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the archers had horses, and the baggage carts were mostly light and horse-drawn so that the army could move fast, but it was evident the French were travelling just as fast, and any fool could understand that King Jean was doing his utmost to get ahead of the prince. Get in front, choose a battlefield, and kill the impudent English and Gascons.
    So where were the French?
    There was a faint smudge of grey in the eastern sky, which the captal suspected was smoke from the remnants of the fires that the French had lit in their encampment the previous night. And that smudge was close, too close and too far to the south. If that smudge was a marker of the French night-time position then they were already abreast of the prince, and a prisoner, taken two days before, had confirmed that King Jean had dismissed the foot soldiers from his army. He travelled like the English, every man on horseback. Foot soldiers would slow his march and he did not want to be slowed. It was a race.
    ‘Twenty-one now,’ a man said.
    The captal stared at the horsemen. Were they a lure? Were a hundred other cavalry waiting in the trees to pounce if any Englishman or Gascon rode to attack the twenty-one? Then he would set his own lure. ‘Hunald!’ he called to his squire. ‘The bag. Eude? Your horse and two men to go with you.’
    The squire took a leather bag that hung from his saddle, dismounted and rooted around the forest floor to find stones. There were not many that were heavy enough, and so it took time to fill the bag. The Frenchmen, meanwhile, were gazing westwards. They were being cautious, and that, the captal decided, was good. They would be more confident if they were supported by a larger band of hidden cavalry.
    The filled bag was tied by its laces to the right forefoot of Eude’s horse. ‘Ready, sire,’ Eude said. He had dismounted.
    ‘Then go.’
    The three men, two in their saddles and with Eude leading his horse, left the cover of the trees and went southwards. The horse, cumbered by the bag of stones, walked awkwardly. It shied every few steps, and when it did walk docilely it dragged its right forefoot, and to a distant observer it looked as though the beast was painfully lame and that its owner was trying to lead it back to safety. The three men appeared to be easy prey, and the French, doubtless hoping that one of them was rich enough to yield a ransom, took the bait.
    ‘It works every time,’ the captal said in wonderment.
    He was watching and counting the French horsemen who were coming from the trees. Thirty-three. The years of our Lord, he thought, and saw the enemy turning towards their prey and spreading apart. Lances dropped to the rest, swords were drawn, and then the Frenchmen spurred their horses across the pasture that separated the two stretches of woodland. They went from the trot to the canter. They were racing themselves now, eager to take the prisoners, and the captal waited a few heartbeats longer, then jerked up his own lance and touched the courser with his spurs. The horse leaped forward.
    Twenty-nine horsemen burst from the trees. Lances were levelled. The French had not shortened their lances, and so had an advantage, but they had been taken by surprise and to meet the charge they needed to turn. They were slow, and the long lances were ponderous, and the captal struck them hard before they had a chance to realign themselves.
    His own lance caught a man beneath his shield. The captal felt the shock of the blow as he tightened his arm on the lance’s stock. The high cantle of his saddle held him in place as the lance bored deep. It went through mail and leather, through skin and muscle into soft tissue and there was blood on the enemy’s saddle and the captal had already let go of the lance and was drawing his sword. He backslashed the blade, hitting the dying man’s helmet, and used his knees to turn the courser hard to the right and so towards another Frenchman whose lance was tangled in a companion’s horse. The man panicked, let go of the long ash lance and tried to draw his sword, and he was still drawing it as the captal’s blade gouged his unprotected throat. A massive blow crashed against the captal’s shield, but then one of his horsemen drew off that assailant. A horse was screaming. A dismounted man was staggering with blood spilling from a gash in his bascinet. ‘I want a prisoner!’ the captal shouted. ‘At least one prisoner!’
    ‘And their horses!’ another man