Thomas de Ladit, his feet sore, stumbled on, convinced that he would never make it to Bordeaux.

This country was obnoxious to him. It had all the perils of damnation, as far as he was concerned. The roads were dreadful, the inn he had stayed in last night had been deplorable – he was sure that the itching about his legs was from fleas – and there were rumours of the English massing ready to attack.

He had stayed almost a week in Thiviers, and then made his way to Périgueux, thinking that he would learn the best route to Bordeaux from there, but on his way he had been set upon and beaten by some scruffy peasants. They hadn’t bothered to rob him, luckily, but they had left him feeling very battered and bruised, and he had needed to rest at the next village he came to. Now, a week later, he was determined just to escape this country and find his way homewards again.

Normandy had been such a delightful place to live while King Charles was there with the Dauphin, so it was a great shock to come down here to the warmer climates and learn that the peasants had no idea of the common civilities for a man of his importance. Not that he could even remonstrate with them. He dare not announce to the world who he was.

The officer in Périgueux to whom he had reported the bullies who beat him so on the road outside the town seemed to think that it was more the fault of Thomas, as an outsider, than the peasants themselves. There was a distinct impression given that Thomas should have moved out of their way when they approached him. Foreigners had little right to use the same road as those who lived and laboured in the area.

He walked on, limping from a badly stubbed big toe on his left foot, and thus it was he didn’t realise his danger until it was too late.

‘Morning, Master,’ Hawkwood said.

Hearing Hawkwood’s laugh, Thomas turned to flee, but his legs would not move fast enough. Before he could take more than three paces, a lance-butt struck the back of his head and he was down like a stunned rabbit in the middle of the roadway.

Laughing men surrounded him on horseback, and he snatched up a handful of the gritty soil, thinking he could fling it in their faces. This was not right!

Thomas de Ladit was an important man in the service of the King of Navarre, in God’s name. These men should bow to him and beg his forgiveness, not assault him as though he was some kind of felon.

He climbed to his feet, glaring at the men all around. That they were outlaws was his first thought, but then, as he took in their weapons and the wolfish smile on their leader’s rotund face, he let the soil slip from his fingers.

These weren’t French bandits. These were much worse: they were English.

Berenger had to nag her for a quarter-mile before she agreed.

‘Come, madam, you are exhausted. I can see that.’

‘You have saved my life already. I will walk,’ she said. ‘Charlot, be quiet!’

The boy pulled a face in response. He and his older brother had been singing and playing as they went, both relieved to be safe from the mercenaries and full of high spirits to be setting off on an adventure.

‘Charlot!’

He evaded the hand that tried to smack his ear and darted away, laughing.

‘You can set your jaw like a mule if you want, madam,’ Berenger said as she glared after her son, ‘but I know women. You will only demand that I buy you new shoes in the next town, and that would be additional expense. Besides, it is demeaning for me to ride while you suffer on the ground. Any man would think that I was a mean fellow. They might take me for a priest!’

‘I think the danger worth risking,’ she said.

‘Why, is my saddle not of sufficient quality for you?’ he said. ‘Come, widow, please. If you will not ride, I will walk in any case. There is no joy in riding when I can see you limping with sore feet. Please, I entreat you!’

She turned her head and would have ignored him, but he swung his leg over his mount’s rump and walked beside her.

When he had her attention, he lifted his brows and made his face to go round-eyed with feigned shock. ‘Good widow, look what I have discovered! A horse without a rider! Do you think there could be a rider without a horse nearby? Perhaps if you were to climb into the saddle, you may espy the poor rider. No doubt he allowed himself to be bucked from his seat by the violence of the beast’s gait. Or by the stubbornness of a mule in the near vicinity?’

So saying, he draped the reins over her shoulder and walked on, casting a glance back at her as he went.

She relented.

‘Aha! I see you can smile, in any case,’ he said delightedly, and she gave a little gasp of amused exasperation. He grinned. ‘Come! Let me help you.’

She took the offer of his linked hands, and he helped her up. She took the reins and smiled down at him with a cocked eyebrow. ‘You help a lady very prettily,’ she said.

He felt his smile dim. ‘I have not had the opportunity too often in recent years,’ he admitted, and then turned away.

