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rider onto an unwounded and riderless horse. Sculley slapped the horse’s rump. The wounded horses galloped clear and Thomas shot, but his arrow bounced off Sculley’s backplate. The horse with the rescued man struggled out of the marsh to the shelter of the trees, followed by Sculley and four other men wearing the red heart.
    And then there was a sudden quiet, except for the eternal sound of the river and the birdsong and the screams of horses and the beat of hooves striking the ground in the animals’ death throes.
    The archers unstrung their bows so that the yew staves straightened. Prisoners, some wounded, some staggering, were being led to the ford while Englishmen were stripping dead horses of precious armour and harness and saddlery. Some put horses out of their misery by unbuckling the chamfrons and then striking them hard between the eyes with a war axe. Other men unbuckled plate armour from dead knights and hauled mail coats off corpses. An archer strapped a French knight’s sword around his waist. ‘Sam,’ Thomas shouted, ‘fetch the arrows back!’ Sam grinned and led a dozen men into the remnants of the carnage to collect arrows. It was also a chance for plunder. A wounded Frenchman tried to stand. He raised a hand to an English man-at-arms who knelt beside him. The two men spoke and then the Englishman lifted the Frenchman’s visor and stabbed him through the eye with a dagger. ‘Too poor to have a ransom, I suppose,’ the rider behind Thomas said. He watched as the man-at-arms sheathed his dagger and began to strip the corpse. ‘God, we’re cruel, but we’ve captured Marshal d’Audrehem, and isn’t that a good beginning to a bad day?’
    Thomas turned. The man’s visor was lifted to reveal a grey moustache and thoughtful blue eyes, and Thomas instinctively went to a knee. ‘My lord.’
    ‘Thomas of Hookton, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes, sire.’
    ‘I wondered who in Christ’s name was wearing Northampton’s colours,’ the man said, speaking in French. Thomas had ordered his men to wear jupons with Northampton’s badge, a badge that most men in the English army would recognise. A few had the red cross of Saint George strapped around an upper arm, but there were not enough armlets for all his men. The horseman who spoke to Thomas wore the white star on his red and yellow jupon, while the gold chain about his neck proclaimed his rank. He was the Earl of Oxford, brother-in-law to Thomas’s lord. The earl had been at Crécy and afterwards Thomas had met him in England, and he was astonished that the earl remembered him, let alone remembered that he spoke French. He was even more astonished when the earl used his brother-in-law’s nickname. ‘It’s a pity Billy isn’t here,’ the earl said grimly, ‘we need all the good men we can get. And I think you should get your men back up the hill now.’
    ‘Up the hill, sire?’
    ‘Listen!’
    Thomas listened.
    And heard the war drums.
     
    The French horsemen had attacked at the ford and at the right-hand end of the English line, but as those charges went home other horsemen rode in front of the dauphin’s battle to challenge the English on their hill.
    Six men chose to ride. Each was a tournament champion of fearsome reputation. They rode superbly trained destriers, and their winnings in the lists had bought them the finest armour that could be made in Milan. They rode close to the English hedge and called out their challenge, and the English archers ignored them. Six men did not make a battle, and there was no honour and not much usefulness in killing a solitary horseman when so many other men-at-arms were approaching on foot.
    ‘Pass the word that they’re to be ignored,’ the Prince of Wales ordered.
    The challengers were part of battle’s dance. They went to taunt the English and in the hope of finding an opponent they could unhorse and kill, and so dispirit the English. They shouted their defiance. ‘Are you women? Do you know how to fight?’
    ‘Ignore them,’ the commanders growled at their men.
    But one man disobeyed. He owed no allegiance to any commander on the English side, and he knew the impudent challengers were meant to be ignored. Let them waste their breath, the real battle was not fought between champion and champion, yet still that one man mounted, took a lance from his squire, and rode out from the left of the English line.
    He wore no jupon. His armour had been scrubbed so that it shone. His horse took small