Agincourt - Cornwell Bernard - Страница 34

“Votre nom?” the king demanded of the boy, who did not answer, but just glared up at Henry. Hook cuffed him around the head again.

“Philippe,” the boy said sullenly.

“Philippe?” Henry asked, “just Philippe?”

“Philippe de Rouelles,” the boy answered, defiant now.

“It seems that Master Philippe is the only man in France who dares face us!” the king said loudly enough for everyone on the hilltop to hear. “He shoots two crossbow bolts at us! You try to kill your own king, boy,” Henry went on, speaking French again, “and I am king here. I am King of Normandy, King of Aquitaine, King of Picardy, and King of France. I am your king.” He swung his leg over the saddle and dropped to the grass. A squire spurred forward to take the reins of the king’s horse as Henry took two steps to stand above Philippe de Rouelles. “You tried to kill your king,” he said, and drew his sword. The blade made a hissing noise as it scraped through the scabbard’s throat. “What do you do with a boy who tries to kill a king?” Henry demanded loudly.

“You kill him, sire,” a horseman growled.

The king’s blade rose. Philippe was shaking and his eyes were tear-bright, but his face was still stubbornly defiant. Then he flinched as the blade flashed down.

It stopped an inch above his shoulder. Henry smiled. He tapped the blade once, then tapped it again on the boy’s other shoulder. “You’re a brave subject,” he said lightly. “Rise, Sir Philippe.” The horsemen laughed as Hook hauled the wide-eyed boy to his feet.

Henry was wearing a golden chain about his neck from which hung a thick ivory pendant decorated with an antelope made of jet. The antelope was another of his personal badges, though Hook, seeing the badge, neither knew what the beast was nor that it was the king’s private insignia. Henry now lifted the chain from his neck and draped it over Philippe’s head. “A keepsake of a day on which you should have died, boy,” Henry said. Philippe said nothing, but just looked from the rich gift to the man who had given it to him. “Your father is the Sire of Rouelles?” the king asked.

“Yes, lord,” Philippe said in a voice scarce more than a whisper.

“Then tell your father his rightful king has come and that his king is merciful. Now go, Sir Philippe.” Henry dropped his sword back into its black scabbard. The boy glanced at the crossbow in Hook’s hand. “No, no,” the king said, “we keep your bow. Your punishment will be whatever your father deems appropriate for its loss. Let him go,” the king ordered Hook. He appeared not to recognize the archer with whom he had spoken in the Tower.

Henry watched the boy run down the slope, then climbed back into his saddle. “The French send a lad to do their work,” he said sourly.

“And when he grows, sire,” Sir John said equally sourly, “we’ll have to kill him.”

“He is our subject,” the king said loudly, “and this is our land! These people are ours!” He stared at Harfleur for a long time. The town might be his by right, but the folk inside had a different opinion. Their gates were shut, their walls were hung with defiant banners, and their valley was flooded. Harfleur, it seemed, was determined to fight.

“Let’s get the army ashore,” Henry said.

And the fight for France had begun.

The army began to come ashore on Thursday, August fifteenth, the feast of Saint Alipius, and it took till Saturday, the feast of Saint Agapetus, until the last man, horse, gun, and cargo had been brought to the boulder-strewn beach. The horses staggered when they were swum ashore. They whinnied and cavorted, eyes white, until grooms calmed them. Archers cut a wider road up from the beach to the monastery where the king had his quarters. Henry spent hours on the beach, encouraging and chivvying the work, or else he rode to the crest where Philippe de Rouelles had tried to kill him and from there he stared eastward at Harfleur. Sir John Cornewaille’s men guarded the ridge, but no French came to drive the English back into the sea. A few horsemen rode from the town, but they stayed well out of bowshot, content to gaze at the enemy on the skyline.

