The men grumble as they fetch their arrows, but are silenced on their return to find the men of the Gate Watch that Walter abused earlier that morning standing fanned out along the back of the butts, each man at ease with his bow, waiting, watching. No one says a thing. The atmosphere thickens.

‘All right, boys,’ Walter mutters, pretending to ignore the newcomers. ‘Let’s see if we can’t put on a show to remind this lot not to switch sides in the future, shall we? Remember this is for the pride of Sir John Fakenham’s company, so go fast, but make each one count. I don’t want to be able to see the butts for the fletches. Understand?’

The men gather their arrows together, and get back into position.

‘Not you, Northern Thomas,’ Walter says. ‘Right. Let’s go. Nock! Draw! Loose!’

For the next three minutes the men work fast, each one drawing and loosing his bow twenty-four times. Dafydd is the last to finish. The arrow storm has been brief but nearly four hundred arrows have been loosed, and it is possible to imagine just what that might do to an enemy.

When they’ve finished, they are all flushed and breathing heavily and they are steaming in the chill air. They look satisfied enough, but Walter’s eyes are shut. The Watch officer begins a slow hand clap and his men begin murmuring, then laughing.

Walter turns on the captain.

‘Think your boys can do any better?’ he asks.

‘I know they can,’ the captain says. ‘But let’s have a bet, shall we?’ The captain has tired eyes, creases either side of his mouth, and wears a scarf to warm his throat. ‘A barrel of ale?’ he suggests.

Walter cannot get out of it. They shake hands and the men of John Fakenham’s company shuffle to one side to let the Watch take their places. Thomas cannot help thinking that even without their livery and quilted jacks, these men look more like soldiers than Fakenham’s. They are older, grizzled, and their equipment more accustomed to use. They move with a muscular ease, too, certain of themselves.

Others have turned up to watch now: other archers, billmen, some women and boys and a dark-skinned man in a wool-lined travelling cloak, sitting on a rouncey with a baggage train behind him.

‘Right,’ the Watch Captain says in a nasal drawl. ‘Butt on the left-hand side. A sheaf apiece. Nock. Draw. Loose!’

The soldiers erupt into action. It is measurably smoother and faster than Fakenham’s men and it seems each one has sent his third arrow off before the first has hit its target. In less than two minutes it is over. They all level their bows as one.

‘Fuck me,’ one of the Johns mutters.