Thomas pushes and shoves; he tries to slip away, but men push back. The din of steel on steel is louder than in any smithy; iron thunders against iron. He can’t get through. He is face to face with one of Fauconberg’s men, snarling, but his opponent is stuck too. Thomas turns to find himself facing the man in harness. He drops his bow and swings his pollaxe up. The man lunges at him. Thomas throws himself back. The crowd behind gives. The man in armour slips on a dead body and Thomas catches his dagger with the butt of his axe. The knight is committed, pulled off balance for a moment, and a man on the ground grips his bill in both bloody hands and hooks the knight behind his knee. The knight staggers, tries to right himself, isn’t quick enough.

Another of Fauconberg’s men-at-arms hammers his halberd down on the knight’s shoulder. The knight buckles, rears back again, but his armour is jammed. He can’t move his arm. Another billman, smaller, like a ferret, darts forward and smashes the knight’s visor up while a third plunges a long spike into his mouth. The knight’s retainers have been too slow, and now they turn and run, or try to. But their path is blocked and Fauconberg’s men cut them down from behind, hacking at their hamstrings. It is so easy.

Now Thomas can move. He forces his way towards the river, scrambling between two carts. Some archers have discovered the King’s ale and are busy trying to drink themselves stupid. Dead bodies lie everywhere in the mud. Wounded men blink at him. Thomas ducks left, down a path between the rows of tents, shoddy canvas bivouacs for the common soldiery, finer for the nobility, his boots sliding under him.

There is another surging cheer from the main field and the percussive ripple of arms as Warwick’s men engage, and now the King’s men begin streaming back through the camp, ripping off their armour as they come, casting weapons aside. A billman, wild-eyed, half his clothing missing, bounces off Thomas, flinching when he sees the axe, and hurtles away through the tents towards the river. Another’s clothes are smoking.

Thomas follows the path and comes to a clearing. Dafydd and Owen and Henry are there before him, crouching pale-faced over a body in white livery. Dafydd is trying to unscrew a ring from the dead man’s finger. Unarmed men flash past, right to left. Henry nocks an arrow and follows a man just as a huntsman might follow a bird. He shoots straight through the man’s chest and sends him bowling. He laughs.

Dafydd glances up, sees where Thomas is going.

‘You don’t want to go up there just yet,’ he calls. ‘A bit hot for the likes of us. Come and have a drink.’