Some northerners don’t run, but try to sell their lives dearly, and they huddle together in groups and turn their weapons outwards, but they do not last long. Surrounded, they go down in a hail of blows and they are set upon as soon as they’ve bowed their heads; knives jammed into eye-slits, visors ripped open and the contents gouged out, swords stabbed into groins and armour stripped off. Even the dead are mutilated.

Some try to flee back across the field towards the woods, but Warwick’s lances cut them off and herd them towards the valley beyond where the rest of the King’s men crowd forward to kill them.

Where is King Edward to demand mercy for the commons?

There is no sign of him. He has ridden northwards after the fleeing men.

Where is Riven?

Thomas is running now, tripping on dying men, stumbling clumsily through the corpses heaped like islands in a sea of blood. Here and there some of the King’s men have already broken off to loot the dead and Thomas starts searching the bodies himself, seeking that livery badge, but everywhere they are the Duke of Somerset’s men with their portcullis, or the Duke of Exeter’s, entangled with those of Warwick, or Fauconberg, or the King’s men with their white rose. The points of bloodied weapons make it a dangerous exercise.

‘You don’t look too clever,’ a voice says.

It is Perers, alive, looking well even, carrying his bow unnocked and a single arrow in his belt. He is studying Thomas as if trying to work out why he lives when he should be dead.

‘So, did you find that bloke with the flag?’ he asks.

Thomas shakes his head.

Perers sniffs.

‘He’ll be down there then,’ he says. ‘If he’s still alive.’

He gestures across the field to where King Edward’s men are gathered on the lip of the plateau to the west. There are thousands of them and the noise of fighting persists, a constant grinding.

‘Take a look, if you like?’ Perers offers.

Thomas nods and Perers shows him how he’s been using the bodies as stepping stones.

‘Don’t tread on them in armour,’ he says. ‘Too slippery. Just tread on them in jacks. And for fuck’s sake mind out for those caltrops. You stand on one of them, you’ll know about it all right.’

The caltrops are scattered where the northerners’ right flank had started and Thomas follows Perers across the field, stepping from body to body, wary of the spiked iron balls that lie under the snow.