Harlequin

Thomas saw the horsemen then. Not Frenchmen, but a dozen Englishmen who rode along the face of the waiting battleline, care-fully keeping their horses away from the archers“ pits. Three of the horsemen were carrying banners, and one of those flags was a huge standard showing the hues and the leopards framed in gold. It's the King,” a man said, and Skeat's archers began to cheer. The King stopped and spoke with the men in the centre of the line, then trotted on towards the English right. His escort was mounted on big destriers, but the King rode a grey mare. He wore his bright surcoat, but had hung his crowned helmet from his saddle pommel and so was bare-headed. His royal standard, all red, gold and blue, led the flags, while behind it was the King's personal badge of the flaming sun rising, while the third, which provoked the loudest cheer, was an extravagantly long pennant which showed the fire-spewing dragon of Wessex. It was the flag of England, of the men who had fought the Conqueror, and the Conqueror's descendant now flew it to show that he was of England like the men who cheered him as he rode the grey horse. He stopped close to Will Skeat's men and raised a white staff to silence the cheers. The archers had pulled off their helmets and some had gone on one knee. The King still looked young, and his hair and beard were as gold as the rising sun on his standard. I am grateful,“ he began in a voice so hoarse that he paused and started again. I am grateful that you are here.” That started the cheering again and Thomas, who was cheering with the others, did not even reflect on what choice they had been given. The King raised the white staff for silence. The French, as you see, have decided to join us! Perhaps they are lonely.“ It was not a great joke, but it prompted roars of laughter that turned to jeers for the enemy. The King smiled as he waited for the shouts to subside. We came here,” he then called, only to procure the rights and lands and privileges that are ours by the laws of man and of God. My cousin of France challenges us, and in so doing he defies God.“ The men were silent now, listening carefully. The destriers of the King's escort were pawing the ground, but not a man moved. God will not endure Philip of France's impudence,” the King went on. He will punish France, and you,“ he cast a hand to indicate the archers, will be His instrument. God is with you, and I promise you, I swear to you before God and on my own life, that I will not leave this field till the last man of my army has marched from here. We stay on this hill together and we fight here together and we shall win together for God, for Saint George and for England!” The cheers began again and the King smiled and nodded, then turned as the Earl of Northampton strode from the line. The King leaned down in his saddle and listened to the Earl for a moment, then straightened and smiled again. Is there a Master Skeat here?“ Skeat immediately reddened, but did not confess his presence. The Earl was grinning, the King waited, then a score of archers pointed at their leader. He's here!”

Come here!" the King commanded sternly.

Will Skeat looked embarrassed as he threaded through the bow-men and approached the King's horse where he went on one knee. The King drew his ruby-hilted sword and touched it on Skeat's shoulder. We are told you are one of our best soldiers, so from henceforth you will be Sir William Skeat."

The archers shouted even louder. Will Skeat, Sir William now, stayed on his knees as the King spurred on to give the same speech to the last men in the line and to those who manned the guns in the circle of farm carts. The Earl of Northampton, who had plainly been responsible for Skeat's knighthood, raised him up and led him back to his cheering men, and Skeat was still blushing as his archers clapped him on the back.

Bloody nonsense, he said to Thomas.

You deserve it, Will,“ Thomas said, then grinned, Sir William.” Just have to pay more bloody tax, won't I?“ Skeat said, but he looked pleased anyway. Then he frowned as a drop of rain splashed on his bare forehead. Bowstrings!” he shouted. Most of the men were still sheltering their strings, but a handful had to coil the cords as the rain began to fall more heavily. One of the Earl's men-at-arms came to the archers, shouting that the women were to go back beyond the crest. You heard him!“ Will Skeat called. Women to the baggage!”

Some of the women wept, but Eleanor just clung to Thomas for a moment. Live," she said simply, then walked away through the rain, passing the Prince of Wales who, with six other mounted men, was riding to his place among the men-at-arms behind Will Skeat's archers. The Prince had decided to fight on horseback so he could see over the heads of the dismounted men and, to mark his arrival, his banner which was bigger than any other on the right of the field was loosed to the heavy downpour.

Thomas could no longer see across the valley because wide curtains of heavy grey rain were sweeping from the north and obscuring the air. There was nothing to do but sit and wait while the leather backing of his mail became cold and clammy. He hunched miserably, staring into the greyness, knowing that no bow could draw properly till this downpour ended.

What they should do," said Father Hobbe, who sat beside Thomas, is charge now.

They couldn't find their way in this muck, father,“ Thomas said. He saw the priest had a bow and an arrow bag, but no other battle equipment. You should get some mail,” he said, or at least a padded jacket."

I'm armoured by the faith, my son.

Where's your bowstrings?" Thomas asked, for the priest had neither helmet nor cap.

I looped them round my . well, never mind. It has to be good for something other than pissing, eh? And it's dry down there.“ Father Hobbe seemed indecently cheerful. I've been walking the lines, Tom, and looking for your lance. It's not here.” Hardly goddamn surprising,“ Thomas said. I never thought it would be.”

Father Hobbe ignored the blasphemy. And I had a chat with Father Pryke. Do you know him?"

No,“ Thomas said curtly. The rain was pouring off the front of his helmet onto the broken bridge of his nose. How the hell would I know Father Pryke?”

Father Hobbe was not deterred by Thomas's surliness. He's con-fessor to the King and a great man. He'll be a bishop one day soon. I asked him about the Vexilles.“ Father Hobbe paused, but Thomas said nothing. He remembers the family,” the priest went on. He says they had lands in Cheshire, but they supported the Mortimers at the beginning of the King's reign so they were outlawed. He said something else. They were always reckoned pious, but their bishop suspected they had strange ideas. A touch of gnosticism.“ Cathars,” Thomas said.

It seems likely, doesn't it?"

And if it's a pious family,“ Thomas said, then I probably don't belong. Isn't that good news?”

You can't escape, Thomas,“ Father Hobbe said softly. His usually wild hair was plastered close to his skull by the rain. You promised your father. You accepted the penance.”

Thomas shook his head angrily. There are a score of bastards here, father,“ he indicated the archers crouching under the rain's lash, who've murdered more men than I have. Go and harrow their souls and leave mine alone.”

Father Hobbe shook his head. You've been chosen, Thomas, and I'm your conscience. It occurs to me, see, that if the Vexilles supported Mortimer then they can't love our king. If they'll be anywhere today, it'll be over there.“ He nodded towards the valley's far side, which was still blotted out by the pelting rain. Then they'll live for another day, won't they?” Thomas said. Father Hobbe frowned. You think we're going to lose?“ he asked sternly. No!”

Thomas shivered. It must be getting late in the afternoon, father. If they don't attack now they'll wait till morning. That'll give them a whole day to slaughter us.

Ah, Thomas! How God loves you.

Thomas said nothing to that, but he was thinking that all he wanted was to be an archer, to become Sir Thomas of Hookton as Will had just become Sir William. He was happy serving the King and did not need a heavenly lord to take him into weird battles against dark lords. Let me give you some advice, father," he said.

It's always welcome, Tom."

First bastard that drops, get his helmet and mail. Look after yourself."

Father Hobbe clapped Thomas's back. God is on our side. You heard the King say as much." He stood and went to talk with other men, and Thomas sat by himself and saw that the rain was lessening at last. He could see the far trees again, see the colours of the French banners and surcoats, and now he could see a mass of red and I green crossbowmen at the other side of the valley. They were going nowhere, he reckoned, for a crossbow string was as susceptible to the damp as any other. It'll be tomorrow, he called down to Jake. We'll do it all again tomorrow.

Let's hope the sun shines," Jake said.

