Meulon moved quietly for a man his size. He pressed his back against a cob building as desperate sounds came from within. A woman cried out; a man cursed. He heard flesh being struck and the woman’s protestations silenced to a whimpering. Meulon stepped into the hovel. A flickering lamp burned, showing one man straddling a woman as another, addled with drink, gloated. The drunk blinked, wineskin half raised as darkness blocked the open doorway. In two great strides Meulon was on him, a knife thrust upwards beneath his throat. The man gurgled and fell but the swift action barely drew the rapist’s attention. Meulon clawed his head back and drew the blade across his throat, throwing the writhing man’s weight aside so that the pouring blood did not smother the woman. She gazed open-mouthed at the black-bearded monster looming over her. He bent and snatched her up. She was too terrified to scream.

‘Stay silent and you will be safe,’ he urged her. ‘Go from here. Run for the forest. Stay there. Others are coming to help. You understand?’

Fear clouded her reason. She shook her head. The impossible had happened. Meulon pulled her to the door, held her back, checked that the killers were not close. ‘The trees,’ he said. ‘You run, you hide, and you stay there. I have friends coming to help you. Englishmen.’

She trembled. ‘English? Like these men?’

Meulon glared at her. ‘These men are Bretons.’

She shook her head. ‘English,’ she said.

‘I give you your life, woman. You must run when I tell you. Do not look back. Stay in the forest. I will send others if I can save them. The Englishmen who come are not your enemy. Understand?’

She appeared to come to her senses and snatched at his hand, kissing it in thanks, tears spilling down her cheeks. He glanced once more into the chaos outside and thrust her towards the black wall that was the forest. The moment she’d made her escape he ran for three routiers on the other side of a huddle of flaming houses who were tearing apart the insides. A man and woman lay dead at their feet. Meulon heard them cursing. They were English, without doubt. Blackstone had taught him to speak the language years before but it was Will Longdon who had taught him to curse like an Englishman. It made no difference that these mercenaries were killing Navarre’s people, or that Sir John Chandos was supposed to have stopped them from joining the Bretons or the French. It made no difference because they were going to die.