‘We have to shoot back,’ Thomas says. ‘We have to pick them off.’

Sir John looks at his sword.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Get enough of us together, men-at-arms at the front, archers and naked men at the rear, and then we’ll unstick the bastards that way.’

‘We can do both. Come on.’

Thomas runs forward and dodges behind one of the willow trees. An arrow shaft hums past, low and flat, missing him by an inch. Another goes skipping across the snow behind. One more cracks quivering in the trunk by his head.

That is good shooting, he thinks, and he peers around the tree. He can see only one man, in a painted helmet, peering through a gap in the wooden barricade. This is tricky. How to shoot around a tree? He takes a step back, stretches the string to his cheek, leans out and lets go. He hurls himself back in time to feel an answering shaft slice past his face. He doesn’t even see where his own arrow goes.

Another archer is lying with his back against the trunk of the next tree along, about ten paces away. He is in the livery of the Earl of Warwick and is clutching his bow across his chest. He is chanting a prayer and his eyes are clenched tight and Thomas thinks he’s soiled himself.

Behind them, a hundred paces or so, everybody has pulled back beyond bowshot range of the northern bank, all of them spectators now, waiting for some action, up to their ankles in the slush of the fields. They have a fire going and someone is selling ale. Sir John has a cup. He raises it at Thomas. Thomas curses his luck. Why did he run forward?

Another shaft bangs into the bark above his ear. Men are working their way along the northern bank to prise him out. He slides down the tree as the other archer has done. What are they to do? He is stuck, completely stuck. Through the bent brown tips of the grasses he can see the bridge. Bodies are piled on one another, three, sometimes four deep, like reaped wheat stalks. Many have fallen with their backs to the enemy, trying to run. They would have taken arrowheads in the backside, or in the backs of their legs, where archers aimed for the tendons. He can hear whimpering and a constant moan. Men are calling out for help and there is a sudden cascade from the bridge as three or four bodies of men in plate slip over the walls and splash into the dark waters. They’ll never be seen again, and their families will be left to guess what has happened to them.