Walter grunts and hurries to catch Richard. They are moving down the road as it passes through a pocket of dead ground and for the moment Newnham Bridge and its fort are hidden from them just as they are hidden from it. When they emerge over the rise and begin their descent again they hear a crack that splits the silence of the day.

The men duck as one.

‘Lord above!’ someone cries.

When Thomas raises his head he sees a sallow puff of smoke hanging in the air above the battlements of the fort.

‘It’s all right, lads. It’s all right,’ Walter says. ‘It’s one of ours.’

Nevertheless the noise of the gun is impressive, and for a moment they are so absorbed in the sight of the smoke drifting inland that none notice the mass of men moving in three blocks up the Boulogne road.

When they do, they swallow hard.

Banners are unfurled, and Thomas can hear the drums beating and the high pitch of a fife, and a trumpet blowing. Dafydd crosses himself. Walter licks his finger and posts it in the air, checking the wind.

‘Whatever can they hope to achieve?’ Richard wonders aloud. He is sitting on his horse, war hammer across his lap, with a better view than them. ‘They have no siege weapons to break the castle and surely not enough men to invest it.’

‘Must have run out of beans and women then,’ Walter says. ‘They’ll take everything in the town that isn’t nailed down, torch it and piss off back to Guisnes. What I’d do.’

‘Will the Newnham garrison come out, d’you think?’ Richard asks.

‘Got to,’ Walter says. ‘But there aren’t enough of ’em to stop that lot. Calais garrison’ll have to come out too.’

They watch the last of the townspeople hurry across the bridge under the fort, trying to get away from Somerset’s men. They seem to share Walter’s opinion on what will happen next and they are pulling carts laden with everything they can carry. In the distance the Calais garrison are already emerging from the Boulogne Gate, moving up in order: archers, billmen and a handful of horsemen, all hurrying. Walter is more interested in Somerset’s men though, who are arranging themselves in their own blocks on the far side of the town.

‘Something funny about this,’ he says. ‘They’re holding their shape. Normal men’d be in there, grabbing everything they can get their bloody hands on, finding a woman before anyone else.’

‘And they can’t have had it easy these last few months,’ Geoffrey agrees.