Everybody else is silent for a moment. The two companies walk down to the butts, one on either side of the range. The Watch’s arrows are without exception buried up to their shoulders in the earth of the left-hand target. Those of Fakenham’s company – distinctive because of the green-tinged twine that has been used to secure the fletches – are scattered over the ground: some have fallen short, some have overshot, some are wayward to the left, others to the right.

‘Tcha!’ the officer says, clapping his hands together with a bang. ‘We’ll have that barrel delivered to the garrison, if you please.’

They collect the shafts and walk back to their tents in silence, shame trailing them like a pall.

‘I’m glad they’re on our side,’ one of them mutters.

‘They are for now,’ Walter snarls.

When they get back to their tent, they put away their bows and sit in silence. None can look another in the eye.

‘So what are we going to do?’ Richard asks.

‘Can’t go back there again,’ Walter says.

‘Chuck away our bows? Become billmen?’ This is from Simon the Londoner.

‘God’s nails!’ Dafydd says. ‘I’m not becoming a bloody billman. Don’t get paid as much, for one thing.’

‘We’d best be selling our bows anyway,’ one of the others says, ‘to pay for that bloody barrel of ale.’

‘Walter should pay for it. He made the wager.’

This is from Simon again. The others look at him.

‘Walter backed us,’ Red John says. ‘We let him down. Least we can do now is help him out.’

Walter nods his thanks. One or two of the men dig in their purses for small coins and pass them to Walter.

‘Simple fact of the matter is that we aren’t good enough,’ Richard says.

‘We are,’ Simon says. ‘We’re as good as any of those northerners, and much better than any Scot, or any bloody Frenchman.’

‘But when we go back, we won’t be fighting Frenchmen, will we?’ Red John says. ‘We’ll be fighting . . . You know. Fighting . . .’

He cannot bring himself to say that they will be fighting Englishmen.

In the silence that follows, Richard stands up.

‘By God,’ he says. ‘You might as well be a billman if that’s the way you look at it. I don’t want to stand and fight with men who aren’t as good as someone else. I only want to stand and fight with the best.’

All eyes are on him. What is he going to do? Desert them and join the Calais garrison?

‘The thing is,’ he starts again, quieter this time, piecing his thoughts together, ‘they are fast and they are accurate. That comes not from fighting, but from practice.’

‘And any fool can practise,’ Geoffrey chips in.

‘Even you lot,’ Walter adds.