The wind brought the last drops of rain from the north. It was late. Thomas stood, stretched and stamped his feet. A day wasted, he thought, and a hungry night ahead.

And tomorrow his first real battle.

An excited group of mounted men had gathered about the French King, who was still a half-mile from the hill where the largest part of his army had gathered. There were at least two thousand men-at-arms in the rearguard who were still marching, but those who had reached the valley hugely outnumbered the waiting English.

Two to one, sire!“ Charles, the Count of Alencon and the King's younger brother, said vehemently. Like the rest of the horsemen his surcoat was soaking and the dye in its badge had run into the white linen. His helmet was beaded with water. We must kill them now!” the Count insisted.

But Philip of Valois's instinct was to wait. It would be wise, he thought, to let his whole army gather, to make a proper reconnais-sance and then attack next morning, but he was also aware that his companions, especially his brother, thought him cautious. They even believed him to be timid for he had avoided battle with the English before, and even to propose waiting a mere day might make them think he had no stomach for the highest business of kings. He still ventured the proposal, suggesting that the victory would be all the more complete if it was just delayed by one day. And if you wait,“ Alencon said scathingly, Edward will slip away in the night and tomorrow we'll face an empty hill.” They're cold, wet, hungry and ready to be slaughtered," the Duke of Lorraine insisted.

And if they don't leave, sire,“ the Count of Flanders warned, they'll have more time to dig trenches and holes.” And the signs are good," John of Hainault, a close companion of the King and the Lord of Beaumont, added.

The signs?" the King asked.

John of Hainault gestured for a man in a black cloak to step forward. The man, who had a long white beard, bowed low. The sun, sire,“ he said, is in conjunction with Mercury and opposite Saturn. Best of all, noble sire, Mars is in the house of Virgo. It spells victory, and could not be more propitious.”

And how much gold, Philip wondered, had been paid to the astrologer to come up with that prophecy, yet he was also tempted by it. He thought it unwise to do anything without a horoscope and wondered where his own astrologer was. Probably still on the Abbeville road.

Go now!" Alencn urged his brother.

Guy Vexille, the Count of Astarac, pushed his horse into the throng surrounding the King. He saw a green-and-red-jacketed crossbowman, evidently the commander of the Genoese, and spoke to him in Italian. Has the rain affected the strings?“ Badly,” Carlo Grimaldi, the Genoese leader, admitted. Crossbow strings could not be unstrung like the cords of ordinary bows for the tension in the cords was too great and so the men had simply tried to shelter their weapons under their inadequate coats. We should wait till tomorrow," Grimaldi insisted, we can't advance without pavises.

What's he saying?" Alencon demanded.

The Count of Astarac translated for His Majesty's benefit, and the King, pale and long-faced, frowned when he heard that the crossbowmen's long shields that protected them from the enemy's arrows while they reloaded their cumbersome weapons had still not arrived. How long will they be?“ he asked plaintively, but no one knew. Why didn't they travel with the bowmen?” he demanded, but again no one had an answer. Who are you?" the King finally asked the Count.

Astarac, sire," Guy Vexille said.

Ah.“ It was plain the King had no idea who or what Astarac was, nor did he recognize Vexille's shield that bore the simple symbol of the cross, but Vexille's horse and armour were both expensive and so the King did not dispute the man's right to offer advice. And you say the bows won't draw?”

Of course they'll draw!“ the Count of Alencon man interrupted. The damned Genoese don't want to fight. Bastard Genoese.” He spat. The English bows will be just as wet,“ he added. The crossbows will be weakened, sire,” Vexille explained care-fully, ignoring the hostility of the King's younger brother. The bows will draw, but they won't have their full range or force.“ It would be best to wait?” the King asked.

It would be wise to wait, sire,“ Vexille said, and it would be especially wise to wait for the pavises.”

Tomorrow's horoscope?" John of Hainault asked the astrologer. The man shook his head. Neptune approaches the bendings tomorrow, sire. It is not a hopeful conjunction.

Attack now! They're wet, tired and hungry,“ Alencon urged. Attack now!”

The King still looked dubious, but most of the great lords were confident and they hammered him with their arguments. The English were trapped and a delay of even one day might give them a chance to escape. Perhaps their fleet would come to Le Crotoy? Go now, they insisted, even though it was late in the day. Go and kill. Go and win. Show Christendom that God is on the side of the French. Just go, go now. And the King, because he was weak and because he wanted to appear strong, surrendered to their wishes.

So the oriflamme was taken from its leather tube and carried to its place of honour at the front of the men-at-arms. No other flag would be allowed to go ahead of the long plain red banner that flew from its cross-staff and was guarded by thirty picked knights who wore scarlet ribbons on their right arms. The horsemen were given their long lances, then the conrois closed together so the knights and men-at-arms were knee to knee. Drummers took the rain covers from their instruments and Grimaldi, the Genoese commander, was peremptorily told to advance and kill the English archers. The King crossed himself while a score of priests fell to their knees in the wet grass and began to pray.

The lords of France rode to the hill crest where their mailed horsemen waited. By nightfall they would all have wet swords and prisoners enough to break England for ever.

For the oriflamme was going into battle.

God's teeth!“ Will Skeat sounded astonished as he scrambled to his feet. The bastards are coming!” His surprise was justified, for it was late in the afternoon, the time when labourers would think of going home from the fields.

The archers stood and stared. The enemy was not yet advancing, but a horde of crossbowmen were spreading across the valley bottom, while above them the French knights and men-at-arms were arming themselves with lances.

Thomas thought it had to be a feint. It would be dark in another three or four hours, yet perhaps the French were confident they could do the business quickly. The crossbowmen were at last starting forward. Thomas took off his helmet to find a bowstring, looped one end over a horn tip, then flexed the shaft to fix the other loop in its nock. He fumbled and had to make three attempts to string the long black weapon. Sweet Jesus, he thought, but they were really coming! Be calm, he told himself, be calm, but he felt as nervous as when he had stood on the slope above Hookton and dared himself to kill a man for the very first time. He pulled open the laces of the arrow bag.

The drums began to beat from the French side of the valley and a great cheer sounded. There was nothing to explain the cheer; the men-at-arms were not moving and the crossbowmen were still a long way off. English trumpets responded, calling sweet and clear from the windmill where the King and a reserve of men-at-arms waited. Archers were stretching and stamping their feet all along the hill. Four thousand English bows were strung and ready, but there were half as many crossbowmen again coming towards them, and behind those six thousand Genoese were thousands of mailed horsemen.

No pavises!“ Will Skeat shouted. And their strings will be damp.” They won't have the reach for us." Father Hobbe had appeared at Thomas's side again.

Thomas nodded, but was too dry-mouthed to answer. A crossbow in good hands, and there were none better than the Genoese, should outrange a straight bow, but not if it had a damp string. The extra range was no great advantage, for it took so long to rewind a bow that an archer could advance into range and loose six or seven arrows before the enemy was ready to send his second bolt, but even though Thomas understood that imbalance he was still nervous. The enemy looked so numerous and the French drums were great heavy kettles with thick skins that boomed like the devil's own heartbeat in the valley. The enemy horsemen were edging forward, eager to spur their mounts into an English line they expected to be deeply wounded by the crossbows" assault while the English men-at-arms were shuffling together, closing their line to make solid ranks of shields and steel. The mail clinked and jangled.

God is with you!" a priest shouted.

Don't waste your arrows,“ Will Skeat called. Aim true, boys, aim true. They ain't going to stand long.” He repeated the message as he walked along his line. You look like you've seen a ghost, Tom.“ Ten thousand ghosts,” Thomas said.

