Bernard Cornwell: Agincourt

“When was that, my lord?” Hook asked with apparent innocence.

“Bastard,” Lord Slayton spat, and the steward struck Hook from behind with the bone handle of a horsewhip.

“Don’t know which day that was, my lord,” Hook said stubbornly.

“Two days ago,” Sir Martin said. He was Lord Slayton’s brother-in-law and priest to the manor and village. He was no more a knight than Hook was, but Lord Slayton insisted he was called “Sir” Martin in recognition of his high birth.

“Oh!” Hook pretended a sudden enlightenment. “I was coppicing the ash under Beggar’s Hill, my lord.”

“Liar,” Lord Slayton said flatly. William Snoball, steward and chief archer to his lordship, struck Hook again, slashing the whip’s butt hard across the back of the forester’s skull. Blood trickled down Hook’s scalp.

“On my honor, lord,” Hook lied earnestly.

“The honor of the Hook family,” Lord Slayton said drily before looking at Hook’s younger brother, Michael, who was seventeen. “Where were you?”

“I was thatching the church porch, my lord,” Michael said.

“He was,” Sir Martin confirmed. The priest, lanky and gangling in his stained black robe, bestowed a grimace that was supposed to be a smile on Nick Hook’s younger brother. Everyone liked Michael. Even the Perrills seemed to exempt him from the hatred they felt for the rest of the Hook tribe. Michael was fair while his brother was dark, and his disposition was sunny while Nick Hook was saturnine.

The Perrill brothers stood next to the Hook brothers. Thomas and Robert were tall, thin and loose-jointed with deep sunk eyes, long noses, and jutting chins. Their resemblance to Sir Martin the priest was unmistakable and the village, with the deference due to a gentry-born churchman, accepted the pretense that they were the miller’s sons while still treating them with respect. The Perrill family had unspoken privileges because everyone understood that the brothers could call on Sir Martin’s help whenever they felt threatened.

And Tom Perrill had not just been threatened, he had almost been killed. The gray-fledged arrow had missed him by a hand’s breadth and that arrow now lay on the table in the manor hall. Lord Slayton pointed at the arrow and nodded to his steward who crossed to the table. “It’s not one of ours, my lord,” William Snoball said after examining the arrow.

“The gray feathers, you mean?” Lord Slayton asked.

“No one near here uses gray-goose,” Snoball said reluctantly, with a churlish glance at Nick Hook, “not for fledging. Not for anything!”

Lord Slayton gazed at Nick Hook. He knew the truth. Everyone in the hall knew the truth, except perhaps Michael who was a trusting soul. “Whip him,” Sir Martin suggested.

Hook stared at the tapestry hanging beneath the hall’s gallery. It showed a hunter thrusting a spear into a boar’s guts. A woman, wearing nothing but a wisp of translucent cloth, was watching the hunter, who was dressed in a loincloth and a helmet. The oak beams supporting the gallery had been turned black by a hundred years of smoke.

“Whip him,” the priest said again, “or cut off his ears.”

Hook lowered his eyes to look at Lord Slayton and wondered, for the thousandth time, whether he was looking at his own father. Hook had the strong-boned Slayton face, the same heavy forehead, the same wide mouth, the same black hair, and the same dark eyes. He had the same height, the same bodily strength that had been his lordship’s before the rebel sword had twisted in his back and forced him to use the leather-padded crutches leaning on his chair. His lordship returned the gaze, betraying nothing. “This feud will end,” he finally said, still staring at Hook. “You understand me? There will be no more killing.” He pointed at Hook. “If any of the Perrill family dies, Hook, then I will kill you and your brother. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And if a Hook dies,” his lordship turned his gaze on Tom Perrill, “then you and your brother will hang from the oak.”

“Yes, my lord,” Perrill said.

“Murder would need to be proven,” Sir Martin interjected. He spoke suddenly, his voice indignant. The gangling priest often seemed to be living in another world, his thoughts far away, then he would jerk his attention back to wherever he was and his words would blurt out as if catching up with lost time. “Proven,” he said again, “proven.”

“No!” Lord Slayton contradicted his brother-in-law, and to emphasize it he slapped the wooden arm of his chair. “If any one of you four dies I’ll hang the rest of you! I don’t care! If one of you slips into the mill’s leet and drowns I’ll call it murder. You understand me? I will not have this feud one moment longer!”

“There’ll be no murder, my lord,” Tom Perrill said humbly.

Lord Slayton looked back to Hook, waiting for the same assurance, but Nick Hook said nothing. “A whipping will teach him obedience, my lord,” Snoball suggested.

“He’s been whipped!” Lord Slayton said. “When was the last time, Hook?”

“Last Michaelmas, my lord.”

“And what did you learn from that?”

“That Master Snoball’s arm is weakening, lord,” Hook said.

A stifled snigger made Hook look upward to see her ladyship was watching from the shadows of the gallery. She was childless. Her brother, the priest, whelped one bastard after another, while Lady Slayton was bitter and barren. Hook knew she had secretly visited his grandmother in search of a remedy, but for once the old woman’s sorcery had failed to produce a baby.

Snoball had growled angrily at Hook’s impudence, but Lord Slayton had betrayed his amusement with a sudden grin. “Out!” he commanded now, “all of you! Get out, except for you, Hook. You stay.”

Lady Slayton watched as the men left the hall, then turned and vanished into whatever chamber lay beyond the gallery. Her husband stared at Nick Hook without speaking until, at last, he gestured at the gray-feathered arrow on the oak table. “Where did you get it, Hook?”

“Never seen it before, my lord.”

“You’re a liar, Hook. You’re a liar, a thief, a rogue, and a bastard, and I’ve no doubt you’re a murderer too. Snoball’s right. I should whip you till your bones are bare. Or maybe I should just hang you. That would make the world a better place, a Hookless world.”

Hook said nothing. He just looked at Lord Slayton. A log cracked in the fire, showering sparks.

“But you’re also the best goddamned archer I’ve ever seen,” Lord Slayton went on grudgingly. “Give me the arrow.”

Hook fetched the gray-fledged arrow and gave it to his lordship. “The fledging came loose in flight?” Lord Slayton asked.

“Looks like it, my lord.”

“You’re not an arrow-maker, are you, Hook?”

“Well I make them, lord, but not as well as I should. I can’t get the shafts to taper properly.”

“You need a good drawknife for that,” Lord Slayton said, tugging at the fledging. “So where did you get the arrow,” he asked, “from a poacher?”

“I killed one last week, lord,” Hook said carefully.

“You’re not supposed to kill them, Hook, you’re supposed to bring them to the manor court so I can kill them.”

“Bastard had shot a hind in the Thrush Wood,” Hook explained, “and he ran away so I put a broadhead in his back and buried him up beyond Cassell’s Hill.”

“Who was he?”

“A vagabond, my lord. I reckon he was just wandering through, and he didn’t have anything on him except his bow.”

“A bow and a bag filled with gray-fledged arrows,” his lordship said. “You’re lucky the horse didn’t die. I’d have hung you for that.”