Loys said, ‘What’s that?’ and Berenger’s joy was turned to sourness and evil.

He saw the dust of the road at first, and then there was the clattering of hoofs and, in the midst of it, he saw a terrified-looking rider pelting along without regard to the large stones of the road or the risks of a broken neck. His eyesight was not good, but he was sure that there was a solitary rider. No other men appeared to be near him.

Saul suddenly bellowed, ‘Men in the woods! Ambush! Ambush!’ and turned his beast to the edge of the roadway. Loys was about to follow him when there was a flash of sun on polished steel, and men stepped from the cover of the trees letting loose their quarrels. The heavy bolts flew past quickly, whistling, and Berenger saw the cloud of dust as the horse ahead of them went sprawling, fatally wounded. Next he saw the bolt that struck Loys, catching him at the left shoulder and spinning him around on his horse. He had scarcely time to kick his feet free of the stirrups before he slammed into the surface of the road. Berenger was about to go to his aid when he realised that the boys and Alazaïs were all in the open, easy targets. He turned to them just in time to see the bolt that hit Alazaïs between her breasts.

He heard nothing, and for a moment his life paused. There was a roaring in his ears, as though he was listening to the sea in a storm, and his arms hung slackly as he watched her. Her eyes were fixed on his as her hands rose as if to pull the bolt from her breast. Then her back bent and she leaned over the cantle, her chin dropping. He shouted ‘No!’ but she began to slide out of the saddle as he watched.

The bolt had hit her in the middle of her ribcage, and the shock had probably stopped her heart in that instant, for even as she slipped from her mount, Berenger saw that her eyes were already empty, as though she had been a corpse for hours already. The horse reared, alarmed to feel that something was wrong with his rider, and that was enough to throw her from him, crashing down into the road.

‘No!’ Berenger shouted again, and with that shout he felt his heart shatter into tiny fragments. His life was ended once more.

Berenger’s cry was a shriek from the pits of his soul, and he drew his sword. He ran towards the source of the bolts that whizzed and hissed past him. Many appeared to be flying, but he was unhurt. There was a deep, guttural roar from behind him, and Berenger saw that Saul was standing at the side of Alazaïs. At his feet were the bodies of the two boys. They had run to their mother when she fell, and bolts had passed through both thin little figures. Saul, the great seaman and fighter who had been in Berenger’s company for all the last three years and had taken over a vintaine when Berenger himself was elected leader seven months ago, was beside himself with mingled rage and despair. As Berenger watched, Saul took a grip of his sword in his right hand, a war-axe in his left, and suddenly bolted for the trees. Berenger joined him, his head down and his arms pumping as he moved, avoiding a straight line and jigging like a fly as he covered the ground.

On the way he passed the man who had ridden towards them. The man was lying on the ground, trapped with one leg under his dead horse. Berenger almost stabbed him. It was an automatic reaction – in a battle a sensible man never left a potential enemy behind him – but the man had something in his eyes when Berenger approached, an anger, but not directed at Berenger. Besides, if he was an enemy, why had the men in the trees loosed their bows at him?

An arrow pierced the air by his head and Berenger continued, pounding through the dust, on and on, until he was in among the trees. Saul was over on his right, and as Berenger spotted him, he saw Saul strike with his axe, spin and stab with the sword, and then crouch as a bolt flew past him, then he was back, the axe whirling.

Berenger ran on, and saw a man rise in front of him, crossbow on his shoulder, already aiming at Berenger. It was one of Will’s men, he saw, and he tried to move faster, but he knew he would be too late. There were seven or eight yards between them and Berenger couldn’t cover the distance in time to save himself.

Then the bow was knocked up and away, and the bolt flew harmlessly into the sky. Berenger roared with relief and rage, and then saw Fulk. The great Swiss had his halberd in his fist, and as the crossbow was loosed safely into the air, the savage blade of the polearm hooked back and opened the archer’s throat from side to side in one easy slash. The man collapsed, his hands to his throat, as Fulk leaned round the tree and nodded to Berenger.

Fulk was the last man Berenger expected to find fighting on his side. He had never shown any signs of friendship towards him, except for the brief conversation in farewell the day before.

