He follows the messenger along the road through the trees and past a little hamlet and a patchy wood of much-coppiced willow, empty pigpens and black mud. Everything is limed white with hoarfrost and breath hangs in the air. Beyond, spilling over into the boggy meadows, are thousands of men: archers, billmen, men-at-arms; their liveries new to Thomas, their flags unfamiliar. Their officers, captains and sergeants are shouting and cajoling men into their places. Drums thunder and trumpets call out and for a fleeting moment there is a festival atmosphere, as women and children mill around the fringes, selling ale and bread, sausages, soup. One woman still in her nightcap tries to sell Thomas a smoked eel, the skin as golden as the leaf he used to work with at the priory, and ale that smells of marsh water.

‘Got anything hot?’ Thomas asks.

She shakes her head. The messenger returns to his side and almost drags him away.

‘Go away now, goodwife,’ he says. ‘We’ve things to do.’

Steam rises from both man and horse, and from the ditches where the men are relieving themselves. As they progress down the road Thomas feels nothing but growing fear. He cannot go through it again, not without Walter by his side, not without Geoffrey, or any of the Johns. Here he is with strangers. If he falls who will stoop to pick him up? The crack-toothed billman with those stout chains across his shoulders? The boy with a home-made glaive and no boots? He doubts it. They’d go through his purse before they bothered righting him. They’d leave him in a ditch to freeze to death.

When they catch up with Hastings, the knights have dismounted and their squires are leading the horses back through the lines. Hastings is nervous too. Thomas sees him passing his mailed palm over the pick of his pollaxe, teasing it with his fingers as if he can stroke it into a sharper point. Next to him is Grylle. Grylle nods tightly when reintroduced. He is in a suit of plate armour made for a much bigger man, and seems to be peeking out over his gorget like a creature in its hole. His helmet is painted black. He is, what? Fifteen?

‘His first proper fight,’ Hastings confides in Thomas. ‘His mother’ll kill me if anything happens to him.’

His squire has ale in a tubular leather flask. Hastings offers some to Thomas and watches him as he drinks. A frown gathers weight under the shadow of his raised visor where the fog of his breath has frozen into beads of ice.

‘You seem underdressed, Thomas,’ Hastings says.