“At least the bowstrings will be dry,” Evelgold remarked, “which means we might kill a few of the goddam bastards before they slaughter us.”

The enemy flew more banners and they also had more musicians. The English trumpeters were playing brief series of defiant notes, then pausing to let the drummers beat their sharp, insistent rhythm, but the French trumpets never stopped. They clawed at English ears, a braying sound that rose and fell on the cold wind. Most of the French army was on foot, like the English, but on either wing Hook could see masses of mounted knights. The horses wore long linen trappers embroidered with coats of arms. Their riders were trying to keep the beasts warm by walking them up and down. Lances pricked the sky. “The goddam bastards will come soon,” Tom Scarlet said.

“Maybe,” Hook said, “maybe not.” He half wished the French would come and get the ordeal over, and he half wished he was safely back in England, abed.

“Don’t string up till they move,” Evelgold called to Sir John’s archers. He had offered the advice at least six times already, but none of the bowmen seemed to notice. They shivered and watched the enemy. “Shit!” Evelgold added.

“What?” Hook asked, alarmed.

“I just stepped in some.”

“That’s supposed to bring you luck,” Hook said.

“Then I’d better dance in the goddam stuff.”

Priests were saying mass among the archers and, one by one, the men went to receive the bread of life and have their sins forgiven. The king was ostentatiously kneeling bareheaded before one of his chaplains out in front of the center battle. He had ridden the line once, mounted on a small white horse, and the gilded crown that circled his battle-helm had looked unnaturally bright in the morning’s gloom. He had chivvied men into position and leaned out of his saddle to tug at an archer’s stake to ensure it was well bedded in the soil. “God is with us, fellows!” he had called to the archers. The bowmen had started to kneel in deference, but he had waved them up. “God is on our side! Be confident!”

“Wish God has sent more Englishmen,” a voice had dared to call from among the bowmen.

“Never wish that!” the king had sounded cheerful. “God’s providence is sufficient! We are enough to do His work!”

Hook hoped to God the king was right as he went back to kneel before Father Christopher who was dressed in a black priestly robe over which he wore a mud-spattered chasuble embroidered with white doves, green crosses, and the Cornewaille red lions. “I’ve sinned, father,” Hook said, and he made a confession he had never made before; that he had murdered Robert Perrill and still planned to murder both Thomas Perrill and Sir Martin. It was hard to say the words, but Hook was driven to it by the thought, almost a certainty, that this was his last day on earth.

Father Christopher’s hands tightened on Hook’s head. “Why did you commit murder?” he asked.

“The Perrills murdered my grandfather, my father, and my brother,” Hook said.

“And now you have murdered one of them,” Father Christopher said sternly. “Nick, it must finish.”

“I hate them, father.”

“It’s a day of battle,” Father Christopher said, “and you should go to your enemies and beg their forgiveness and make your peace.” The priest paused, but Hook said nothing. “Other men are doing that,” Father Christopher went on. “They’re seeking out their enemies and making their peace. You should do the same.”

“I promised not to kill him in the battle,” Hook said.

“That’s not enough, Nick. You want to go to God’s judgment with hatred in your heart?”

“I can’t make peace with them,” Hook said, “not after they killed Michael.”

“Christ forgave His enemies, Nick, and we are to be like Christ.”

“I’m not Christ, father. I’m Nick Hook.”

“And God loves you,” Father Christopher sighed, then made the sign of the cross on Nick’s head. “You will not murder either man, Nick. That is a command from God. You understand me? You will not go into this battle with hatred in your heart. That way God will look gently on you. Promise me you will think no murder, Nick.”

It was a struggle. Hook was silent for a while, then he nodded abruptly. “I won’t kill them, father,” he said unhappily.

“Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. You swear that?”

There was another pause. Hook was thinking of the long years, of the embedded hatred, of the loathing he felt for Sir Martin and for Tom Perrill, and then he thought of what he had to face this day and he knew that if he were to go to heaven then he must give Father Christopher the solemn promise. He nodded abruptly. “I swear it,” he said.

Father Christopher’s hands tightened on Hook’s bare scalp again. “Your penance is to shoot well this day, Nicholas Hook. Shoot well for God and your king. Te absolvo,” he said. “Your sins are forgiven. Now look up at me.”

Hook looked up. The rain had finally stopped. He stared into Father Christopher’s eyes as the priest took a sliver of charcoal and carefully wrote on Hook’s forehead. “There,” he said when he was finished.

“What’s that, father?”

Father Christopher smiled, “I’ve written IHC Nazar on your forehead. Some folk believe it protects a man from sudden death.”

“What does it mean, father?”

“It’s the name of Christ, the Nazarene.”

“Write it on Melisande’s forehead, father.”

“I will, Hook, of course I will. Now ready yourself for the body of Christ.” Hook received the sacrament and then, as other men were doing and as the king had done, he took a pinch of wet earth and swallowed it with the wafer to show he was ready for death. The gesture proclaimed he was prepared to receive the earth as the earth might have to receive him. “God bless you, Nick,” Father Christopher said.

“I hope we meet when it’s over, father,” Hook said, pulling the helmet over his aventail.

“I pray that too,” the priest said.

“The shit-eating bastards must come soon,” Will of the Dale grumbled when Hook rejoined his men, yet the French showed no sign of wanting to attack. They waited, their deep ranks almost filling the wide space between the woods. The English heralds, resplendent in their liveries and holding their long white wands, had ridden halfway to the enemy’s line where they had been met by French and Burgundian heralds and now they all made a bright group that sat on their horses at the edge of the trees beside a tumbledown hovel with a mossy roof. They would observe the battle together and at its end they would decree the winner.

“Come on, you goddam bastards,” a man grumbled.

But the goddam bastards did not come. Their trumpets howled, but the long steel ranks showed no sign of being ready to advance. They waited. The trapper-bright horses milled about to hide the crossbowmen behind. A brief ray of sunlight shone on the center of their line and Hook saw the oriflamme, the red forked pennant that announced to the French that they were to take no prisoners. Kill everyone.

“Evelgold! Hook! Magot! Candeler!” Now it was Sir John Cornewaille’s turn to pace in front of the archers. “Come here! The four of you!”

Hook joined the other three sergeants. It was extraordinarily hard to walk through the deep plow because the clay soil had turned to a viscous reddish mud that clung to his boots. It was even harder for Sir John who was wearing full plate armor, sixty pounds of steel, so that he lurched as he walked, forced to drag each steel-plated foot out of the earth’s sucking grip. Sir John struggled to a place some forty or fifty paces ahead of the archers and there waited for his sergeants. “You always want to look at your own army,” he greeted them, “to see it as the enemy does. Have a look.”

Hook turned to stare at a mud-spattered, rusted and bedraggled army. His army. The center of the line was made of three battles, each of around three hundred men-at-arms. The central battle was commanded by the king, the one on the far right by Lord Camoys, while the left-hand battle was led by the Duke of York. Between the three battles were two small groups of archers, while on either flank were the much larger contingents of bowmen. Those two flanking groups, with their stakes, were angled ahead of the line’s center so that their arrows could fly in from the sides. “So what do the French do?” Sir John demanded.