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      ‘Hold him down,’ Sir Geoffrey ordered the archers, ‘hold him down and spread his legs.’

      ‘Non!’ Eleanor cried in protest.

      ‘Pretty,’ Beggar said in his voice that rumbled deep inside his huge chest.

      The Scotsman screamed and tried to pull himself away, but he was tripped, then held down by three archers while the man evidently known throughout the north as the Scarecrow knelt between his legs. Somewhere in the clearing fog a raven cawed. A handful of archers was staring north in case the Scots returned, but most were watching the Scarecrow and his knife. ‘You want to keep your shrivelled collops?’ Sir Geoffrey asked the Scotsman. ‘Then tell me how many there are of you.’

      ‘Fifteen thousand? Sixteen?’ The Scotsman was suddenly eager to talk.

      ‘He means ten or eleven thousand,’ Sir Geoffrey announced to the listening archers, ‘which is more than enough for our few arrows. And is your bastard King here?’

      The Scotsman bridled at that, but a touch of the knife blade to his groin reminded him of his predicament. ‘David Bruce is here, aye.’

      ‘Who else?’

      The desperate Scotsman named his army’s other leaders. The King’s nephew and heir to his throne, Lord Robert Stewart, was with the invading army, as were the Earls of Moray, of March, of Wigtown, Fife and Menteith. He named others, clan chiefs and wild men from the wastelands of the far north, but Carr was more interested in two of the earls. ‘Fife and Menteith?’ he asked. ‘They’re here?’

      ‘Aye, sir, they are.’

      ‘But they swore fealty to King Edward,’ Sir Geoffrey said, evidently disbelieving the man.

      ‘They march with us now,’ the Scotsman insisted, ‘as does Douglas of Liddesdale.’

      ‘That ripe bastard,’ Sir Geoffrey said, ‘that shit of hell.’ He stared northwards through the fog shredding from the ridge, which was being revealed as a narrow and rocky plateau running north and south. The pasture on the plateau was thin and the ridge’s weathered stone protruded through the grass like the ribs of a starving man. Off to the north-east, beyond the valley of mist, the cathedral and castle of Durham reared up on their river-lapped crag, while to the west were hills and woods and stone-walled fields cut with small streams. Two buzzards sailed above the ridge, going towards the Scottish army that was still concealed by the fog which lingered to the north, but Thomas was thinking that it would not be long before troops came to find the men who had run their fellow Scots away from the crossroads.

      Sir Geoffrey leaned back and went to return his knife to its scabbard, then seemed to remember something and grinned at the prisoner. ‘You were going to take me back to Scotland in a cage, is that right?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘But you were! And why would I want to see Scotland? I can peer down a jakes whenever I want.’ He spat at the prisoner then nodded at the archers. ‘Hold him.’

      ‘No!’ the Scotsman shouted, then the shout turned to a terrible scream as Sir Geoffrey leaned forward with the knife again. The prisoner twitched and heaved as the Scarecrow, the front of his padded gambeson now sheeted with blood, stood up. The prisoner was still screaming, hands clutched to his bloody groin, and the sight brought a smile to the Scarecrow’s lips. ‘Throw the rest of him into the fire,’ he said, then turned to look at the other two Scottish prisoners. ‘Who is your master?’ he demanded of them.

      They hesitated, then one licked his lips. ‘We serve Douglas,’ he said proudly.

      ‘I hate Douglas. I hate every Douglas that ever dropped out of the devil’s backside.’ Sir Geoffrey shuddered, then turned to his horse. ‘Burn them both,’ he ordered.

      Thomas, looking away from the sudden blood, had seen a stone cross fallen at the crossroad’s centre. He stared at it, not seeing the carved dragon, but hearing the echoes of the noise and then the new screams as the prisoners were hurled into the flames. Eleanor ran to him and held his arm tight.

      ‘Pretty,’ Beggar said.

