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Sir Gilbert, but I was in the Low Countries with the King six years ago and his treasury was empty then. He had to borrow money from the locals to pay us archers; he even sent the horses back home to be fed. You think this time will be any different?’ he said.
    ‘Don’t tread too heavily on my affection for my King,’ Sir Gilbert said coldly, his voice a warning that instilled fear without effort. Blackstone felt the threat.
    The man yielded. ‘I want to get paid for my loyalty is all. I’ll spill blood, but I need to feed my household.’
    The argument seemed set to deteriorate. Sir Gilbert stepped away from the fire. ‘We’ll get paid,’ he said finally, ‘just make sure you earn it. We’ll show them what an Englishman can do when he fights for his King! And how much booty he can carry!’
    ‘God bless you, Sir Gilbert,’ someone shouted, and the cheer went up.
    ‘And you too, lads,’ the knight replied.
    They moved a few paces from the huddled men, and Blackstone turned to Sir Gilbert. ‘Is that what this fight is about? Money?’
    ‘You expected it to be about honour? Chivalry?’
    In truth Blackstone didn’t know what he thought, but he sensed it was about a wrong being righted. ‘Something like that. The King is claiming what’s rightfully his or stopping the French King from taking it.’
    Sir Gilbert stopped, and looked at the thousands of small fires burning across the hillsides. ‘Everyone’s here for the money. We all need to be paid. The banks have collapsed, the taxes are high. The King needs a war. I need to fight and find myself a nobleman to ransom, and then I can go home with some wealth. If you survive you go back to your stone quarry, your sheep and pigs, and you’ll wait until you’re called again, because war is how we live.’
    ‘There has to be some honour. My father saved Lord Marldon.’
    ‘Aye, he did, but that was different; that was about men fighting for each other.’
    ‘Then that’s why you’re here. To fight for your King.’
    Blackstone had touched on Sir Gilbert’s honour. The knight chose to ignore him. ‘Get some sleep. We board the boats at first light.’
    He turned away, leaving Blackstone to gaze across the army. The murmur of fifteen thousand voices drifted upwards like bees swarming on a summer’s day. He suddenly realized how frightened he was. Killing would be the order of the day once they landed in France. A pang of sorrow for his home squeezed his throat. ‘Dear God, help me to be brave and forgive me for bringing Richard into this. I should have left him at home – in torment, but in safety,’ he whispered to the buffeting clouds.
    He crossed himself and wished there was a chapel to offer more prayers.
    You don’t need a chapel when you talk to God , his father had once told him, but Blackstone craved the sanctuary and silence it would offer, away from the crush of bodies, the stench of shit and the rising tide of violence that would soon engulf him.
    The wind hissed and shrieked relentlessly through the rigging, drowning out the agonized groans of the men. The round-ships of the English fleet could not sail close to the wind and the strength­ening south-westerlies from the Atlantic held them in the choppy Solent for almost two weeks. Confined aboard the rolling tubs, men would have sold their souls as easily to God or the devil if either would give them calmer water, but the torment went on. Vomit sluiced around the decks, drained into holds, ran like a sewer’s slick onto the legs of men too ill to move, too far gone to care.
    Misery was having its day.
    Blackstone could barely lift his head to retch. Whatever food had been in his stomach had long since departed to feed the fishes. Only one man was unaffected, and he went among the others, carrying them to the ship’s side to retch blood and gall, and to hold them to the wind, the spray slapping their faces, helping to keep the next gut-twisting retch at bay. Blackstone, as helpless as