Bernard Cornwell's 'Agincourt'

"Historical Fiction" is not something that I've read very much of (or at all) since I was a pre-teen --but on my way through the check-out line at the library Thursday evening, I saw 'Agincourt' over in the large-type new-arrivals' bookcase....and "What the hell--How bad could a really colorful account of one of my very favorite battles be?" I said to myself. So I grabbed it, checked it out--and until this morning I've scarcely put it down. Golly is it gory--and absolutely wonderful! I notice that the quality of Historical Fiction Prose has much improved since the days that Sir Walter Scott and Thomas B. Costain were writing it. Cornwell's prose maybe lacks, shall we say, sonorous melody, but it is cleanly stuff--and vigorous, and vivid to a fault. Moreover, he quite adequately conveys the very essence of that mysterious je ne sais quoi of historicity, How Things Felt In Those Days: Lots of perfectly appropriate cussing, by those who did a lot of it, and a frankness about pooping and peeing that does not in the least disgust, because there's no other way that makes sense to describe whole populations of people afflicted with dysentery. So, I've made a little vow to myself: I'm going to read any and everything else that the peculiarly gifted Mr. Cornwell has written.