There's more of the bastards than that,“ Will Skeat said He turned and gazed at the hill. Maybe twelve thousand horsemen?” He grinned. So that's twelve thousand arrows, lad.“ There were six thousand crossbowmen and twice as many men-at-arms, who were being reinforced by infantry that was appearing on both French flanks. Thomas doubted that those foot soldiers would take any part in the battle, not unless it turned into a rout, and he understood that the crossbowmen could probably be turned back because they were coming without pavises and would have rain-weakened weapons, but to turn the Genoese back would need arrows, a lot of arrows, and that would mean fewer for the mass of horsemen whose painted lances, held upright, made a thicket along the far hilltop. We need more arrows,” he said to Skeat. You'll make do with what you've got,“ Skeat said, we all will. Can't wish for what you ain't got.”

The crossbowmen paused at the foot of the English slope and shook themselves into line before placing their bolts into their bows" troughs. Thomas took out his first arrow and superstitiously kissed its head, which was a wedge of slightly rusted steel with a wicked point and two steep barbs. He laid the arrow over his left hand and slotted its nocked butt onto the centre of the bowstring, which was protected from fraying with a whipping of hemp. He half tensed the bow, taking comfort from the yew's resistance. The arrow lay inside the shaft, to the left of the handgrip. He released the tension, gripped the arrow with his left thumb and flexed the fingers of his right hand.

A sudden blare of trumpets made him jump. Every French drum-mer and trumpeter was working now, making a cacophony of noise that started the Genoese forward again. They were climbing the English slope, their faces white blurs framed by the grey of their helmets. The French horsemen were coming down the slope, but slowly and in fits and starts, as though they were trying to anticipate the order to charge.

God is with us!" Father Hobbe called. He was in his archer's stance, left foot far forward, and Thomas saw the priest had no shoes.

What happened to your boots, father?"

Some poor boy needed them more than I did. I'll get a French pair."

Thomas smoothed the feathers of his first arrow.

Wait!“ Will Skeat shouted. Wait!” A dog ran out of the English battleline and its owner shouted for it to come back, and in a heartbeat half the archers were calling the dog's name. Biter! Biter!

Come here, you bastard! Biter!"

Quiet!" Will Skeat roared as the dog, utterly confused, ran towards the enemy.

Off to Thomas's right the gunners were crouched by the carts, linstocks smoking. Archers stood in the wagons, weapons half braced. The Earl of Northampton had come to stand among the archers.

You shouldn't be here, my lord,“ Will Skeat said. The King makes him a knight,” the Earl said, and he thinks he can give me orders!“ The archers grinned. Don't kill all the men-at-arms, Will,” the Earl went on. Leave some for us poor swordsmen."

You'll get your chance,“ Will Skeat said grimly. Wait!” he called to the archers. Wait!“ The Genoese were shouting as they advanced, though their voices were almost drowned by the heavy drumming and the wild trumpet calls. Biter was running back to the English now and a cheer sounded when the dog at last found shelter in the battleline. Don't waste your goddamn arrows, Will Skeat called. Take proper aim, like your mothers taught you.” The Genoese were within bow range now, but not an arrow flew, and the red-and-green-coated crossbowmen still came, bending for-ward slightly as they trudged up the hill. They were not coming straight at the English, but at a slight angle, which meant that the right of the English line, where Thomas was, would be struck first. It was also the place where the slope was most gradual and Thomas, with a sinking heart, understood he was likely to be in the heart of the fight. Then the Genoese stopped, shuffled into line and began to shout their war cry.

Too soon," the Earl muttered.

The crossbows went into the shooting position. They were angled steeply upwards as the Genoese hoped to drop a thick rain of death on the English line.

Draw!" Skeat said, and Thomas could feel his heart thumping as he pulled the coarse string back to his right ear. He chose a man in the enemy line, placed the arrow tip directly between that man and his right eye, edged the bow to the right because that would compensate for the bias in the weapon's aim, then lifted his left hand and shifted it back to the left because the wind was coming from that direction. Not much wind. He had not thought about aiming the arrow, it was all instinct, but he was still nervous and a muscle was twitching in his right leg. The English line was utterly silent, the crossbowmen were shouting and the French drums and trumpets deafening. The Genoese line looked like green and red statues.

Let go, you bastards,“ a man muttered and the Genoese obeyed him. Six thousand crossbow bolts arced into the sky. Now,” Will said, surprisingly softly.

And the arrows flew.

Eleanor crouched by the wagon that held the archers" baggage. Thirty or forty other women were there, many with children, and they all flinched as they heard the trumpets, the drums and the distant shouting. Nearly all the women were French or Breton, though not one was hoping for a French victory, for it was their men who stood on the green hill.

Eleanor prayed for Thomas, for Will Skeat and for her father. The baggage park was beneath the crest of the hill so she could not see what was happening, but she heard the deep, sharp note of the English bowstrings being released, and then the rush of air across feathers that was the sound of thousands of arrows in flight. She shuddered. A dog tethered to the cart, one of the many strays that had been adopted by the archers, whimpered. She patted it. There will be meat tonight,“ she told the dog. The news had spread that the cattle captured in Le Crotoy would be reaching the army today. If there was an army left to eat them. The bows sounded again, more raggedly. The trumpets still screamed and the drumbeats were constant. She glanced up at the hill crest, half expecting to see arrows in the sky, but there was only grey cloud against which scores of horsemen were outlined. Those horsemen were part of the King's small reserve of troops and Eleanor knew that if she saw them spur forward then the main line would have been breached. The King's royal standard was flying from the topmost vane of the windmill where it stirred in the small breeze to show its gold, crim-son and blue. The vast baggage park was guarded by a mere score of sick or wounded soldiers who would not last a heartbeat if the French broke through the English line. The King's baggage, heaped on three white-painted wagons, had a dozen men-at-arms to guard the royal jewels, but otherwise there was only the host of women and children, and a handful of pageboys who were armed with short swords. The army's thousands of horses were also there, picketed close to the forest and watched by a few crippled men. Eleanor noted that most of the horses were saddled as though the men-at-arms and archers wanted the animals ready in case they had to flee. A priest had been with the royal baggage, but when the bows sounded he had hurried to the crest and Eleanor was tempted to follow. Better to see what was going on, she thought, than wait here beside the forest and fear what might be happening. She patted the dog and stood, intending to walk to the crest, but just then she saw the woman who had come to Thomas in the damp night in the forest of Crecy. The Countess of Armorica, beautifully dressed in a red gown and with her hair netted in a silver mesh, was riding a small white mare up and down beside the prince's wagons. She paused every now and then to gaze at the crest and then she would stare towards the forest of Crecy-Grange that lay to the west. A crash startled Eleanor and made her turn to the crest. Nothing explained the terrible noise that had sounded uncannily like a close clap of thunder, but there was no lightning and no rain and the mill stood unharmed. Then a seep of grey-white smoke showed above the mill's furled sails and Eleanor understood that the guns had fired. Ribalds, they were called, she remembered, and she imag-ined their rusting iron arrows slashing down the slope. She looked back to the Countess, but Jeanette was gone. She had ridden to the forest, taking her jewels with her. Eleanor saw the red gown flash in the trees, then disappear. So the Countess had fled, fearing the consequences of defeat, and Eleanor, suspecting that the Prince's woman must know more of the English prospects than the archers” women, made the sign of the cross. Then, because she could not bear the waiting any longer, she walked to the crest. If her lover died, she thought, then she wanted to be near him.

Other women followed her. None spoke. They just stood on the hill and watched.

And prayed for their men.

