Hook said, remembering the arrows flying into the half-lit breach.

‘Good,’ Sir William said implacably, ‘but you also killed Sir Roger Pallaire. That makes you either a hero or a murderer.’

‘I’m an archer,’ Hook said stubbornly.

‘And an archer whose tale must be heard across the water,’ Sir William said, then handed Hook a silver coin. ‘We’ve heard tales of Soissons,’ he went on grimly, ‘but you are the first to bring confirmation.’

‘If he was there,’ the priest remarked snidely.

‘You heard the girl,’ Sir William snarled at the priest who bridled at the admonition. Sir William turned back to Hook. ‘Tell your tale in England.’

‘I’m outlawed,’ Hook said uncertainly.

‘You’ll do what you’re told to do,’ Sir William snapped, ‘and you’re going to England.’

And so Hook and Melisande were taken aboard a ship that sailed to England. They then travelled with a courier who carried messages to London and also had money that paid for ale and food on the journey. Melisande was dressed in decent clothes now, provided by Lady Bardolf, Sir William’s wife, and she rode a small mare that the courier had demanded from the stables in Dover Castle. She was saddle-sore by the time they reached London where, having crossed the bridge, they surrendered their horses to the grooms in the Tower. ‘You will wait here,’ the courier commanded them, and would not tell Hook more, and so he and Melisande found a place to sleep in the cow byre, and no one in the great fortress seemed to know why they had been summoned there.

‘You’re not prisoners,’ a sergeant of archers told them.

‘But we’re not allowed out,’ Hook said.

‘No, you’re not allowed out,’ the ventenar conceded, ‘but you’re not prisoners.’ He grinned. ‘If you were prisoners, lad, you wouldn’t be cuddling that little lass every night. Where’s your bow?’

‘Lost it in France.’

‘Then let’s find you a new one.’ The ventenar said. He was called Venables and he had fought for the old king at Shrewsbury where he had taken an arrow in the leg that had left him with a limp. He led Hook to an undercroft of the great keep where there were wide wooden racks holding hundreds of newly made bows. ‘Pick one,’ Venables said.

It was dim in the undercroft where the bowstaves, each longer than a tall man, lay close together. None was strung, though all were tipped with horn nocks ready to take their cords. Hook pulled them out one by one and ran a hand across their thick bellies. The bows, he decided, had been well made. Some were knobbly where the bowyer had let a knot stand proud rather than weaken the wood, and most had a faintly greasy feel because they had been painted with a mix of wax and tallow. A few bows were unpainted, the wood still seasoning, but those bows were not yet ready for the cord and Hook ignored them. ‘They’re mostly made in Kent,’ Venables said, ‘but a few come from London. They don’t make good archers in this part of the world, boy, but they do make good bows.’

‘They do,’ Hook agreed. He had pulled one of the longest staves from the rack. The timber swelled to a thick belly that he gripped in his left hand as he flexed the upper limb a small amount. He took the bow to a place where sunlight shone through a rusted grating.

The stave was a thing of beauty, he thought. The yew had been cut in a southern country where the sun shone brighter, and this bow had been carved from the tree’s trunk. It was close-grained and had no knots. Hook ran his hand down the wood, feeling its swell and fingering the small ridges left by the bowyer’s float, the drawknife that shaped the weapon. The stave was new because the sapwood, which formed the back of the bow, was almost white. In time, he knew, it would turn to the colour of honey, but for now the bow’s back, which would be farthest from him when he hauled the cord, was the shade of Melisande’s breasts. The belly of the bow, made from the trunk’s heartwood, was dark brown, the colour of Melisande’s face, so that the bow seemed to be made of two strips of wood, one white and one brown, which were perfectly married, though in truth the stave was one single shaft of beautifully smoothed timber cut from where the heartwood and sapwood met in the yew’s trunk.