Even as the thought passed through his mind, Berenger realised Fulk had disappeared into the undergrowth, only to appear at another tree farther up the hill. Berenger saw his fearsome weapon flash with a red, oily gleam, and another man was jerked into the open, his head impaled on the spike. Fulk had to fight to retrieve his weapon from the man’s body.

Berenger ran on among the trees. He could hear Saul screaming as he found another man, and then Berenger found himself confronting a youth. It was Alain of Chartres. The fellow had been in Will’s vintaine for the last year, and was determined always to advance himself. Berenger felt the rage building in his breast until it felt as though he must scorch his flesh with the heat of his fury. He flew at the lad, beating at him with his sword in the most unscientific manner, until Alain had his back to a tree and could only duck and block Berenger’s blows with terror in his eyes, whimpering as death approached.

With a quick blow from above, then a flick of his wrist and a stab that tore the stitching at his flank, Berenger attacked inside Alain’s defence and his sword-point entered Alain’s shoulder, cutting through the flesh and gristle of the socket and shearing the bone. The lad gave a high, keening shriek and his sword fell to the ground. Berenger stepped on it, and placed his sword at Alain’s throat, ready for the final blow, but then a thought occurred to him, and instead he whacked the solid pommel on the boy’s head. The lad’s eyes rolled up and he fell on his face into a mass of brambles.

There were brambles everywhere here in the woods. They caught and snagged on Berenger’s hosen as he made his way through the undergrowth towards the last men of the ambush. Two were fighting Saul, and Berenger joined the battle, dispatching his foe with three quick slashes; Saul had dropped his sword somewhere, and now he flew in close with his axe, the head flashing in the sunlight. The man he fought had a grin on his face at first, thinking a man with a sword could easily keep an axeman at bay, but gradually it came to him that this axeman was more than competent at parrying and blocking, and all the while Saul was pushing him back, his weapon glittering as it moved faster and faster.

‘End it,’ Berenger snapped.

Saul said nothing, but the next blow took off the man’s hand and wrist, still clutching his sword. The man gaped, clutching at his stump with his good hand, and had time to look at Saul with shock before the axe fell once more and his head rolled in the dirt.

The battle was over.

Berenger stood panting in the sunlight that filtered through the trees. He realised that he had a cut on his left forearm, and another in his left hip, but worse by far was his back, where his efforts had ripped the physician Antoine’s careful efforts.

Saul had taken a stab to his back, but it was not deep. He also had a jagged cut over his left ear, but he would survive that, just as he had survived so many other wounds in the past. However, Berenger was concerned when he saw Loys. The bolt had entered below his collarbone. It was a vicious-looking bolt with a heavy head and wooden section. The wood had splintered when it hit Loys, and bits and pieces of wood were all about the main head. It looked much worse than it truly was, however. When Berenger moved it, he soon realised that the head was not barbed, and he could remove it easily while Loys lay at the roadside. Fulk looked at the injury carefully, then walked away. He soon returned with moss with which he packed the wound, while Loys winced and looked away, his face grey with pain.

When he was done, Fulk gave Loys a flask with some drink in it, which Loys sipped while Fulk went to Alazaïs’s body. He grabbed at her skirts and, before Berenger could remonstrate, the Swiss had cut away a long strip. He helped Loys sit up, groaning and muttering about ‘Damned Swiss tarse fiddlers’, before he wrapped the linen over and about Loy’s breast, holding the pad of moss in place.

Berenger left him to his ministrations and went back to Alazaïs’s body. She lay on her side, one leg drawn up as though she was sleeping. In her face there was the serenity he had noticed before, a calmness and inner beauty that even death could not efface. It made him feel humble just to see it, as though seeing this woman with all the trials and problems of life shorn away was itself a gift. Only a short distance from her lay her two boys. Their blood had pooled and run together, so that it was now mingled as it congealed.

‘I will make him pay for this,’ Berenger said. ‘I swear to you, Alazaïs, he will pay.’

He rose and walked to the horse lying in the roadway. The rider was still trapped, and Berenger had to strain, sitting on his rump and pushing with his feet, to roll the horse’s corpse enough to release the fellow.

‘I owe you my life,’ he said. It was a foolish comment, perhaps, but with those words he felt the weight of obligation land on his shoulders.

‘I wouldn’t see an ambush against a traveller,’ Denisot said. He had dragged his leg from beneath the horse and now sat massaging it. It was not broken, fortunately, but it would be many weeks before he could walk without a severe limp.

