Agincourt - Cornwell Bernard (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .txt) 📗

“No, sire,” Hook said and named Lanferelle to Father Christopher.

The Frenchman looked speculatively at the priest. “You’ve been ill, father.”

“I have,” Father Christopher agreed.

“Is this a judgment of God? Did He in His mercy strike your army as a punishment for your king’s wickedness?”

“Wickedness?” Father Christopher asked gently.

“In coming to France,” Lanferelle said, then straightened in his saddle. His hair was oiled so that it hung sleek, raven black and shining to his waist, which was encircled by a silver-plated sword belt. His face, so strikingly handsome, was even darker after a summer in the sun, making his eyes seem unnaturally bright. “Yet I hope you stay in France, father.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“It is!” Lanferelle smiled, showing very white teeth. “How many men do you have now?”

“We are counted as the grains of sand on the seashore,” the priest answered blithely, “and are as numerous as the multitudinous stars of the firmament, and are as many as the biting fleas in a French whore’s crotch.”

“And just about as dangerous,” Lanferelle said, unbitten by the priest’s defiant words. “You number what? Fewer than ten thousand now? And I hear your king is sending the sick men home?”

“He sends men home,” Father Christopher said, “because we have enough to do whatever must be done.”

Hook wondered how Lanferelle knew that the sick were being sent home, then supposed that French spies must be watching Harfleur from the surrounding hills and would have seen the litters being carried onto the English ships that could at last come right into the walled harbor.

“And your king brings in reinforcements,” Lanferelle said, “but how many of his men must he leave in Harfleur to protect its broken walls? A thousand?” He smiled again. “It is such a little army, father.”

“But at least it fights,” Father Christopher said, “whereas your army slumbers in Rouen.”

“But our army,” Lanferelle said, his voice suddenly harsh, truly does number as the fleas in a Parisian whore’s crotch.” He gathered his reins. “I do hope you stay, father, and come to where the fleas can feed on English blood.” He nodded to Hook. “Give Melisande my compliments. And give her something else.” He turned in his saddle. “Jean! Venez!” The same dull-faced squire who had gazed at Melisande in the woods above Harfleur spurred to his master and, on Lanferelle’s orders, fumbled his jupon over his head. The Sire de Lanferelle took the gaudy garment with its bright sun and proud falcon and folded it into a square that he threw at Hook. “If it comes to a battle,” he said, “tell Melisande to wear that. It might be sufficient to protect her. I would regret her death. Good day to you both.” And with that he rode on after the marshal.

Clouds gathered the next day, piling above the sea and slowly drifting to make a pall over Harfleur. The archers were busy making temporary repairs to the breached walls, building timber palisades that must serve as a defense until masons came from England to remake the ramparts properly. Men were still falling ill and the battered streets stank of sewage that oozed into the River Lezarde that once again ran free through a stone channel bisecting the town, and thence into the tight harbor that smelled like a cesspit.

The king sent a challenge to the dauphin, offering to fight him face-to-face and the winner would inherit the crown of France from the mad King Charles. “He won’t accept,” Sir John Cornewaille said. Sir John had come to watch the archers pound stakes into the ground to support the new palisade. “The dauphin’s a fat, lazy bastard, and our Henry is a warrior. It would be like a wolf fighting a piglet.”

“And if the dauphin doesn’t agree to fight, Sir John?” Thomas Evelgold asked.

“We’ll go home, I suppose,” Sir John said unhappily. That was the opinion throughout the army. The days were shortening and becoming colder, and soon the autumn rains would arrive and that would mean the end of the campaign season. And even if Henry had wanted to continue the campaign his army was too small and the French army was too big, and sensible men, experienced men, declared that only a fool would dare defy those odds. “If we had another six or seven thousand men,” Sir John said, “I dare say we could bloody their goddam noses, but we won’t. We’ll leave a garrison to hold this shit-hole and the rest of us will sail home.”

Reinforcements still arrived, but they were not many, not nearly enough to make up the numbers who had died or who were sick, but the boats brought them into the stinking harbor and the uncertain newcomers came down the gangplanks to stare wide-eyed at the broken roofs and the shattered churches and the scorched rubble. “Most of us will be going home soon,” Sir John told his men, “and the newcomers can defend Harfleur.” He spoke sourly. The capture of Harfleur was not enough to compensate for the money spent and the lives lost. Sir John wanted more, as rumor said the king did, but every other great lord, the royal dukes, the earls, the bishops, the captains, all advised the king to go home.

“There’s no choice,” Thomas Evelgold told Hook one evening. The great lords were at a council of war, meeting the king in an attempt to beat sense into his ambitious head, and the army waited on the council’s decision. It was a beautiful evening, a sinking sun casting shadows long over the harbor. Hook and Evelgold were sitting at a table outside Le Paon, drinking ale that had been brought from England because the breweries of Harfleur had all been destroyed. “We have to go home,” Evelgold said, evidently thinking of the heated discussion that was doubtless being waged in the guild hall beside Saint Martin’s church.

“Maybe we stay as part of the garrison?” Hook suggested.

“Christ, no!” Evelgold said harshly, then crossed himself. “That goddam great army of the French? They’ll take this town back with no trouble! They’ll beat down our palisades in three days, then kill every man here.”

Hook said nothing. He was watching the harbor’s narrow entrance where an arriving ship was being propelled by huge sweeps because the wind had fallen to a whisper. Gulls wheeled above the ship’s single mast and over her high, richly gilded castles. “The Holy Ghost,” Evelgold said, nodding at the ship.

The Holy Ghost was a new ship, built with the king’s money to support his invading army, but now she was chiefly employed in taking diseased men home to England. She crept closer and closer to the quay. Hook could see men on her deck, but they were not nearly as many as the ship had brought on her previous voyage and he guessed these might be the last reinforcements to arrive.

“Fifteen hundred ships brought us here,” Evelgold said, “but we won’t need that many to take us home.” He laughed bitterly. “What a waste of a goddamned summer.” The sun glinted reflections from the gilding on the Holy Ghost’s two castles. The passengers on board stared at the shore. “Welcome to Normandy,” Evelgold said. “Will your woman go back to England?”

“She will.”

“Thought you were getting married?”

“I think we are.”

“Do it in England, Hook.”

“Why England?”

“Because it’s God’s country, not like this goddam place.”

Centenars and men-at-arms had come to the quay to discover if any of the newcomers belonged to their companies. Lord Slayton’s centenar, William Snoball, was one of them, and he greeted Hook civilly. “I’m surprised to see you here, Master Snoball,” Hook said.

“Why?”

“Who’s stewarding while you’re here?”

“John Willetts. He can manage well enough without me. And his lordship wanted me to come.”

“Because you’ve got experience,” Evelgold put in.

“Aye there’s that,” Snoball agreed, “and his lordship wanted me to keep an eye on,” he hesitated, “well, you know.”