God made the bow, a priest had once said in Hook’s village church, as God made man and woman. The visiting priest had meant that God had married heartwood and sapwood, and it was this marriage that made the great war bow so lethal. The dark heartwood of the bow’s belly was stiff and unyielding. It resisted bending, while the light-coloured sapwood of the bow’s spine did not mind being pulled into a curve, yet, like the heartwood, it wanted to straighten and it possessed a springiness that, released from pressure, whipped the stave back to its normal shape. So the flexible spine pulled and the stiff belly pushed, and so the long arrow flew.

‘Have to be strong to pull that one,’ Venables said dubiously. ‘God knows what that bowyer was thinking! Maybe he thought Goliath needed a stave, eh?’

‘He didn’t want to cut the stave,’ Hook suggested, ‘because it’s perfect.’

‘If you think you can draw it, lad, it’s yours. Help yourself to a bracer,’ Venables said, gesturing to a pile of horn bracers, ‘and to a cord.’ He waved towards a barrel of strings.

The cords had a faintly sticky feel because the hemp had been coated with hoof glue to protect the strings from damp. Hook found a couple of long cords and tied a loop-knot in the end of one that he hooked over the notched horn-tip of the bow’s lower limb. Then, using all his strength, he flexed the bow to judge the length of cord needed, made a loop in the other end of the string and, again exerting every scrap of muscle power, bent the bow and slipped the new loop over the top horn nock. The centre of the cord, where it would lie on the horn-sliver in an arrow’s nock, had been whipped with more hemp to strengthen the string where it notched into the arrows.

‘Shoot it in,’ Venables suggested. He was a middle-aged man in the service of the Tower’s constable and he was a friendly soul, liking to spend his day chattering to anyone who would listen to his stories of battles long ago. He carried an arrow bag up to the stretch of mud and grass outside the keep and dropped it with a clatter. Hook put the bracer on his left forearm, tying its strings so the slip of horn lay on the inside of his wrist to protect his skin from the bowstring’s lash. A scream sounded and was cut off. ‘That’s Brother Bailey,’ Venables said in explanation.

‘Brother Bailey?’

‘Brother Bailey is a Benedictine,’ Venables said, ‘and the king’s chief torturer. He’s getting the truth out of some poor bastard.’

‘They wanted to torture me in Calais,’ Hook said.

‘They did?’

‘A priest did.’

‘They’re always eager to twist the rack, aren’t they? I never did understand that! They tell you God loves you, then they kick the shit out of you. Well, if they do question you, lad, tell them the truth.’

‘I did.’

‘Mind you, that doesn’t always help,’ Venables said. The scream sounded again and he jerked his head towards the muffled noise. ‘That poor bastard probably did tell the truth, but Brother Bailey does like to be certain, he does. Let’s see how that stave shoots, shall we?’

Hook planted a score of arrows point down in the soil. A faded and much punctured target was propped in front of a stack of rotting hay at the top of the stretch of grass. The range was short, no more than a hundred paces, and the target was twice as wide as a man and Hook would have expected to hit that easy mark every time, but he suspected his first arrows would fly wild.

The bow was under tension, but now he had to teach it to bend. He drew it only a short way the first time and the arrow scarcely reached the target. He drew it a little further, then again, each time bringing the cord closer to his face, yet never drawing the bow to its full curve. He shot arrow after arrow, and all the time he was learning the bow’s idiosyncrasies and the bow was learning to yield to his pressure, and it was an hour before he pulled the cord back to his ear and loosed the first arrow with the stave’s full power.

He did not know it, but he was smiling. There was a beauty there, a beauty of yew and hemp, of silk and feathers, of steel and ash, of man and weapon, of pure power, of the bow’s vicious tension that, released through fingers rubbed raw by the coarse hemp, shot the arrow to hiss in its flight and thump as it struck home. The last arrow went clean through the riddled target’s centre and buried itself to its feathers in the hay. ‘You’ve done this before,’ Venables said with a grin.

‘I have,’ Hook agreed, ‘but I’ve been away too long. Fingers are sore!’