Thomas's second arrow was in the air before his first had reached its greatest height and begun to fall. He reached for a third, then realized he had shot the second in panic and so he paused and stared at the clouded sky that was strangely thick with flickering black shafts that were as dense as starlings and deadlier than hawks. He could see no crossbow bolts, then he laid the third arrow on his left hand and picked a man in the Genoese line. There was an odd pattering noise that startled him and he looked to see it was the hail of Genoese bolts striking the turf around the horse pits. And a heartbeat later the first English arrow flight slammed home. Scores of crossbowmen were snatched backwards, including the one Thomas had picked out for his third arrow and so he changed his aim to another man, hauled the cord back to his ear and let the shaft fly.

They're falling short!" the Earl of Northampton shouted exult-antly, and some of the archers swore, thinking he spoke of their own arrows, but it was the Genoese bows that had been enfeebled by the rain and not one of their quarrels had reached the English archers who, seeing the chance for slaughter, gave a howling cheer and ran a few paces down the slope.

Kill them!" Will Skeat shouted.

They killed them. The great bows were drawn again and again, and the white-feathered arrows slashed down the slope to pierce mail and cloth, and to turn the lower hill into a field of death. Some crossbowmen limped away, a few crawled, and the uninjured edged backwards rather than span their weapons.

Aim well!" the Earl called.

Don't waste arrows!" Will Skeat shouted.

Thomas shot again, plucked a new arrow from the bag and sought a new target as his previous arrow seared down to strike a man in the thigh. The grass about the Genoese line was thick with arrows that had missed, but more than enough were striking home. The Genoese line was thinner, much thinner, and it was silent now except for the cries of men being struck and the moans of the wounded. The archers advanced again, right to the edge of their pits, and a new flight of steel poured down the slope. And the crossbowmen fled.

One moment they had been a ragged line, still thick with men who stood behind the bodies of their comrades, and now they were a rabble who ran as hard as they could to escape the arrows. Stop shooting!“ Will Skeat bellowed. Stop!” Hold!" John Armstrong, whose men were to the left of Skeat's band, shouted.

Well done!" the Earl of Northampton called.

Back, lads, back!" Will Skeat motioned the archers. Sam! David!

Go and collect some arrows, quick,“ he pointed down the slope to where, amidst the Genoese dying and dead, the white-tipped shafts were thickly stuck in the turf. Hurry, lads. John! Peter! Go and help them. Go!”

All along the line archers were running to salvage arrows from the grass, but then a shout of warning came from the men who had remained in their places.

Get back! Get back!" Will Skeat shouted.

The horsemen were coming.

Sir Guillaume d'Evecque led a conroi of twelve men on the far left of the French second line of horsemen. Ahead of him was a mass of French cavalry belonging to the first battle, to his left was a scatter of infantrymen who sat on the grass, and beyond them the small river twisted through its water meadows beside the forest. To his right was nothing but horsemen crammed together as they waited for the crossbowmen to weaken the enemy line.

That English line looked pitifully small, perhaps because its men-at-arms were on foot and so took up much less room than mounted knights, yet Sir Guillaume grudgingly acknowledged that the Eng-lish King had chosen his position well. The French knights could not assault either flank for they were both protected by a village. They could not ride around the English right for that was guarded by the soft lands beside the river, while to circle about Edward's left would mean a long journey around Wadicourt and, by the time the French came in sight of the English again, the archers would surely have been redeployed to meet a French force made ragged by its long detour. Which meant that only a frontal assault could bring a swift victory, and that, in turn, meant riding into the arrows. Heads down, shields up and keep close," he told his men, before clanging down the face-piece of his helmet. Then, knowing he would not charge for some time yet, he pushed the visor back up. His men-at-arms shuffled their horses till they were knee to knee. The wind, it was said, should not be able to blow between the lances of a charging conroi.

Be a while yet,“ Sir Guillaume warned them. The fleeing cross-bowmen were running up the French-held hill. Sir Guillaume had watched them advance and mouthed a silent prayer that God would be on the shoulders of the Genoese. Kill some of those damned archers, he had prayed, but spare Thomas. The drummers had been hammering their great kettles, driving down the sticks as if they could defeat the English by noise alone and Sir Guillaume, elated by the moment, had put the butt of his lance on the ground and used it to raise himself in the stirrups so he could see over the heads of the men in front. He had watched the Genoese loose their quarrels, seen the bolts as a quick haze in the sky, and then the English had shot and their arrows were a dark smear against the green slope and grey clouds and Sir Guillaume had watched the Genoese stagger. He had looked to see the English archers fall-ing, but they were coming forward instead, still loosing arrows, and then the two flanks of the small English line had billowed dirty white as the guns added their missiles to the hail of arrows that was whipping down the slope. His horse had twitched uneasily when the crack of the guns rolled over the valley and Sir Guillaume dropped into the saddle and clicked his tongue. He could not pat the horse for the lance was in his right hand and his left arm was strapped into its shield with the three yellow hawks on the blue ground. The Genoese had broken. At first Sir Guillaume did not credit it, believing that perhaps their commander was trying to trick the English archers into an undisciplined pursuit that would strand them at the bottom of the slope where the crossbows could turn on them. But the English did not move and the fleeing Genoese had not stopped. They ran, leaving a thick line of dead and dying men, and now they climbed in panic towards the French horsemen. A growl sounded from the French men-at-arms. It was anger, and the sound rose to a great jeer. Cowards!” a man near Sir Guillaume called.

The Count of Alencon felt a surge of pure rage. They've been paid!“ he snarled at a companion. Bastards have taken a bribe!” Cut them down!“ the King called from his place at the edge of the beech wood. Cut them down!”

His brother heard him and wanted nothing more than to obey. The Count was in the second line, not the first, but he spurred his horse into a gap between two of the leading conrois and shouted at his men to follow. Cut them down!“ he called. Cut the bastards down!”

The Genoese were between the horsemen and the English line and now they were doomed, for all along the hill the French were spurring forward. Hot-blooded men from the second battle were tangling with the conrois of the first line to form an untidy mass of banners, lances and horses. They should have walked their horses down the hill so that they were still in close order when they reached the climb on the far side, but instead they raked back spurs and, driven by a hatred of their own allies, raced each other to the kill.

We stay!“ Guy Vexille, Count of Astarac, shouted at his men. Wait!” Sir Guillaume called. Better to let the first ragged charge spend itself, he reckoned, rather than join the madness. Perhaps half the French horsemen stayed on the hill. The rest, led by the King's brother, rode down the Genoese. The cross-bowmen tried to escape. They ran along the valley in an attempt to reach the northern and southern ends, but the mass of horsemen overlapped them and there was no way out. Some Genoese, sen-sibly, lay down and curled into balls, others crouched in the shallow ditches, but most were killed or wounded as the horsemen rode over them. The destriers were big beasts with hooves like hammers. They were trained to run men down and the Genoese screamed as they were trampled or slashed.

Some knights used their lances on the crossbowmen and the weight of a horse and armoured man easily drove the wooden spears clean through their victims, but those lances were all lost, m

left in the mangled torsos of the dead men, and the knights had to draw their swords. For a moment there was chaos in the valley bottom as the horsemen drove a thousand paths through the scat-tered crossbowmen. Then there were only the mangled remnants of the Genoese mercenaries, their red and green jackets soaked with blood and their weapons lying broken in the mud.

The horsemen, one easy victory under their belt, cheered them-selves. Mon tjoie Saint Den is!“ they shouted. Montjoie Saint Den is!” Hundreds

of flags were being taken forward with the horsemen, threatening to overtake the oriflamme, but the red-ribboned knights guarding the sacred flag spurred ahead of the charge, shouting their challenge as they started up the slope towards the English, and so climbed from a valley floor that was now thick with charging horsemen. The remaining lances were lowered, the spurs went back, but some of the more sensible men, who had waited behind for the next assault, noted that there was no thunder of hoofs coming from the vast charge.

