“I’m outlawed, lord,” Hook blurted out, unable to conceal the truth any longer. “I’m sorry, sire.”

“Outlawed?” the king asked harshly, “for what crime?”

Hook had dropped to his knees again. “For hitting a priest, sire.”

The king was silent and Hook dared not look up. He expected punishment, but instead, to his astonishment, the king chuckled. “It seems that Saint Crispinian has forgiven you that grievous error, so who am I to condemn you? And in this realm,” Henry went on, his voice harder now, “a man is what I say he is, and I say you are an archer and we shall find you a lord.” Henry, without another word, walked back to his companions and Hook let out a long breath.

Sergeant Venables climbed to his feet, flinching from the pain in his wounded leg. “Chatted to you, did he?”

“Yes, sergeant.”

“He likes doing that. His father didn’t. His father was all gloomy, but our Hal is never too grand to say a word or two to a common bastard like you or me.” Venables spoke warmly. “So, he’s finding you a new lord?”

“So he said.”

“Well, let’s hope it’s not Sir John.”

“Sir John?”

“Mad bastard he is,” Venables said, “mad and bad. Sir John will have you killed in no time at all!” Venables chuckled, then nodded to the houses built against the curtain wall. “Father Ralph is looking for you.”

Father Ralph was beckoning from the doorway. So Hook went to finish his tale.

“Jesus weeping Christ, you spavined fart! Cross it! Cross it! Don’t flap it like a wet cock! Cross it! Then close me!” Sir John Cornewaille snarled at Hook.

The sword came again, slashing at Hook’s waist, and this time Hook managed to cross his own blade to parry the blow and, as he did so, pushed forward, only to be thumped back by a thrust of Sir John’s mailed fist. “Keep coming,” Sir John urged him, “crowd me, get me down on the ground, then finish me!” Instead Hook stepped back and brought up his sword to deflect the next swing of Sir John’s blade. “What in Christ’s name is the matter with you?” Sir John shouted in rage. “Have you been weakened by that French whore of yours? By that titless streak of scabby French gristle? Christ’s bones, man, find a real woman! Goddington!” Sir John glanced at his centenar, “why don’t you spread that scabby whore’s skinny legs and see if she can even be humped?”

Hook felt the sudden anger then, a red mist of rage that drove him onto Sir John’s blade, but the older man stepped lithely aside and flicked his sword so that the blade’s flat rapped the back of Hook’s skull. Hook turned, his own sword scything at Sir John, who parried easily. Sir John was in full armor, yet moved as lightly as a dancer. He lunged at Hook, and this time Hook remembered the advice and he swept the lunge aside and threw himself on his opponent, using all his weight and height to unbalance the older man, and he knew he was going to hammer Sir John onto the ground where he would beat him to a pulp, but instead he felt a thumping smack on the back of his skull, his vision went dark, the world reeled, and a second crashing blow with the heavy pommel of Sir John’s sword threw him face down into the early winter stubble.

He did not hear much of what Sir John said in the next few minutes. Hook’s head was painful and spinning, but as he gradually recovered his senses he heard some of the snarled peroration. “You can feel anger before a fight! But in the fight? Keep your goddam wits about you! Anger will get you killed.” Sir John wheeled on Hook. “Get up. Your mail’s filthy. Clean it. And there’s rust on the sword blade. I’ll have you whipped if it’s still there at sundown.”

“He won’t whip you,” Goddington, the centenar, told Hook that evening. “He’ll thump you and cut you and maybe break your bones, but it’ll be in a fair fight.”

“I’ll break his bones,” Hook said vengefully.

Goddington laughed. “One man, Hook, just one man has held Sir John to a drawn fight in the last ten years. He’s won every tournament in Europe. You won’t beat him, you won’t even come close. He’s a fighter.”

“He’s a bastard!” Hook said. The back of his head was matted with blood. Melisande was cleaning his mail and Hook was scrubbing at the rust on his sword blade with a stone. Both sword and mail had been supplied by Sir John Cornewaille.

“He was goading you, boy, he meant nothing,” Goddington said to Hook. “He insults everyone, but if you’re his man, and you will be, he’ll fight for you too. And he’ll fight for your woman.”

Next day Hook watched as Sir John put archer after archer onto the ground. When his own turn came to face Sir John he managed to trade a dozen blows before being turned, tripped, and thrown down. Sir John backed away from him, scorn on his scarred face, and that scorn drove Hook to his feet and to a wild, savage charge and a searing cut with the sword that Sir John contemptuously flicked away before tripping Hook again. “Anger, Hook,” Sir John growled, “if you don’t control it, it’ll kill you, and a dead archer’s no good to me. Fight cold, man. Fight cold and hard. Fight clever!” To Hook’s surprise he reached out a hand and pulled Hook to his feet. “But you’re quick, Hook,” Sir John said, “you’re quick! And that’s good.”

Sir John looked to be close on forty years old, but he was still the most feared tournament fighter in Europe. He was a squat, thick-chested man, bowlegged from years spent on horseback. He had the brightest blue eyes Hook had ever seen, while his flat, broken-nosed face showed the scars of battles, whether fought against rebels, Frenchmen, tavern brawlers, or tournament opponents. Now, in anticipation of war with France, he was raising a company of archers and another of men-at-arms, though in Sir John’s eyes, there was no great difference between the two. “We are a company!” he shouted at the archers, “archers and men-at-arms together! We fight for each other! No one hurts one of us and goes unhurt!” He turned and poked a metal finger into Hook’s chest. “You’ll do, Hook. Give him his coat, Goddington.”

Peter Goddington brought Hook a surcoat of white linen that showed Sir John’s badge: a red rampant lion with a golden star on its shoulder and a golden crown on its snarling head.

“Welcome to the company,” Sir John said, “and to your new duties. What are your new duties, Hook?”

“To serve you, Sir John.”

“No! I’ve got servants who do that! Your job, Hook, is to rid the world of anyone I don’t like! What is it?”

“To rid the world of anyone you don’t like, Sir John.”

And that was liable to be a large part of the world. Sir John Cornewaille loved his king, he worshipped his older wife who was the king’s aunt, he adored the women on whom he fathered bastards, and he was devoted to his men, but the rest of the world were nearly all goddam scum who deserved to die. He tolerated his fellow Englishmen, but the Welsh were cabbage-farting dwarves, the Scots were scabby arse-suckers, and the French were shriveled turds. “You know what you do with shriveled turds, Hook?”

“You kill them, Sir John.”

“You get up close and kill them,” Sir John said. “You let them smell your breath as they die. You let them see you grinning as you disembowel them. You hurt them, Hook, and then you kill them. Isn’t that right, father?”

“You speak with the tongue of angels, Sir John,” Father Christopher said blandly. He was Sir John’s confessor and, like the company of archers gathered in the field, wore a mail coat, tall boots, and a close-fitting helmet. There was nothing about him to suggest he was a priest, but if there had been any such evidence then he would not have been in Sir John’s employment. Sir John wanted soldiers.

“You’re not archers,” Sir John growled at the bowmen in the winter field. “You shoot arrows till the putrid bastards are on top of you, and then you kill them like men-at-arms! You’re no good to me if you can only shoot! I want you so close you can smell their dying farts! Ever killed a man so close you could have kissed him, Hook?”