Blackstone looked back at the King’s pavilion. Al-Hakam’s prediction was testament to his knowledge. The King’s standard wavered amid dust swirling from the top of the cliffs as the backing wind picked up in strength. The standard of Castile and León snapped taut. The wind veered, Blackstone’s banner crackled open, its blazon’s mailed fist clasping the cruciform sword hilt and the banner’s declaration: Défiant à la Mort.

The roar from Blackstone’s men drowned the sounds of battle several hundred yards away. He looked left and right and saw Will Longdon and Jack Halfpenny ready their archers. They knew the French would soon trample over al-Hakam’s dead in their eagerness to sweep across the river. Tufts of weeds and detritus caught on the river’s shallows served as distance markers for the archers once the attackers splashed across on both sides of the bridge, which would be choked with dead once the bowmen had loosed.

The routiers fought clear of the carnage at their feet and urged their horses forward. It was a mad charge for the bridge so that those first horsemen could strike rapidly into what they thought to be Don Pedro’s lightly defended camp – believing that a race for the far bank meant the archers who stood in their ragged line between the men-at-arms would have insufficient time to shoot enough arrows to stop most of the attackers sweeping across.

‘These bastards never learn,’ said Will Longdon. Since arrows were scarce Longdon had briefed his men that they should shoot only once onto the bridge when the attack reached their halfway marker. Jack Halfpenny’s men on the opposite flank would hold back for panicked riders who yanked reins and plunged down the bank, attempting to cross the river. The routiers did not yet know if the river ran deep or if there were shallows; that uncertainty would slow the concerted assault.

The bridge was wide enough for three horsemen abreast. The forty or so riders who led the charge were spread out, so that when they reached the bridge the first dozen horsemen had to rein in and jostle to cross, forcing those behind them to do the same. The bridge was choked and by the time the cursing riders had barged halfway across twenty horses jammed the bridge.

Will Longdon’s archers’ arrows were nocked. ‘Draw!’ he called. Bows creaked, backs arched. ‘Loose!’