“Within a week, there will be fifteen thousand men on their way down this valley,” he replied. “The Black Prince is far off towards the west. He is as ignorant of this preparation as a child.”
“But he’ll learn of it?” I said.
My captor shook his head.
“He’ll be struck with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. We’re going to cut him off at Poitiers—when he starts back to his headquarters at Bordeaux.” He snapped his fingers in contempt. “He has seven thousand men who are half starved, weak from long marches and disease. What can they do against these?”
He pointed with pride at the men marching past.
“When the Black Prince is a prisoner of the King of France,” he went on, scowling in my face with a wicked grin, “we shall move against Normandy——”
“The Norman Barons can defeat any army the French can send against them!” I cried. “They have proved that more than once.”
He clenched his fingers over my arm till the pain of it shot up through my shoulder.
“No, they won’t,” he said, gritting his teeth. “They won’t have time to unite.”
“I see it all now,” I cried again. “That is why De Marsac is so anxious. He thinks he has a claim on our estates already. He can’t wait——”