      ‘Here, Beggar, here!’ Sir Geoffrey called. ‘Hoist me!’ The giant made a step with his hands and Sir Geoffrey used it to climb into his saddle, then he kicked the horse towards Thomas and Eleanor. ‘I’m always hungry,’ Sir Geoffrey said, ‘after a gelding.’ He turned to watch the fire where one of the Scotsmen, hair flaming, tried to escape, but was prodded back into the inferno by a dozen bowstaves. The man’s howl was abruptly cut short as he collapsed. ‘I’m in the mood to geld and burn Scotsmen today,’ Sir Geoffrey said, ‘and you look like a Scot to me, boy.’

      ‘I’m not a boy,’ Thomas said, the anger rising in him.

      ‘You look like a bloody boy to me, boy. A Scots boy, maybe?’ Sir Geoffrey, plainly amused by Thomas’s temper, grinned at his newest victim who did indeed look young, though Thomas was twenty-two summers old and had fought for the last four of them in Brittany, Normandy and Picardy. ‘You look Scots, boy,’ the Scarecrow said, daring Thomas to defy him again. ‘All the Scots are black!’ he appealed to the crowd to judge Thomas’s complexion, and it was true that Thomas had a sun-darkened skin and black hair, but so did a score or more of the Scarecrow’s own archers. And though Thomas looked young he also looked hard. His hair was cropped close to his skull and four years of war had hollowed his cheeks, but there was still something distinctive in his looks, a handsomeness that attracted the eye and served to spur Sir Geoffrey Carr’s jealousy. ‘What’s on your horse?’ Sir Geoffrey jerked his head towards Thomas’s mare.

      ‘Nothing of yours,’ Thomas said.

      ‘What’s mine is mine, boy, and what’s yours is mine if I want it. Mine to take or mine to give. Beggar! You want that girl?’

      Beggar grinned behind his beard and jerked his head up and down. ‘Pretty,’ he said. He scratched at the lice in his beard. ‘Beggar likes pretty.’

      ‘I reckon you can have the pretty when I’m through with her,’ Sir Geoffrey said with a grin and he took the whip from where it hung at his waist and cracked it in the air. Thomas saw that the long leather thong had a small iron claw at its end. Sir Geoffrey grinned at Thomas again, then drew back the whip as a threat. ‘Strip her, Beggar,’ he said, ‘let’s give the boys a bit of pleasure,’ and he was still grinning as Thomas swung his heavy bowstave hard into the teeth of Sir Geoffrey’s horse and the animal reared up, screaming, as Thomas knew it would, and the Scarecrow, unready for the motion, fell backwards, flailing for balance, and his men, who should have protected him, were so intent on the burning Scottish prisoners that not one drew a bow or a blade before Thomas had dragged Sir Geoffrey down from the saddle and had him on the ground with a knife at his throat.

      ‘I’ve been killing men for four years,’ Thomas said, ‘and not all of them were Frenchmen.’

      ‘Thomas!’ Eleanor screamed.

      ‘Take her, Beggar! Take her!’ Sir Geoffrey shouted. He heaved up, but Thomas was an archer and years of drawing his big black bow had given him extraordinary strength in the arms and chest and Sir Geoffrey could not budge him, so he spat at Thomas instead. ‘Take her, Beggar!’ he yelled again.

      The Scarecrow’s men ran towards their master, but checked when they saw that Thomas had a knife at his captive’s throat.

      ‘Strip her, Beggar! Strip the pretty! We’ll all have her!’ Sir Geoffrey bawled, apparently oblivious of the blade at his gullet.

      ‘Who reads here? Who reads?’ Father Hobbe bellowed. The odd question checked everyone, even Beggar who had already snatched off Eleanor’s hat and now had his huge left arm around her neck while his right hand gripped the neckline of her frock. ‘Who in this company can read?’ Father Hobbe demanded again as he brandished the parchment he had taken from one of the sacks on the back of Thomas’s horse. ‘This is a letter from my lord the Bishop of Durham who is with our lord the King in France and it is sent to John Fossor,

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