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fell backwards. More arrows flew. Two more men were down. Blood was swirling in the stream. An arrow slashed by Roland’s head, missing his ear by a hand’s breadth. The wind of it was like a slap. A horse was screaming, an arrow in its belly. The arrows were much longer than Roland expected. He was amazed he even noticed that, but even as the missiles whipped in from the west he was astonished by the length of the shafts, so much longer than the short arrows he used for hunting. Another struck a tree and shivered there.
    Philippe was dying. Men were scrambling to hide behind trees, or else beneath the shallow stream bank, but it was Jacques who saved them. He ran to Genevieve’s side and snatched her son from her protective arms. He gripped the boy’s belt and held him high with one strong hand and slid a long knife from its sheath with the other hand. He held the blade at the boy’s throat. Genevieve screamed, but the arrows stopped. ‘Tell them your son dies if there’s one more arrow,’ Jacques said.
    ‘You …’ Genevieve began.
    ‘Tell them, bitch!’ Jacques snarled.
    Genevieve cupped her hands. ‘No more arrows!’ she called in English.
    Silence, except for the gurgling in Philippe’s throat. Every gasp brought more blood to spill from his mouth. The horse began whinnying, white-eyed.
    ‘Tell them we’re going,’ Jacques said, ‘and the boy dies if they try to stop us.’
    ‘You must leave us alone!’ Genevieve shouted.
    Then the archers appeared from a copse a hundred yards to the east. There were sixteen of them, all holding the long war bows. ‘Genny!’ one of them called.
    ‘They’ll kill Hugh if you try to stop them,’ she called back.
    ‘Any news of Thomas?’
    ‘No, Sam! Now let them go!’
    Sam waved, as if to suggest they could leave, and Roland began to breathe again. Two men were lifting the dying Philippe onto a horse, and two corpses were draped over other saddles. The men mounted, but Jacques took care to keep hold of the boy. ‘Break the arrows,’ he ordered a man.
    ‘Break them?’
    ‘So they can’t use them again, you half-brained idiot.’
    The man snapped as many fallen arrows as he could find, then Jacques led them northwards. Roland was silent. He was thinking of the arrows searing in. By God’s grace none had struck him, but the terror of those shafts was still making him tremble, and that had been a mere handful of archers. What could a thousand such men do? ‘How did they find us?’ he asked.
    ‘They’re archers,’ Genevieve said, ‘they’ll find you.’
    ‘Quiet, bitch,’ Jacques shouted. He had Hugh across his saddle bow and still held the knife.
    ‘Be courteous!’ Roland said more angrily than he had intended.
    Jacques muttered something under his breath, but spurred ahead to get out of Roland’s company. Roland looked back down the road and saw that the archers were mounted now and following, but keeping a good distance. He wondered how far an English war bow could shoot, then forgot the question as the men-at-arms crested a small rise, and there was Labrouillade. The castle lay at the centre of a wide, shallow valley, the moat fed by a meandering stream that looped through calm pastureland. No trees grew close to the castle, nor was any building allowed within a quarter-mile, so that no besieger could find shelter for a bowman or a siege engine. The stones of the curtain wall looked almost white in the strong sun. The moat glittered. The count’s green banner hung listless from the topmost tower, then Jacques spurred on and the other horsemen followed, and Roland saw the great drawbridge creak down. The hooves echoed loud on the bridge’s planks; he plunged through the sudden darkness of the entrance arch and there, waiting in the castle’s courtyard, was a tall churchman with green eyes and a hawk on his wrist.
    The huge capstan in the gatehouse creaked as two men turned its handle to close the heavy drawbridge. The pawl that held it closed clattered on the metal teeth, then the planks met the arch with a crash and two men ran to bolt the massive bridge upright.
    And Roland felt safe.

Eight
     
    Thomas arrived at last light. His horses were worn out, stumbling into the grove of chestnut and oak where an archer, seeing horsemen dark against the furnace of the sunset, shouted a challenge. ‘Who are you?’
    ‘It’s no good shouting in English, Simon,’ Thomas called back.
    ‘God’s belly,’ Simon lowered his bow. ‘We thought