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

“He has been,” Melisande said.

“Then pray that He stays with you, because we need God’s help now.” The priest turned and bowed to the altar. “By God we need it,” he added ominously, “the Burgundians have marched.”

“To help us?” Hook asked. It seemed so long ago that he had worn the ragged red cross of Burgundy and watched as the troops of France had massacred a city.

“No,” Father Christopher said, “to help France.”

“But…” Hook began, then his voice trailed away.

“They have made up their family quarrel,” Father Christopher said, “and so turned against us.”

“And we’re still going to march?” Hook asked.

“The king insists,” Father Christopher said bleakly. “We are a small army at the edge of a great land,” he went on, “but at least you two are joined now for all time. Even death cannot separate you.”

“Thanks be to God,” Melisande said, and made the sign of the cross.

Next day, the eighth day of October, a Tuesday, the feast day of Saint Benedicta, under a clear sky, the army marched.

They went north, following the coastline, and Hook felt the army’s spirits rise as they rode away from the smell of shit and death. Men grinned for no apparent reason, friends teased each other cheerfully, and some put spurs to horses and just galloped for the sheer joy of being in open country again.

Sir John Cornewaille commanded the army’s vanguard, and his own men were in the van of the van and so rode at the very front of the column. Sir John’s banner flew between the cross of Saint George and the flag of the Holy Trinity, the three standards guarded by Sir John’s men-at-arms and followed by four mounted drummers who beat incessantly. The archers rode ahead, scouting the path, and watching for an enemy whose first appearance was an ambush, though none of Sir John’s men was involved. The French had waited until the well-armed and vigilant vanguard had gone by, then had sallied from Montivilliers, a walled town close to the road. Crossbowmen shot from the woods and a group of men-at-arms charged the column and there was a flurry of fighting before the attackers, who numbered fewer than fifty men, were beaten off, though not before they had managed to take a half-dozen prisoners and leave two English dead.

That skirmish occurred on the first day, but thereafter the French seemed to fall back into sleep and so the English men-at-arms rode unarmored, their mail and plate carried by the sumpter horses. The riders’ different colored jerkins gave the mounted column a holiday appearance, enhanced by the banners flying at the head of every contingent. The women, pages and, servants rode behind the men-at-arms, leading packhorses loaded with armor, food, and the great bundles of arrows. Sir John’s company had two light carts, one loaded with food and plate armor, the other heaped with arrows. When Hook turned in his saddle he saw a filmy cloud of dust pluming over the low hills and heavy woods. The dust marked the trail of England’s army as it twisted through the small valleys leading toward the River Somme, and to Hook it appeared to be a large army, but in truth it was a defiant band of fewer than ten thousand men, and only looked larger because there were over twenty thousand horses.

On the Sunday they dropped out of the small, tight hills into a more open and flatter countryside. Sir John had suggested that this was the day they should reach the Somme, and had added that the Somme was the only major obstacle on their journey. Cross that river and they would have a mere three days’ marching to Calais. “So there won’t be a battle?” Michael Hook asked his brother. Lord Slayton’s men were also in the vanguard, though Sir Martin and Thomas Perrill stayed well clear of Sir John and his men.

“They say no,” Hook said, “but who knows?”

“The French won’t stop us?”

“They don’t seem to be trying, do they?” Hook said, nodding at the empty country ahead. He and the rest of Sir John’s archers were a half-mile in front of the column, leading the way to the river. “Maybe the French are happy to see us go?” he suggested. “They’re just leaving us be, perhaps?”

“You’ve been to Calais,” Michael said, impressed that his elder brother had traveled so far and seen so much since last they were together.

“Strange little town, it is,” Hook said, “a vast wall and a great castle and a huddle of houses. But it’s the way home, Michael, the way home!”

“I just got here,” Michael said ruefully.

“Maybe we’ll come back next year,” Hook said, “and finish the job. Look!” He pointed far ahead to where, in the smudges of brown, golden and yellow leaves, a sheen of light glittered. “That might be the river.”

“Or a lake,” Michael suggested.

“We’re looking for a place called Blanchetaque,” Hook said.

“They have the funniest names,” Michael said, grinning.

“There’s a ford at Blanchetaque,” Hook said. “We cross that and we’re as good as home.”

He turned as hooves sounded loud behind and saw Sir John and a half-dozen men-at-arms galloping toward him. Sir John, bareheaded and wearing mail, slowed Lucifer. He was looking off to the left where the sea showed beyond a low ridge. “See that, Hook?” he asked cheerfully.

“Sir John?”

Sir John pointed to a tiny white lump on the sea’s horizon. “Gris-Nez! The Gray Nose, Hook.”

“What’s that, Sir John?”

“A headland, Hook, just a half-day’s ride from Calais! See how close we are?”

“Three days’ ride?” Hook asked.

“Two days on a horse like Lucifer,” Sir John said, smoothing the destrier’s mane. He turned to look at the nearer countryside. “Is that the river?”

“I think so, Sir John.”

“Then Blanchetaque can’t be far! That’s where the third Edward crossed the Somme on his way to Crecy! Maybe your great-grandfather was with him, Hook.”

“He was a shepherd, Sir John, never drew a bow in his life.”

“He used a sling,” Michael said, sounding nervous because he spoke to Sir John.

“Like David and Goliath, eh?” Sir John said, still gazing at the distant headland. “I hear you got church married, Hook!”

“Yes, Sir John.”

“Women do like that,” Sir John said, sounding gloomy, “and we like women!” He cheered up. “She’s a good girl, Hook.” He stared at the land ahead. “Not a goddam Frenchman in sight.”

“There’s a horseman down there,” Michael said very diffidently.

“There’s a what?” Sir John snapped.

“Down there,” Michael said, pointing to a stand of trees a mile ahead, “a horseman, sir.”

Sir John stared and saw nothing, but Hook could now see the man who was motionless on his horse in the deep shade of the full-leafed wood. “He’s there, Sir John,” Hook confirmed.

“Bastard’s watching us. Can you flush him out, Hook? He might know whether the goddam French are guarding the ford. Don’t chase him away, I want him driven to us.”

Hook looked at the land to his right, searching for the dead ground that would let him circle behind the horseman unseen. “I reckon so, Sir John,” he said.

“Do it, man.”

Hook took his brother, Scoyle the Londoner, and Tom Scarlet, and he rode away from the half-hidden horseman, going back toward the approaching army and then down a slight incline that took him from the man’s sight. After that he turned east off the road and kicked Raker’s flanks to gallop across a stretch of grassland. They were still hidden from their quarry. Ahead of the four horsemen were copses and thickets. The fields here had no hedges, only ditches, and the horses jumped them easily. The land was nearly flat, but had just enough swell and dip to hide the four archers as Hook turned north again. Off to his right a man was plowing a field. His two oxen were struggling to drag the big plow that was set low because winter wheat was always sown deeper. “He needs some rain!” Michael shouted.

“It would help!” Hook answered.