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with curiosity at the horsemen, but none asked their business, though a couple, seeing that the horsemen were interested in the food offered for sale on the stalls, hurried to help. Thomas walked his horse across the cobbles to where the crowd was thickest and saw that a broad-shouldered man was reading aloud from the top of the church steps. The man had lost his right hand and instead wore a wooden spike on which a parchment was impaled. He had a close-fitting helmet, a short grey beard, and wore a faded jupon that displayed golden fleurs-de-lys against a blue field. He lowered the parchment as he saw Thomas draw close. ‘Who are you?’ he called.
    ‘We serve the Count of Berat,’ Thomas lied.
    ‘You’d do well to return there,’ the man said.
    ‘Why?’
    The man flourished the parchment. ‘This is the
arrière-ban
,’ he said. ‘Berat and every other lord is summoned to make war for the king. The English are out.’ The crowd made a low growling noise and some even looked nervously northwards as if expecting to see the old enemy appearing from the hills.
    ‘Are they coming this way?’ Thomas asked.
    ‘God be praised, no. Those goddams are well north of here, but who knows? The devil could bring them south any day.’
    Thomas’s horse stamped a hoof on the cobbles. Thomas leaned forward and stroked its neck. ‘And the king?’ he asked.
    ‘God will bring him victory,’ the grey-bearded man said piously, meaning that he had no news of the French king’s movements, ‘but until God does, my lord summons every man-at-arms to assemble at Bourges.’
    ‘Your lord?’
    ‘The Duke de Berry,’ the man said proudly. That explained the royal fleurs-de-lys on his jupon because the Duke de Berry was a son of King Jean and the holder of a slew of dukedoms, counties, and fiefs.
    ‘The duke plans to fight them on his own?’ Thomas asked.
    The messenger shrugged. ‘The king has ordered it. All forces from the south of France are to gather at Bourges.’
    ‘Where’s Bourges?’
    ‘North,’ the messenger said, ‘but to be honest I don’t know precisely, except you go to Nevers and there’s a fine road from there.’
    ‘Wherever the hell Nevers is,’ Thomas grumbled. ‘Has your lord summoned Labrouillade too?’ he asked.
    ‘Of course. The
arrière-ban
summons every lord and every vassal. With God’s grace we’re going to trap the bastards and destroy them.’
    ‘And these good people?’ Thomas gestured at the crowd that numbered perhaps sixty or seventy people, and which contained no men-at-arms as far as he could tell.
    ‘He wants our taxes!’ a man in a butcher’s bloodied apron shouted.
    ‘Taxes must be paid,’ the messenger said firmly. ‘If the English are to be beaten, the army must be paid.’
    ‘The taxes are paid!’ the butcher shouted, and the rest called out their support.
    The messenger, fearing the anger of the crowd, pointed at young Pitou. ‘A prisoner?’ he asked Thomas. ‘What has he done?’
    ‘Stolen from the count,’ Thomas lied.
    ‘You want to hang him here?’ the man asked hopefully, plainly wanting a distraction from the crowd’s hostility.
    ‘He must go back to Berat,’ Thomas said. ‘The count likes to hang thieves himself.’
    ‘Pity.’ The man pulled the document off the wooden spike and pushed his way through the crowd until he reached Thomas’s stirrup. ‘A word, monsieur?’ he asked.
    Now that he was close, Thomas could see that the messenger had a shrewd and weathered face which suggested that this man had experienced too much, and that nothing that happened in the future could surprise him. ‘You were a man-at-arms?’ Thomas asked.
    ‘I was, till some whoreson Gascon chopped off my hand.’ He used the wooden spike to wave away the men who had followed in hope of overhearing his conversation, and gestured Thomas towards the square’s centre. ‘My name is Jean Baillaud,’ he introduced himself, ‘Sergeant to Berry.’
    ‘A good master?’
    ‘He’s a goddamned child,’ Baillaud said.
    ‘Child?
    ‘Fifteen years old. Thinks he knows everything. But if you help me, I’m sure I can persuade him to be grateful.’ He paused, smiling. ‘And a prince’s gratitude is worth having.’
    ‘Then how can I help?’ Thomas asked.
    Baillaud looked back at the small crowd and lowered his voice. ‘The poor bastards have paid their taxes,’ he said, ‘or at least most of them have.’
    ‘But you want more?’
    ‘Of course. There are