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the results of the long negotiations to be announced.
    ‘The terms are these, sire,’ the Earl of Warwick spoke flatly. ‘We must return all the land, fortresses and towns captured in the last three years. We must yield all the plunder in our baggage train. We must release all prisoners held here or in England without further payment of ransom. And we are to pay France an indemnity of sixty-six thousand pounds to compensate for the destruction we have wrought over the years.’
    ‘Dear God,’ the prince said faintly.
    ‘In return, sire,’ the Earl of Oxford took up the tale, ‘your army will be permitted to march to Gascony, the King of France will betroth one of his daughters to you, and she will bring you the County of Angoulême as her dowry.’
    ‘Are his daughters pretty?’ the prince asked.
    ‘Prettier than a hill covered in English corpses, sire,’ the Earl of Warwick said sharply. ‘There is more. You and all England must swear not to take up arms against France for a period of seven years.’
    The prince looked from one earl to the other, then to the captal, who sat to one side of the tent. ‘Advise me,’ he said.
    The Earl of Warwick flinched as he stretched his legs out. ‘We’re outnumbered, sire. Sir Reginald believes we can slip away in the dawn, cross the river and be on our way before the enemy notices, but I confess I’m sceptical. The bastards aren’t fools. They’ll be watching us.’
    ‘And they’re moving south and west, sire,’ the captal put in. ‘They must be thinking we’ll try to cross the Miosson and they’re trying to close that escape.’
    ‘And they’re confident, sire,’ the Earl of Oxford said.
    ‘Because of numbers?’
    ‘Because our men are tired, outnumbered, hungry and thirsty. And the fat cardinal said something strange. He warned us that God has sent France a sign that He is on their side. I asked him what he meant, but the fat bastard just looked smug.’
    ‘I thought the cardinals spoke for the Pope?’
    ‘The Pope,’ Warwick said dourly, ‘is in France’s grip.’
    ‘And if we fight tomorrow?’ the prince asked.
    There was silence. Then the Earl of Warwick shrugged and used his hands to imitate a weighing scale. Up and down. The thing could end either way, his hands were suggesting, but his face showed nothing but pessimism.
    ‘We hold a strong position,’ the Earl of Salisbury, who commanded the troops at the northern end of the English hill, said, ‘but if the line breaks? We’ve made pits and trenches that will stop them, but we can’t entrench the whole damned hill. And it’s my belief they have at least twice our numbers.’
    ‘And they’re eating well today,’ the captal said, ‘while our men make acorn stew.’
    ‘The terms are harsh,’ the prince said. A horsefly landed on his leg and he slapped at it angrily.
    ‘And they demand noble hostages, sire, as a surety that the terms are honoured,’ the Earl of Oxford said.
    ‘Noble hostages,’ the prince said flatly.
    ‘Noble and knightly, sire,’ the earl said, ‘which includes everyone in this tent, I fear.’ He took a piece of parchment from a pouch on his sword belt and held it towards the prince. ‘That’s a partial list, sire, but they will undoubtedly add other names.’
    The prince nodded and a servant took the list and went on one knee to give it to his master. The prince grimaced as he read the names. ‘All our best knights?’
    ‘Including Your Royal Majesty,’ Oxford said.
    ‘So I see,’ the prince said. He frowned as he read the names. ‘Sire Roland de Verrec? Surely he’s not in our army?’
    ‘It seems he is, sire.’
    ‘And a Douglas? Are they mad?’
    ‘Sir Robert Douglas is also here, sire.’
    ‘He is? Christ’s bowels, what’s a Douglas doing with us? And who in God’s name is Thomas Hookton?’
    ‘Sir Thomas, sire,’ Sir Reginald spoke for the first time. ‘He was one of Will Skeat’s men at Crécy.’
    ‘An archer?’
    ‘Now a vassal of Northampton, sire. A useful man.’
    ‘Why in Christ’s name is Billy knighting archers?’ the prince asked petulantly. ‘And why in hell’s name do the French know he’s here and I don’t?’
    No one answered. The prince let the parchment drop onto the carpet that covered the turf. What would his father think? What would his father do? But Edward the Third, the most feared warrior-king in Europe, was in faraway England. So this was the prince’s decision. True, he had advisers and he