Читать книгу Three Great English Victories: A 3-book Collection of Harlequin, 1356 and Azincourt - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 16

Thomas was woken by a kick. A pause, then a second kick and a cup of cold water in his face. ‘Jesus!’

‘That’s me,’ Will Skeat said. ‘Father Hobbe told me you’d be here.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Thomas said again. His head was sore, his belly sour and he felt sick. He blinked feebly at the daylight, then frowned at Skeat. ‘It’s you.’

‘It must be grand to be so clever,’ Skeat said. He grinned at Thomas, who was naked in the straw of the tavern stables that he was sharing with one of the widow’s daughters. ‘You must have been drunk as a lord to sheathe your sword in that,’ Skeat added, looking at the girl who was pulling a blanket over herself.

‘I was drunk,’ Thomas groaned. ‘Still am.’ He staggered to his feet and put on his shirt.

‘The Earl wants to see you,’ Skeat said with amusement.

‘Me?’ Thomas looked alarmed. ‘Why?’

‘Perhaps he wants you to marry his daughter,’ Skeat said. ‘Christ’s bones, Tom, but look at the state of you!’

Thomas pulled on his boots and mail coat, then retrieved his hose from the baggage camp and donned a cloth jacket over his mail. The jacket bore the Earl of Northampton’s badge of three green and red stars being pounced on by a trio of lions. He splashed water on his face, then scraped at his stubble with a sharp knife.

‘Grow a beard, lad,’ Skeat said, ‘it saves trouble.’

‘Why does Billy want to see me?’ Thomas asked, using the Earl’s nickname.

‘After what happened in the town yesterday?’ Skeat suggested thoughtfully. ‘He reckons he’s got to hang someone as an example, so he asked me if I had any useless bastards I wanted to be rid of and I thought of you.’

‘The way I feel,’ Thomas said, ‘he might as well hang me.’ He retched drily, then gulped down some water.

He and Will Skeat went back into the town to find the Earl of Northampton sitting in state. The building where his banner hung was supposed to be a guildhall, though it was probably smaller than the guardroom in the Earl’s own castle, but the Earl was sitting at one end as a succession of petitioners pleaded for justice. They were complaining about being robbed, which was pointless considering they had refused to surrender the town, but the Earl listened politely enough. Then a lawyer, a weasel-snouted fellow called Belas, bowed to the Earl and declaimed a long moan about the treatment offered to the Countess of Armorica. Thomas had been letting the words slide past him, but the insistence in Belas’s voice made him take notice.

‘If your lordship,’ Belas said, smirking at the Earl, ‘had not intervened, then the Countess would have been raped by Sir Simon Jekyll.’

Sir Simon stood to one side of the hall. ‘That is a lie!’ he protested in French.

The Earl sighed. ‘So why were your breeches round your ankles when I came into the house?’

Sir Simon reddened as the men in the hall laughed. Thomas had to translate for Will Skeat, who nodded, for he had already heard the tale.

‘The bastard was about to roger some titled widow,’ he explained to Thomas, ‘when the Earl came in. Heard her scream, see? And he’d seen a coat of arms on the house. The aristocracy look after each other.’

The lawyer now laid a long list of charges against Sir Simon. It seemed he was claiming the widow and her son as prisoners who must be held for ransom. He had also stolen the widow’s two ships, her husband’s armour, his sword and all the Countess’s money. Belas made the complaints indignantly, then bowed to the Earl. ‘You have a reputation as a just man, my lord,’ he said obsequiously, ‘and I place the widow’s fate in your hands.’

The Earl of Northampton looked surprised to be told his reputation for fairness. ‘What is it you want?’ he asked.

Belas preened. ‘The return of the stolen items, my lord, and the protection of the King of England for a widow and her noble son.’

The Earl drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, then frowned at Sir Simon. ‘You can’t ransom a three-year-old,’ he said.

‘He’s a count!’ Sir Simon protested. ‘A boy of rank!’

The Earl sighed. Sir Simon, he had come to realize, had a mind as simple as a bullock seeking food. He could see no point of view but his own and was single-minded about pursuing his appetites. That, perhaps, was why he was such a formidable soldier, but he was still a fool. ‘We do not hold three-year-old children to ransom,’ the Earl said firmly, ‘and we don’t hold women as prisoners, not unless there is an advantage which outweighs the courtesy, and I see no advantage here.’ The Earl turned to the clerks behind his chair. ‘Who did Armorica support?’

‘Charles of Blois, my lord,’ one of the clerks, a tall Breton cleric, answered.

‘Is it a rich fief?’

‘Very small, my lord,’ the clerk, whose nose was running, spoke from memory. ‘There is a holding in Finisterre which is already in our hands, some houses in Guingamp, I believe, but nothing else.’

‘There,’ the Earl said, turning back to Sir Simon. ‘What advantages will we make from a penniless three-year-old?’

‘Not penniless,’ Sir Simon protested. ‘I took a rich armour there.’

‘Which the boy’s father doubtless took in battle!’

‘And the house is wealthy.’ Sir Simon was getting angry. ‘There are ships, storehouses, stables.’

‘The house,’ the clerk sounded bored, ‘belonged to the Count’s father-in-law. A dealer in wine, I believe.’

The Earl raised a quizzical eyebrow at Sir Simon, who was shaking his head at the clerk’s obstinacy. ‘The boy, my lord,’ Sir Simon responded with an elaborate courtesy which bordered on insolence, ‘is kin to Charles of Blois.’

‘But being penniless,’ the Earl said, ‘I doubt he provokes fondness. More of a burden, wouldn’t you think? Besides, what would you have me do? Make the child give fealty to the real Duke of Brittany? The real Duke, Sir Simon, is a five-year-old child in London. It’ll be a nursery farce! A three-year-old bobbing down to a five-year-old! Do their wet nurses attend them? Shall we feast on milk and penny-cakes after? Or maybe we can enjoy a game of hunt the slipper when the ceremony is over?’

‘The Countess fought us from the walls!’ Sir Simon attempted a last protest.

‘Do not dispute me!’ the Earl shouted, thumping the arm of his chair. ‘You forget that I am the King’s deputy and have his powers.’ The Earl leaned back, taut with anger, and Sir Simon swallowed his own fury, but could not resist muttering that the Countess had used a crossbow against the English.

‘Is she the Blackbird?’ Thomas asked Skeat.

‘The Countess? Aye, that’s what they say.’

‘She’s a beauty.’

‘After what I found you prodding this morning,’ Skeat said, ‘how can you tell?’