It's turned to mud,“ Sir Guillaume said to no one in particular. Trappers and surcoats were spattered with the mud churned up by the hoofs from the low ground that had been softened by the rain. For a moment the charge seemed to flounder, then the leading horsemen broke out of the wet valley bottom to find better footing on the English hill. God was with them after all and they screamed their war cry. Montjoie Saint Denis!” The drums were beating faster than ever and the trumpets screamed to the sky as the horses climbed towards the mill.

Fools," Guy Vexille said.

Poor souls," Sir Guillaume said.

What's happening?" the King asked, wondering why his careful ordering of the battlelines had broken even before the fight proper had begun.

But no one answered him. They just watched.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Father Hobbe said, for it seemed as if half the horsemen of Christendom were coming up the hill.

Into line!" Will Skeat shouted.

God be with you!" the Earl of Northampton called, then went back to join his men-at-arms.

Aim for the horses!“ John Armstrong ordered his men. Bastards rode down their own bowmen!” Jake said in won-derment. So we'll kill the goddamn bastards," Thomas said vengefully. The charge was nearing the line of those Genoese who had died in the arrow storm. To Thomas, staring down the hill, the attack was a flurry of garish horse trappers and bright shields, of painted lances and streaming pennants, and now, because the horses had climbed out of the wet ground, every archer could hear the hooves that were louder even than the enemy's kettledrums. The ground was quivering so that Thomas could feel the vibration through the worn soles of his boots that had been a gift from Sir Guillaume. He looked for the three hawks, but could not see them, then forgot Sir Guillaume as his left leg went forward and his right arm hauled back. The arrow's feathers were beside his mouth and he kissed them, then fixed his gaze on a man who carried a black and yellow shield.

Now!" Will Skeat shouted

The arrows climbed away, hissing as they went. Thomas put a second on the string, hauled and loosed. A third, this time picking out a man with a pig-snout helmet decorated with red ribbons. He was aiming at the horses each time, hoping to drive the wicked-edged blades through the padded trappers and deep into the animals" chests. A fourth arrow. He could see clods of grass and soil being thrown up behind the leading horses. The first arrow was still flying as he hauled back the fourth and looked for another target. He fixed on a man without a surcoat in polished plate armour. He loosed, and just then the man in the plate armour tumbled forward as his horse was struck by another arrow and all along the slope there were screaming horses, flailing hoofs and falling men as the English arrows drove home. A lance cartwheeled up the slope, a cry sounded above the beating hootbeats, a horse ran into a dying animal and broke its leg and knights were thumping their knees against their horses to make them swerve about the stricken beasts. A fifth arrow, a sixth, and to the men-at-arms behind the line of archers it seemed as though the sky was filled with a never ending stream of arrows that were dark against the darkening clouds, white-tipped, and rising above the slope to plunge into the churning men-at-arms.

Scores of horses had fallen, their riders were trapped in their high saddles and ridden over as they lay helpless, yet still the horsemen came on and the men at the back could see far enough ahead to find gaps between the twitching piles of dead and dying. Montjoie Saint Denis! Montjoie Saint Denis!" Spurs raked back to draw blood. To Thomas the slope looked a nightmare of heaving horses with yellow teeth and white eyes, of long lances and arrow-stuck shields, of flying mud, wild banners and grey helmets with slits for eyes and snouts for noses. The banners flew, led by a ribbon-like red streamer. He shot again and again, pouring arrows into the mad-ness, yet for every horse that fell there was another to take its place and another beast behind that. Arrows protruded from trappers, from horses, from men, even from lances, the white feathers bob-bing as the charge thundered close. And then the French front rank was among the pits, and a stal-lion's leg bone cracked, and the beast's scream soared above the drums, trumpets, clang of mail and the beating of hoofs. Some men rode clean through the pits, but others fell and brought down the horses behind. The French tried to slow the horses and turn them aside, but the charge was committed now and the men behind pressed the ones in front onto the pits and arrows. The bow thumped in Thomas's hand and its arrow seared into a horseman's throat, slitting the mail like linen and hurling the man back so that his lance reared into the sky.

Back!“ Will Skeat was shouting. The charge was too close. Much too close. Back! Back! Back! Now! Go!”

The archers ran into the gaps between the men-at-arms, and the French, seeing their tormentors vanish, gave a great cheer. Montjoie Saint Denis!"

Shields!" the Earl of Northampton shouted and the English men-at-arms locked their shields together and raised their own lances to make a hedge of points.

Saint George!“ the Earl screamed. Saint George!” Mon tjoie Saint Den is!" Enough horsemen had got through the arrows and the pits, and still the men-at-arms streamed up the hill. And now, at last, charged home.

If a plum was thrown at a conroi, the experts said, it should be impaled on a lance. That was how close the horsemen were sup-posed to be in a charge because that way they stood a chance of living, but if the conroi scattered then each man would end up surrounded by enemies. Your neighbour in a cavalry charge, the experienced men told the younger, should be closer to you than your wife Closer even than your whore. But the first French charge was a crazed gallop and the men first became scattered when they slaughtered the Genoese and the disarray became worse as they raced uphill to close on the enemy.

The charge was not supposed to be a crazed gallop, but an ordered, dreadful and disciplined assault. The men, lined knee to knee, should have started slowly and stayed close until, and only at the very last minute, they spurred into a gallop to crash their tight-bunched lances home in unison. That was how the men were trained to charge, and their destriers were trained just as hard. A horse's instinct, on facing a packed line of men or cavalry, was to shy away, but the big stallions were ruthlessly schooled to keep running and so crash into the packed enemy and there to keep moving, stamping, biting and rearing. A charge of knights was sup-posed to be thundering death on hooves, a flail of metal driven by the ponderous weight of men, horses and armour, and properly done it was a mass maker of widows.

But the men of Philip's army who had dreamed of breaking the enemy into ribbons and slaughtering the dazed survivors had reckoned without archers and pits. By the time the undisciplined first French charge reached the English men-at-arms it had broken itself into scraps and then been slowed to a walk because the long, smooth and inviting slope turned out to be an obstacle course of dead horses, unsaddled knights, hissing arrows and leg-cracking pits concealed in the grass. Only a handful of men reached the enemy. That handful spurred over the last few yards and aimed their lances at the dismounted English men-at-arms, but the horsemen were met by more lances that were braced against the ground and tilted up to pierce their horses" breasts. The stallions ran onto the lances, twisted away and the Frenchmen were falling. The English men-at-arms stepped forward with axes and swords to finish them off.

Stay in line!“ the Earl of Northampton shouted. More horses were threading through the pits, and there were no archers in front to slow them now. These were the third and fourth ranks of the French charge. They had suffered less damage from arrows and they came to help the men hacking at the English line that still bristled with lances. Men roared their battle cries, hacked with swords and axes, and the dying horses dragged down the English lances so that the French could at last close on the men-at-arms. Steel rang on steel and thumped on wood, but each horseman was faced by two or three men-at-arms, and the French were being dragged from their saddles and butchered on the ground. No prisoners!” the Earl of Northampton shouted. No prisoners!" Those were the King's orders. To take a man prisoner meant possible wealth, but it also required a moment of courtesy to enquire whether an enemy truly yielded and the English had no time for such civility. They needed only to kill the horsemen who kept streaming up the hill.

The King, watching from beneath the mill's furled sails, which creaked as the wind twitched their tethers, saw that the French had broken through the archers only on the right, where his son fought and where the line lay closest to the French and the slope was gentlest. The great charge had been broken by arrows, but more than enough horsemen had survived and those men were spurring towards the place where the swords rang. When the French charge began it had been spread all across the battlefield, but now it shrank into a wedge shape as the men facing the English left swerved away from the archers there and added their weight to the knights and men-at-arms who hacked at the Prince of Wales's battle. Hundreds of horsemen were still milling about in the valley's muddy bottom, unwilling to face the arrow storm a second time, but French mar-shals were re-forming those men and sending them up the hill towards the growlng melee that fought under the banners of Alencon and the Prince of Wales.

