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swords?’
    ‘In battle? Most don’t. You have to batter a man down if he’s in armour. A mace, a morningstar, a flail, an axe will all do better.’ He turned the head to show the hooked spike. ‘You can pull a man off balance with the fluke. Hook or trip him onto the ground and beat the bastard to death with the axe head. If you like it, take it, but tie some rags under the head.’
    ‘Rags?’
    ‘You don’t want blood trickling down the haft and making it slippery. And ask Sam to weave you some bow cord to improve the grip. You know the blacksmith in town?’
    ‘The one they call Squinting Jacques?’
    ‘He’ll put an edge on it for you. But go into the courtyard first and practise with it. Hack one of the stakes to bits. You’ve got two days to become an expert.’
    The courtyard was already filled with men practising. Thomas sat on top of the keep’s steps and smiled a greeting to Sir Henri Courtois, who sat beside him, then flexed an ankle and flinched. ‘It still hurts?’ Thomas asked.
    ‘Everything hurts. I’m old.’ Sir Henri frowned. ‘Give me ten?’
    ‘Six.’
    ‘Sweet Jesus, only six? How about arrows?’
    Thomas grimaced. ‘We’re short of arrows.’
    ‘Six archers and not many arrows,’ Sir Henri said unhappily. ‘We could just leave the castle gates wide open?’
    ‘It would be much less trouble,’ Thomas agreed, provoking a smile from Sir Henri. ‘I’ll leave you a thousand arrows,’ he suggested.
    ‘Why can’t we make arrows?’ Sir Henri asked unhappily.
    ‘I can make a bow in two days,’ Thomas said, ‘but one arrow takes a week.’
    ‘But you can get arrows from the Prince of Wales?’
    ‘I’m hoping so,’ Thomas said. ‘He’ll have brought hundreds of thousands. Wagonloads of arrows.’
    ‘And each takes a week?’
    ‘It takes a lot of people,’ Thomas said, ‘thousands of folk in England. Some cut the shafts, some forge the heads, some collect the feathers, some glue and bind them, some nock them, and we shoot them.’
    ‘Ten men-at-arms?’ Sir Henri suggested.
    ‘Seven.’
    ‘Eight,’ Sir Henri said, ‘otherwise you’re leaving me unlucky thirteen.’
    ‘Fourteen with you,’ Thomas said, ‘and you should have sixteen soon.’
    ‘Sixteen?’
    ‘That prisoner downstairs He’s to be exchanged for Galdric and our two men-at-arms. They should arrive any day now. So sixteen. Jesus! I could hold this castle till Judgement Day with sixteen men!’
    They were discussing how the castle was to be protected. Thomas planned to ride north and wanted to take as many of the Hellequin as he could, but he dared not leave the castle too lightly garrisoned. There were chests in the great hall that contained the gold and silver that Thomas wanted to take back to England. A third of it belonged to his lord, the Earl of Northampton, but the rest would buy him a fair estate. ‘In Dorset,’ he said, thinking aloud, ‘back home.’
    ‘I thought this was home?’
    ‘I’d rather live in a place where I don’t need sentinels every night.’
    Sir Henri smiled. ‘That sounds good.’
    ‘Then come to Dorset with us.’
    ‘And listen to your barbaric language every day?’ Sir Henri asked. He was over fifty now, a man who had spent his long life in mail and plate. He had been the commander of the old Count of Berat’s men-at-arms, and thus had been an enemy of Thomas, but the new count had reckoned Sir Henri was too old and too cautious. He had scornfully promised Sir Henri command of the small garrison at Castillon d’Arbizon when it was recaptured, but instead the count’s siege had been defeated. Sir Henri, abandoned by the count, had been taken prisoner by Thomas, who, recognising the older man’s vast experience and common sense, had kept the count’s promise by making Sir Henri his own castellan. He had never regretted it. Sir Henri was reliable, honest, stoic, and determined to make his former lord regret his scorn. ‘I hear Joscelyn has gone north,’ Sir Henri said.
    Joscelyn was the new Count of Berat, a headstrong man who had still not given up his dream of reclaiming Castillon d’Arbizon. ‘To Bourges?’ Thomas asked.
    ‘Probably.’
    ‘Where is Bourges?’
    ‘North,’ Sir Henri said, though he was plainly uncertain. ‘If it was me I’d ride to Limoges and ask the way from there.’
    ‘And the Prince of Wales?’
    ‘He was near Limoges,’ Sir Henri said cautiously, ‘or so they say.’
    ‘They?’
    ‘A friar was here last