The Earl gave an irritated glance at Skeat and Thomas, then looked back to Sir Simon. ‘If the Countess did fight us from the walls,’ he said, ‘then I admire her spirit. As for the other matters …’ He paused and sighed. Belas looked expectant and Sir Simon wary. ‘The two ships,’ the Earl decreed, ‘are prizes and they will be sold in England or else taken into royal service, and you, Sir Simon, will be awarded one-third of their value.’ That ruling was according to the law. The King would take a third, the Earl another and the last portion went to the man who had captured the prize. ‘As to the sword and armour …’ The Earl paused again. He had rescued Jeanette from rape and he had liked her, and he had seen the anguish on her face and listened to her impassioned plea that she owned nothing that had belonged to her husband except the precious armour and the beautiful sword, but such things, by their very nature, were the legitimate plunder of war. ‘The armour and weapons and horses are yours, Sir Simon,’ the Earl said, regretting the judgement but knowing it was fair. ‘As to the child, I decree he is under the protection of the Crown of England and when he is of age he can decide his own fealty.’ He glanced at the clerks to make sure they were noting down his decisions. ‘You tell me you wish to billet yourself in the widow’s house?’ he asked Sir Simon.

‘I took it,’ Sir Simon said curtly.

‘And stripped it bare, I hear,’ the Earl observed icily. ‘The Countess claims you stole money from her.’

‘She lies.’ Sir Simon looked indignant. ‘Lies, my lord, lies!’

The Earl doubted it, but he could hardly accuse a gentleman of perjury without provoking a duel and, though William Bohun feared no man except his king, he did not want to fight over so petty a matter. He let it drop. ‘However,’ he went on, ‘I did promise the lady protection against harassment.’ He stared at Sir Simon as he spoke, then looked at Will Skeat, and changed to English. ‘You’d like to keep your men together, Will?’

‘I would, my lord.’

‘Then you’ll have the widow’s house. And she is to be treated honourably, you hear me? Honourably! Tell your men that, Will!’

Skeat nodded. ‘I’ll cut their ears off if they touch her, my lord.’

‘Not their ears, Will. Slice something more suitable away. Sir Simon will show you the house and you, Sir Simon,’ the Earl spoke French again, ‘will find a bed elsewhere.’

Sir Simon opened his mouth to protest, but one look from the Earl quietened him. Another petitioner came forward, wanting redress for a cellar full of wine that had been stolen, but the Earl diverted him to a clerk who would record the man’s complaints on a parchment which the Earl doubted he would ever find time to read.

Then he beckoned to Thomas. ‘I have to thank you, Thomas of Hookton.’

‘Thank me, my lord?’

The Earl smiled. ‘You found a way into the town when everything else we’d tried had failed.’

Thomas reddened. ‘It was a pleasure, my lord.’

‘You can claim a reward of me,’ the Earl said. ‘It’s customary.’

Thomas shrugged. ‘I’m happy, my lord.’

‘Then you’re a lucky man, Thomas. But I shall remember the debt. And thank you, Will.’

Will Skeat grinned. ‘If this lump of a daft fool don’t want a reward, my lord, I’ll take it.’

The Earl liked that. ‘My reward to you, Will, is to leave you here. I’m giving you a whole new stretch of countryside to lay waste. God’s teeth, you’ll soon be richer than me.’ He stood. ‘Sir Simon will guide you to your quarters.’

Sir Simon might have bridled at the curt order to be a mere guide, but surprisingly he obeyed without showing any resentment, perhaps because he wanted another chance to meet Jeanette. And so, at midday, he led Will Skeat and his men through the streets to the big house beside the river. Sir Simon had put on his new armour and wore it without any surcoat so that the polished plate and gold embossment shone bright in the feeble winter sun. He ducked his helmeted head under the yard’s archway and immediately Jeanette came running from the kitchen door, which lay just to the gate’s left.

‘Get out!’ she shouted in French, ‘get out!’

Thomas, riding close behind Sir Simon, stared at her. She was indeed the Blackbird and she was as beautiful at close range as she had been when he had glimpsed her on the walls.

‘Get out, all of you!’ She stood, hands on her hips, bareheaded, shouting.

Sir Simon pushed up the pig-snout visor of the helmet. ‘This house is commandeered, my lady,’ he said happily. ‘The Earl ordered it.’

‘The Earl promised I would be left alone!’ Jeanette protested hotly.

‘Then his lordship has changed his mind,’ Sir Simon said.

She spat at him. ‘You have already stolen everything else of mine, now you would take the house too?’

‘Yes, madame,’ Sir Simon said, and he spurred the horse forward so that it crowded her. ‘Yes, madame,’ he said again, then wrenched the reins so that the horse twisted and thumped into Jeanette, throwing her onto the ground. ‘I’ll take your house,’ Sir Simon said, ‘and anything else I want, madame.’ The watching archers cheered at the sight of Jeanette’s long bare legs. She snatched her skirts down and tried to stand, but Sir Simon edged his horse forward to force her into an undignified scramble across the yard.

‘Let the lass up!’ Will Skeat shouted angrily.

‘She and I are old friends, Master Skeat,’ Sir Simon answered, still threatening Jeanette with the horse’s heavy hooves.

‘I said let her up and leave her be!’ Will snarled.

Sir Simon, offended at being ordered by a commoner and in front of archers, turned angrily, but there was a competence about Will Skeat that gave the knight pause. Skeat was twice Sir Simon’s age and all those years had been spent in fighting, and Sir Simon retained just enough sense not to make a confrontation. ‘The house is yours, Master Skeat,’ he said condescendingly, ‘but look after its mistress. I have plans for her.’ He backed the horse from Jeanette, who was in tears of shame, then spurred out of the yard.

Jeanette did not understand English, but she recognized that Will Skeat had intervened on her behalf and so she stood and appealed to him. ‘He has stolen everything from me!’ she said, pointing at the retreating horseman. ‘Everything!’

‘You know what the lass is saying, Tom?’ Skeat asked.

‘She doesn’t like Sir Simon,’ Thomas said laconically. He was leaning on his saddle pommel, watching Jeanette.

‘Calm the girl down, for Christ’s sake,’ Skeat pleaded, then turned in his saddle. ‘Jake? Make sure there’s water and hay for horses. Peter, kill two of them heifers so we can sup before the light goes. Rest of you? Stop gawping at the lass and get yourselves settled!’

‘Thief!’ Jeanette called after Sir Simon, then turned on Thomas. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Thomas, madame.’ He slid out of the saddle and threw his reins to Sam. ‘The Earl has ordered us to live here,’ Thomas went on, ‘and to protect you.’

‘Protect me!’ Jeanette blazed at him. ‘You are all thieves! How can you protect me? There is a place in hell for thieves like you and it is just like England. You are thieves, every one of you! Now, go! Go!’

‘We’re not going,’ Thomas said flatly.

‘How can you stay here?’ Jeanette demanded. ‘I am a widow! It is not proper to have you here.’

‘We’re here, madame,’ Thomas said, ‘and you and us will have to make the best of it. We’ll not encroach. Just show me where your private rooms are and I’ll make sure no man trespasses.’

‘You? Make sure? Ha!’ Jeanette turned away, then immediately turned back. ‘You want me to show you my rooms, yes? So you know where my valuable properties are? Is that it? You want me to show you where you can thieve from me? Why don’t I just give you everything?’