Let me go down there, sire," the Bishop of Durham, looking ungainly in his heavy mail and holding a massive spiked mace, appealed to the King.

They're not breaking,“ Edward said mildly. His line of men-at-arms was four ranks deep and only the first two were fighting, and fighting well. A horseman's greatest advantage over infantry was speed, but the French charge had been sapped of all velocity. The horsemen were being forced into a walk to negotiate the corpses and pits, and there was no room beyond to spur into a trot before they were met by a vicious defence of axes, swords, maces and spears. Frenchman hacked down, but the English held their shields high and stabbed their blades into the horses” guts or else sliced swords across hamstrings. The destriers fell, screaming and kicking, breaking men's legs with their wild thrashing, but every horse down was an added obstacle and, fierce as the French assault was, it was failing to break the line. No English banners had toppled yet, though the King feared for his son's bright flag that was closest to the most violent fighting.

Have you seen the oriflamme?“ he asked his entourage. It fell, sire,” a household knight answered. The man pointed down the slope to where a heap of dead horses and broken men were the remnants of the first French attack. Somewhere there, sir. Arrows."

God bless arrows," the King said.

A conroi of fourteen Frenchmen managed to negotiate the pits without harm. Montjoie Saint Denis!" they shouted, and couched their lances as they spurred into the melee, where they were met by the Earl of Northampton and a dozen of his men.

The Earl was using a broken lance as a pike and he rammed the splintered shaft into a horse's chest, felt the lance slide off the armour concealed by the trapper, and instinctively lifted his shield. A mace cracked on it, driving one spike clean through the leather and willow, but the Earl had his sword dangling by a strap and he dropped the lance, gripped the sword's hilt and stabbed it into the horse's fetlock, making the beast twist away. He dragged the shield clear of the mace's spikes, swung the sword at the knight, was parried, then a man-at-arms seized the Frenchman's weapon and tugged. The Frenchman pulled back, but the Earl helped and the Frenchman shouted as he was tumbled down to the English feet. A sword ran into the armour gap at his groin and he doubled over, then a mace crushed his helmet and he was left, twitching, as the Earl and his men climbed over his body and hacked at the next horse and man.

The Prince of Wales spurred into the melee, made conspicuous by a fillet of gold that circled his black helmet. He was only sixteen, well built, strong, tall and superbly trained. He fended an axe away with his shield and rammed his sword through another horseman's mail.

off the bloody horse!“ the Earl of Northampton shouted at the Prince. Get off the bloody horse!” He ran to the Prince, seized the bridle and tugged the horse away from the fight. A Frenchman spurred in, trying to spear the Prince's back, but a man-at-arms in the Prince's green and white livery slammed his shield into the destrier's mouth and the animal twitched away.

The Earl dragged the Prince back. They see a man on horseback, sire,“ he shouted up, and they think he's French.” The Prince nodded. His own household knights had reached him now and they helped him down from the saddle. He said nothing. If he had been offended by the Earl, he hid it behind his face-piece as he went back to the melee. Saint George! Saint George!" The Prince's standard-bearer struggled to stay with his master, and the sight of the richly embroidered flag attracted still more screaming Frenchmen.

In line!“ the Earl shouted. In line!” but the dead horses and butchered men made obstacles that neither the French nor English could cross and so the men-at-arms, led by the Prince, were scrambling over the bodies to reach more enemies. A disembowelled horse trailed its guts towards the English, then sank onto its forelegs to pitch its rider towards the Prince, who rammed the sword into the man's helmet, mangling the visor and starting blood from the eyeholes. Saint George!" The Prince was exultant and his black armour was streaked with enemy blood. He was fighting with his visor raised, for else he could not see properly, and he was loving the moment. The hours and hours of weapons practice, the sweating days when sergeants had drilled him and beat at his shield and cursed him for not keeping his sword point high, were all proving their worth, and he could have asked for nothing more in this life: a woman in the camp and an enemy coming in their hundreds to be killed.

The French wedge was widening as more men climbed the hill. They had not broken through the line, but they had drawn the two front English ranks across the tideline of dead and wounded, and thus scattered them into groups of men who defended themselves against a welter of horsemen. The Prince was among them. Some Frenchmen, unhorsed but unwounded, were fighting on foot. Forward!" the Earl of Northampton shouted at the third rank. It was no longer possible to hold the shield wall tight. Now he had to wade into the horror to protect the Prince, and his men followed him into the maelstrom of horses, blades and carnage. They scrambled over dead horses, tried to avoid the beating hooves of dying horses and drove their blades into living horses to bring the riders down to where they could be savaged.

Each Frenchman had two or three English footmen to contend against, and though the horses snapped their teeth, reared and lashed their hoofs, and though the riders beat left and right with their swords, the unmounted English invariably crippled the destri-ers in the end, and more French knights were pitched onto the hoof-scarred grass to be bludgeoned or stabbed to death. Some Frenchmen, recognizing the futility, spurred back across the pits to make new con rois among the survivors. Squires brought them spare lances, and the knights, rearmed and wanting revenge, came back to the fight, and always they rode towards the prince's bright flag. The Earl of Northampton was close to the flag now. He hammered his shield into a horse's face, cut at its legs and stabbed at the rider's thigh. Another conroi came from the right, three of its men still holding lances and the others with swords held far forward. They slammed against the shields of the Prince's bodyguard, driving those men back, but other men in green and white came to their help and the Prince pushed two of them out of the way so he could hack at a destrier's neck. The conroi wheeled away, leaving two of its knights dead.

Form line!“ the Earl shouted. Form line!” There was a lull in the fighting about the Prince's standard, for the French were regrouping.

And just then the second French battle, as large as the first, started down their hill. They came at a walk, knee to booted knee, lances held so close that a wind could not have passed between them. They were showing how it should be done.

The ponderous drums drove them on. The trumpets seared the sky.

And the French were coming to finish the battle.

Eight," Jake said.

Three," Sam told Will Skeat.

Seven," Thomas said. They were counting arrows. Not one archer had died yet, not from Will Skeat's band, but they were perilously low on arrows. Skeat kept looking over the heads of the men-at-arms, fearful that the French would break through, but the line was holding. Once in a while, when no English banner or head was in the way, an archer would loose one of the precious arrows at a horseman, but when a shaft wasted itself by glancing off a helmet Skeat told them to save their supply. A boy had brought a dozen skins of water from the baggage and the men passed the bags around.

Skeat lotted up the arrows and shook his head. No man had more than ten, while Father Hobbe, who admittedly had started with fewer than any of the men, had none.

