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while they may have hoped for a diversion from Calais itself, the people in the town were
already enfeebled by the siege. Hunger and despair tore at them, and those who still had strength enough to wield a sword would still never have reached the lines of archers ringing the
town.
    ‘So I say it again, they didn’t have enough. But from where we were, it looked like they had enough to trample us into the mud.’
    The French King had to make a display, if only for his honour’s sake. So he marched his men up the road to the town. And the only thing stopping him at that moment was
Sir John de Sully’s little force.
    The old warrior was then in his sixties or so. His scarred and worn face displayed no fear that Janyn could see, only a boyish excitement. ‘We’ll stop them there,’ he said,
pointing to a narrowing in the roadway.
    The road leading to the higher ground outside the town had to pass through a wood before passing a small quarry. Beyond the quarry a hamlet had stood, but now the single stone building, the
church, was the only one remaining. All the others had been burned, and even the church itself stood blackened and ravaged, like a sole surviving tree after a forest fire. The tower remained, but
the building itself was a husk.
    ‘An ambush?’ Janyn asked.
    ‘Yes, Hussett. We’ll have our archers here at the front, and as they enter the quarry, we’ll loose the arrows. It’ll blunt their ardour, eh? The front ranks will run to
cover in the quarry, and we can keep aiming arrows at the men coming. They will be pushed on by the press of men behind them, and we can kill many of them as they keep coming.’
    Janyn nodded. It was the way the English fought. The archers stood their ground while their enemies ebbed under their withering assault. He moved off to prepare his men.
    The two brothers were still there, and now he saw that when Pelagia went to speak with either, it was to Bill that she naturally turned. Walter was left sullenly glowering nearby while she spoke
with his brother, her hand resting naturally on his forearm.
    Janyn turned away. It was none of his business, but he disliked the idea that she might be breaking the close bond between the two lads.
    The first that Janyn knew of the attack was a shrill scream in the night that jerked him from his slumbers.
    They were all settled by early evening, his vintaine taking a patch of turf close to the wall of the old quarry. Their cart was nearby, and their weapons all laid close to hand. Bow-staves lay
on the ground beside many of the archers, the strings held about their throats or kept in their purses, against the threat of the dew dampening them. As Janyn lay back, his head on his pack, he
could see the men. Wisp and Barda stared into the flames from their campfires as they lay wrapped in blankets, and Bill and Walter were a little further off, their faces lost in the glare of the
nearer fire. Janyn had dozed off staring at the coals and glittering sparks.
    It was foolish to be so arrogant. A few successes against the French and all believed that they were secure, even here, lying out in the open. They should have known that even a cowed enemy
would not hesitate to attack a force much smaller, and yet no one had thought to post a guard. All were asleep as the first cry came.
    As soon as he heard the first high, piercing shriek, Janyn was up, flinging aside his blanket and bellowing at the other men to gather their weapons and follow him as he sprang forward.
    The roadway was already a scene of confusion. Half-asleep archers were milling in the near darkness, while some few blundered around gripping blazing torches in their fists, rubbing the sleep
from their eyes.
    Janyn hurried to the line nearer the French army, but there was no sign of fighting there. All was peaceful, so far as he could see. A small group of French peasants lay hacked and bloody in a
heap near the front line of the English, and two sentries were dead.
    ‘What