‘They’ll harden fast, lad,’ Venables said, ‘and if they don’t torture and kill you, then you might think of joining us! Not a bad life at the Tower. Good food, plenty of it, and not much in the way of duties.’

‘I’d like that,’ Hook said absent-mindedly. He was concentrating on the bow. He had thought that the weeks of travel might have diminished his strength and eroded his skill, but he was pulling easily, loosing smoothly and aiming true. There was a slight ache in his shoulder and back, and his two fingertips were scraped raw, but that was all. And he was happy, he suddenly realised. That thought checked him, made him stare in wonder at the target. Saint Crispinian had guided him into a sunlit place and had given him Melisande, and then the happiness soured as he remembered he was still an outlaw. If Sir Martin or Lord Slayton discovered that Nicholas Hook was alive and in England they would demand him and would probably hang him.

‘Let’s see how quick you are,’ Venables suggested.

Hook pushed another handful of arrows into the turf and remembered the night of smoke and screams when the glimmering metal-clad men had come through the breach of Soissons and he had shot again and again, not thinking, not aiming, just letting the bow do its work. This new bow was stronger, more lethal, but just as quick. He did not think, he just loosed, picked a new arrow and laid it over the bow, raised the stave, hauled the cord and loosed again. A dozen arrows whickered over the turf and struck the target one after the other. If a man’s spread hand had been over the central mark then each arrow would have struck it.

‘Twelve,’ a cheerful voice said behind him, ‘one arrow for each disciple.’ Hook turned to see a priest watching him. The man, who had a round, merry face framed by wispy white hair, was carrying a great leather bag in one hand and had Melisande’s elbow firmly clutched in the other. ‘You must be Master Hook!’ the priest said, ‘of course you are! I’m Father Ralph, may I try?’ He put down the bag, released Melisande’s arm and reached for Hook’s bow. ‘Do allow me,’ he pleaded, ‘I used to draw the bow in my youth!’

Hook surrendered the bow and watched as Father Ralph tried to pull the cord. The priest was a well-built man, though grown rather portly from good living, but even so he only managed to pull the cord back about a hand’s breadth before the stave began quivering with the effort. Father Ralph shook his head. ‘I’m not the man I was!’ he said, then gave the bow back and watched as Hook, apparently effortlessly, bent the long stave to unhook the string. ‘It is time we all talked,’ Father Ralph said very cheerfully. ‘A most excellent day to you, Sergeant Venables, how are you?’

‘I’m well, father, very well!’ Venables grinned, bobbed his head and knuckled his forehead. ‘Leg doesn’t hurt much, father, not if the wind ain’t in the east.’

‘Then I shall pray God to send you nothing but west winds!’ Father Ralph said happily, ‘nothing but westerlies! Come, Master Hook! Shed light upon my darkness! Illuminate me!’

The priest, again clutching his bag, led Hook and Melisande to rooms built against the Tower’s curtain wall. The chamber he chose, which was small and panelled with carved timber, had two chairs and a table and Father Ralph insisted on finding a third chair. ‘Sit yourselves,’ he said, ‘sit, sit!’

He wished to know the full story of Soissons and so, in English and French, Hook and Melisande told their tale again. They described the assault, the rapes and the murders, and Father Ralph’s pen never stopped scratching. His bag contained sheets of parchment, an ink flask and quills, and he wrote unceasingly, occasionally throwing in a question. Melisande spoke the most, her voice sounding indignant as she recounted the night’s horrors. ‘Tell me about the nuns,’ Father Ralph said, then made a fluttery gesture as if he had been a fool and repeated the question in French. Melisande sounded ever more indignant, staring wide-eyed at Father Ralph when he motioned her to silence so his pen could catch up with her flood of words.

