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fires of Poitiers. The far slope of the valley was covered in vineyards, row after row of thick vines.
    It was a beautiful day. Warm and sunny, with just a few high white clouds. The trees were heavy with leaves that had started to show a tinge of autumn colour. The grapes were plump, almost ripe for picking. It was a day, the captal thought, to take a girl to the river and swim naked there, and afterwards make love in the grass and drink wine before making love again.
    Instead he was watching the enemy.
    An army had passed through the gentle valley. The ground on either side of the road had been churned by hooves, thousands upon thousands of hooves, to leave a dark scar of broken turf. One of the captal’s scouts, mounted on a small fast horse, had watched the army pass. ‘Eighty-seven banners, sire,’ he said.
    The captal grunted. Only the greatest lords flew their banners on the march so that their followers would know their place in the column, but how many men did that mean? No great lord would take fewer than a hundred men to battle, so ten thousand? Twelve? A lot, the captal thought grimly. The English and their Gascon allies would not be flying more than forty such banners, but his scout had counted eighty-seven! Yet now, as the sun shone on the scarred valley and the gentle river, the captal could only see two banners flying above a crowd of men and horses who rested beside the river. ‘This is the rearguard?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes, sire.’
    ‘You’re sure?’
    ‘There’s no one behind them.’ The scout gestured eastwards. ‘I rode a league that way. Nothing.’
    And the French rearguard was resting. They were in no hurry, and why should they hurry? They had overtaken the English and the Gascons. The prince had not gained a day’s march, the French had won the race, and the captal summoned one of his men and told him to take that bad news back to Edward. ‘Go,’ he said, ‘hurry,’ and then, like the French, the captal waited.
    ‘How many do you reckon?’ he asked a man-at-arms, nodding at the men beside the river.
    ‘Six hundred, sire? Seven?’
    So six or seven hundred Frenchmen were motionless in the valley. Most wore no helmets because of the day’s heat, though many were wearing wide-brimmed hats with extravagant white feathers, clear evidence that they expected no trouble. There was a handful of light carts, which carried lances and shields. These Frenchmen had no idea that an enemy was this close to them. Some had dismounted and a few were even lying in the grass as if catching up on sleep. Servants were walking riderless horses in the pasture where others grazed. Men stood in small groups, handing around wineskins. The captal could not distinguish the two banners because they hung listless in the windless heat, but their presence meant that there were lords among those men-at-arms, and lords meant ransoms.
    ‘They outnumber us,’ the captal said, then paused as his horse thumped the leaf mould with a forefoot. ‘We’re outnumbered two to one,’ he continued, ‘but we’re Gascons.’
    He had just over three hundred men-at-arms, all helmeted, all with shields, all ready to fight.
    ‘Why are they waiting?’ a man-at-arms asked.
    ‘Water?’ the captal suggested. The day was hot, both armies had marched fast, the horses were thirsty and there was no water on the high ground, and he guessed that this rearguard was letting their stallions drink from the small river. He turned in his saddle and gestured to Hunald, his squire. ‘Helmet, shield, lance, have the axe ready.’ He looked at his standard bearer, who caught his eye and grinned. ‘Close up!’ he called to his men. He took the helmet, pushed up the visor and crammed it over his mail hood. He pushed his left arm through the loop of the black and yellow shield, then gripped the handle. His squire helped him couch the lance. All along the edge of the trees men were doing the same thing. Some men just drew swords, while Guillaume, a huge man mounted on an equally huge horse, carried a spiked morningstar. ‘No trumpet,’ the captal called. If he signalled the charge with a trumpet then the enemy would gain a few seconds of warning. Better just to burst from the woods and be halfway down the slope before the French realised that death had come visiting on a warm afternoon. His horse whinnied and thumped its hoof again. ‘In the name of God, Gascony and King Edward,’ the captal said.
    And kicked his heels back.
    And by