Tom Perrill stared at Hook. For a moment it seemed his hatred might conquer his caution, but then he twisted away and helped his brother remount. Sir Martin, his face dreamy again, allowed William Snoball to lead him away. The other horsemen followed.
Sir John dropped from his saddle, took Hook’s ale, and drained it. “Remind me why you were outlawed, Hook?”
“Because I hit a priest, Sir John,” Hook admitted.
“That priest?” Sir John asked, jerking a thumb toward the retreating horsemen.
“Yes, Sir John.”
Sir John shook his head. “You did wrong, Hook, you did very wrong. You shouldn’t have hit him.”
“No, Sir John,” Hook said humbly.
“You should have slit the goddam bastard’s putrid bowels open and ripped his heart out through his stinking arse,” Sir John said, looking at Father Christopher as if hoping his words might offend the priest, but Father Christopher merely smiled. “Is the bastard mad?” Sir John demanded.
“Famously,” Father Christopher said, “but so were half the saints and most of the prophets. I can’t think you’d want to go hawking with Jeremiah, Sir John?”
“Damn Jeremiah,” Sir John said, “and damn London. I’m summoned there again, father. The king demands it.”
“May God bless your going forth, Sir John, and your returning hence.”
“And if King Harry doesn’t make peace,” Sir John said, “I’ll be back soon. Very soon.”
“There’ll be no peace,” Father Christopher said confidently. “The bow is drawn and the arrow yearns to fly.”
“Let’s hope it does. I need the money a good war will bring.”
“I shall pray for war, then,” Father Christopher said lightly.
“For months now,” Sir John said, “I’ve prayed for nothing else.”
And now, Hook thought, Sir John’s prayers were being answered. Because soon, very soon, they would be sailing to war. They would sail to play the devil’s game. They would sail to France. They were going to fight.
PART TWO
Normandy
FOUR
Nick Hook could scarce believe the world held so many ships. He first saw the fleet when Sir John’s men mustered on the shore of Southampton Water so that the king’s officers could count the company. Sir John had contracted to supply ninety archers and thirty men-at-arms and the king had agreed to pay Sir John the balance of the money owed for those men when the army embarked, but first the numbers and condition of Sir John’s company had to be approved. Hook, standing in line with his companions, gazed in awe at the fleet. There were anchored ships as far as he could see; so many ships that their hulls hid the water. Peter Goddington, the centenar, had claimed there were fifteen hundred vessels waiting to transport the army, and Hook had not believed so many ships could exist, yet there they were.
The king’s inspector, an elderly and round-faced monk with ink-stained hands, walked down the line of soldiers to make sure that Sir John had hired no cripples, boys, or old men. He was accompanied by a grim-faced knight wearing the royal coat of arms, whose task was to inspect the company’s weapons. He found nothing amiss, but nor did he expect to discover any shortcomings in Sir John Cornewaille’s preparations. “Sir John’s indenture specifies ninety archers,” the monk said reprovingly when he reached the line’s end.
“It does indeed,” Father Christopher agreed cheerfully. Sir John was in London with the king, and Father Christopher was in charge of the company’s administration during Sir John’s absence.
“Yet there are ninety-two archers!” the monk spoke with mock severity.
“Sir John will throw the two weakest overboard,” Father Christopher said.
“That will serve! That will serve!” the monk said. He glanced at his grim-faced companion, who nodded approval of what he had seen. “The money will be brought to you this afternoon,” the monk assured Father Christopher. “God bless you one and all,” he added as he mounted his horse so he could ride to where other companies were waiting for inspection. His clerks, clutching linen bags filled with parchments, scurried after him.
Hook’s ship, the Heron, was a squat, round-bottomed merchant ship with a bluff bow, a square stern, and a thick mast from which Sir John Cornewaille’s lion banner flew. Close by, and looming above the Heron, was the king’s own ship, the Trinity Royal, which was the size of an abbey and made even bigger by the towering wooden castles added to her bows and stern. The castles, which were painted red, blue, and gold and hung with royal banners, made the Trinity Royal look top heavy, like a farm wagon piled too high with harvest sheaves. Her rails had been decorated with white shields on which red crosses were painted, while aloft she flew three vast flags. At her bows, on a short mast that sprang from her jaunty bowsprit, was a red banner decorated with four white circles joined by black-lettered strips. “That flag on the bow, Hook,” Father Christopher explained, making the sign of the cross, “is the flag of the Holy Trinity.”
Hook stared, said nothing.
“You might have thought,” Father Christopher went on slyly, “that the Holy Trinity would require three flags, but modesty reigns in heaven and one suffices. You know the significance of the flag, Hook?”
“No, father.”
“Then I shall repair your ignorance. The outer circles are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost and they’re joined by strips on which are written non est. You know what non est is, Hook?”
“Is not,” Melisande said quickly.
“Oh my God, she’s as clever as she’s beautiful,” Father Christopher said happily. He gave Melisande a slow and appreciative look that started at her face and finished at her feet. She was wearing a dress of thin linen decorated with Sir John’s crest of the red lion, though the priest was hardly examining the heraldry. “So,” he said slowly, looking back up her body, “the Father is not the Son, who is not the Holy Ghost, who is not the Father, yet all those outer circles connect to the inner, which is God, and on the strips connecting to God’s circle is the word est. So the Father is God, and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, but they’re not each other. It’s really very simple.”
Hook frowned. “I don’t think it’s simple.”
Father Christopher grinned. “Of course it’s not simple! I don’t think anyone understands the Holy Trinity, except maybe the pope, but which pope, eh? We’ve got two of them now, and we’re only supposed to have one! Gregory non est Benedict and Benedict non est Gregory, so let’s just hope God knows which one est which. God, you’re a pretty thing, Melisande. Wasted on Hook, you are.”
Melisande made a face at the priest who laughed, kissed his fingertips, and blew the kiss to her. “Look after her, Hook,” he said.
“I do, father.”
Father Christopher managed to tear his gaze from Melisande and stare across the water at the Trinity Royal, which was being nuzzled by a dozen small launches nosing into her flank like piglets suckling on a sow. Great bundles were being slung from those smaller boats into the larger. At the Trinity Royal’s stern, on another short mast, flew the flag of England, the red cross of Saint George on its white field. Every man in Henry’s army had been given two red linen crosses, which had to be sewn on the front and back of their jupons, defacing the badge of their lord. In battle, Sir John had explained, there were too many badges, too many beasts and birds and colors, but if all the English wore one badge, Saint George’s badge, then in the chaos of killing they might recognize their own compatriots.