Dafydd and his brother Owen are from somewhere in Wales, though perhaps by different fathers, for Dafydd is compact, with dark brows and a lick of black hair as coarse as a horse’s tail, while Owen is big-boned and blank-faced under sandy hair. Dafydd has an argumentative streak, but Owen says almost nothing, except to repeat that of which he approves. He smiles most of the time, and sits in silence staring at his brother, his massive hands curled in his lap. Geoffrey says he is simple, but there is something reassuring about his company.

‘Sir John was doubtful about taking him on after Ludford,’ Geoffrey tells her, ‘but Dafydd says he can spit a mouse at two hundred paces. Yet to see him try, of course, but he’s been no trouble so far.’

Dafydd and Owen often play dice with Black John. Black John is one of the six Johns in the company, called black for the colour of his hair. There is also Red John, who has wild red hair and freckles; and Little John Willingham who had been the smallest in the company until Katherine arrived. Then there is Brampton John, who comes from a village called Brampton, near Sir John’s manor; and Johnson, son of John, from Lincoln, whom they call Johnson in honour of his father, and finally Other John, also from Lincoln, whose father is also called John, and who looks so like Brampton John and Johnson they can think of no way of distinguishing him from the other five Johns except to mark that he isn’t one of them.

Along with another archer called Thomas – who remains just Thomas, while Thomas has become Northern Thomas because of the vestiges of a northern accent – there are two Roberts and a Hugh, also from Lincoln. Most have spent every Sunday and feast day learning to shoot arrows in the butts behind the churches in their various villages, and they’ve worked together in the fields since they were boys too, and there is an easy familiarity among them.

Of the others, sometimes Simon Skettle of London joins Dafydd and Owen and Black John in their dice game, but no one seems to like Simon, and though he talks a great deal, he tends to silence any conversation he joins.

Walter’s disgust is reserved in the most part for Hugh. Hugh is a long-limbed youth with fleshy lips and eyes like a girl’s, and he is always on the brink of tears.

‘More like a friar than an archer,’ Walter tells him. ‘You sure you’ve spent your time in the butts? Show me your fingers again.’

Hugh manages to look misused and is made to feel it, like some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. As they sail on towards France he stands alone, staring mournfully as the mist begins to dissipate and they sight the coast.