‘Help me!’ Grandarse yelled to the two men nearby. ‘Tyler, you come with me. John, you too,’ he said, and the three picked up Jean and helped him down the steps as best they could, leaving Sir John to command the defence.

Jean was coughing and choking as they took him across the yard, but before they had reached the doorway, he waved his hands and gulped convulsively: ‘Down, let me down! I suffocate!’

Grandarse looked desperately around, but there was nowhere, not even a bench, on which to sit him, so the three set him down on the ground as gently as they could.

The bolt that had hit him had penetrated his breast, and the point protruded from his back near his spine. John of Essex looked up at Grandarse and silently shook his head.

‘I know.’ Grandarse looked compassionately at the dying man. ‘Jean, there is no priest here to give you the words as they should, but if you have anything to confess, I can say the Pater Noster for you.’

Jean looked up at him and shook his head. A cough sent him into a spasm of agony, and a gush of blood ran from his mouth and nostrils; he curled up, suffocating as the blood filled his lungs. He wanted to say he was pleased to have escaped Gauvain’s fate, but as he tried to speak, the blood was thick in his throat, and he could only gasp and fight for breath.

‘Sweet Mother Mary, take pity on his poor soul,’ Grandarse prayed – and then pulled out his misericorde. He plunged it down into the man’s breast, stabbing the heart at the first attempt.

‘That’s that, then,’ he muttered, standing again. There was a fresh clamour from the walls, and he glanced up. At the back wall, away from the tower, he saw more French fighters. ‘Christ’s ballocks, but they’re tricksy bastards, these,’ he rasped. ‘John, fetch your vintaine and be quick! Tyler, help me move this poor devil.’

Grandarse took the arms, Tyler the legs, and they half-carried, half-dragged the body through into the main hall. There they dropped it on the floor. Marguerite looked at Jean’s face, then up at Grandarse.

‘He’s not needing any help, mistress,’ he said. He was oddly affected to see how she looked at Berenger. Frip, you old git, he thought, you’d best pull through, for this one’s sake. The wench wants you in her bed rather than on your deathbed!

Aloud, he grunted, ‘How is he?’

‘He is a lot of pain. I hope he will live.’

‘Aye, so do we all,’ Grandarse said.

He led the way out of the main doors, and to the yard. At the stables, he beckoned Tyler to follow him. ‘See here,’ he said, pointing.

Tyler stared at the mess on the floor. ‘Yes?’

Grandarse had already drawn his dagger. Now he placed it at the back of Tyler’s skull, at the top of his neck. ‘I don’t like pricks who try to kill their superiors. Normally, I’d wait until there was a court and I could accuse you myself.’

‘I didn’t do it, Grandarse! I was staring out at the French – I didn’t even know he was there!’

They were his last words.

‘Fripper’s a friend of mine, you see,’ Grandarse said as Tyler’s body twitched and shook. ‘And I won’t run the risk that you’ll escape punishment like you did before over the Donkey.’

Berenger opened his eyes and felt the light stabbing through them and on into his brain. The agony was exquisite and he was forced to close them again.

There was a curious movement all about him – a jolting and a jarring. When he attempted to sit up, a whole new range of pains assailed him on all sides. His back felt as if an entire army had used it for a kicking competition, while his head felt as though it was only loosely held to his neck and the slightest shock must force it free of its moorings.

A crash, and he was bumped viciously, crying out. He could have wept at the pain.

He was in a cart of some sort, that was plain. A cart that was taking him on a rough, poorly maintained road. And all about him, now he could concentrate, there was the sound of men on the march: boots tramping along, squeaks and rattles of pots and pans, of leather harnesses, the clink and jingle of chains and mail, and then he heard the voices too.

‘I tell you, we’ll be too late.’ That was Clip’s familiar drone. The vintaine was all on horseback again.

‘We have plenty of time.’ Berenger was glad to hear Jack’s voice. ‘It’s unlikely that the siege will be ended any time soon.’

