Outside Geoffrey is shirtless, his hairy belly silvery like a moon in the dawn. He is emptying a jug of ale into his mouth as two boys march past, one hoisting a banner, the other beating a drum like a heart, boo-boom, boo-boom. Men are falling in behind them, their faces black and smoke-smutted from the fires they’ve tended through the night. There is a strong smell of horses.

‘Archers, to the front,’ a man shouts from his saddle, though they all know what is expected of them. ‘Archers to the front! Find your mark. Quickly now.’

Thomas finds his spot. They are in a grass meadow a little way off the road, the ground under their feet soggy, copses of elms and oaks to both sides. Behind them the men-at-arms and the billmen are forming up, rattling in their armour plate, five or six deep. Some of the billmen are carrying just farm tools: a hayfork, a knife lashed to a pole to make a glaive; all of them on the lookout for better weapons for the next time. These are the naked men, the scrapings of the recruitment barrel, the men who make up the numbers for the Commissions of Array.

Others are carrying bills, hammers, axes, swords, mauls, pikes and spears. Most have a helmet, and some have gauntlets. None of it matches and most of it has been looted at least once before, if not twice.

Gathered under their banners are the armoured knights and the men-at-arms, the household men of those who can afford to pay them. The men of the Earl of Warwick take the central division, straddling the road, and those of March take the left flank while Fauconberg’s men occupy the right. It is easy to see March. He is the tallest man on the field, his banner long and fishtailed.

‘A Fauconberg!’

‘Come on! Lively now!’

The day comes slowly. What has been invisible in the dark becomes discernible in the light and they find themselves facing the town walls across a ditch and a stretch of broad water meadows. Before the gates of the city, to one side of the road, is a small hamlet clustered around the squat tower of another church, and beyond are some earthworks from which a man with a donkey and a spade moves off sharply when he sees what is afoot.

In the city men are moving between the battlements of the gatehouse and there are more on the walls too. Thomas imagines them staring back out at the besieging army, trying to estimate their number and deposition, gauging their banners, waiting and wondering.

The bells begin a steady toll.

‘Easy now, lads,’ Geoffrey is telling them. ‘Check your equipment. Take the time to make sure you’ve got everything you need. Check your arrows. Check your bow. Then take a drink.’