Hoofbeats sounded outside and, a few moments later, there was the clangour of swords striking each other. Hook, as Melisande told her story, looked through the open window to see men-at-arms practising on the ground where his arrows had flown. They were all dressed in full plate armour that made a dull sound if a blade struck. One man, distinctive because his armour was black, was being attacked by two others and he was defending himself skilfully, though Hook had the impression that the two men were not trying as hard as they might. A score of other men applauded the contest. ‘Et gladius diaboli,’ Father Ralph read aloud slowly as he finished writing a sentence, ‘repletus est sanguine. Good! Oh, that is most excellent!’

‘Is that Latin, father?’ Hook asked.

‘It is, yes! Yes, indeed! Latin! The language of God! Or perhaps He speaks Hebrew? I suppose that’s more likely and it will make things rather awkward in heaven, won’t it? Will we all have to learn Hebrew? Or maybe we shall find ourselves gloriously voluble in that language when we reach the heavenly pastures. I was saying how the devil’s sword was slaked with blood!’ Father Ralph chuckled at that sentiment, then motioned for Melisande to continue. He wrote again, his pen flying over the parchment. The sound of confident male laughter sounded from the turf outside where two other men-at-arms now fought, their swords quick in the sunlight. ‘You wonder,’ Father Ralph asked when he had finished yet another page, ‘why I transcribe your tale into Latin?’

‘Yes, father.’

‘So all Christendom will know what sanguinary devils the French are! We shall copy this tale a hundred times and send it to every bishop, every abbot, every king and every prince in Christendom. Let them know the truth of Soissons! Let them know how the French treat their own people! Let them know that Satan’s dwelling place is in France, eh?’ He smiled.

‘Satan does live there,’ a harsh voice spoke behind Hook, ‘and he must be driven out!’ Hook twisted in his chair to see that the black-armoured man-at-arms was standing in the doorway. He had taken off his helmet and his brown hair was plastered down by sweat in which an impression of his helmet liner remained. He was a young man who looked familiar, though Hook could not place him, but then Hook saw the deep scar beside the long nose and he almost knocked the chair over as he scrambled to kneel before his king. His heart was beating fast and the terror was as great as when he had waited by the breach at Soissons. The king. That was all he could think of, this was the king.

Henry made an irritable gesture that Hook should rise, an order Hook was too nervous to obey. The king edged between the table and the wall to look at what Father Ralph had written. ‘My Latin is not what it should be,’ he said, ‘but the gist is clear enough.’

‘It confirms all the rumours we heard, sire,’ Father Ralph said.

‘Sir Roger Pallaire?’

‘Killed by this young man, sire,’ Father Ralph said, gesturing at Hook.

‘He was a traitor,’ the king said coldly, ‘our agents in France have confirmed that.’

‘He screams in hell now, sire,’ Father Ralph said, ‘and his screams shall not end with time itself.’

‘Good,’ Henry said curtly and sifted the pages. ‘Nuns? Surely not?’

‘Indeed, sire,’ Father Ralph said. ‘The brides of Christ were violated and murdered. They were dragged from their prayers to become playthings, sire. We had heard of it and we had scarce dared to believe it, but this young lady confirms it.’

The king rested his gaze on Melisande, who, like Hook, had dropped to her knees where, like Hook, she quivered with nervousness. ‘Get up,’ the king said to her, then looked at a crucifix hanging on the wall. He frowned and bit his lower lip. ‘Why did God allow it, father?’ he asked after a while, and there was both pain and puzzlement in his voice. ‘Nuns? God should have protected them, surely? He should have sent angels to guard them!’

‘Perhaps God wanted their fate to be a sign,’ Father Ralph suggested.

‘A sign?’

‘Of the wickedness of the French, sire, and thus the righteousness of your claim to that unhappy realm’s crown.’

‘My task, then, is to avenge the nuns,’ Henry said.

‘You have many tasks, sire,’ Father Ralph said humbly, ‘but that is certainly one.’

