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want the city consuls sending men to investigate you.’ He could tell the city was close by the smear of smoke in the southern sky.
    ‘If people ask us what we do here?’
    ‘You can’t afford city prices so you’re waiting here to meet the Count of Armagnac’s men.’ The count was the greatest lord in all southern France and no one would dare interfere with men who served him.
    ‘There’ll be no trouble,’ Karyl said grimly. ‘I promise.’
    Thomas, Genevieve, Hugh and Brother Michael rode on. They were accompanied by just two men-at-arms and by Galdric, and they reached Montpellier that evening. The two hills of the city, the towers of its churches and its tile-roofed bastions cast long shadows. The city was surrounded by a high, pale wall from which hung banners showing the Virgin and her child. Others showed a circle, red as the setting sun, against a white field. Outside the wall was a weed-strewn wasteland, and beneath the weeds were ashes, while in a few places there were stone hearths showing where there had once been houses. A woman, stooped and ancient with a black scarf over her hair, grubbed close to one of the hearths. ‘You lived here?’ Thomas asked.
    She answered in Occitan, a language Thomas scarcely knew, but Galdric translated. ‘She lived here till the English came.’
    ‘The English were here?’ Thomas sounded surprised.
    It seemed that during the previous year the Prince of Wales had come close to Montpellier, very close, but at the last moment his destroying army had sheered away, but not before the city had burned every building outside the walls to deny the English any hiding places for archers or siege engines. ‘Ask what she’s searching for,’ Thomas ordered.
    ‘Anything,’ was the answer, ‘because she lost everything.’
    Genevieve tossed the woman a coin. A bell was tolling inside the city and Thomas feared it was the signal to close the gates, so he spurred his men forward. A line of wagons laden with timber, fleeces, and barrels waited at the gate, but Thomas passed them. He was in mail, carrying a sword, and that marked him as a man of privilege. Galdric, riding close behind, unfurled a banner showing a hawk carrying a sheaf of rye. The badge was the old banner of Castillon d’Arbizon, and a useful device when Thomas did not want to advertise his loyalty to the Earl of Northampton or his command of the feared Hellequin.
    ‘Your business, sire?’ a guard at the gate demanded.
    ‘We are on a pilgrimage,’ Thomas said, ‘so want to pray.’
    ‘Swords must remain sheathed inside the city, sire,’ the guard said respectfully.
    ‘We’re not here to fight,’ Thomas said, ‘just to pray. Where do we find lodgings?’
    ‘There’s plenty straight ahead, close to Saint Pierre’s church. The one showing the sign of Saint Lucia is the best.’
    ‘Because it belongs to your brother?’ Thomas guessed.
    ‘I wish it did, sire, but it’s owned by my cousin.’
    Thomas laughed, threw the man a coin, and rode under the high arch. The sound of his horse’s hooves echoed from the buildings, the bell tolled steadily and Thomas rode towards the church of Saint Peter, besieged suddenly by the fecal stench of a city. A man in a red and blue tunic and carrying a trumpet with the banner of the Virgin dangling from its pipes ran past the horses. ‘I’m late!’ he called to Thomas.
    The men guarding the gates began to swing them shut. ‘You’ll have to wait till morning!’ they called to the carters.
    ‘Wait,’ another guard called. He had seen eight riders crossing the cleared ground, their horses’ hooves kicking up puffs of ash and dust as they hurried towards the city. ‘Some bloody lord or other,’ the guard grumbled. One of the riders unfurled a banner to show that they came on noble business. The flag displayed a green horse on a white background, though the leading rider had a black jupon that carried the badge of a white rose. All eight horsemen wore mail and carried weapons. ‘Make way for them!’ the guard shouted at the carters.
    ‘If you’re going to let them in,’ a carter who had a load of firewood pleaded, ‘then why not us?’
    ‘Because you’re scum and they’re not,’ the guard said, then bowed to the riders, who clattered through the arch. ‘I have business here,’ the leader of the riders explained to the guards, who demanded no further explanation, but just slammed the big gates closed and dropped the bar into its brackets.