“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.

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.

The Trinity Royal’s tall mast carried the largest flag, the king’s flag, the great quartered banner that twice displayed the golden leopards of England and twice the golden lilies of France. Henry claimed to be king of both countries, which was why his banner showed both, and the great fleet that filled Southampton Water would carry an army to make the banner’s boast come true. It was an army, Sir John Cornewaille had told his men the night before he left for London, like no other army that had ever sailed from England. “Our king has done it right!” he had said proudly. “We’re good!” He had grinned wolfishly. “Our lord the king has spent money! He’s pawned his royal jewels! He’s bought the best army we’ve ever had, and we’re part of it. And we’re not just any part, we’re the best part of it! We will not let our king down! God is on our side, isn’t that right, Father?”

“Oh, God detests the French,” Father Christopher had put in confidently, as though he were intimate with God’s mind.

“That’s because God is no fool,” Sir John went on, “but the Almighty knows He made a mistake when He created the French! So He’s sending us to correct it! We’re God’s army, and we’re going to gut those devil-spawned bastards!”

Fifteen hundred ships would carry twelve thousand men and at least twice that many horses across the Channel. The men were mostly English, with some Welshmen and a few score who had come from Henry’s possessions in Aquitaine. Hook could hardly imagine twelve thousand men, the number was so vast, but Father Christopher, leaning on the Heron’s rail, had repeated the cautionary note he had sounded outside the tavern before the confrontation with Sir Martin. “The French can muster triple our numbers,” he said musingly, “and maybe even more. If it comes to a fight, Hook, we’ll need your arrows.”