Henry looked at Hook and Melisande, his armoured fingers tapping on the table. Hook dared to look up once and saw the anxiety on the king’s narrow face. That surprised him. He would have guessed that a king was above worry and aloof to questions of right or wrong, but it was clear that this king was pained by his need to discover God’s will. ‘So these two,’ Henry said, still watching Hook and Melisande, ‘are telling the truth?’

‘I would swear to it, sire,’ Father Ralph said warmly.

The king gazed at Melisande, his face betraying no emotion, then the cold eyes slid to Hook. ‘Why did you alone survive?’ he asked in a suddenly hard voice.

‘I prayed, sire,’ Hook said humbly.

‘The others didn’t pray?’ the king asked sharply.

‘Some did, sire.’

‘But God chose to answer your prayers?’

‘I prayed to Saint Crispinian, sire,’ Hook said, paused, then plunged on with his answer, ‘and he spoke to me.’

Silence again. A raven cawed outside and the clash of swords echoed from the Tower’s keep. Then the King of England reached out his gauntleted hand and tipped Hook’s face up so he could look into the archer’s eyes. ‘He spoke to you?’ the king asked.

Hook hesitated. He felt as though his heart was beating at the base of his throat. Then he decided to tell the whole truth, however unlikely it sounded. ‘Saint Crispinian spoke to me, sire,’ he said, ‘in my head.’

The king just stared at Hook. Father Ralph opened his mouth as though he were about to speak, but a mailed royal hand cautioned the priest to silence and Henry, King of England, went on staring so that Hook felt fear creep up his spine like a cold snake. ‘It’s warm in here,’ the king said suddenly, ‘you will talk with me outside.’

For a heartbeat Hook thought he must have been speaking to Father Ralph, but it was Hook the king wanted, and so Nicholas Hook went into the afternoon sunshine and walked beside his king. Henry’s armour squeaked slightly as it rubbed against the greased leather beneath. His men-at-arms had instinctively approached as he appeared, but he waved them away. ‘Tell me,’ Henry said, ‘how Crispinian spoke to you.’

Hook told how both saints had appeared to him, and how both had spoken to him, but that it was Crispinian who had been the friendly voice. He felt embarrassed to describe the conversations, but Henry took it seriously. He stopped and faced Hook. He was half a head shorter than the archer, so he had to look up to judge Hook’s face, but it appeared he was more than satisfied by what he saw. ‘You are blessed,’ he said. ‘I would wish the saints would speak to me,’ he said wistfully. ‘You have been spared for a purpose,’ he added firmly.

‘I’m just a forester, sire,’ Hook said awkwardly. For a heartbeat he was tempted to tell the further truth, that he was an outlaw too, but caution checked his tongue.

‘No, you are an archer,’ the king insisted, ‘and it was in our realm of France that the saints assisted you. You are God’s instrument.’

Hook did not know what to say and so said nothing.

‘God granted me the thrones of England and of France,’ the king said harshly, ‘and if it is His will, we shall take the throne of France back.’ His mailed right fist clenched suddenly. ‘If we do so decide,’ he went on, ‘I shall want men favoured by the saints of France. Are you a good archer?’

‘I think so, sire,’ Hook said diffidently.

‘Venables!’ the king called and the ventenar limped hurriedly across the turf and fell to his knees. ‘Can he shoot?’ Henry asked.

Venables grinned. ‘As good as any man I ever did see, sire. As good as the man who put that arrow into your face.’

The king evidently liked Venables for he smiled at the slight insolence, then touched an iron-sheathed finger to the deep scar beside his nose. ‘If he’d shot harder, Venables, you would have another king now.’

‘Then God did a good deed that day, sire, in preserving you, and God be thanked for that great mercy.’

‘Amen,’ Henry said. He offered Hook a swift smile. ‘The arrow glanced off a helmet,’ he explained, ‘and that took the force from it, but it still went deep.’

‘You should have had your visor closed, sire,’ Venables said reprovingly.

‘Men should see a prince’s face in battle,’ Henry said firmly, then looked back to Hook. ‘We shall find you a lord.’

