The Earl of Towbray’s knights—fifty lances or more—crossed the ditch in good order and started up the hill. There were more men behind them—Albans and Galles, most not as well armoured as Towbray’s professionals.

The Red Knight turned Ataelus and rode up the hill. The ploughed earth was hard going, and Ataelus was having a hard day—three fights in two days. He was impatient to get to the top—but he did not want to kill this horse.

Towbray’s men were having a hard time, too.

He passed a point where the hill steepened, and suddenly, by turning in the saddle, he could see Du Corse’s lances on the far side of the lane—over to the north, where, if he didn’t move quickly, they could cut him off from his retreat.

Ataelus was snorting with furious effort, cresting the last and steepest bit of the muddy field.

“Come on, lad,” he said. “Come on, Ataelus. Don’t die on me here—never had a horse like you.”

Ataelus’s ears moved, and he gave a little more—and they were up.

Now he had a view of the whole battlefield. Gelfred’s men were forming along the village hedges. His own pages and archers were now mixed in, and the knights—the jousters—were slapping each other in exhilaration.

Gabriel took a cup of water from Nell and drank it off. The Queen was there, and Amicia, already healing a man—a Gallish prisoner, apparently.

“Bravely done, ser knight!” the Queen called.

“Not bravely enough,” he said. “Du Corse is a very good captain. He’s slipped my ambush and now he’s flooding the fields with men.”

Gelfred came up on a palfrey. “They found another lane, my lord,” he said. “I’m sorry—I must have missed it in the dark.”

Gabriel could see that Towbray’s men—and other Albans and Galles who must be under his banner—were pouring into the southern fields at the base of the hill like water through a leaky dyke. They weren’t coming around the jam of baggage wagons. They were coming up another road to the south and east that almost outflanked the hill.

Gabriel looked out over the hillside at the wreck of his clever plan.

He just didn’t have enough men.

Despite the various flaws in his battle, though, he had lost almost no men and Towbray’s knights were completely uncoordinated with Du Corse on the other side of the hedge.

The Queen smiled. “Is that my old friend the Earl of Towbray?” she said. She took her newborn son from Blanche. “Those are Albans. This is what I came for, Ser Gabriel.”