The flood waters spread about Harfleur. Some of the houses built outside the walls were flooded so that only their rooftops showed above the water, but two wide stretches of dry ground remained in the base of the bowl where the town sat. The nearer stretch led to one of Harfleur’s three gates and, from his aerie high on the hill, Hook could see the enemy making the finishing touches to a huge bastion that protected that gate. The bastion was like a small castle blocking the road, so that any attack on the gate would first have to take that new and massive fortification.

On the Friday afternoon, the feast of Saint Hyacinth, Hook and a dozen men were sent to retrieve Sir John’s last horses, which were swum ashore from the Lady of Falmouth. The animals floundered on the shingle and the archers ran ropes through their bridles to keep them together. Melisande had come with Hook and she stroked the nose of Dell, her small piebald mare that had been a gift from Sir John’s wife. She murmured soothing words to the mare. “That horse don’t speak French, Melisande!” Matthew Scarlet said, “she’s an English mare!”

“She’s learning French,” Melisande said.

“Language of the devil,” William of the Dale said in his imitation of Sir John, and the other archers laughed. Matthew Scarlet, one of the twins, was leading Lucifer, Sir John’s big battle-charger, who now lunged away from him. One of Sir John’s grooms ran to help. Hook had a leading rein with eight horses attached and he pulled them toward Melisande, intending to add Dell to his string. He called her name, but Melisande was staring up the beach, frowning, and Hook looked to see where she was gazing.

A group of men-at-arms was kneeling on the stones as a priest prayed and for a moment he thought that was what had caught her eye, then he saw a second priest just beyond one of the great boulders. It was Sir Martin, and with him were the Perrill brothers, and the three men were looking at Melisande, and Hook had the impression, no more, that they had made obscene gestures. “Melisande,” he said, and she turned to him.

Sir Martin grinned. He was gazing at Hook now and he slowly lifted his right hand and folded back his fingers so that only the longest finger protruded, and then, still slowly, he slipped his left fist over that one finger and, holding his hands together, made the sign of the cross toward Hook and Melisande. “Bastard,” Hook said softly.

“Who is it?” Melisande asked.

“They’re enemies,” Hook said. The Perrill brothers were laughing.

Tom and Matthew Scarlet came to stand with Hook. “You know them?” Tom Scarlet asked.

“I know them.”

Sir Martin again made the sign of the cross before turning away in response to a shout. “He’s a priest?” Tom Scarlet asked in a tone of disbelief.

“A priest,” Hook said, “a rapist and gentry born. But he was bitten by the devil’s dog and he’s dangerous.”

“And you know him?”

“I know him,” Hook said, then turned on the twins. “You all look after Melisande,” he said fiercely.

“We do,” Matthew Scarlet said, “you know that.”

“What did he want?” Melisande asked.

“You,” Hook said, and that night he gave her the small crossbow and its bag of bolts. “Practice with it,” he said.

Next day, on the feast of Saint Agapetus, the eight great guns were hauled up from the beach. One gun, which was named the King’s Daughter, needed two wagons for its massive hooped barrel which was longer than three bowstaves and had a gaping mouth large enough to take a barrel of ale. The other cannon were smaller, but all needed teams of over twenty horses to drag them to the hilltop.

Patrols rode north, bringing back supplies and commandeering farm wagons that would carry the provisions and tents and arrows and newly felled oaks, which would be trimmed and shaped to make the catapults that would add their missiles to the shaped gun-stones that all had to be carried up the hill by yet more wagons. But, at last, the whole army and all its horses and all its supplies was ashore, and under a bright afternoon sun the cumbersome wagons were lined on the road beside the monastery and the army of England, banners flying, assembled around them. There were nine thousand archers and three thousand men-at-arms, all of them mounted, and there were pages and squires and women and servants and priests and yet more spare horses, and the flags snapped bright in the midday wind as the king, mounted on a snow-white gelding, rode along his red-crossed army. The sun glinted from the crown that surmounted his helmet. He reached the skyline above the town and he stared for a few minutes, then nodded to Sir John Holland who would have the honor of leading the vanguard. “With God’s blessing, Sir John!” the king called, “on to Harfleur!”