Thomas smiled. ‘I thought you said Sir Simon had already stolen everything?’

‘He has taken everything, everything! He is no gentleman. He is a pig. He is,’ Jeanette paused, wanting to contrive a crushing insult, ‘he is English!’ Jeanette spat at Thomas’s feet and pulled open the kitchen door. ‘You see this door, Englishman? Everything beyond this door is private. Everything!’ She went inside, slammed the door, then immediately opened it again. ‘And the Duke is coming. The proper Duke, not your snivelling puppet child, so you will all die. Good!’ The door slammed again.

Will Skeat chuckled. ‘She don’t like you either, Tom. What was the lass saying?’

‘That we’re all going to die.’

‘Aye, that’s true enough. But in our beds, by God’s grace.’

‘And she says we’re not to go past that door.’

‘Plenty of room out here,’ Skeat said placidly, watching as one of his men swung an axe to kill a heifer. The blood flowed over the yard, attracting a rush of dogs to lap at it while two archers began butchering the still twitching animal.

‘Listen!’ Skeat had climbed a mounting block beside the stables and now shouted at all his men. ‘The Earl has given orders that the lass who was spitting at Tom is not to be molested. You understand that, you whoresons? You keep your britches laced up when she’s around, and if you don’t, I’ll geld you! You treat her proper, and you don’t go through that door. You’ve had your frolic, so now you can knuckle down to a proper bit of soldiering.’

The Earl of Northampton left after a week, taking most of his army back to the fortresses in Finisterre, which was the heartland of Duke John’s supporters. He left Richard Totesham as commander of the new garrison, but he also left Sir Simon Jekyll as Totesham’s deputy.

‘The Earl doesn’t want the bastard,’ Will Skeat told Thomas, ‘so he’s foisted him on us.’

As Skeat and Totesham were both independent captains, there could have been jealousy between them, but the two men respected each other and, while Totesham and his men stayed in La Roche-Derrien and strengthened its defences, Skeat rode out into the country to punish the folk who paid their rents and owed their allegiance to Duke Charles. The hellequin were thus released to be a curse on northern Brittany.

It was a simple business to ruin a land. The houses and barns might be made of stone, but their roofs would burn. The livestock was captured and, if there were too many beasts to herd home, then the animals were slaughtered and their carcasses tipped down wells to poison the water. Skeat’s men burned what would burn, broke what would break and stole what could be sold. They killed, raped and plundered. Fear of them drove men away from their farms, leaving the land desolate. They were the devil’s horsemen, and they did King Edward’s will by harrowing his enemy’s land.

They wrecked village after village – Kervec and Lanvellec, St Laurent and Les Sept Saints, Tonquedec and Berhet, and a score of other places whose names they never learned. It was Christmas time, and back home the yule logs were being dragged across frost-hardened fields to high-beamed halls where troubadours sang of Arthur and his knights, of chivalrous warriors who allied pity to strength, but in Brittany the hellequin fought the real war. Soldiers were not paragons; they were scarred, vicious men who took delight in destruction. They hurled burning torches onto thatch and tore down what had taken generations to build. Places too small to have names died, and only the farms in the wide peninsula between the two rivers north of La Roche-Derrien were spared because they were needed to feed the garrison. Some of the serfs who were torn from their land were put to work heightening La Roche-Derrien’s walls, clearing a wider killing ground in front of the ramparts and making new barriers at the river’s edge. It was a winter of utter misery for the Bretons. Cold rains whipped from the wild Atlantic and the English scoured the farmlands.

Once in a while there would be some resistance. A brave man would shoot a crossbow from a wood’s edge, but Skeat’s men were experts in trapping and killing such enemies. A dozen archers would dismount and stalk the enemy from the front while a score of others galloped about his rear, and in a short while there would be a scream and another crossbow was added to the plunder. The crossbow’s owner would be stripped, mutilated and hanged from a tree as a warning to other men to leave the hellequin alone, and the lessons worked, for such ambushes became fewer. It was the wrecking time and Skeat’s men became rich. There were days of misery, days of slogging through cold rain with chapped hands and wet clothes, and Thomas always hated it when his men fetched the duty of leading the spare horses and then driving the captured livestock home. Geese were easy – their necks were wrung and the dead birds hung from the saddles – but cows were slow, goats wayward, sheep stupid and pigs obstinate. There were, however, enough farm-bred boys in the ranks to ensure that the animals reached La Roche-Derrien safely. Once there they were taken to a small square that had become a slaughteryard and stank of blood. Will Skeat also sent cartloads of plunder back to the town and most of that was shipped home to England. It was usually humble stuff: pots, knives, plough-blades, harrow-spikes, stools, pails, spindles, anything that could be sold, until it was said that there was not a house in southern England which did not possess at least one object plundered from Brittany.

In England they sang of Arthur and Lancelot, of Gawain and Perceval, but in Brittany the hellequin were loose.

And Thomas was a happy man.

Jeanette was loath to admit it, but the presence of Will Skeat’s men was an advantage to her. So long as they were in the courtyard she felt safe in the house and she began to dread the long periods they spent away from the town, for it was then that Sir Simon Jekyll would haunt her. She had begun to think of him as the devil, a stupid devil to be sure, but still a remorseless, unfeeling lout who had convinced himself Jeanette must wish nothing so much as to be his wife. At times he would force himself to a clumsy courtesy, though usually he was bumptious and crude and always he stared at her like a dog gazing at a haunch of beef. He took Mass in the church of St Renan so he could woo her, and it seemed to Jeanette she could not walk in the town without meeting him. Once, encountering Jeanette in the alley beside the church of the Virgin, he crowded her against the wall and slid his strong fingers up to her breasts.

‘I think, madame, you and I are suited,’ he told her in all earnestness.

‘You need a wife with money,’ she told him, for she had learned from others in the town the state of Sir Simon’s finances.

‘I have your money,’ he pointed out, ‘and that has settled half my debts, and the prize money from the ships will pay much of the rest. But it is not your money I want, sweet one, but you.’ Jeanette tried to wrench away, but he had her trapped against the wall. ‘You need a protector, my dear,’ he said, and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. He had a curiously full mouth, big-lipped and always wet as though his tongue was too large, and the kiss was wet and stank of stale wine. He pushed a hand down her belly and she struggled harder, but he just pressed his body against hers and took hold of her hair beneath her cap. ‘You would like Berkshire, my dear.’

‘I would rather live in hell.’

He fumbled at the laces of her bodice and Jeanette vainly tried to push him away, but she was only saved when a troop of men rode into the alley and their leader called a greeting to Sir Simon, who had to turn away to respond and that allowed Jeanette to wrench herself free. She left her cap in his grasp as she ran home, where she barred the doors, then sat weeping and angry and helpless. She hated him.

