SparkNotes

Yes, my Lord. The prisoners you asked for, which my son Harry Percy captured at Holmedon, were not kept from you in anger. He’s already told you that. Whoever told you my son meant to defy you was either mistaken or trying to make trouble. He’s done nothing wrong.

Sir, I didn’t hold back any prisoners. But I remember this: when the battle ended, I was exhausted with rage and exertion. I was out of breath, dizzy and bent over. All of a sudden a man approached me, neat, clean, and tidily dressed, like a bridegroom. His beard was freshly shaven, like a newly plowed field. He wore fancy cologne and he carried a perfume box, which he kept raising to his nose as he smiled and talked on. Whenever soldiers walked past, bearing dead bodies, he called them rude hoodlums for bringing a foul, disgusting corpse within breathing distance of him. He interrogated me, with his fancy language, and demanded that I give him my prisoners, to be taken on your behalf. There I was, with the cold aggravating all my wounds, being pestered by this idiot. In my grief and impatience, I gave him some kind of answer. I don’t even remember what I said—he could take them, or he couldn’t.