Go up the hill, father,“ Skeat told the priest, and see if they're keeping any shafts back. The King's archers might spare some. Their captain's called Hal Crowley and he knows me. Ask him, anyway.” He did not sound hopeful. Right, lads, this way,“ he said to the rest and led them towards the southern end of the English line where the French had not closed, then forward of the men-at-arms to reinforce the archers who, as low on arrows as the rest of the army, were keeping up a desultory harassment of any group of horsemen who threatened to approach their position. The guns were still firing intermittently, spewing a noisome stench of powder smoke on the battle's edge, but Thomas could see little evidence that the ribalds were killing any Frenchmen, though their noise, and the whistle of their iron missiles, was keeping the enemy horsemen well away from the flank. We'll wait here,” Skeat said, then swore for he had seen the French second line leave the far hill crest. They did not come like the first, in ragged chaos, but steadily and properly. Skeat made the sign of cross. Pray for arrows,“ he said. The King watched his son fight. He had been worried when the Prince had advanced on horseback, but he nodded silent approval when he saw that the boy had possessed the good sense to dis-mount. The Bishop of Durham pressed to be allowed to go to Prince Edward's help, but the King shook his head. He has to learn to win fights.” He paused. I did." The King had no intention of going down into the horror, not because he feared such a fight, but because once entangled with the French horsemen he would not be able to watch the rest of his line. His job was to stay by the mill and trickle reinforcements down to the most threatened parts of his army. Men of his reserve continually pleaded to be allowed into the melee, but the King obstinately refused them, even when they complained that their honour would be smirched if they missed the fight. The King dared not let men go, for he was watching the French second battle come down the hill and he knew he must hoard every man in case that great sweep of horsemen battered through his line.

That second French line, almost a mile across and three or four ranks deep, walked down the slope where its horses had to thread the bodies of the slaughtered Genoese. Form up!" the conroi leaders shouted when the crossbowmen's bodies were behind them, and the men obediently moved knee to knee again as they rode into the softer ground. The hooves made hardly any sound in the wet soil so the loudest noises of the charge were the clink of mail, the thump of scabbards and the swish of trappers on the long grass. The drummers were still beating on the hill behind, but no trumpets called.

You see the Prince's banner?" Guy Vexille asked Sir Simon Jekyll, who rode beside him.

There.“ Jekyll pointed his lance tip to where the ragged fight was hottest. All Vexille's conroi had baffles on their lances, placed just back from the tip so that the wooden spears did not bury themselves in their victims” bodies. A lance with a baffle could be dragged free of a dying man and used again. The highest flag,“ Sir Simon added. Follow me!” Vexille shouted, and signalled to Henry Colley, who had been given the job of standard-bearer. Colley was bitter at the assignment, reckoning he should have been allowed to fight with lance and sword, but Sir Simon had told him it was a privilege to carry the lance of Saint George and Colley was forced to accept the task. He planned to discard the useless lance with its red flag as soon as he entered the melee, but for now he carried it high as he wheeled away from the well organized line. Vexille's men followed their banner, and the departure of the conroi left a gap in the French formation and some men called out angrily, even accusing Vexille of cowardice, but the Count of Astarac ignored the jibes as he slanted across the rear of the line to where he judged his horse-men were precisely opposite the Prince's men and there he found a fortuitous gap, forced his horse into the space and let his men follow as best they could.

Thirty paces to Vexille's left a conroi with badges showing yellow hawks on a blue field trotted up the English hill. Vexille did not see Sir Guillaume's banner, nor did Sir Guillaume see his enemy's badge of the yale. Both men were watching the hill ahead, wonder-ing when the archers would shoot and admiring the bravery of the first charge's survivors who repeatedly withdrew a few paces, re-formed and recharged the stubborn English line. Not one man threatened to break the enemy, but they still tried even when they were wounded and their destriers were limping. Then, as the second French charge neared the line of Genoese crossbowmen killed by the English archers, more trumpets sounded from the French hill and the horses pricked back their ears and tried to go into the canter. Men curbed the destriers and twisted awkwardly in their saddles to peer through visor slits to find what the trumpets meant and saw that the last of the French knights, the King and his house-hold warriors, and the blind King of Bohemia and his companions, were trotting forward to add their weight and weapons to the slaughter. The King of France rode beneath his blue banner that was spattered with the golden fleur-de-lis, while the King of Bohemia's flag showed three white feathers on a dark red field. All the horsemen of France were committed now. The drummers sweated, the priests prayed and the royal trumpeters gave a great fanfare to presage the death of the English army.

The Count of Alencon, brother to the King, had begun the crazed charge that had left so many Frenchmen dead on the far slope, but the Count was also dead, his leg broken by his falling horse and his skull crushed by an English axe. The men he had led, those that still lived, were dazed, arrow stung, sweat-blinded and weary, but they fought on, turning their tired horses to thrash swords, maces and axes at men-at-arms, who fended the blows with shields and raked their swords across the horses" legs. Then a new trumpet called much closer to the melee. The notes fell in urgent triplets that followed one after the other, and some of the horsemen regis-tered the call and understood they were being ordered to withdraw. Not to retreat, but to make way, for the biggest attack was yet to come.

God save the King," Will Skeat said dourly, for he had ten arrows left and half France was coming at him.

Thomas was noticing the strange rhythm of battle, the odd lulls in the violence and the sudden resurrection of horror. Men fought like demons and seemed invincible and then, when the horsemen withdrew to regroup, they would lean on their shields and swords and look like men close to death. The horses would stir again, English voices would shout warnings, and the men-at-arms would straighten and lift their dented blades. The noise on the hill was overwhelming: the occasional crack of the guns that did little except make the battlefield reek with hell's dark stench, the screams of horses, the blacksmiths“ clangour of weapons, men panting, shouting and moaning. Dying horses bared their teeth and thrashed the turf. Thomas blinked sweat from his eyes and stared at the long slope that was thick with dead horses, scores of them, hundreds maybe, and beyond them, approaching the bodies of the Genoese who had died under the arrows” lash, even more horsemen were coming beneath a new spread of bright flags. Sir Guillaume? Where was he? Did he live? Then Thomas realized that the terrible opening charge, when the arrows had felled so many horses and men, had been just that, an opening. The real battle was starting now.

Will! Will!“ Father Hobbe's voice called from somewhere behind the men-at-arms. Sir William!”

Here, father!"

The men-at-arms made way for the priest, who was carrying an armload of arrow sheaves and leading a small-frightened boy who carried still more. A gift from the royal archers," Father Hobbe said, and he spilled the sheaves onto the grass. Thomas saw the arrows had the red-dyed feathers of the King's own bowmen. He drew his knife, cut a binding lace, and stuffed the new arrows into his bag.

Into line! Into line!“ the Earl of Northampton shouted hoarsely. His helmet was deeply dented over his right temple and his surcoat was spotted with blood. The Prince of Wales was shouting insults at the French, who were wheeling their horses away, going back through the tangled sprawl of dead and wounded. Archers!” The Earl called, then pulled the Prince back into the men-at-arms who were slowly lining themselves into formation. Two men were pick-ing up fallen enemy lances to re-arm the front rank. Archers!" the Earl called again.

Will Skeat took his men back into their old position in front of the Earl. We're here, my lord."

You have arrows?"

Some."

Enough?"

Some," Skeat stubbornly answered.

Thomas kicked a broken sword from under his feet. Two or three paces in front of him was a dead horse with flies crawling on its wide white eyes and over the glistening blood on its black nose. Its trapper was white and yellow, and the knight who had ridden the horse was pinned under the body. The man's visor was lifted. Many of the French and nearly all of the English men-at-arms fought with open visors and this dead man's eyes stared straight at Thomas, then suddenly blinked.

Sweet Jesus,“ Thomas swore, as if he had seen a ghost. Have pity,” the man whispered in French. For Christ's sake, have pity."

Thomas could not hear him, for the air was filled with the drum-beat of hooves and the bray of trumpets. Leave them! They're beat!“ Will Skeat bawled, for some of his men were about to draw their bows against those horsemen who had survived the first charge and had withdrawn to realign their ranks well within bow-shot range. Wait!” Skeat shouted. Wait!" Thomas looked to his left. There were dead men and horses for a mile along the slope, but it seemed the French had only broken through to the English line where he stood. Now they came again and he blinked away sweat and watched the charge come up the slope. They came slowly this time, keeping their discipline. One knight in the French front rank was wearing extravagant white and yellow plumes on his helmet, just as if he were in a tournament. That was a dead man, Thomas thought, for no archer could resist such a flamboyant target.

