The mysterious man was not heading to a church but straight around the town and down towards where the vintaine had been based, Béatrice saw. She continued after him, stopping when he did, keeping her eyes on him all the time. Archibald had said that he was interested in the man, and she owed Archibald a great deal.

It was past the stores that she saw him glance over his shoulder. His eyes passed over her indifferently, as though she was not there. Then he continued onwards. Béatrice was puzzled by his apparent disinterest. She knew that she was attractive enough to be desired by most men. After all, on the way to Crécy she had been almost raped by a priest and others, a total of three times in as many days. Yet this man showed no reaction to her at all. Was she being followed?

She made a decision. A man beside her was innocently studying trays of wilting salad leaves and parsley, and she suddenly slapped his hand with a fierce exclamation as though he had been fondling her arse. The fellow snatched his hand back, turning his shocked face to his wife, but Béatrice was already off.

Picking up her skirts, she ran up the road towards her target. When she was almost upon him, she suddenly span on her heel and sure enough, saw a large man with black hair and grim features running after her. She quickly slipped away, darting down an alley, turning to the right, then right again, following her senses until she found herself back on the main street again. The two men, she saw, were holding a heated discussion at the mouth of the alley down which she had just run, and now, with a quick look about them, they strode off.

Béatrice followed them.

‘We can see them!’

It was a youth who called from the top of the donjon, and Berenger looked up automatically to see in which direction the boy was pointing. It was roughly south-west – along the line of the main road from Laon, unsurprisingly – and Berenger set his face into a scowl of concentration as he stared that way, trying to make out anything. His wound stung and the old ache in his shoulder returned, but he stood unmoving.

‘You have sharp eyes!’ Sir John de Sully said, glaring into the distance.

‘There they are, Frip,’ John of Essex said suddenly.

Berenger nodded, although he could see nothing. And then, gradually, he began to discern a smudge on the horizon. At first he thought it could be smoke from another burning village, but it did not rise in the still air as smoke would, but stayed low, close to the ground. It was the dust from thousands of tramping feet.

‘Shit, there’s a lot of the bastards,’ John of Essex said musingly.

‘We can hold the place, with luck,’ Berenger said.

‘We would do better with some more men,’ Jack said.

‘Eh?’ Grandarse joined them, and stood behind them now, peering at the blur of approaching men. ‘More men? What, do you think we don’t have enough here?’

‘We’ll all git slaughtered,’ Clip called.

‘Shut up,’ Berenger and Jack shouted together.

‘Aye, well, don’t blame me when you’re lying dead in the gutter,’ Clip said cheerfully.

The men were silent for the most part as they waited, wondering how many soldiers the enemy had mustered. Sir John arranged for boys to bring buckets filled with water for the men sweltering in their leather and armour. The men thoughtfully pulled belts tighter, or toyed with the fletchings on their arrows, all lost in their own private reveries. Berenger had fresh biscuits brought to them, but few had any appetite. Ale was appreciated, though.

One who was completely unmoved by the approaching force was John of Essex. Berenger saw him eyeing the landscape all about rather than the force gathering before them.

‘If you’re looking for support hereabouts, I don’t think you’ll find any,’ the vintener said.

John smiled. ‘I don’t expect to. But I was wondering where they would be likely to attack first. If I was them, I’d come right here, I reckon. There’s more space out there than on the other sides of the castle.’ He peered down at the base of the wall. ‘They can bring scaling ladders up here without too much trouble. I think this is where we’ll need to concentrate.’

Berenger followed the direction of his look. The land looked rough and broken with clitter lying all about. ‘I checked there, but the ground’s very hard to cross. Trying to run across those rocks and stones would be tough.’

‘Perhaps, but remember – this lot are mostly peasants. They’re used to moving over rough land. You wait and see.’