‘What?’ That was the Pardoner. ‘It’s been months already, and you say it’s no nearer being ended?’

‘Well, I don’t know for sure, but it’s quite likely to be carrying on even now. We’ve only been down here a little while, and the main thing is, the King was determined to starve the Calesians out. He’s not going to go running in with his braies round his ankles. He’ll make sure it’s finished and on its knees and then he’ll assault it.’

‘Who,’ Berenger asked carefully, for enunciating each word was making the top of his head feel as though a man had stuck an auger into it and was slowly screwing it in, ‘has beaten me to a pulp? I want to know so I never insult him again. Where are we? What happened to the castle?’

Jack’s face came into view. ‘How are you, Frip?’

His face was pushed out of the way and Grandarse took his place. ‘Oh, so you’re awake, eh? About time, too. Talk about a bone-idle tart-tickler trying to escape all the hard work by pretending to be ill, eh?’

‘Is he recovering?’

Berenger froze at the sound of that voice: Marguerite.

‘I’m well enough, Mistress,’ he said.

‘Be polite to her,’ Grandarse ordered. ‘She saved your life, man. Don’t you remember the fall?’

He could remember it now. He had come to consciousness a few times lying in the hall, but that all seemed a long time ago, and his memory was hazy, as though he was trying to catch glimpses of his history through a befogged glass. ‘I remember you washing my face,’ he murmured to her.

She smiled and her hand, just for a moment, clasped his, before releasing it. He was confused – alarmed too, truth be told. But she was as kind as she was handsome. He tried to smile back at her. Now he remembered more: the clatter and clash of battle, screams, the sight of a body on the floor . . . ‘Jean de Vervins is dead?’

‘He was hit by a bolt, poor bastard. Drowned in his own blood. So we offered to talk to the French and they agreed to a truce. They let us leave the place with our weapons, so here we are. They were happy to be rid of us without any more dead, and we were happy just to get away in one piece. I don’t think we would have survived, had we stayed there longer.’

‘And Jean? What happened to his body?’

Grandarse’s face was grim. ‘They had to make an example of him. Leave a sign to others. They hanged him from the gatehouse.’

‘Poor Jean,’ Berenger said.

‘Could have been worse. He could have been alive,’ Grandarse pointed out.

Berenger managed a thin smile. ‘True.’

‘No. Don’t worry yourself about him. He’s happy now, hopefully,’ Grandarse said, and then added with a leer, glancing at Marguerite, ‘And anyway, you have to concentrate on getting yourself healthy again so that you can lay siege to your woman’s honour.’

‘Grandarse, don’t—’

‘Time enough to warn me later,’ Grandarse chuckled.

‘What will happen to the castle? Are the local people taking it over?’

‘Not now it’s been the home of a traitor. The people of Laon are taking the place apart stone by stone. There’ll be some fine houses built around Bosmont before long, with all that good stone becoming available. The local sheep-shaggers will have the best houses in France.’

‘So where do we go now?’

‘We, my fine friend, are on our way to Calais, at long last. I’m hoping that when we get there, we’ll discover that it’s still standing and that we’re needed to help take it by storm. And then, with a little more luck, we’ll be able to take a goodly share of all the plunder and put our feet up for a while!’

He gave a great guffaw and began singing a bawdy tavern song about a miller’s wife and her sexual needs being fulfilled after meeting a lively pair of Northumbrians.

Berenger turned onto his side and winced with pain, but he was not thinking of his back and bruises. He was thinking about that day when he had fallen from the wall. He could distinctly recall the floor on the wall’s walkway. It had been clear of all obstacles, and yet when he took that fateful step, something had tripped him. Something like a bow, out-thrust deliberately to make him overbalance – because someone wanted him out of the way. And only one man had consistently been his enemy.

‘Where is Tyler?’ he asked.

Grandarse didn’t even look down. ‘Him?’ he said casually. ‘Oh, he died during the last attack.’