‘I’m outlawed, lord,’ Hook blurted out, unable to conceal the truth any longer. ‘I’m sorry, sire.’

‘Outlawed?’ the king asked harshly, ‘for what crime?’

Hook had dropped to his knees again. ‘For hitting a priest, sire.’

The king was silent and Hook dared not look up. He expected punishment, but instead, to his astonishment, the king chuckled. ‘It seems that Saint Crispinian has forgiven you that grievous error, so who am I to condemn you? And in this realm,’ Henry went on, his voice harder now, ‘a man is what I say he is, and I say you are an archer and we shall find you a lord.’ Henry, without another word, walked back to his companions and Hook let out a long breath.

Sergeant Venables climbed to his feet, flinching from the pain in his wounded leg. ‘Chatted to you, did he?’

‘Yes, sergeant.’

‘He likes doing that. His father didn’t. His father was all gloomy, but our Hal is never too grand to say a word or two to a common bastard like you or me.’ Venables spoke warmly. ‘So, he’s finding you a new lord?’

‘So he said.’

‘Well, let’s hope it’s not Sir John.’

‘Sir John?’

‘Mad bastard he is,’ Venables said, ‘mad and bad. Sir John will have you killed in no time at all!’ Venables chuckled, then nodded to the houses built against the curtain wall. ‘Father Ralph is looking for you.’

Father Ralph was beckoning from the doorway. So Hook went to finish his tale.

‘Jesus weeping Christ, you spavined fart! Cross it! Cross it! Don’t flap it like a wet cock! Cross it! Then close me!’ Sir John Cornewaille snarled at Hook.

The sword came again, slashing at Hook’s waist, and this time Hook managed to cross his own blade to parry the blow and, as he did so, pushed forward, only to be thumped back by a thrust of Sir John’s mailed fist. ‘Keep coming,’ Sir John urged him, ‘crowd me, get me down on the ground, then finish me!’ Instead Hook stepped back and brought up his sword to deflect the next swing of Sir John’s blade. ‘What in Christ’s name is the matter with you?’ Sir John shouted in rage. ‘Have you been weakened by that French whore of yours? By that titless streak of scabby French gristle? Christ’s bones, man, find a real woman! Goddington!’ Sir John glanced at his centenar, ‘why don’t you spread that scabby whore’s skinny legs and see if she can even be humped?’

Hook felt the sudden anger then, a red mist of rage that drove him onto Sir John’s blade, but the older man stepped lithely aside and flicked his sword so that the blade’s flat rapped the back of Hook’s skull. Hook turned, his own sword scything at Sir John, who parried easily. Sir John was in full armour, yet moved as lightly as a dancer. He lunged at Hook, and this time Hook remembered the advice and he swept the lunge aside and threw himself on his opponent, using all his weight and height to unbalance the older man, and he knew he was going to hammer Sir John onto the ground where he would beat him to a pulp, but instead he felt a thumping smack on the back of his skull, his vision went dark, the world reeled, and a second crashing blow with the heavy pommel of Sir John’s sword threw him face down into the early winter stubble.

He did not hear much of what Sir John said in the next few minutes. Hook’s head was painful and spinning, but as he gradually recovered his senses he heard some of the snarled peroration. ‘You can feel anger before a fight! But in the fight? Keep your goddam wits about you! Anger will get you killed.’ Sir John wheeled on Hook. ‘Get up. Your mail’s filthy. Clean it. And there’s rust on the sword blade. I’ll have you whipped if it’s still there at sundown.’

‘He won’t whip you,’ Goddington, the centenar, told Hook that evening. ‘He’ll thump you and cut you and maybe break your bones, but it’ll be in a fair fight.’

‘I’ll break his bones,’ Hook said vengefully.

Goddington laughed. ‘One man, Hook, just one man has held Sir John to a drawn fight in the last ten years. He’s won every tournament in Europe. You won’t beat him, you won’t even come close. He’s a fighter.’