She hated all the English, yet as the weeks passed she watched the townsfolk come to approve of their occupiers, who spent good money in La Roche-Derrien. English silver was dependable, unlike the French, which was debased with lead or tin. The presence of the English had cut the town off from its usual trade with Rennes and Guingamp, but the shipowners were now free to trade with both Gascony and England and so their profits rose. Local ships were chartered to import arrows for the English troops, and some of the shipmasters brought back bales of English wool that they resold in other Breton ports that were still loyal to Duke Charles. Few folk were willing to travel far from La Roche-Derrien by land, for they needed to secure a pass from Richard Totesham, the commander of the garrison, and though the scrap of parchment protected them from the hellequin it was no defence against the outlaws who lived in the farms emptied by Skeat’s men. But boats from La Roche-Derrien and Tréguier could still sail east to Paimpol or west to Lannion and so trade with England’s enemies. That was how letters were sent out of La Roche-Derrien, and Jeanette wrote almost weekly to Duke Charles with news of the changes the English were making to the town’s defences. She never received a reply, but she persuaded herself that her letters were useful.

La Roche-Derrien prospered, but Jeanette suffered. Her father’s business still existed, but the profits mysteriously vanished. The larger ships had always sailed from the quays of Tréguier, which lay an hour upriver, and though Jeanette sent them to Gascony to fetch wine for the English market, they never returned. They had either been taken by French ships or, more likely, their captains had gone into business for themselves. The family farms lay south of La Roche-Derrien, in the countryside laid waste by Will Skeat’s men, and so those rents disappeared. Plabennec, her husband’s estate, was in English-held Finisterre and Jeanette had not seen a penny from that land in three years, so by the early weeks of 1346 she was desperate and thus summoned the lawyer Belas to the house.

Belas took a perverse pleasure in telling her how she had ignored his advice, and how she should never have equipped the two boats for war. Jeanette suffered his pomposity, then asked him to draw up a petition of redress which she could send to the English court. The petition begged for the rents of Plabennec, which the invaders had been taking for themselves. It irked Jeanette that she must plead for money from King Edward III of England, but what choice did she have? Sir Simon Jekyll had impoverished her.

Belas sat at her table and made notes on a scrap of parchment. ‘How many mills at Plabennec?’ he asked.

‘There were two.’

‘Two,’ he said, noting the figure. ‘You do know,’ he added cautiously, ‘that the Duke has made a claim for those rents?’

‘The Duke?’ Jeanette asked in astonishment. ‘For Plabennec?’

‘Duke Charles claims it is his fief,’ Belas said.

‘It might be, but my son is the Count.’

‘The Duke considers himself the boy’s guardian,’ Belas observed.

‘How do you know these things?’ Jeanette asked.

Belas shrugged. ‘I have had correspondence from the Duke’s men of business in Paris.’

‘What correspondence?’ Jeanette demanded sharply.

‘About another matter,’ Belas said dismissively, ‘another matter entirely. Plabennec’s rents were collected quarterly, I assume?’

Jeanette watched the lawyer suspiciously. ‘Why would the Duke’s men of business mention Plabennec to you?’

‘They asked if I knew the family. Naturally I revealed nothing.’

He was lying, Jeanette thought. She owed Belas money, indeed she was in debt to half of La Roche-Derrien’s tradesmen. Doubtless Belas thought his bill was unlikely to be paid by her and so he was looking to Duke Charles for eventual settlement. ‘Monsieur Belas,’ she said coldly, ‘you will tell me exactly what you have been telling the Duke, and why.’

Belas shrugged. ‘I have nothing to tell!’

‘How is your wife?’ Jeanette asked sweetly.

‘Her aches are passing as winter ends, thank God. She is well, madame.’

‘Then she will not be well,’ Jeanette said tartly, ‘when she learns what you do with your clerk’s daughter? How old is she, Belas? Twelve?’

‘Madame!’

‘Don’t madame me!’ Jeanette thumped the table, almost upsetting the flask of ink. ‘So what has passed between you and the Duke’s men of business?’

Belas sighed. He put the cap on the ink flask, laid down the quill and rubbed his thin cheeks. ‘I have always,’ he said, ‘looked after the legal matters of this family. It is my duty, madame, and sometimes I must do things that I would rather not, but such things are also a part of my duty.’ He half smiled. ‘You are in debt, madame. You could rescue your finances easily enough by marrying a man of substance, but you seem reluctant to follow that course and so I see nothing but ruin in your future. Ruin. You wish some advice? Sell this house and you will have money enough to live for two or three years, and in that time the Duke will surely drive the English from Brittany and you and your son will be restored to Plabennec.’

Jeanette flinched. ‘You think the devils will be defeated that easily?’ She heard hooves in the street and saw that Skeat’s men were returning to her courtyard. They were laughing as they rode. They did not look like men who would be defeated soon; indeed, she feared they were unbeatable for they had a blithe confidence that galled her.

‘I think, madame,’ Belas said, ‘that you must make up your mind what you are. Are you Louis Halevy’s daughter? Or Henri Chenier’s widow? Are you a merchant or an aristocrat? If you are a merchant, madame, then marry here and be content. If you are an aristocrat then raise what money you can and go to the Duke and find yourself a new husband with a title.’

Jeanette considered the advice impertinent, but did not bridle. ‘How much would we make on this house?’ she asked instead.

‘I shall enquire, madame,’ Belas said. He knew the answer already, and knew that Jeanette would hate it, for a house in a town occupied by an enemy would fetch only a fraction of its proper value. So now was not the time to give Jeanette that news. Better, the lawyer thought, to wait until she was truly desperate, then he could buy the house and its ruined farms for a pittance.

‘Is there a bridge across the stream at Plabennec?’ he asked, drawing the parchment towards him.

‘Forget the petition,’ Jeanette said.

‘If you wish, madame.’

‘I shall think about your advice, Belas.’

‘You will not regret it,’ he said earnestly. She was lost, he thought, lost and defeated. He would take her house and farms, the Duke would claim Plabennec and she would be left with nothing. Which was what she deserved, for she was a stubborn and proud creature who had risen far above her proper station. ‘I am always,’ Belas said humbly, ‘at your ladyship’s service.’ From adversity, he thought, a clever man could always profit, and Jeanette was ripe for plucking. Put a cat to guard the sheep and the wolves would eat well.

Jeanette did not know what to do. She was loath to sell the house for she feared it would fetch a low price, but nor did she know how else she could raise money. Would Duke Charles welcome her? He had never shown any sign of it, not since he had opposed her marriage to his nephew, but perhaps he had softened since then? Perhaps he would protect her? She decided she would pray for guidance; so she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, crossed the yard, ignoring the newly returned soldiers, and went into St Renan’s church. There was a statue of the Virgin there, sadly shorn of her gilded halo, which had been ripped away by the English, and Jeanette often prayed to the image of Christ’s mother, whom she believed had a special care for all women in trouble.

