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he reached the southern end of the line, which was still unengaged. ‘Karyl! It’ll be the same fight as before! Just hold them! Sam! I want every archer on his horse. Bring axes, swords, maces, anything that kills, and hurry!’
    Thomas wondered who the man in the black jupon was or what in God’s name he had just agreed to do. His men were running to the tree line where Keane had picketed the horses. ‘Keane,’ Thomas shouted, ‘give me a poleaxe!’
    The Irishman brought a poleaxe, then mounted his own horse. ‘I’m coming. Where are we going?’
    ‘I have no idea.’
    ‘A mystery ride, is it? We used to do that at home. Just ride off and see where we ended. Usually an alehouse.’
    ‘I doubt that’s our destination,’ Thomas said, then raised his voice. ‘Come with me!’ He kicked the horse back north. To his left the battle was loud. The English line was four men deep and it was holding. The men in the rear ranks were bracing the front rank, or thrusting with shortened lances between their comrades’ bodies, while behind the line two horsemen were jabbing lances at any enemy whose visor was lifted. There was a mass of Frenchmen in the hedge’s gap where banners waved, but most were still beyond the hedge, waiting for their leading men to hack out a space they could fill.
    ‘Follow me!’ the man in the black jupon shouted. He had sixty or so men wearing his black and yellow colours, and Thomas and his archers followed them into the trees. More archers joined, all following the man in black northwards. Thomas saw Robbie and Roland riding together and he kicked his horse to catch up with them.
    ‘What are we doing?’
    ‘Attacking from behind,’ Robbie said. He grinned.
    ‘Who’s leading?’
    ‘The Captal de Buch,’ Roland said.
    ‘Captal?’
    ‘A Gascon title. He has reputation.’
    My God, Thomas thought, but he needs to be good. As far as he could see the captal had fewer than two hundred men and he planned to assault the French army? And most of those men were mounted archers, not trained men-at-arms, but if the captal felt any trepidation he did not betray it. He led the men down the hill, staying in the woods and going far behind the Earl of Salisbury’s battle that defended the right-hand end of the English line. The fighting was fierce there. Much of the earl’s position was beyond the hedge, and the slope leading to the English line was gentle, and so the French assailed around the hedge’s northern end to be met by men-at-arms and archers. Trenches trapped some Frenchmen. Archers fought with hand weapons, using their bow-given strength to batter armoured men. Thomas had a glimpse of that fight, then he was in the trees again. Acorns crunched under the hooves of his horse. Men ducked beneath the branches of oak and chestnuts. A handful of the men-at-arms carried long lances that had to be steered carefully between the thick trees, but they were not going fast. The strength of the horses needed to be conserved and so the captal led them at a trot, confident that he was hidden from the enemy. The sound of battle faded as they rode farther north.
    They rode into a valley, crossed a trickle of a stream and climbed the further slope that was a field of stubble. Trees screened the northern and western skylines. Just before they reached the northern trees, the captal turned his horse to the left and rode into a thicket of oak that crowned a hill. When Thomas ducked into the trees he could see that the low hills to the north were covered with retreating men. Why? Had the French suffered a defeat that had escaped his notice? Yet there they were, hundreds and hundreds of men going northwards while the battle was still being fought on the English hill.
    A small lizard skittered across Thomas’s path. Was that a good omen or a bad? He wished he still had the dried dog paw he used to wear as a talisman about his neck, a paw he had boasted to be a relic of Saint Guinefort, a dog that had been declared a saint. How could a dog be a saint? He made the sign of the cross, remembering that he had not confessed before this battle and he had not received any absolution. If he was killed, he thought, he would go to hell. He touched the paw again and curbed his horse. All the horses were standing now, pawing the ground and tossing their heads.
    ‘Standard bearer!’ the captal called.
    ‘Sire?’
    ‘The English flag.’
    The standard bearer unfurled the white flag with the bold red cross of