‘I am grateful.’ He handed over the purse Blackstone had insisted on pressing into his hand before riding to meet whatever fate awaited him on the road to Burgos. ‘See that everyone is paid and recruit more labour,’ said ben Josef.

*

Andrés returned a day after the battle and told him of the slaughter. The boy, flushed with success and reward for his part in taking the veteran knight, Killbere, behind Ranulph de Hayle’s lines, had been gifted the horse. That, together with money Blackstone had generously given him, meant his family would not face hardship that year or the next. ‘I will stay and help, Master Josef. I will return to my family in a few days,’ the boy insisted, eager to share what he’d seen of the battle and how the English knight had defeated the greater odds.

Ben Josef readily agreed. Andrés would share the overseer’s room and eat with the servants and, when ben Josef had finished his evening meal, then the boy could tell him everything that had happened since he’d returned to the vineyard.

It was a homecoming to be celebrated.

*

Screams and the flickering light through the muslin coverings on his bedroom window woke Halif ben Josef. Gripped with fear, he grabbed his robe and pushed open the front door. The drying shed was ablaze, but the screams came from the burning waterwheel. Two men, one of them his overseer, were strapped to the wheel being burnt alive. Bodies lay in the yard and striding towards him, silhouetted against the flames, was Ranulph de Hayle and a one-armed man.

‘Tibalt! Why do this? Why?’

Three others followed the Navarrese fighter, and ben Josef saw half a dozen more ripping the meagre furnishing from the servants’ quarters. The sudden onslaught sharpened his senses. The bodies lying in their blood were of the women and men who served him. There was no sign of Andrés.

Tibalt pushed the elderly man back into the house.

‘You have something of value,’ said de Hayle forcing ben Josef into a chair.

‘No, there is nothing here. Whatever money I had I gave to my servants. They had not been paid.’

Tibalt slapped him hard, whipping his head aside. His lip split, trickling blood into his grey beard. De Hayle’s routiers ignored him and began tearing apart the house.

‘You’re a Jew. You have money. And something else I want.’

‘Take whatever you find, but spare my servants.’

‘Too late for that, old man. The women were crones, so they evaded rape, and only two of your men tried to fight.’ He glanced outside. The screams fell silent. ‘The wheel burned quicker than I thought.’

Ben Josef looked past the mercenary leader and appealed to Tibalt. ‘I saved your life. I tended to you.’

‘And took my arm.’

The routiers ripped apart the floorboards and chopped holes into clay-lined walls.