“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 Crécy! 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.
The horses thumped up an almost imperceptible rise and the landscape that Hook had held in his head revealed itself. He did not turn to the wood where the horseman was hidden, but kept going northward to cut the man off from the Somme. Perhaps the man had already ridden away? In all likelihood he was simply some local gentleman who wanted to watch the enemy pass, but the gentry knew more of what happened in their neighboring regions than the peasantry and that was why Sir John wanted to question the man.
Raker was tiring, blowing and fractious, and Hook curbed the horse. “Bows,” he said, uncasing his own and stringing it by supporting one end in his bucket stirrup.
“Thought we weren’t supposed to kill him,” Tom Scarlet said.
“If the bastard’s a gentleman,” Hook said, and he supposed the man was because he was mounted on horseback, “then he’ll be sword trained. If you come at him with a blade he’ll like as not slash your head off. But he won’t like facing an arrow, will he?” He locked an arrow on the stave with his left thumb.
He patted Raker’s neck, then kicked the horse forward again. Now they were coming at the wood from the road’s far side. He could see that Sir John had stayed on the slight crest, not wanting to spring the man out of his hiding place, but the lone Frenchman had scented trouble, or else he had simply watched for the approaching English long enough, because he suddenly broke cover and spurred his horse north toward the river. “God damn him,” Hook said.
Sir John saw the man ride away and immediately spurred forward with his men-at-arms, but the English horses were tired and the Frenchman’s mount was well rested. “They’ve no chance of catching him,” Scoyle said.
Hook ignored that pessimism. Instead he turned Raker and banged his heels back. The Frenchman was following the road that curved to the right and Hook could gallop across the chord of that curve. He knew he could not out-gallop the man and so stood no chance of catching him, but he did have a chance of getting close enough to use the bow. The man turned in his saddle and saw Hook and his men and slashed his spurs back, and Hook kicked as well and the hooves hammered the hard ground and Hook saw that the fugitive would be hidden by trees in a moment and so he hauled on Raker’s reins, pulled his feet from the stirrups, and threw himself out of the saddle. He stumbled, fell to one knee, and the bow was already rising in his left hand and he caught the string, nocked the arrow and pulled back.
“Too far,” Scoyle said, reining in his horse, “don’t waste a good arrow.”
“Much too far,” Michael agreed.
But the bow was huge and Hook did not think about his aim. He just watched the distant horseman, willed where he wanted the arrow to go, then hauled and released and the cord twanged and slashed against his unprotected wrist and the arrow fluttered a heartbeat before its fledging caught the air and tautened its flight.
“Tuppence says you’ll miss by twenty paces,” Tom Scarlet said.
The arrow drew its curve in the sky, its white fledging a diminishing flicker in the autumn light. The far horseman galloped, unaware of the broadhead that flew high before starting its hissing descent. It fell fast, plunging, losing its momentum, and the horseman turned again to watch for his pursuers and as he did so the barbed arrow slapped into his horse’s belly and sliced into blood and flesh. The horse twisted hard and sudden with the awful pain and Hook saw the man lose his balance and fall from the saddle.
“Sweet Jesu!” Michael said in pure admiration.
“Come on!” Hook gathered Raker’s reins and hauled himself into the saddle and kicked back before he had found the stirrups and for a moment he thought he would fall off himself, but he managed to thrust his right boot into the bucket and saw the Frenchman was remounting his horse. Hook had wounded the horse, not killed it, but the animal was bleeding because the broadhead was designed to rip and tear through flesh, and the harder the Frenchman rode the beast the more blood it would lose.