She thought at first that the dimly lit church was empty. Then she saw an English bow propped against a pillar and an archer kneeling at the altar. It was the good-looking man, the one who wore his hair in a long pigtail bound with bowcord. It was, she thought, an irritating sign of vanity. Most of the English wore their hair cropped, but a few grew it extravagantly long and they were the ones who seemed most flamboyantly confident. She wished he would leave the church; then she was intrigued by his abandoned bow and so she picked it up and was astonished by its weight. The string hung loose and she wondered how much strength would be needed to bend the bow and hook the string’s free loop on the empty horn tip. She pressed one end of the bow on the stone floor, trying to bend it, and just then an arrow span across the flagstones to lodge against her foot.

‘If you can string the bow,’ Thomas said, still on his knees at the altar, ‘you can have a free shot.’

Jeanette was too proud to be seen to fail and too angry not to try, though she attempted to disguise her effort which barely flexed the black yew stave. She kicked the arrow away. ‘My husband was killed by one of these bows,’ she said bitterly.

‘I’ve often wondered,’ Thomas said, ‘why you Bretons or the French don’t learn to shoot them. Start your son at seven or eight years, madame, and in ten years he’ll be lethal.’

‘He’ll fight as a knight, like his father.’

Thomas laughed. ‘We kill knights. They haven’t made an armour strong enough to resist an English arrow.’

Jeanette shuddered. ‘What are you praying for, Englishman?’ she asked. ‘Forgiveness?’

Thomas smiled. ‘I am giving thanks, madame, for the fact that we rode six days in enemy country and did not lose one man.’ He climbed from his knees and pointed to a pretty silver box that sat on the altar. It was a reliquary and had a small crystal window that was rimmed with drops of coloured glass. Thomas had peered through the window and seen nothing more than a small black lump about the size of a man’s thumb. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘The tongue of St Renan,’ Jeanette said defiantly. ‘It was stolen when you came to our town, but God was good and the thief died next day and the relic was recovered.’

‘God is indeed good,’ Thomas said drily. ‘And who was St Renan?’

‘He was a great preacher,’ she said, ‘who banished the nains and gorics from our farmlands. They still live in the wild places, but a prayer to St Renan will scare them away.’

‘Nains and gorics?’ Thomas asked.

‘They are spirits,’ she said, ‘evil ones. They once haunted the whole land, and I pray daily to the saint that he will banish the hellequin as he drove out the nains. You know what the hellequin are?’

‘We are,’ Thomas said proudly.

She grimaced at his tone. ‘The hellequin,’ she said icily, ‘are the dead who have no souls. The dead who were so wicked in life that the devil loves them too much to punish them in hell and so he gives them his horses and releases them on the living.’ She hefted his black bow and pointed to the silver plate tacked to its belly. ‘You even have the devil’s picture on your bow.’

‘It’s a yale,’ Thomas said.

‘It is a devil,’ she insisted, and threw the bow at him. Thomas caught it and, because he was too young to resist showing off, casually strung it. He made it appear effortless. ‘You pray to St Renan,’ he said, ‘and I shall pray to St Guinefort. We shall see which saint is the stronger.’

‘Guinefort? I’ve not heard of her.’

‘Him,’ Thomas corrected her, ‘and he lived in the Lyonnaise.’

‘You pray to a French saint?’ Jeanette asked, intrigued.

‘All the time,’ Thomas said, touching the desiccated dog’s paw that hung about his neck. He did not tell Jeanette anything more about the saint, who had been a favourite of his father’s – who, in his better moments, would laugh at the story. Guinefort had been a dog and, so far as Thomas’s father knew, the only animal ever to be canonized. The beast had saved a baby from a wolf, then been martyred by his owner, who thought the dog had eaten the baby when in truth he had hidden it beneath the cot. ‘Pray to the blessed Guinefort!’ had been Father Ralph’s reaction to every domestic crisis, and Thomas had adopted the saint as his own. He sometimes wondered whether the saint was an efficient intercessor in heaven, though perhaps Guinefort’s whining and barking were as effective as the pleas of any other saint, but Thomas was sure that few other folk used the dog as their representative to God and perhaps that meant he received special protection. Father Hobbe had been shocked to hear of a holy dog, but Thomas, though he shared his father’s amusement, now genuinely thought of the animal as his guardian.

Jeanette wanted to know more about the blessed St Guinefort, but she did not want to encourage an intimacy with any of Skeat’s men and so she forgot her curiosity and made her voice cold again. ‘I have been wanting to see you,’ she said, ‘to tell you that your men and their women must not use the yard as a latrine. I see them from the window. It is disgusting! Maybe you behave like that in England, but this is Brittany. You can use the river.’

Thomas nodded, but said nothing. Instead he carried his bow down the nave, which had one of its long sides obscured by fishing nets hung up for mending. He went to the church’s western end, which was gloomily decorated by a painting of the doom. The righteous were vanishing into the rafters, while the condemned sinners were tumbling to a fiery hell cheered on by angels and saints. Thomas stopped in front of the painting.

‘Have you ever noticed,’ he said, ‘how the prettiest women are always falling down to hell and the ugly ones are going up to heaven?’

Jeanette almost smiled for she had often wondered about that same question, but she bit her tongue and said nothing as Thomas walked back up the nave beside a painting of Christ walking on a sea that was grey and white-crested like the ocean off Brittany. A shoal of mackerel were poking their heads from the water to watch the miracle.

‘What you must understand, madame,’ Thomas said, gazing up at the curious mackerel, ‘is that our men do not like being unwelcome. You won’t even let them use the kitchen. Why not? It’s big enough, and they’d be glad of a place to dry their boots after a wet night’s riding.’

‘Why should I have you English in my kitchen? So you can use that as a latrine as well?’

Thomas turned and looked at her. ‘You have no respect for us, madame, so why should we have respect for your house?’

‘Respect!’ She mocked the word. ‘How can I respect you? Everything that is precious to me was stolen. Stolen by you!’

‘By Sir Simon Jekyll,’ Thomas said.

‘You or Sir Simon,’ Jeanette asked, ‘what is the difference?’

Thomas picked up the arrow and dropped it into his bag. ‘The difference, madame, is that once in a while I talk to God, while Sir Simon thinks he is God. I shall ask the lads to piss in the river, but I doubt they’ll want to please you much.’ He smiled at her, then was gone.

Spring was greening the land, giving a haze to the trees and filling the twisting laneways with bright flowers. New green moss grew on thatch, there was white stitchwort in the hedgerows, and kingfishers whipped between the new yellow leaves of the riverside sallows. Skeat’s men were having to go further from La Roche-Derrien to find new plunder and their long rides took them dangerously close to Guingamp, which was Duke Charles’s headquarters, though the town’s garrison rarely came out to challenge the raiders. Guingamp lay to the south, while to the west was Lannion, a much smaller town with a far more belligerent garrison that was inspired by Sir Geoffrey de Pont Blanc, a knight who had sworn an oath that he would lead Skeat’s raiders back to Lannion in chains. He announced that the Englishmen would be burned in Lannion’s marketplace because they were heretics, the devil’s men.

