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mail at two hundred paces, but none of the Count of Labrouillade’s men were wearing armour or carrying shields, all of which they had loaded onto packhorses. Some of the men had leather coats, but all had taken off their heavy plate or mail, and so the arrows slashed into them, wounding men and horses, driving them to instant chaos. The crossbowmen were on foot and a long way behind the count’s horsemen, and anyway they were cumbered with their sacks of plunder. It would take minutes for them to ready for battle, and Thomas did not give them the minutes. Instead, as the arrows plunged into the screaming horses and fallen riders, Thomas led his twenty-two men-at-arms out of the woods onto the count’s flank.
    Thomas’s men were mounted on destriers, the great stallions that could carry the weight of man, armour and weapons. They had not brought lances, for those weapons were heavy and would have slowed their march; instead they drew their swords or wielded axes and maces. Many carried a shield on which the black-barred badge of
le Bâtard
was painted, and Thomas, once they were out of the trees, turned the line to face the enemy and swung his sword blade down as a signal to advance.
    They trotted forward, knee to knee. Rocks studded the high grassland and the line would divide around them, then rejoin. The men were in mail. Some had added pieces of plate armour, a breastplate or perhaps an espalier to protect the shoulders, and all wore bascinets, the simple open-faced helmet that let a man see in battle. The arrows continued to fall. Some of the count’s horsemen were trying to escape, wrenching their reins to ride back northwards, but the thrashing of the wounded horses obstructed them and they could see the black line of Hellequin men-at-arms coming from the side, and some, in desperation, hauled out their swords. A handful broke clear and raced back towards the northern woods where the crossbowmen might be found, while another handful gathered around their lord, the count, who had one arrow in his thigh despite Thomas’s orders that the count was not to be killed. ‘A dead man can’t pay his debts,’ Thomas had said, ‘so shoot anyone else, but make certain Labrouillade lives.’ Now the count was trying to turn his horse, but his weight was too great and the horse was wounded, and he could not turn, and then the Hellequin spurred into the canter, the swords were lowered to the lunge position, and the arrows stopped.
    The archers stopped for fear of hitting their own horsemen, then discarded their bows and pulled out swords and ran to join the killing as the men-at-arms struck.
    The sound of the charge striking home was like butchers’ cleavers hitting carcasses. Men screamed. Some threw down swords and held their hands out in mute surrender. Thomas, not as comfortable on horseback as he was with a bow, had his lunge deflected by a sword. He crashed past the man, backswung his blade that hammered harmlessly against leather, then swept it forward into a man’s red hair. That man went down, spilling from his saddle, and the Hellequin were turning, coming back to finish the enemy. A rider wearing a black hat plumed with long white feathers lunged a sword at Thomas’s belly. The blade slid off his mail, and Thomas brought his sword back in a wild swing that sliced into the man’s face just as Arnaldus, one of the Gascons in the Hellequin, speared the man’s spine with another sword. The count’s rider was making a high-pitched keening sound, shaking uncontrollably, blood pouring from his shattered face. He let his sword drop, and Arnaldus speared him again. He fell slowly sideways. An archer seized the reins of the man’s horse. The dying man was the last to offer any resistance. The count’s men had been taken by surprise, they had fought an unequal skirmish against men in armour whose lives were spent fighting, and the struggle was over in seconds. A dozen of the count’s men escaped, the rest were dead or prisoners, and the count himself was captured. ‘Archers!’ Thomas shouted. ‘Bows!’ Their job would be to watch the northern woods in case the crossbowmen had fight in them, though Thomas doubted any would want to fight after their lord was captured. A dozen archers collected arrows, cutting them out of dead and wounded horses, picking them from the ground and filling their arrow bags. The prisoners were herded to one side and made to yield their weapons as Thomas walked his horse to