“So pray it stops raining,” Hook said.
“Christ, pray it does,” Magot said fervently. In rain like this the bowstrings would get wet and feeble, stealing power from the arrows. “Stay warm, Nick,” Magot said, then led his men away to the dubious comforts of the encampment.
Hook crouched under the lash of wind and rain. Lightning staggered across the sky to stab down in the valley beyond the vast French camp and in its sudden light he had a vision of tents and banners. So many tents, so many banners, so many men come to the killing place. A horse whinnied. Scores of horses were being walked in the plowland and Hook, when they came close, could hear their big hooves sucking in the wet soil. A couple of men came too close and both times he called out and the French servants veered away. The rain slackened from time to time, lifting its veil of noise so Hook could clearly hear the sound of laughter and singing from the enemy camp. The English camp was silent. Hook doubted many men on either side would be sleeping. It was not just the weather that would keep them awake, but the knowledge that in the morning they must fight. Armorers would be sharpening weapons and Hook felt a shiver in his heart as he thought of what the dawn must bring. “Be with us,” he prayed to Saint Crispinian, then he remembered the advice of the priest in Soissons Cathedral, that heaven paid closer attention to those prayers that asked for blessings on others, and so he prayed for Melisande and for Father Christopher, that they would live through the next day’s turmoil.
Lightning staggered across the clouds, stark and white, and the thunder cracked overhead and the rain settled into a new and venomous intensity, falling so thick that the lights of the French camp faded. “Who goes there?” Tom Scarlet suddenly shouted.
“Friend!” a man called back.
Another flicker of lightning revealed a man-at-arms approaching from the English encampment. He was wearing a mail coat and plate leggings and the sudden lightning lasted long enough for Hook to see the man had no surcoat and, instead of a helmet, wore a wide-brimmed leather hat. “Who are you?” Hook demanded.
“Swan,” the man said, “John Swan. Whose men are you?”
“Sir John Cornewaille’s,” Hook answered.
“If every man in the army was like Sir John,” Swan said, “then the French would be wise to run away!” He almost had to shout to make himself heard above the rain’s malevolence. None of the archers responded. “Are your bows strung?” Swan asked.
“In this weather, sir? No!” Hook answered.
“What if it rains like this in the morning?”
Hook shrugged. “We’ll shorten strings, sir, and shoot away, but the cords will stretch.”
“And eventually they’ll break,” Will of the Dale added.
“They unravel,” Tom Scarlet said in explanation.
“So what will happen in the morning?” Swan asked. He had crouched near the archers who were clearly uncomfortable in the presence of this stranger.
“You tell us, sir,” Hook said.
“I want to know what you think,” Swan said forcibly. There was an embarrassed silence because none of the archers wanted to share his fears. A gust of laughter and cheering sounded from the French camp. “In the morning,” Swan said, “many of the French will be drunk. We’ll be sober.”
“Aye, only because we’ve got no ale,” Tom Scarlet said.
“So what do you think will happen?” Swan insisted.
There was another silence. “Drunken goddam bastards will attack us,” Hook finally said.
“And then?”
“Then we kill the goddam drunken bastards,” Tom Scarlet said.
“And so win the battle?” Swan asked.
Again no one answered. Hook wondered why Swan had sought them out to have this forced conversation. Eventually, as none of his men spoke, Hook did. “That’s up to God, sir,” he said awkwardly.
“God is on our side,” Swan said very forcefully.
“We do hope that, sir,” Tom Scarlet said dubiously.
“Amen,” Will of the Dale put in.
“God is on our side,” Swan said even more forcefully, “because our king’s cause is just. If the gates of hell were opened in tomorrow’s dawn and Satan’s legions come to attack us, we shall still win. God is with us.”
And Hook remembered that far-off sunlit day in Southampton Water when the two swans had beaten past the waiting fleet and he remembered, too, that the swan was one of the badges of Henry, King of England.
“You believe that?” Swan asked, “that our king’s cause is just?”
None of the other archers answered, but Hook recognized the voice now. “I don’t know if the king’s cause is just,” he said harshly.
There was a silence for a few heartbeats and Hook sensed the man who called himself Swan stiffen with indignation. “Why should it not be?” Swan asked, his voice dangerously cold.
“Because on the day before we crossed the Somme,” Hook said, “the king hanged a man for theft.”
“The man stole from the church,” Swan said dismissively, “so of course he had to die.”
“But he never stole the box,” Hook said.
“He didn’t,” Tom Scarlet added.
“He never stole that box,” Hook said harshly, “yet the king hanged him. And hanging an innocent man is a sin. So why should God be on the side of a sinner? Tell me that, sir? Tell me why God would favor a king who murders an innocent man?”
There was another silence. The rain had eased a little and Hook could hear music coming from the French camp, then a burst of laughter. There had to be lamps inside the enemy’s tents because their canvas glowed yellow. The man called Swan shifted slightly, his plate leggings creaking. “If the man was innocent,” Swan said in a low voice, “then the king did wrong.”
“He was innocent,” Hook said stubbornly, “and I’d stake my life on that.” He paused, wondering if he dared go further, then decided to take the risk. “Hell, sir, I’d wager the king’s life on that!”
There was a hiss as the man called Swan took a sudden inward breath, but he said nothing.
“He was a good boy,” Will of the Dale said.
“And he never even got a trial!” Tom Scarlet said indignantly. “At home, sir, at least we get to say our piece at the manor court before they hang us!”
“Aye! We’re Englishmen,” Will of the Dale said, “and we have rights!”
“You know the man’s name?” Swan asked after a pause.
“Michael Hook,” Hook said.
“If he was innocent,” Swan said slowly, as if he were thinking about his response even as he spoke it, “then the king will have masses sung for his soul, he will endow a chantry for him, and he will pray himself every day for the soul of Michael Hook.”
Another sharp fork of lightning stabbed the earth and Hook saw the dark scar beside the king’s nose where a bodkin arrow had hit him at Shrewsbury. “He was innocent, sir,” Hook said, “and the priest who said otherwise lied. It was a family quarrel.”
“Then the masses will be sung, the chantry will be endowed, and Michael Hook will go to heaven with a king’s prayers,” the king promised, “and tomorrow, by God’s grace, we will fight those Frenchmen and teach them that God and Englishmen are not to be mocked. We will win. Here,” he thrust something at Hook, who took it and found it was a full leather bottle. “Wine,” the king said, “to warm you through the rest of the night.” He walked away, his armored feet squelching in the thick soil.
“He was a weird goddam fellow,” Geoffrey Horrocks said when the man called Swan was well out of earshot.
“I just hope he’s goddam right,” Tom Scarlet put in.
“Goddam rain,” Will of the Dale grumbled. “Sweet Jesus, I hate this goddam rain.”
“How can we win tomorrow?” Scarlet asked.
“You shoot well, Tom, and you hope God loves you,” Hook said, and he wished Saint Crispinian would break his silence, but the saint said nothing.
“If the goddamned French do get in among us tomorrow,” Tom Scarlet said, then faltered.
“What, Tom?” Hook asked.