Will Skeat was not worried by such a threat. ‘I might lose a wink of sleep if the silly bastard had proper archers,’ he told Tom, ‘but he ain’t, so he can blunder about as much as he likes. Is that his real name?’

‘Geoffrey of the White Bridge.’

‘Daft bastard. Is he Breton or French?’

‘I’m told he’s French.’

‘Have to teach him a lesson then, won’t we?’

Sir Geoffrey proved an unwilling pupil. Will Skeat dragged his coat closer and closer to Lannion, burning houses within sight of its walls in an effort to lure Sir Geoffrey out into an ambush of archers, but Sir Geoffrey had seen what English arrows could do to mounted knights and so he refused to lead his men in a wild charge that would inevitably finish as a pile of screaming horses and bleeding men. He stalked Skeat instead, looking for some place where he could ambush the Englishmen, but Skeat was no more of a fool than Sir Geoffrey, and for three weeks the two war bands circled and skirted each other. Sir Geoffrey’s presence slowed Skeat, but did not stop the destruction. The two forces clashed twice, and both times Sir Geoffrey threw his crossbowmen forward on foot, hoping they could finish off Skeat’s archers, but both times the longer arrows won and Sir Geoffrey drew off without forcing a fight he knew he must lose. After the second inconclusive clash he even tried appealing to Will Skeat’s honour. He rode forward, all alone, dressed in an armour as beautiful as Sir Simon Jekyll’s, though Sir Geoffrey’s helmet was an old-fashioned pot with perforated eye holes. His surcoat and his horse’s trapper were dark blue on which white bridges were embroidered and the same device was blazoned on his shield. He carried a blue-painted lance from which he had hung a white scarf to show he came in peace. Skeat rode forward to meet him with Thomas as interpreter. Sir Geoffrey lifted off his helmet and pushed a hand through his sweat-flattened hair. He was a young fellow, golden-haired and blue-eyed, with a broad, good-humoured face, and Thomas felt he would probably have liked the man if he had not been an enemy. Sir Geoffrey smiled as the two Englishmen curbed their horses.

‘It is a dull thing,’ he said, ‘to shoot arrows at each other’s shadows. I suggest you bring your men-at-arms into the field’s centre and meet us there on equal terms.’

Thomas did not even bother to translate, for he knew what Skeat’s answer would be. ‘I have a better idea,’ he said, ‘you bring your men-at-arms and we’ll bring our archers.’

Sir Geoffrey looked puzzled. ‘Do you command?’ he asked Thomas. He had thought that the older and grizzled Skeat was the captain, but Skeat stayed silent.

‘He lost his tongue fighting the Scots,’ Thomas said, ‘so I speak for him.’

‘Then tell him I want an honourable fight,’ Sir Geoffrey said spiritedly. ‘Let me pit my horsemen against yours.’ He smiled as if to suggest his suggestion was as reasonable as it was chivalrous as it was ridiculous.

Thomas translated for Skeat, who twisted in his saddle and spat into the clover.

‘He says,’ Thomas said, ‘that our archers will meet your men. A dozen of our archers against a score of your men-at-arms.’

Sir Geoffrey shook his head sadly. ‘You have no sense of sport, you English,’ he said, then put his leather-lined pot back on his head and rode away. Thomas told Skeat what had passed between them.

‘Silly goddamn bastard,’ Skeat said. ‘What did he want? A tournament? Who does he think we are? The knights of the round bloody table? I don’t know what happens to some folk. They put a sir in front of their names and their brains get addled. Fighting fair! Whoever heard of anything so daft? Fight fair and you lose. Bloody fool.’

Sir Geoffrey of the White Bridge continued to haunt the hellequin, but Skeat gave him no chance for a fight. There was always a large band of archers watching the Frenchman’s forces, and whenever the men from Lannion became too bold they were likely to have the goose-feathered arrows thumping into their horses. So Sir Geoffrey was reduced to a shadow, but he was an irritating and persistent shadow, following Skeat’s men almost back to the gates of La Roche-Derrien.

The trouble occurred the third time that he trailed Skeat and so came close to the town. Sir Simon Jekyll had heard of Sir Geoffrey and, warned by a sentinel on the highest church tower that Skeat’s men were in sight, he led out a score of the garrison’s men-at-arms to meet the hellequin. Skeat was just over a mile from the town and Sir Geoffrey, with fifty men-at-arms and as many mounted crossbowmen, was just another half-mile behind. The Frenchman had caused no great problems to Skeat and if Sir Geoffrey wanted to ride home to Lannion and claim that he had chased the hellequin back to their lair then Skeat was quite happy to give the Frenchman that satisfaction.

Then Sir Simon came and it was all suddenly display and arrogance. The English lances went up, the helmet visors clanged shut and their horses were prancing. Sir Simon rode towards the French and Breton horsemen, bellowing a challenge. Will Skeat followed Sir Simon and advised him to let the bastards be, but the Yorkshireman was wasting his breath.

Skeat’s men-at-arms were at the front of the column, escorting the captured livestock and three wagons filled with plunder, while the rearguard was formed by sixty mounted archers. Those sixty men had just reached the big woods where the army had camped during the siege of La Roche-Derrien and, at a signal from Skeat, they split into two groups and rode into the trees either side of the road. They dismounted in the woods, tied their horses’ reins to branches, then carried their bows to the edge of the trees. The road ran between the two groups, edged by wide grassy verges.

Sir Simon wheeled his horse to confront Will Skeat. ‘I want thirty of your men-at-arms, Skeat,’ he demanded peremptorily.

‘You can want them,’ Will Skeat said, ‘but you’ll not have them.’

‘Good Christ, man, I outrank you!’ Sir Simon was incredulous at Skeat’s refusal. ‘I outrank you, Skeat! I’m not asking, you fool, I’m ordering.’

Skeat looked up at the sky. ‘Looks like rain, don’t you think? And we could do with a drop. Fields are right dry and streams are low.’

Sir Simon reached out and gripped Skeat’s arm, forcing the older man to turn to him. ‘He has fifty knights,’ Sir Simon spoke of Sir Geoffrey de Pont Blanc, ‘and I have twenty. Give me thirty men and I’ll take him prisoner. Just give me twenty!’ He was pleading, all arrogance gone, for this was a chance for Sir Simon to fight a proper skirmish, horseman against horseman, and the winner would have renown and the prize of captured men and horses.

But Will Skeat knew everything about men, horses and renown. ‘I’m not out here to play games,’ he said, shaking his arm free, ‘and you can order me till the cows sprout wings, but you’ll not have a man of mine.’

