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 Lézarde 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.”
“Sir Martin?” Hook asked. “And why in God’s name did he send him?”
“Why do you think?” Snoball answered harshly.
Hook mimed drawing a knife across his throat. “Is that what he hopes?”
“He hopes Sir Martin will minister to our souls,” Snoball said distantly and then, perhaps thinking he had betrayed too much, walked some distance down the wharf.
Hook watched the Holy Ghost creep closer. “Are we expecting any new men?” he asked.
“None that I know of, Sir John hasn’t said anything.”
“He’s not happy,” Hook said.
“Because he’s crazy, moon-touched. Daft as a hare.” Thomas Evelgold brooded for a moment. “He wants to march into France! Man’s daft! He wants us all dead! But it’s all right for him, isn’t it?”
“All right?”
“He won’t be killed, will he? What happens if we march into France to find a battle? The gentry don’t get killed, Hook, they get taken prisoner! But no one will ransom you and me. We get slaughtered, Hook, while their lordships go off to some comfortable castle and get fed and given whores. Sir John don’t care. He just wants a fight! But he knows he’ll like as not live through a battle. He should give a thought to us.” Evelgold drained his ale. “Still, won’t happen. We’ll all be home by Saint Martin’s feast day.”
“The king wants to march,” Hook said.
“The king can count as well as you and me,” Evelgold said dismissively, “and he won’t march.”
Lines were hurled from the Holy Ghost to be caught by men ashore, and slowly, laboriously, the great ship was hauled in to the quay. Gangplanks were lowered and then the newcomers, looking unnaturally clean, were chivvied ashore. There were around sixty archers, all carrying cased bows, arrow bags, and bundles. The red crosses of Saint George on their jupons looked very bright. A priest came down the nearer gangplank, fell to his knees on the wharf, and made the sign of the cross. Behind him were four archers wearing the Slayton moon and stars and one of them had springy gold hair sticking wildly from beneath his helmet’s brim. For a heartbeat Hook did not believe what he saw, then he stood and shouted. “Michael! Michael!”
It was his younger brother. Michael saw him and grinned. “My brother,” Hook explained to Evelgold, then strode to meet Michael. They embraced. “My God, it is you,” Hook said.
William Snoball called Michael’s name, but Hook turned on the steward. “He’ll come when he’s ready, Master Snoball. Where are you quartered?”
Snoball grudgingly told him and Hook promised to bring his brother, then took Michael to the table and poured a pot of ale. Thomas Evelgold left them alone. “What in God’s name are you doing here?” Hook demanded.
“Lord Slayton sent his last archers,” Michael said, grinning, “he reckoned you all needed help. I didn’t even know you were here!”