Azincourt

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.

The first sound was the bowstrings, the snap of five thousand hemp cords being tightened by stressed yew, and that sound was like the devil’s harpstrings being plucked. Then there was the arrow sound, the sigh of air over feathers, but multiplied, so that it was like the rushing of a wind. That sound diminished as two clouds of arrows, thick as any flock of starlings, climbed into the gray sky. Hook, reaching for another broadhead, marveled at the sight of five thousand arrows in two sky-shadowing groups. The two storms seemed to hover for a heart’s beat at the height of their trajectory, and then the missiles fell. It was Saint Crispin’s Day in Picardy. For an instant there was silence. Then the arrows struck. It was the sound of steel on steel. A clatter, like Satan’s hailstorm.

Latin! The language of God! Or perhaps He speaks Hebrew? I suppose that’s more likely and it will make things rather awkward in heaven, won’t it? Will we all have to learn Hebrew?

Who do you serve?” Lanferelle asked. “Sir John Cornerwailled,” Hook said proudly. Lanferelle was pleased. “Sir John! Ah, there's a man. His mother must have slept with a Frenchman.

Fight well," he said distantly, "and remember you are Englishmen!" "Welshmen," someone intervened. Sir Roger visibly flinched at that and then, without another word, led his three men-at-arms from the church.

I forgot to mention,” Father Christopher said, smiling seraphically at Sir Martin, “that I am also a priest. So let me offer you a blessing.” He pulled out a golden crucifix that had been hidden beneath his shirt and held it toward Lord Slayton’s men. “May the peace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said, “comfort and sustain you while you take your farting mouths and your turd-reeking presence out of our sight.” He waved a sketchy cross toward the horsemen. “And thus farewell.

So you know it was a glorious battle, Hook, in which God favoured the English, but God's favour is a fickle thing.' 'Are you telling me He's not on our side?' 'I'm telling you that God is on the side of whoever wins, Hook.

Trinity Royal, which was being nuzzled by a dozen small launches nosing into her flank like piglets suckling on a sow.