Sir Simon looked anguished, but then Sir Geoffrey de Pont Blanc decided the matter. He saw how his men-at-arms outnumbered the English horsemen and so he ordered thirty of his followers to ride back and join the crossbowmen. Now the two troops of horsemen were evenly matched and Sir Geoffrey rode forward on his big black stallion that was swathed in its blue and white trapper and had a boiled leather mask for face armour, a chanfron. Sir Simon rode to meet him in his new armour, but his horse had no padded trapper and no chanfron, and he wanted both, just as he wanted this fight. All winter he had endured the misery of a peasant’s war, all muck and murder, and now the enemy was offering honour, glory and the chance to capture some fine horses, armour and good weapons. The two men saluted each other by dipping their lances, then exchanged names and compliments.

Will Skeat had joined Thomas in the woods. ‘You might be a woolly-headed fool, Tom,’ Skeat said, ‘but there’s plenty more stupid than you. Look at the daft bastards! Not a brain between either of them. You could shake them by the heels and nothing would drop out of their ears but dried muck.’ He spat.

Sir Geoffrey and Sir Simon agreed on the rules of the fight. Tournament rules, really, only with death to give the sport spice. An unhorsed man was out of the fight, they agreed, and would be spared, though such a man could be taken prisoner. They wished each other well then turned and rode back to their men.

Skeat tied his horse to a tree and strung his bow. ‘There’s a place in York,’ he said, ‘where you can watch the mad folk. They keep them caged up and you pay a farthing to go and laugh at them. They should put those two silly bastards in with them.’

‘My father was mad for a time,’ Thomas said.

‘Don’t surprise me, lad, don’t surprise me at all,’ Skeat said. He looped his bowcord onto a stave that had been carved with crosses.

His archers watched the men-at-arms from the edge of the woods. As a spectacle it was wondrous, like a tournament, only on this spring meadow there were no marshals to save a man’s life. The two groups of horsemen readied themselves. Squires tightened girths, men hefted lances and made sure their shield straps were tight. Visors clanged shut, turning the horsemen’s world into a dark place slashed with slitted daylight. They dropped their reins, for from now on the well-trained destriers would be guided by the touch of spur and the pressure of knees; the horsemen needed both hands for their shields and weapons. Some men wore two swords, a heavy one for slashing and a thinner blade for stabbing, and they made certain the weapons slid easily from their scabbards. Some gave their lances to squires to leave a hand free to make the sign of the cross, then took the lances back. The horses stamped on the pasture, then Sir Geoffrey lowered his lance in a signal that he was ready and Sir Simon did the same, and the forty men spurred their big horses forward. These were not the light-boned mares and geldings that the archers rode, but the heavy destriers, stallions all, and big enough to carry a man and his armour. The beasts snorted, tossed their heads and lumbered into a trot as the riders lowered their long lances. One of Sir Geoffrey’s men made the beginner’s mistake of lowering the lance too much so that the point struck the dry turf and he was lucky not be unhorsed. He left the lance behind and drew his sword. The horsemen spurred into the canter and one of Sir Simon’s men swerved to the left, probably because his horse was ill trained, and it bumped the next horse and the ripple of colliding horses went down the line as the spurs rowelled back to demand the gallop. Then they struck.

The sound of the wooden lances striking shields and mail was a crunch like splintering bones. Two horsemen were rammed back out of their high saddles, but most of the lance thrusts had been parried by shields and now the horsemen dropped the shivered weapons as they galloped past their opponents. They sawed on the reins and drew their swords, but it was plain to the watching archers that the enemy had gained an advantage. Both of the unhorsed riders were English, and Sir Geoffrey’s men were much more closely aligned so that when they turned to bring their swords to the mêlée they came as a disciplined group that struck Sir Simon’s men in a clangour of sword against sword. An Englishman reeled from the mêlée with a missing hand. Dust and turf spewed up from hooves. A riderless horse limped away. The swords clashed like hammers on anvils. Men grunted as they swung. A huge Breton, with no device on his plain shield, was wielding a falchion, a weapon that was half sword and half axe, and he used the broad blade with a terrible skill. An English man-at-arms had his helmet split open and his skull with it, so that he rode wavering from the fight, blood pouring down his mail coat. His horse stopped a few paces from the turmoil and the man-at-arms slowly, so slowly, bent forward and then slumped down from the saddle. One foot was trapped in a stirrup as he died but his horse did not seem to notice. It just went on cropping the grass.

Two of Sir Simon’s men yielded and were sent back to be taken prisoner by the French and Breton squires. Sir Simon himself was fighting savagely, turning his horse to beat off two opponents. He sent one reeling out of the fight with a useless arm, then battered the other with swift cuts from his stolen sword. The French had fifteen men still fighting, but the English were down to ten when the great brute with the falchion decided to finish Sir Simon off. He roared as he charged, and Sir Simon caught the falchion on his shield and lunged his sword into the mail under the Breton’s armpit. He yanked the sword free and there was blood pouring from the rent in the enemy’s mail and leather tunic. The big man twitched in the saddle and Sir Simon hammered the sword onto the back of his head, then turned his horse to beat off another assailant, before wheeling back to drive his heavy weapon in a crushing blow against the big Breton’s Adam’s apple. The man dropped his falchion and clutched his throat as he rode away.

‘He’s good, isn’t he?’ Skeat said flatly. ‘Got suet for brains, but he knows how to fight.’

But, despite Sir Simon’s prowess, the enemy was winning and Thomas wanted to advance the archers. They only needed to run about thirty paces and then would have been in easy range of the rampaging enemy horsemen, but Will Skeat shook his head. ‘Never kill two Frenchmen when you can kill a dozen, Tom,’ he said reprovingly.

‘Our men are getting beat,’ Thomas protested.

‘Then that’ll teach ’em not to be bloody fools, won’t it?’ Skeat said. He grinned. ‘Just wait, lad, just wait, and we’ll skin the cat proper.’

The English men-at-arms were being beaten back and only Sir Simon was fighting with spirit. He was indeed good. He had driven the huge Breton from the fight and was now holding off four of the enemy, and doing it with a ferocious skill, but the rest of his men, seeing that their battle was lost and that they could not reach Sir Simon because there were too many enemy horsemen around him, turned and fled.

‘Sam!’ Will shouted across the road. ‘When I give you the word, take a dozen men and run away! You hear me, Sam?’

‘I’ll run away!’ Sam shouted back.

The English men-at-arms, some bleeding and one half-falling from his tall saddle, thundered back down the road towards La Roche-Derrien. The French and Bretons had surrounded Sir Simon, but Sir Geoffrey of the White Bridge was a romantic fellow and refused to take the life of a brave opponent, and so he ordered his men to spare the English knight.

Sir Simon, sweating like a pig under the leather and iron plate, pushed up the snoutlike visor of his helmet. ‘I don’t yield,’ he told Sir Geoffrey. His new armour was scarred and his sword edge chipped, but the quality of both had helped him in the fight. ‘I don’t yield,’ he said again, ‘so fight on!’