Thomas looked back at the carnage in front. Were there any English among the dead? It seemed impossible that there should not be, but he could see none. A Frenchman, an arrow deep in his thigh, was staggering in a circle among the corpses, then slumped to his knees. His mail was torn at his waist and his helmet's visor was hanging by a single rivet. For a moment, with his hands clasped over his sword's pommel, he looked just like a man at prayer, then he slowly fell forward. A wounded horse whinnied. A man tried to rise and Thomas saw the red cross of Saint George on his arm, and the red and yellow quarters of the Earl of Oxford on his jupon. So there were English casualties after all.

Wait!“ Will Skeat shouted, and Thomas looked up to see that the horsemen were closer, much closer. He drew the black bow. He had shot so many arrows that the two calloused string fingers of Ihis right hand were actually sore, while the edge of his left hand had been rubbed raw by the flick of the goose feathers whipping across its skin. The long muscles of his back and arms were sore. He was thirsty. Wait!” Skeat shouted again, and Thomas relaxed the string a few inches. The close order of the second charge had been broken by the bodies of the crossbowmen, but the horsemen were re-forming now and were well within bow range. But Will Skeat, knowing how few arrows he had, wanted them all to count. Aim true, boys,“ he called. We've no steel to waste now, so aim true! Kill the damned horses.” The bows stretched to their full extent and the string bit like fire into Thomas's sore fingers. Now!" Skeat shouted and a new flight of arrows skimmed the slope, this time with red feathers among the white. Jake's bowstring snapped and he cursed as he fumbled for a replacement. A second flight whipped away, its feathers hissing in the air, and then the third arrows were on the string as the first flight struck. Horses screamed and reared. The riders flinched and then drove back spurs as if they understood that the quickest way to escape the arrows was to ride down the archers. Thomas shot again and again, not thinking now, just looking for a horse, leading it with the steel arrowhead, then releasing. He drew out a white-feathered arrow and saw blood on the quills and knew his bow fingers were bleeding for the first time since he had been a child. He shot again and again until his fingers were raw flesh and he was almost weeping from the pain, but the second charge had lost all its cohesion as the barbed points tortured the horses and the riders encountered the corpses left by the first attack. The French were stalled, unable to ride into the arrow flail, but unwilling to retreat. Horses and men fell, the drums beat on and the rearward horsemen were pushing the front ranks into the bloody ground where the pits waited and the arrows stung. Thomas shot another arrow, watched the red feathers whip into a horse's breast, then fumbled in the arrow bag to find just one shaft left. He swore.

Arrows?" Sam called, but no one had any to spare. Thomas shot his last, then turned to find a gap in the men-at-arms that would let him escape the horsemen who would surely come now the arrows had run out, but there were no gaps.

He felt a heartbeat of pure terror. There was no escape and the French were coming. Then, almost without thinking, he put his right hand under the horn tip of the bow and launched it high over the English men-at-arms so it would fall behind them. The bow was an encumbrance now, so he would be rid of it, and he picked up a fallen shield, hoping to God it showed an English insignia, and pushed his left forearm into the tight loops. He drew his sword and stepped back between two of the lances held by the men-at-arms. Other archers were doing the same.

Let the archers in!“ the Earl of Northampton shouted. Let them in!” But the men-at-arms were too fearful of the rapidly approaching French to open their files.

Ready!“ a man shouted. Ready!” There was a note of hysteria in his voice. The French horsemen, now that the arrows were exhausted, were streaming up the slope between the corpses and the pits. Their lances were lowered and their spurs raked back as they demanded a last spurt from the horses before they struck the enemy. The trappers were flecked with mud and hung with arrows. Thomas watched a lance, held the unfamiliar shield high and thought how monstrous the enemy's steel faces looked. You'll be all right, lad." A quiet voice spoke behind him. Hold the shield high and go for the horse.

Thomas snatched a look and saw it was the grey-haired Reginald Cobham, the old champion himself, standing in the front rank. Brace yourselves!" Cobham shouted.

The horses were on top of them, vast and high, lances reaching, the noise of the hooves and the rattle of mail overwhelming. Frenchmen were shouting victory as they leaned into the lunge. Now kill them!" Cobham shouted.

The lances struck the shields and Thomas was hurled back and a hoof thumped his shoulder, but a man behind pushed him upright so he was forced hard against the enemy horse. He had no room to use the sword and the shield was crushed against his side. There was the stench of horse sweat and blood in his nostrils. Something struck his helmet, making his skull ring and vision darken, then miraculously the pressure was gone and he glimpsed a patch of daylight and staggered into it, swinging the sword to where he thought the enemy was. Shield up!“ a voice screamed and he instinctively obeyed, only to have the shield battered down, but his dazed vision was sharpening and he could see a bright-coloured trapper and a mailed foot in a big leather stirrup close to his left. He rammed his sword through the trapper and into the horse's guts and the beast twisted away. Thomas was dragged along by the trapped blade, but managed to give it a violent tug that jerked it free so sharply that its recoil struck an English shield. The charge had not broken the line, but had broken against it like a sea wave striking a cliff. The horses recoiled and the English men-at-arms advanced to hack at the horsemen who were relin-quishing lances to draw their swords. Thomas was pushed aside by the men-at-arms. He was panting, dazed and sweat-blinded. His head was a blur of pain. An archer was lying dead in front of him, head crushed by a hoof. Why had the man no helmet? Then the men-at-arms were reeling back as more horsemen filed through the dead to thicken the fight, all of them pushing towards the Prince of Wales's high banner. Thomas banged his shield hard into a horse's face, felt a glancing blow on his sword and skewered the blade down the horse's flank. The rider was fighting a man on the other side of his horse and Thomas saw a small gap between the saddle's high pommel and the man's mail skirt, and he shoved the sword up into the Frenchman's belly, heard the man's angry roar turn into a shriek, then saw the horse was falling towards him. He scrambled clear, pushing a man out of his path before the horse col-lapsed in a crash of armour and beating hooves. English men-at-arms swarmed over the dying beast, going to meet the next enemy. A horse with an iron garro deep in its haunch was rearing and striking with its hooves. Another horse tried to bite Thomas and he struck it with the shield, then flailed at its rider with his sword, but the man wheeled away and Thomas looked desperately for the next enemy. No prisoners!” the Earl screamed, seeing a man trying to lead a Frenchman out of the melee. The Earl had discarded his shield and was wielding his sword with both hands, hacking it like a wood-man's axe and daring any Frenchman to come and challenge him. They dared. More and more horsemen pushed into the horror; there seemed no end of them. The sky was bright with flags and streaked with steel, the grass was gouged by iron and slick with blood. A Frenchman rammed the bottom edge of his shield down onto an Englishman's helmet, wheeled the horse, lunged a sword into an archer's back, wheeled again and struck down at the man still dazed by the shield blow. Montjoie Saint Den is!“ he shouted. Saint George!” The Earl of Northampton, visor up and face streaked with blood, rammed his sword through a gap in a chanfron to take a horse's eye. The beast reared and its rider fell to be trampled by a horse behind. The Earl looked for the Prince and could not see him, then could not search more, for a fresh conroi with white crosses on black shields was forging through the melee, pushing friend and foe alike from their path as they carried their lances towards the Prince's standard.

Thomas saw a baffled lance coming at him and he threw himself to the ground where he curled into a ball and let the heavy horses crash by.

Montjoie Saint Denis!" the voices yelled above him as the Count of Astarac's conroi struck home.

Sir Guillaume d'Evecque had seen nothing like it. He hoped he never saw it again. He saw a great army breaking itself against a line of men on foot.