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through the shields so they could shatter the English into small groups that could be surrounded and slaughtered. Men hacked with axes, screamed obscenities, thrust with lances, swung maces, and the shields splintered, but the line held. It went backwards under the pressure, and more Frenchmen came through the gap, but the Englishmen and Gascons were fighting with the desperation of trapped men and the confidence of troops who had spent months together, men who knew and trusted each other, and who understood what waited for them if the line broke.
    ‘Welcome to the devil’s slaughteryard, sire,’ Sir Reginald Cobham said to the Prince of Wales. The two men were on horseback, watching from just behind the line, and Sir Reginald saw how the fight was slackening. He had expected the French to come on horseback and had been apprehensive when he understood they intended to fight on foot. ‘They’ve learned their lesson,’ he had remarked drily to the prince. He had watched as the lines crashed together and seen how the savage French charge had failed to rip the English and Gascons apart, but now it was hard to tell one side from the other, they were so close. The rear ranks of both sides thrust forward, crushing the front-rank men against their opponents and giving them small room to swing a weapon. The enemy was still forcing their way through the gaps in the hedge, widening their attack, but they were not breaking through the stubborn line. They were either crushed against their enemy, or else a group of men would assault, batter and cut, then step back to catch their breath and appraise their enemy. They were calling insults rather than fighting with fury, and Sir Reginald understood that. Attackers and defenders were each recovering from the initial shock, but more Frenchmen were still coming through the hedge’s gap and the fight would get grimmer now, because the attacks would be more deliberate and the English, thirsty and hungry, would tire faster.
    ‘We do well, Sir Reginald!’ the prince said cheerfully.
    ‘We must go on doing well, sire.’
    ‘Is that the boy prince?’ The Prince of Wales had seen the golden coronet surmounting a polished helmet in the French ranks and knew, from the largest banner, that the dauphin must be part of this attack.
    ‘A prince, certainly,’ Sir Reginald said, ‘or maybe a substitute?’
    ‘Real prince or not,’ the real English prince said, ‘it would be courteous to pay him my compliments.’ He grinned, swung his leg over his saddle’s high cantle, and dropped to the turf where he reached out to his squire. ‘Shield,’ he said, stretching out his left hand, ‘and an axe, I think.’
    ‘Sire!’ Sir Reginald called, then fell silent. The prince was doing his duty and the devil was rolling the dice, and advising the prince to be cautious would achieve nothing.
    ‘Sir Reginald?’ the prince asked.
    ‘Nothing, sire, nothing.’
    The prince half smiled. ‘What will be, Sir Reginald, will be.’ He snapped down his visor and pushed through the English ranks to face the French. His chosen knights, there to protect the heir to England’s throne, followed.
    The enemy saw his bright jupon, recognised the insolent French arms quartered on his broad chest, and gave a roar of challenge and anger.
    Then charged again.

Fifteen
     
    Thomas reached the hilltop just as the battle was widening. The French had forced their way through the gaps in the hedge and were spreading along its length, while others were hacking through the thick brambles to make new gaps. Somewhere to Thomas’s right a man shouted, ‘Archers! Archers! Here!’
    Thomas slid from his saddle. His men were arriving in small groups and adding themselves to the left of the English line, which was not yet engaged, but he ran behind the line to where the call had sounded. Then he saw what had provoked the shout. Two crossbowmen had found a way to the hedge’s centre with their pavisiers, and they were shooting into the Earl of Warwick’s men. He paused to string his bow, placing one end on a protruding tree root and bending the other with his left hand so he could slip the loop of the cord onto the nocked horn at the bow’s upper end. Most men could not even bend a bow sufficiently to string it, but he did it without thinking, then took a flesh arrow from his bag, shouldered his way through the rearmost ranks and drew the cord. Both crossbowmen were about thirty paces away and both were being