Agincourt

Epilogue

It was a November day, sky-bright and cold, filled with the sounds of church bells, cheers, and singing.

Hook had never seen such crowds. London was celebrating its king and his victory. The water towers had been filled with wine, mock castles erected at street corners, and choirs of boys costumed as angels, old men disguised as prophets, and girls masquerading as virgins sang paeans of praise, and through it all the king rode in modest dress, without crown or scepter. The noblest of the French and Burgundian prisoners followed the king; Charles, Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Bourbon, the Marshal of France, still more dukes and countless counts, all exposed to the crowd’s good-natured jeers. Small boys ran alongside the horses of the mounted archers who guarded the prisoners and reached up to touch cased bows and scabbarded swords. “Were you there?” they asked. “Were you there?”

“I was there,” Hook answered, though he had left the procession and the cheers and the singing and the white doves circling.

He had ridden with four companions into the little streets that lay north of Cheapside. Father Christopher led them, taking the group into smaller and smaller alleys, alleys so tight that they had to ride single-file and constantly duck so their heads would not strike the overhanging stories of the timber-framed houses. Hook wore a mail coat, two pairs of breeches to keep out the cold, a padded haubergeon for warmth, boots taken from a dead count at Agincourt, and over it all a new surcoat blazoned with Sir John’s proud lion. Around his neck was a chain of gold, the symbol of his rank; centenar to Sir John Cornewaille. His helmet, of Milanese steel and only slightly scarred from an ax strike, hung from his saddle’s pommel. His sword had been made in Bordeaux and its hilt was decorated with a carved horse, the badge of the Frenchman who had once owned both sword and helmet. “I was there,” he told a small ragged boy, “we were all there,” he added, then he followed Father Christopher around a corner, ducked beneath a hanging bush, the sign of a wineshop, and entered a small square that stank of the sewage flowing through its open gutters. A church stood on the square’s northern side. It was a miserable church, its walls made of wattle and daub and its sorry excuse for a tower built from wood. A single bell hung in the tower. The bell was being tolled so that its cracked note could join the cacophony of noise that rejoiced in England’s victory. “That’s it,” Father Christopher said, gesturing at the little church.

Hook dismounted. He cuffed away another curious boy, then helped Melisande from her horse. She was in a dress of blue velvet, given to her in Calais by Lady Bardolf, the governor’s wife. Over it she wore a cloak of white linen, padded with wool and hemmed with fox-fur. A beggar on wood-sheathed stumps lurched toward her and she dropped a coin into his outstretched hand before following Hook and Father Christopher into the church. “Were you there?” a boy asked the last man to dismount.

“I was there,” Lanferelle said. The Frenchman paused before entering the church to give a coin to Will of the Dale who stayed outside to guard the horses.

The church floor was rush-covered earth. Only the choir was paved. It was dark inside because the surrounding buildings stopped any light coming through the unglazed windows. A priest had been tolling the bell, but he stopped when he saw the three men and the richly dressed woman come into his tiny sanctuary. The priest was nervous of the strangers, but then recognized Father Christopher in his rich black robes. “You’ve come again, father,” he said, sounding surprised.

“I told you I would,” Father Christopher said gently.

“Then you are all welcome,” the priest said.

The main altar was a wooden table covered with a shabby linen cloth on which stood a copper-gilt crucifix and two empty candlesticks. Behind the altar was a leather hanging on which a bad painter had depicted two angels kneeling to God. The four visitors all made a brief genuflection and the sign of the cross, then Father Christopher plucked Hook’s elbow toward the southern side of the church where a second altar stood. This second shrine was even less impressive than the first, being nothing but a battered table without any covering, and with a wooden crucifix and no candlesticks. One of Christ’s legs had broken off so He hung on His cross one-legged. Above Him was a painted leather picture of a woman in a white dress, though the white had peeled and faded, and her yellow halo had mostly flaked away.

Hook stared at the woman. Her face, what could be seen of it in the dim light and through the cracked paint, was long and sad. “How did you know she was here?” he asked Father Christopher.

“I asked,” the priest said, smiling. “There’s always someone who knows about the oddities of London. I found that man and I asked him.”

“An oddity?” the Sire de Lanferelle asked.

“I’m assured this is the only shrine to Saint Sarah in the whole city,” Father Christopher said.

“It is,” the parish priest said. He was a ragged man, shivering in a threadbare robe. His face had been scarred by the pox.

Lanferelle gave a brief smile. “Sarah? A French saint?”

“Perhaps,” Father Christopher said. “Some say she was Mary Magdalene’s servant, some say she gave refuge to the Magdalene in her house in France. I don’t know.”

“She was a martyr,” Hook interrupted harshly. “She died not far from here, murdered by an evil man. And I didn’t save her life.” He nodded to Melisande who went to the altar, knelt there, and took a leather purse from beneath her cloak. She laid the purse on the altar.

“For Sarah, father,” she told the priest.

The priest took the purse and unlaced it. His eyes widened and he looked at Melisande almost in fear, as though he suspected she might have second thoughts and take back the gold.

“I took them,” she said, “from the man who raped Sarah.”

The priest dropped to his knees and made the sign of the cross. He was called Roger and Father Christopher had spoken with him the day before and afterward had assured Hook that Father Roger was a good man. “A good man and a fool, of course,” Father Christopher had said.

“A fool?” Hook had asked.

“He believes the meek will inherit the earth. He believes the church’s task is to comfort the sick, to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked. You know I found your wife stark naked?”

“You always were a lucky man,” Hook had said. “So what is the church’s task?”

“To comfort the rich, feed the fat, and clothe the bishops in finery, of course, but Father Roger still clings to a vision of Christ the Redeemer. As I said, he is a fool,” he had spoken gently.

Hook now tapped the fool on the shoulder. “Father Roger?”

“Lord?”

“I’m no lord, just an archer,” Hook said, “and you will have this.” He held out the thick gold chain with its pendant badge of the antelope. “And with the money you make from its sale,” Hook went on, “you will make an altar to Saints Crispin and Crispinian.”

“Yes,” Father Roger said, then frowned because Hook had not let go of the fabulous chain.

“And every day,” Hook said, “you will say a mass for the soul of Sarah, who died.”

“Yes,” the priest said, and still Hook did not let go of the chain.

“And a prayer for your brother?” Melisande suggested.

“A king is praying for Michael,” Hook said, “and he needs no more. A daily mass for Sarah, father.”

“It will be done,” Father Roger said.

“She was a Lollard,” Hook said, testing the priest.

Father Roger gave a quick and secret smile. “Then I shall recite a mass for her twice every day,” he promised, and so Hook let go of the gold.

The bells rang. Te Deums were being sung in the city’s abbeys, churches, and cathedral. They gave thanks to God because England had sailed to Normandy and England had been harried into a corner of Picardy and there England had been faced with the almost certain death of its king and of his army.

But then the arrows flew.

Hook and Melisande took the westward road. They were going home.