Agincourt - Cornwell Bernard. Страница 43

“They’ll be listening too, Sir John. And the closer they get the clearer they hear us.”

“Putrid stinking prickless rancid bastards,” Sir John said to no one in particular. He nodded at Hook. “I still can’t hear them.”

“They’re there,” Hook said confidently. They spoke in whispers, shrouded by a darkness scarce relieved by the rushlight lanterns flickering in the foul air.

One of the miners spoke in Welsh. Dafydd ap Traharn silenced him with a cautionary hand. “He’s worried what happens if the enemy breaks into the tunnel, Sir John.”

“Make a chamber here,” Sir John said, “big enough for six or seven men. We’ll have archers and men-at-arms standing guard here. Have your own weapons at hand, but for the moment, keep digging. Let’s bring that bastard barbican down.” The mine shaft was aiming for the northernmost tower of the obstinate bastion in hope of tumbling it to fill the flooded ditch. A cavern would be made beneath the tower, a cavern supported by timber balks that would be burned away so that the roof would collapse and, with it, the tower. Sir John slapped the miners on their shoulders. “Well done, boys,” he said, “God is with you.” He beckoned to Hook and the two of them went back toward the sow. “I hope to God He is with us,” Sir John grumbled, then stopped and frowned as he contemplated the tunnel’s entrance. “We’ll have to put some defenses here,” he said.

“In the sow?”

“If the bastards break into our tunnel, Hook, they’ll come swarming out of that hole like rats smelling a free breakfast. We’ll put a wall here and garrison it with archers.”

Hook watched two men carry pit supports into the tunnel. “A wall here will slow the work, Sir John,” he said.

“God damn you, Hook, I know that!” Sir John snapped, then gazed at the tunnel’s mouth. “We need to end this siege! It’s gone on too long. Men are getting sick. We need to be away from this stinking place.”

“Barrels?” Hook suggested.

“Barrels?” Sir John echoed with another snarl.

“Fill three or four barrels with stones and soil,” Hook said patiently, “and if the French come, just roll the barrels into the entrance and stand them upright. Half a dozen archers can take care of any bastard that tries to get past them.”

Sir John stared at the entrance for a few heartbeats, then nodded. “Your mother wasn’t wasting her time when she spread her thighs, Hook. Good man. I want the barrels in place by sundown.”

The barrels were in place by dusk. Hook, waiting to be relieved, went to the trench beside the sow and watched the broken walls that were lit red by the sun sinking beyond the tree-stripped hills. Behind him, in the English camp, a man played a flute plaintively, repeating the same phrase over and over as though trying to get it right. Hook was tired. He wanted to eat and sleep, nothing more, and he paid small attention as a man-at-arms came to stand beside him at the parapet. The man was wearing a close-fitting helmet that half shadowed his face, but otherwise had no armor, just a leather jerkin, but his muddied boots were well made and a golden chain at his neck denoted his high status. “Is that a dead dog?” the man asked, nodding toward a furry corpse lying halfway between the English forward trench and the French barbican. Three ravens were pecking at the dead beast.

“The French shoot them,” Hook said. “The dogs run out of our lines and the crossbowmen shoot them. Then they vanish in the night.”

“The dogs?”

“They’re food for the French,” Hook explained curtly. “Fresh meat.”

“Ah, of course,” the man said. He watched the ravens for a while. “I’ve never eaten dog.”

“Tastes a bit like hare,” Hook said, “but stringier.” Then he glanced at the man and saw the deep-pitted scar beside the long nose. “Sire,” he added hastily, and dropped to one knee.

“Stand up, stand up,” the king said. He stared at the barbican, which now resembled little more than a heap of earth with a wall of battered tree trunks rammed into its crumbling forward slope. “We must take that barbican,” he said absently, speaking to himself. Hook was watching the bastion, looking for the telltale flicker of movement that would warn him of a crossbowman taking aim, but he reckoned the king was safe enough because the French usually went quiet as the sun sank beneath the western horizon, and this evening was no different. The guns and catapults of both sides were silent. “I remember the first day of the siege,” the king said, sounding almost puzzled, “and the church bells were always ringing in the town. I thought they were being defiant, then I realized they were burying their dead. But they don’t ring any more.”

“Too many dead, sire,” Hook said awkwardly, “or maybe there’s no bells left.” There was something about talking to a king that made his thoughts stumble.

“It must be ended quickly,” the king said earnestly, then stepped back from the parapet. “Does the saint still speak to you?” he asked, and Hook was so astonished that the king remembered him that he said nothing, just nodded hastily. “That’s good,” Henry said, “because if God is on our side then nothing can prevail against us. Remember that!” He gave Hook a half smile. “And we will prevail,” Henry added softly, almost as though he spoke to himself. Then he walked down the trench leading back to the sow where a dozen men waited for him.

Hook went to bed.

Next morning, when a gun fired, the earth trembled.

Hook was in the mine, down at the lowest level where Sir John had led him to listen again, and suddenly the earth shuddered and the rushlights flickered dark.

Everyone crouched in the half dark, listening. A miner began coughing wetly and Hook waited until the echo of the cough had died away. Listening. Listening for death, listening.

A second gun fired and the earth seemed to quiver as the tiny flames spluttered again and dust jarred from the roof and gobbets of earth spattered down to splash in the tunnel’s slurry. The rumble of the gun’s noise seemed to last forever, then there was a moaning sound, a creaking, as though the oaken supports were bending under the weight of the earth they carried.

“Hook?” Sir John asked.

There was a scratching noise, so faint that Hook wondered if he imagined it, but then there was a muffled crack followed by silence. After a while the scratching started again, and this time Hook was sure he heard it. The men in the tunnel watched him anxiously. He crossed to the farther wall and pressed an ear against the chalk.

Scratching. Hook looked at Dafydd ap Traharn. “How are you digging now, sir?” he asked.

“The way we always do,” the Welshman said, puzzled.

“Show me, sir?”

The Welshman took a pick and went to the tunnel’s face where, instead of swinging the pick to bury its blade in the soft rock, he dragged it down a natural cleft. He dragged it again, deepening the cleft, and then pushed the blade into the hole and tried to lever out a chunk of stone, but the hole was not deep enough and so he scratched the steel point down the groove again. He scratched it. He was working quietly, trying not to alert the French as the tunnel went closer to the ravaged walls, and Hook realized that was the sound he was hearing. Both teams of tunnelers were trying to work silently.

“They’re very close,” Hook said.

“Cymorth ni, O Arglwydd,” a miner muttered and crossed himself.

“How close?” Sir John demanded, ignoring the plea for God’s help.

“Can’t tell, Sir John.”

“God damn the goddam bastards,” Sir John spat.

“They may be above us,” Dafydd ap Traharn suggested, “or below.”

“You’ll know when they’re really close,” Hook said, “you’ll hear the scratching loud.”

“Scratching?” the Welshman asked.

“It’s what I hear, sir.”

“They’ll hack their way through the last few feet,” Dafydd ap Traharn said grimly, “and come on us like demons.”