‘Those who know are dead,’ said Meulon.

The breeze carried acrid smoke and the stench of burnt flesh.

Blackstone’s battle-hardened veterans needed no command to fan out defensively. Death could be a whisper away if rogue mercenary bowmen were hiding within range and a sudden cavalry charge could inflict heavy casualties.

‘Survivors!’ Will Longdon called as a dozen men and women with children clambered out of a ditch a hundred paces away. They looked as though they had crawled out of a house fire. Their clothes were torn, their faces smeared in soot; blood encrusted their wounds. They held back, fear seizing them, rooting them to the spot. Perhaps they were uncertain whether the horsemen were more routiers or their lord’s men finally come to protect them.

‘Come forward,’ Meulon called. ‘You’ll not be harmed.’

Blackstone knew how terrifying his men looked to the villeins. He dismounted, handed the reins to John Jacob and walked towards the huddled group. He halted halfway. ‘Send one man forward. I serve King Edward and the Prince of Wales and Aquitaine. We are not routiers. We will help you.’

There was a muted conversation and then one man, carrying a child, stepped away from the group. A woman reached for his arm, begging him not to go, but he calmed her and handed her the child. He walked forward, but then faltered, eyes looking left and right at the horseman. Plucking up courage, he got within ten paces and went down on his knees and clasped his hands together.

‘I beg you, lord, do not harm us. Much violence has been done to us. We are poor people who offered no resistance but they came from the east and slew everyone except those you see.’

‘Get to your feet,’ said Blackstone. ‘Did they name themselves?’

The man clambered upright. He remained hunched, eyes lowered. He shook his head in answer.

‘These men,’ said Blackstone, pointing to the heads on poles. ‘Who are they?’

‘Normans, my lord, men who hold ground for Navarre. They protected us until the routiers came.’

‘What lord’s manor is this?’ said Blackstone.

‘He holds it in the name of the King of Navarre.’

‘Who?’ Blackstone snapped, impatient at the man’s slow response.

‘Lord de Graumont.’

The name meant nothing to Blackstone. ‘Where is he?’

The man looked perplexed and half turned to point at the decapitated heads.

Blackstone knew de Grailly’s defeat would have unleashed Breton warlords across Normandy. ‘You heard a name?’

The villager thought hard. He shook his head. Then raised it, eyes bright with memory. ‘Ronec.’

‘A Breton?’ said Blackstone. ‘Or French?’

The man nodded, his broken-toothed smile showing black stumps, the question unfathomable to him. ‘Some spoke a language we did not know.’

‘Navarrese? Spanish?’

The man’s blank expression was the only answer.