Renfred and his scouts returned from their reconnaissance, galloping back to where Blackstone and Álvaraz defended the valley. The French and the routiers were minutes away. They saw their comrades waiting in extended line and, a hundred paces behind them, Will Longdon’s archers spread out on the slopes, split into three groups: an archer in the gap behind each horseman. Twenty angled on the left, twenty on the right and Will Longdon with the remaining ten in the centre. It was a tried and tested formation that created a withering flight of arrows into any advancing troops attacking into the killing zone. Behind them, on the crest of the hill, hundreds of men stood, indistinct at a distance, but everyone held aloft a flag, the fluttering cloth whipped forward by the wind at their backs. It looked to be a formidable array of men waiting in a strong defensive position.

Renfred drew up his horse. ‘They’re right behind us, Sir Thomas.’

‘How do we look to the enemy from a distance?’

Renfred smiled. ‘With the cold wind in their faces and the low sun in their eyes, they’ll be uncertain about the banner men on the hillside. As we were at first.’

‘Good, then let’s hope it dissuades them from attacking.’

Renfred heeled his horse and took his place in the line with his men as the Moor cantered from the flank. ‘You will fight?’

‘Go back to your men and do nothing stupid.’

‘I will take the pack horses.’

‘You will keep your arse in your saddle and your mouth shut. If you move, I will have my bowmen cut you down. Go back and do not move. Sayyidd al-Hakam chose you for a reason. Perhaps you are a man who has a brain and can see how things are. They outnumber us.’

The Moor fought the temperamental horse. He was eager to argue but the size of the man he confronted and the look from his archers told him all he needed to know. He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and returned to his men.

‘It would be easier to kill them before we start on the French,’ said Will Longdon.

‘It would have been easier for the Prince not to have sent us in the first place,’ said Blackstone.

They waited amid the cracking of cloth as the wind whipped the flags and pennons.

Blackstone turned in the saddle. ‘Will? What distance can you give me?’

‘Three hundred and fifty yards, and with help from the wind another thirty.’