“You need a shave, Hook,” Sir John said harshly. “You look like a goddamned vagabond.”
“Yes, Sir John.”
“And of course the cabbage-shitting farts are watching us. So fly the banners! And damn them! Damn them, damn them, damn them!” He shouted the mild curses, startling Lucifer who flicked back his ears. “Damn them and keep going!” Sir John said.
Because there was no choice. And next day, though there was still no sign of the enemy army, there came proof that the French knew exactly where the English were because three heralds waited on the road. They were in their bright liveries, carrying the long white wands of their office, and Hook greeted them politely and sent for Sir John again, and Sir John took the three heralds to the king.
“What did those fancy bastards want?” Will of the Dale asked.
“They wanted to invite us all to breakfast,” Hook said. “Bacon, bread, fried goose liver, pease pudding, good ale.”
Will grinned. “I’d strangle my own mother for a bowl of beans now, just plain beans.”
“Beans, bread, and bacon,” Hook said wistfully.
“Roast ox,” Will said, “with juices dripping.”
“Just a lump of bread would do,” Hook said. He knew the three Frenchmen would learn much from their visit. Heralds were supposed to be above faction, mere observers and messengers, but the three men would surely tell the French commanders of the English troops scurrying off the road to lower their breeches and void their bowels, of the sagging horses, of the bedraggled, silent army that traveled north and west so slowly.
“They challenged us to battle,” Father Christopher said after the heralds had left. The chaplain, inevitably, knew what had happened when the three French emissaries met the king. “It was all exceedingly polite,” he told Hook and his archers, “everyone bowed very prettily, exchanged charming compliments, agreed the weather was most inclement, and then our guests issued their challenge.”
“Nice of them,” Hook said sarcastically.
“The niceties are important,” the priest said chidingly, “you don’t dance with a woman without asking her first, not in polite society, so now the Constable of France and the Duke of Bourbon and the Duke of Orleans are inviting us to dance.”
“Who are they?” Tom Scarlet asked.
“The constable is Charles d’Albret, and pray he doesn’t dance face to face with you, Tom, and the dukes are great men. The Duke of Bourbon is an old friend of yours, Hook.”
“Of mine?”
“He led the army that ruined Soissons.”
“Jesus,” Hook said, and again thought of the blind archers bleeding to death on the cobblestones.
“And each of the dukes,” Father Christopher went on, “probably leads a contingent greater than our whole army.”
“And the king accepted their invitation?” Hook asked.
“Oh willingly!” Father Christopher said. “He loves to dance, though he declined to name a place for the dance. He said the French would doubtless have no trouble finding us.”
And now, because he knew the French would have no such trouble, and because his army might have to fight at any moment, the king ordered every man to ride in full panoply. They were to wear armor and surcoats, though most armor and jupons were now so stained or rusted and ragged that they would hardly impress an enemy, let alone overawe one. And still no enemy appeared.
No enemy showed on the feast day of Saint Cordula, the British virgin who had been slaughtered by pagans, nor the next day, the feast of Saint Felix who had been beheaded for refusing to yield the holy scriptures in his possession. The army had been marching for more than two weeks, and the next day was the feast of Saint Raphael who Father Christopher said was one of the seven archangels who stand before the throne of God. “And you know what tomorrow is?” Father Christopher asked Hook on Saint Raphael’s Day.
Hook had to think about his answer which, when it came, was uncertain. “Is it a Wednesday?”
“No,” Father Christopher said, smiling, “tomorrow is a Friday.”
“Then I know tomorrow’s Friday,” Hook said, grinning, “and you’ll make us all eat fish, father. Maybe a nice fat trout? Or an eel?”
“Tomorrow,” Father Christopher said gently, “is the feast day of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian.”
“Oh, dear God,” Hook said, and felt as though cold water had suddenly washed his heart, though he could not tell whether that was fear or the sudden certitude that such a day presaged a real and beneficial significance.
“And it might be a good day to say your prayers,” the priest suggested.
“I will, father,” Hook promised, and he began praying that very moment. Let us reach your day, he prayed to Saint Crispinian, without seeing the French, and I will know we are safe. Let us escape, he prayed, and take us safe home. Blind the French to our presence, he begged, and he added that prayer to Saint Raphael who was the patron saint of the blind. Just take us safe home, he prayed, and he vowed to Saint Crispinian that he would make a pilgrimage to Soissons if the saint took him home and he would put money into a jar in the cathedral, enough money to pay for the altar frontal that John Wilkinson had torn apart so long ago. Just take us home, he prayed, take us all home and make us safe.
And that day, Saint Raphael’s Day, Thursday the twenty-fourth of October, 1415, Hook’s prayers were answered.
They were riding through a region of small, steep hills and fast-flowing streams, guided by a local man, a fuller, who knew the tangle of bewildering tracks that laced the countryside. He led Hook and the vanguard’s scouts along a wagon path that twisted beneath trees. The road to Calais was some distance to the west, but it could not be followed because it led to Hesdin, a walled town on the bank of a small river, and the bridge there was guarded by a barbican, and so the guide took them toward another crossing. “You go north after the river,” the man said, “just go north and you find the road again. You understand?” He was frightened of the archers and even more scared of the men-at-arms in royal livery who rode just behind and made the decisions about whether the fuller could be trusted.
“I understand,” Hook said.
“Just go north,” the man insisted. The path dropped into a valley where a village lay on the southern bank of a river. “La Rivière Ternoise,” the man said, then pointed to the far bank where the hills climbed steeply. “You go up there,” he said, “and find the road to Saint-Omer.”
“Saint-Omer?”
“Oui!” the guide said and Hook remembered his journey with Melisande when Saint-Omer had been their goal and Calais had lain not far beyond. So close, he thought. The nervous fuller said something else and Hook only half heard and asked him to say it again.’ The local people,” the man said, “call the Ternoise the River of Swords.”
That name sent a shiver through Hook. “Why?”
The man shrugged. “They are all mad,” he said, “it’s just a river.”
The river was shallow despite the recent rain and the knight commanding the men-at-arms ordered Hook to take his archers across the ford and up the farther slope. “Wait at the crest,” he said and Hook obediently kicked Raker down to the River of Swords. His archers followed him, splashing through water that barely reached their horses’ bellies. The slope beyond the river was steep and he and his men climbed it slowly on their tired horses. The rain had stopped, though every now and then a spatter of drizzle would sweep from a sky that grew ever darker. The clouds were low, almost black, and the air above the eastern horizon was the color of soot. “It’s going to fairly piss down,” Hook said to Will of the Dale.
“Looks like it,” Will answered apprehensively. The air was oppressive, thick, full of a strange menace.
Hook was scarcely halfway up the slope before a whole band of men-at-arms splashed through the river and spurred up the hill behind him. Hook turned in the saddle and saw the column closing up on the Ternoise’s far bank as though a sudden sense of urgency had overtaken the army. Sir John, his standard-bearer close behind, thumped past Hook, riding for the crest that was outlined against the slate-dark sky and a moment later the king himself galloped up the slope on a horse the color of night. “What’s happening?” Tom Scarlet asked.