Someone is shouting orders to the archers and a bell starts ringing in the town across the fields. The men-at-arms are on the bridge before the arrows come from the far bank. As they do so, Fitzwalter’s archers move up fast in a broad line on the southern bank and they loose in return. Their arrows leap into the grey sky, clatter through the treetops and crash down on to the men on the far bank. Arrows thump into the wood of the carts and beams, a rolling drumbeat that wavers like rain across the heads of the defenders.

Thomas hauls his string, bobs around the tree trunk and looses. There are plenty of targets, for they are brave men, standing to send their own arrows towards the men-at-arms on the bridge. Thomas watches an archer fall back with a silent cry. He has killed another man.

Those on the bridge are nearly at the gap where it narrows to a few spars. One slips. The wood must be slimy with blood, treacherous in the snow. Thomas nocks another arrow, aims carefully into the gap in front of the advancing men-at-arms. A head appears behind the wall, axe raised. Bang. The arrow catches him, snaps his head back, drops him out of sight.

Another man appears. Thomas bungles the shot and the arrow is wasted. It is a crossbowman. Thomas watches him level his bow and snap the quarrel into the face of the man at the head of the attack. The bolt throws him back, and he tumbles already dead through the gaps in the bridge, where he is caught in the spars, his legs trailing above the water. Another crossbowman appears; this one Thomas catches, on the shoulder, turning him. A good shot. The men-at-arms step up, and there is a moment when it looks as if they will succeed, but then the moment passes and they have not, and it is suddenly obvious that they never will.

Arrows throw them back, the balance tips, they turn and try to run and soon the bridge is empty, swept of life, a peninsula of bloodied armour and dead men, creaking and sliding as wounded men try to move. A man cries short juddering yelps.

There is a long silence.

Thomas sits and waits.

What will happen? No one seems to know. Confidence leaks from them and it is very cold.

Then, behind, there is the sound of trumpets blown and drums beaten. Across the fields the archers start moving aside. A party of heralds, then the banner of King Edward and then the standards of Warwick and of Fauconberg, riding up from the castle at Pomfret.