Murder by the Book

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On a warm autumn morning, two armies faced each other across a gently rolling plain. A pretty wood lay behind the English troops, its trees already turning from green to gold. There was a river nearby, too, where a heron stalked, hunting fish in the gurgling shallows. The sun shone, bees hummed and the air was full of birdsong. The scene was peaceful and idyllic.

Suddenly, trumpets brayed to announce a French attack, and the sounds of innocent morning were lost amid a thundering tattoo of charging hoofs and bloodcurdling war cries. Arrows hissed from Welsh and English longbows, quickly followed by the screams of the wounded. Eventually, there was another sound, too, one that startled the French warhorses, and made them buck and rear. It was the staccato bark of the Prince of Wales’s newfangled artillery.

The Sire de Rougé watched from the French right flank, cursing as smoke billowed across the field, making it difficult for him to see what was happening. He had heard of the device known as the ribauldequin, which used exploding powder to discharge several missiles simultaneously, but he had never seen one in action. He had hoped he never would – he considered them an abomination beyond belief, and so did every other right-thinking warrior.

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