Berenger shrugged. The mass of men could be clearly discerned now: a few, no more than two hundred, were wearing tabards with arms he didn’t recognise, but which must surely be the insignia of the Count of Roucy. For the most part, there was no way to distinguish the men from a rabble of peasantry. A few had steel helms on their heads, some even with mail tippets, but for the most part they looked like toilers pulled straight from their fields. However, that was little consolation. A trained, experienced group of warriors like those under Grandarse could tease victory from even the most unfavourable situation, but this army looked moderately competent and, when combined with the advantage of overwhelming odds, that would count for a lot.

Berenger began to feel a sinking sensation in his belly. He eyed the weaponry on display, and saw many peasant tools converted for use as weapons. There were axes, picks, and a variety of polearms, generally with a large sickle-blade or billhook thrust onto a long stave. They looked very agricultural, but then, as he reminded himself, a sickle could take a man’s head off quite as efficiently as a sword.

‘Archers, prepare your bows!’ he bellowed. The French were only a matter of a hundred yards away now. Soon Berenger saw that all the bows were strung and ready, many of them with an arrow nocked. Clip was eyeing the field with an appraising eye, Jack peering as he tried to make out the best targets. Mark Tyler was near an embrasure, crouching low against the threat of a crossbow bolt. John of Essex stood unconcernedly as though invulnerable to danger.

While the majority of the French stopped and stared at the castle, a small party spurred their horses forward and rode up to the gate. In the lead was a tallish man with dark hair and a square face with a pointed chin. He sat on his horse like a knight, and his breast bore the same arms that were on the tabards of the men behind him.

‘I wish to speak with Jean de Vervins,’ he said flatly in French.

‘I am here,’ Jean de Vervins called from the gatehouse. Sir John de Sully went to join him.

‘I am the Comte de Roucy. You know me, Jean de Vervins. I am come here with the Bailiff of Vermandois and the community of Laon to arrest you and punish those who would lay waste to the farmlands all around. You will come down to the gate and open it.’

‘Go fuck your mother!’ Jean shouted. ‘If you think you can take my castle by storm, then give it a try! And now begone, before I tell these good English archers to send some arrows towards you.’

‘Your plot has failed. You can have no success with Laon or the other cities here. Your conspirators are dead or arrested. Gauvain de Bellemont was slain by the people of Laon because of their hatred of him and his attempt to sell them and their city; his son Guyot is in prison and will remain there for the rest of his life. Your friend, Colin Thommelin was a loyal servant of the King. He took his letter to King Philippe, as a good, dutiful subject should, so the whole of your scheme is known. He shall be given a great reward for bringing your shameful treachery to the King’s notice.’

‘I don’t need to listen to this!’ Jean spat.

‘The English brigands here will also have to submit to the people of Laon. Resist and none of you will survive to return to your homes. All will be slain. I call on you to surrender now before any more are injured.’

Grandarse spat over the wall with contempt.

Sir John de Sully said, ‘We are English. We do not surrender.’

Jean de Vervins leaned forward at the wall, and bellowed, ‘None of us will surrender to you! If you want to save lives, then leave my castle immediately. If you lay siege to us here, we will kill as many of you as we can until you decide to give in and return to whence you came!’

The man nodded. ‘Very well. I have your answer. Good. I will see you hanged, Jean de Vervins, for the traitor you are.’

With that, he wheeled his horse about and he and the others galloped back to their men.

As Béatrice ducked into a doorway, out of sight, she saw the two men pause before walking boldly along an alley between two houses. She followed them over to the lane and stared down it. At the far end she could see chickens scratching at the dirt and pecking. She looked at the house, but it was closed up. After a moment’s thought, she walked down to the house opposite, and knocked on the door.

A young man opened, his face breaking into a smile at the sight of her. ‘Maid?’

‘I was trying to speak with the cleric who lives in that house,’ she lied. ‘Do you know his name?’

‘You wanted to speak with him and didn’t know who he was?’ the young man teased her.

‘I think he beat my brother, and I want his name before I tell my father,’ she said.

‘I see. No doubt your brother was being cheeky or foolish and deserved it, eh? Boys will be—’

‘Do you know his name?’

‘Yes, of course. He’s Father Alain de Châlons. He is the clerk to Sir Peter de Bromley, who lives there in that house.’