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thought it was coloured black. ‘Robbie!’ he called, glad to see his friend, then he saw that the rider was not Robbie, but Sculley.
    ‘He’s dead!’ Sculley shouted. ‘The traitor’s dead! And it’s your turn now.’ He was carrying
la Malice
, the blade looking pathetically rusted and weak, but it was also discoloured by blood. ‘It looks like shit,’ Sculley said, ‘but it’s a canny weapon.’ He had lost his helmet, and his long, lank hair rattled with bones. ‘I took wee Robbie’s head off,’ Sculley said. ‘One cut of the magic sword and wee Robbie went to hell. See?’ He grinned and pointed to his saddle where Thomas saw Robbie’s bloody head was hanging by its hair. ‘I like a wee keepsake from a fight, and the sight
of that will make his uncle happy.’ He laughed at Thomas’s expression. No one was attacking the Scotsman because any Englishman or Gascon assumed a horseman who was not fleeing northwards must be on their side even if, like Sculley, he did not wear a red cross of Saint George. Now Sculley curbed his stolen horse. ‘Would you rather just surrender to me?’ he asked, then suddenly rowelled his spurs so that the destrier charged straight at Thomas, who, taken by surprise, could only thrust his poleaxe at the Scotsman, who easily avoided the clumsy blow and swept the ancient blade hard at Thomas’s neck, trying to take his head as he had taken Robbie’s.
    Thomas jerked the axe back and upwards and somehow managed to parry the blow. The two weapons met with violent force and Thomas thought the old sword must break, but
la Malice
was still in one piece and Sculley backswung it with malevolent speed. Thomas ducked.
La Malice
’s blade hit his bascinet and scraped across the crown, and Thomas instinctively wrenched his horse to the left and saw the sword coming back, snake-fast, in a cut aimed at his face. He somehow leaned out of the way, aware of the broad tip of the sword flashing perilously close. He tried to lunge the poleaxe’s spiked tip at the Scotsman, but Sculley just parried the heavy blade and struck again, this time slamming
la Malice
hard down, and the blade clashed onto Thomas’s helmet so fiercely that he was half stunned, his ears ringing, but the bascinet’s steel resisted the blade even though he was slumping in the saddle, grunting, trying to gather his wits and make room to swing his poleaxe.
    ‘Christ’s bowels, but you’re feeble,’ Sculley taunted. He grinned, prodded Thomas with the sword and laughed when Thomas swayed in the saddle. ‘Time to say hello to the devil, Englishman,’ Sculley said, and drew
la Malice
back for the killing blow, and Thomas dropped the axe, kicked his left foot free of the stirrup and lunged at the Scotsman. He threw his arms around Sculley’s chest and held on, gripping him, tearing Sculley out of the saddle so that they both thumped onto the ground, and Thomas was on top. He used his archer’s strength to punch Sculley in the face, his iron-clad gauntlet shattering a cheekbone and nose. He hit him again, and Sculley tried to bite him and Thomas drove his gauntlet down again, but this time with out-thrust rigid fingers that drove into Sculley’s left eyeball. The Scotsman gave a gurgling scream as the eye collapsed, then Thomas headbutted him with his helmet, and rolled off. He seized Sculley’s right arm and wrenched the sword free. ‘Bastard,’ he said, and he held the sword in both hands, left hand on the hilt, right on the backblade, and he drove the fore-edge into Sculley’s throat and sawed it hard so that he cut through gullet and blood vessels and sinew and muscle and Sculley still gurgled and blood jetted onto Thomas’s face and he went on pushing as the blood pulsed warm and the pulses slowly slackened and still Thomas sawed and pushed until the old blade met bone.
    And Sculley was dead.
    ‘Jesus,’ Thomas said, ‘sweet Jesus.’ He was on his knees, shaking. He stared at the sword. A miracle? He saw that someone had made a new wooden hilt for the ancient blade, and that hilt was slick with blood.
    He stood. Robbie’s horse was beside him and, in a spasm of anger, he cut the hair that held Robbie’s head. It thumped on the ground. He would have to find the rest of his old friend and dig a grave, but before he could think how he might do that he saw Roland de Verrec standing helpless in front of a fat man in armour. The fat man had a green and white jupon and, as Thomas watched, he drew his