‘My name is Berenger Fripper.’

‘Denisot, the Bayle of Domps,’ Denisot said. He peered at Berenger with careful interest. The man was clearly English, and Denisot knew that meant he was likely one of the hated murderers who infested this poor land. ‘Who were they?’ he asked, indicating the bodies in the woods.

‘Men who wanted me dead, sent by a traitor,’ Berenger said. He rose and walked back to the woods, seeking the youth.

The boy still lay in the brambles, and Berenger tipped a flask of water over his head before Alain stirred, muzzily staring about him, then moaning and whimpering as his ruined shoulder moved.

‘You know me, boy,’ Berenger said. He squatted on his haunches before the fellow as he tried to sit upright, moaning and weeping at the pain from his shoulder. ‘You know I keep my word.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who am I?’

‘The captain, sir.’

‘Stop your moaning or I’ll put a stop to it forever. Answer me and you may be allowed to live.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Who ordered you to ambush us today?’

‘You know who.’

Berenger picked up a stick and prodded it at the boy’s shoulder. ‘I asked you a question. Be honest and frank and I’ll be merciful,’ he said as Alain screamed and tried to knock the stick away. His effort pressed the stick’s point into his wound and widened the lips of the gash. Alain screamed all the louder.

‘Who?’

‘Will! It was Will!’ Alain sobbed, his left hand at his ruined shoulder. He looked up at Berenger with a gleam of hatred. ‘He told us to come out here and kill you all. He said to kill the bitch and her pups first. He said that a whore like that wasn’t worth the price of a bolt, but that we should kill her and her pups so you would see you’d lost everything. He said you should feel the pain of loss before you died.’

‘You killed her to punish me,’ Berenger breathed.

Fulk had joined them and now stood at Berenger’s shoulder with Saul. ‘That is what I heard Will order,’ he agreed. ‘Will wanted the men to lie in wait and kill the woman and her children while you looked on, then kill you.’

‘Why did you decide to stop them?’

‘He ordered me. I was sent with the others to waylay you. I didn’t like the idea. What, attack you just because you wanted to leave?’

‘I left because I wanted to impose discipline.’

‘Ja. You are a commander. A commander must always impose discipline. It is a part of your job to enforce it and see that all men obey. I would not argue with your position.’

Saul was eyeing him doubtfully. ‘You didn’t elect to join us when we left.’

‘I saw no need to. It was when I heard that there was to be an attack on you that I decided to leave the company. If the company wants to punish a bad commander, I’m happy with that. But I am Swiss. I believe in holding a court and discussing a man’s crimes before all the men, and then punishing him before them.’ He shrugged. There was contempt in his voice as he continued. ‘To tell a man he is free to go, and then attack him on the road like a common outlaw, that is not the action of an honourable man. I will have nothing to do with a commander who proposes that.’

Berenger was content with his words. ‘I am glad you decided to help us. If it weren’t for you and that man there, we would be dead now.’

‘What will you do now?’

‘What can I do? I have no company: none of us do. I have to find a new life.’

Denisot limped to join them. He stood gazing down at the youth. ‘Was this one of the ambushers?’

Fulk nodded and kicked the lad. He screamed briefly, clutching at his cods with his left hand, vomiting into the bushes at his side. ‘What shall we do with him?’

Berenger pulled out his knife. There was a dull ache behind his eyes and he wanted desperately to have a drink. The shaking in his hand shocked him. It made the blade of his knife move wildly as he stood there. Then he looked about him, feeling lost and empty inside. Bodies lay all over this wood. Up there was the man he had killed first. There was the man he had seen Fulk kill with a slash to the throat. Further on, he saw a splash of red on an oak where the man had lost his hand, and back there, on the road, Alazaïs and her children lay in the dirt. A short gust of wind brought the smell to him, the odour of battle. It tasted of blood and smelled of tin and shit, and the feel of it in his nostrils made Berenger shiver like a horse on a battlefield.

Fulk found their horses farther up the hill. They were clumped together in a huddle as though fearful of their welcome. Two were missing, he reckoned. ‘Probably the two who were guarding them took to their heels when they saw how the fight was going,’ he said. ‘I daresay they’ve made it all the way back to Uzerche by now.’