Sir Geoffrey bowed in his saddle. ‘I salute your bravery, Sir Simon,’ he said magnanimously, ‘and you are free to go with all honour.’ He waved his men-at-arms aside and Sir Simon, miraculously alive and free, rode away with his head held high. He had led his men into disaster and death, but he had emerged with honour.

Sir Geoffrey could see past Sir Simon, down the long road that was thick with fleeing men-at-arms and, beyond them, the captured livestock and the heaped carts of plunder that were being escorted by Skeat’s men. Then Will Skeat shouted at Sam and suddenly Sir Geoffrey could see a bunch of panicked archers riding northwards as hard as they could. ‘He’ll fall for it,’ Skeat said knowingly, ‘you just see if he don’t.’

Sir Geoffrey had proved in the last few weeks that he was no fool, but he lost his wits that day. He saw a chance to cut down the hated hellequin archers and recapture three carts of plunder and so he ordered his remaining thirty men-at-arms to join him and, leaving his four prisoners and nine captured horses in the care of his crossbowmen, waved his knights forward. Will Skeat had been waiting weeks for this.

Sir Simon turned in alarm as he heard the sound of hooves. Nearly fifty armoured men on big destriers charged towards him and, for a moment, he thought they were trying to capture him and so he spurred his horse towards the woods only to see the French and Breton horsemen crash past him at full gallop. Sir Simon ducked under branches and swore at Will Skeat, who ignored him. He was watching the enemy.

Sir Geoffrey de Pont Blanc led the charge and saw only glory. He had forgotten the archers in the woods, or else believed they had all fled after the defeat of Sir Simon’s men. Sir Geoffrey was on the cusp of a great victory. He would take back the plunder and, even better, lead the dreaded hellequin to a fiery fate in Lannion’s marketplace.

‘Now!’ Skeat shouted through cupped hands. ‘Now!’

There were archers on both sides of the road and they stepped out from the new spring foliage and loosed their bowstrings. Thomas’s second arrow was in the air before the first even struck. Look and loose, he thought, do not think, and there was no need to aim, for the enemy was a tight group and all the archers did was pour their long arrows into the horsemen so that in an eyeblink the charge was reduced to a tangle of rearing stallions, fallen men, screaming horses and splashing blood. The enemy had no chance. A few at the back managed to turn and gallop away, but the majority were trapped in a closing ring of bowmen who drove their arrows mercilessly through mail and leather. Any man who even twitched invited three or four arrows. The pile of iron and flesh was spiked with feathers, and still the arrows came, cutting through mail and driving deep into horseflesh. Only the handful of men at the rear and a single man at the very front of the charge survived.

That man was Sir Geoffrey himself. He had been ten paces in front of his men and maybe that was why he was spared, or perhaps the archers had been impressed by the manner in which he had treated Sir Simon, but for whatever reason he rode ahead of the carnage like a charmed soul. Not an arrow flew close, but he heard the screams and clatter behind and he slowed his horse then turned to see the horror. He watched with disbelief for an instant, then walked his stallion back towards the arrow-stuck pile that had been his men. Skeat shouted at some of his bowmen to turn and face the enemy’s crossbowmen, but they, seeing the fate of their men-at-arms, were in no mood to face the English arrows. They retreated southwards.

There was a curious stillness then. Fallen horses twitched and some beat at the road with their hooves. A man groaned, another called on Christ and some just whimpered. Thomas, an arrow still on his bowstring, could hear larks, the call of plovers and the whisper of wind in the leaves. A drop of rain fell, splashing the dust on the road, but it was a lone outrider of a shower that went to the west. Sir Geoffrey stood his horse beside his dead and dying men as if inviting the archers to add his corpse to the heap that was streaked with blood and flecked with goose feathers.

‘See what I mean, Tom?’ Skeat said. ‘Wait long enough and the bloody fools will always oblige you. Right, lads! Finish the bastards off!’ Men dropped their bows, drew their knives and ran to the shuddering heap, but Skeat held Thomas back. ‘Go and tell that stupid white bridge bastard to make himself scarce.’

Thomas walked to the Frenchman, who must have thought he was expected to surrender for he pulled off his helmet and extended his sword handle. ‘My family cannot pay a great ransom,’ he said apologetically.

‘You’re not a prisoner,’ Thomas said.

Sir Geoffrey seemed perplexed by the words. ‘You release me?’

‘We don’t want you,’ Thomas said. ‘You might think about going to Spain,’ he suggested, ‘or the Holy Land. Not too many hellequin in either place.’

Sir Geoffrey sheathed his sword. ‘I must fight against the enemies of my king so I shall fight here. But I thank you.’ He gathered his reins and just at that moment Sir Simon Jekyll rode out of the trees, pointing his drawn sword at Sir Geoffrey.

‘He’s my prisoner!’ he called to Thomas. ‘My prisoner!’

‘He’s no one’s prisoner,’ Thomas said. ‘We’re letting him go.’

‘You’re letting him go?’ Sir Simon sneered. ‘Do you know who commands here?’

‘What I know,’ Thomas said, ‘is that this man is no prisoner.’ He thumped the trapper-covered rump of Sir Geoffrey’s horse to send it on its way. ‘Spain or the Holy Land!’ he called after Sir Geoffrey.

Sir Simon turned his horse to follow Sir Geoffrey, then saw that Will Skeat was ready to intervene and stop any such pursuit so he turned back to Thomas. ‘You had no right to release him! No right!’

‘He released you,’ Thomas said.

‘Then he was a fool. And because he is a fool, I must be?’ Sir Simon was quivering with anger. Sir Geoffrey might have declared himself a poor man, hardly able to raise a ransom, but his horse alone was worth at least fifty pounds, and Skeat and Thomas had just sent that money trotting southwards. Sir Simon watched him go, then lowered the sword blade so that it threatened Thomas’s throat. ‘From the moment I first saw you,’ he said, ‘you have been insolent. I am the highest-born man on this field and it is I who decide the fate of prisoners. You understand that?’

‘He yielded to me,’ Thomas said, ‘not to you. So it don’t matter what bed you were born in.’

‘You’re a pup!’ Sir Simon spat. ‘Skeat! I want recompense for that prisoner. You hear me?’

Skeat ignored Sir Simon, but Thomas did not have enough sense to do the same.

‘Jesus,’ he said in disgust, ‘that man spared you, and you’d not return the favour? You’re not a bloody knight, you’re just a bully. Go and boil your arse.’

The sword rose and so did Thomas’s bow. Sir Simon looked at the glittering arrow point, its edges feathered white through sharpening and he had just enough wit not to strike with his sword. He sheathed it instead, slamming the blade into the scabbard, then wheeled his destrier and spurred away.

Which left Skeat’s men to sort out the enemy’s dead. There were eighteen of them and another twenty-three grievously wounded. There were also sixteen bleeding horses and twenty-four dead destriers, and that, as Will Skeat remarked, was a wicked waste of good horseflesh.

And Sir Geoffrey had been taught his lesson.