A verdigris-covered bell hangs from a strut cemented into the stonework. From the top of the castle Katherine watches the men spill out below and make their way through the long grass to the butts. She watches them form up, this time with Thomas in their midst, between Red John on one side and Dafydd on the other. He has that old bow of which he has complained but she sees he’s managed to borrow a glove for his right hand and one of the leather sleeves to stop the string cutting his left forearm.

They loose some arrows and now that she has watched the soldiers from Calais shoot, even she can see how slow they are. Each man looses an arrow perhaps every ten seconds, and after they have each loosed twenty-four, the arrows, perhaps buffeted by the wind, are scattered over an area the size of the garth in a cloister. Thomas is the last to finish, and still has five arrows left to shoot after the next last, Dafydd, has finished shooting his.

She watches as Thomas and Dafydd are made to run up the butts to collect the spent arrows. When they have gathered them in their bags, they are made to run back down and distribute them among the rest. As soon as that is done, they loose them all over again. She can just hear the shouts carried by the wind.

‘Nock! Draw! Loose!’

Again Thomas is the slowest. He takes off his jack and throws it on the ground. Walter shouts at him and he puts it back on and sets off up to the butts again, staggering through the sand. He gathers all the arrows together and starts running back with them. His legs are heavy and he falls over, drops the arrows, gets up, picks them up, falls over again. He delivers the arrows, then collapses on a grassy sand bank until Owen brings him a winesack to drink from. No one seems to think any the worse of him when he begins retching. The men carry on shooting.

A while later Thomas rejoins them, but by now he can hardly lift his bow, let alone draw it, and after failing to keep up he sits back on the bank and watches.

Katherine follows the walkway around the castle battlements, searching the land in all directions, watching the farmers and charcoalers, tiny dots in the distance, going about their business. Men are passing up and down the roads, some on horseback, others walking. There are a few carts rolling along, carrying barrels, and she watches a swineherd lose control of his animals as a galloping messenger scatters them under his hooves.

The archers continue all afternoon.