This boy wasn’t responsible for their deaths, and he could serve a useful purpose still. ‘Give him a horse and send him back with a message: “This is what happens when you try to fight real men. I’ll return for a reckoning soon.” Take that, and take it swiftly. This man here is the bayle of a town near here. If he finds you on the road you will be declared outlaw and beheaded.’

‘You’d let him go?’ Denisot said with surprise.

‘What good will his death serve? At least this way, Will knows that I am alive. It will make him fear my revenge.’

Saul said, ‘I’d cut his balls off first.’

‘Leave him. He’s already useless. He’ll never be a fighter again, not with that arm. He’ll be lucky if it’s not amputated in a week, or it goes septic and kills him. He’s nothing.’

‘But you’ll return to take revenge on Will?’ Fulk said.

‘In time. Not until I’ve healed and I know what is happening with the men,’ Berenger said. He moved his arm experimentally and winced. His back felt soaked in blood and he knew he must have his wounds seen to again.

They gave a mount to Alain and sent him on his way, but the other horses they decided to take with them to the abbey. They would be able to use them as remounts, or perhaps sell them if they grew desperate.

‘I shall go with you,’ Fulk said. ‘I have no wish to return to Will’s company. He would not be grateful for my part today.’

‘First, Master Fripper will need to find a physician,’ Denisot said. He wanted to see these men taken into Domps and captured, so that they could pay for the death of the girl found by Poton, and for all the other crimes committed by the English, but there was something about them that made him feel unsure. If he had all the men of Domps summoned to arrest them, he suspected that many would die. Better by far to take them somewhere and see them healed and sent on their way.

‘I can help you,’ he said. With those words he sealed his fate.

Will was furious when Alain returned. The horse-minders were never seen again after the attempted ambush. They had made off when they saw how the battle was developing, terrified of reporting their failure to their new commander, but Alain rode back to Uzerche, lurching in the saddle, and was there before the curfew bell was tolled. He found Will at a bar with two town whores sharing his drinks, one sitting on his lap, a second beside him on the bench. The first had untied his braies and was playing with his tarse, her hand inside his hosen while she kissed him amorously.

‘They escaped?’ Will repeated, averting his face so her kiss missed his lips and instead smeared down his cheek. She chuckled deep in her throat and moved her hand more energetically.

‘The woman and her brats were killed, but someone rode up and warned the captain. He was able to turn the attack to his own advantage,’ Alain said nervously, watching the woman. His arm was thrust into a strap of leather while the company’s physician, who was a good barber but not so competent with the tools of a healer, hovered nearby, waiting to get the lad to a table and look at his injury. Alain was faintly yellow about the face now, and sweating with the pain of his wound.

‘They had surprise, they had accurate weapons: they should have been able to destroy Berenger’s little group in one loosing of bolts with or without a man giving them warning!’

‘After he warned them of the ambush, Fulk turned against us. He was with them,’ the boy said.

‘Fulk? That goat-swyving son of a Swiss peasant! I should have realised he’d go and do something like that!’ Will stood, the whore falling from his lap to the floor with an indignant squeak. ‘You tell me that prickle helped Fripper to escape?’

‘Who gives a shit for him?’ the whore said, climbing to her feet. ‘He’s gone, but I’m here.’

‘You stupid bitch, do you think he’ll just go? We killed the woman he wanted. He may be drink-addled and foolish, but he won’t let that stop him. He will see me taking her life as a grave insult. With that to spur him, as well as me taking leadership of the company, he will seek revenge.’

‘What can one man do against your army?’ the woman on the bench asked. She had her blouse open, and her full breasts were on display. She moved a hand over her nipple in blatant invitation when she saw Will look at her.

‘Little enough,’ Will said. He wetted his lips as she moved her attention to her other breast.

‘He’s only one man. You have a hundred at your back. He’s nothing.’

‘True. Did he say anything else?’

‘He told me to hurry. The man who warned him of the ambush, he was there. Fripper said he was a bailiff to a town near here.’

‘Did he say where?’

‘No. But he said that you should beware. He said, “This is what happens when you try to fight real men. I’ll be back for a reckoning soon.”’

Will chuckled then. ‘I look forward to it!’