She had hold of Denise’s arm, and Denise drew her breath in with a short, sharp sound, for Marpasse’s nails had made blood marks under the skin. But Marpasse never so much as noticed that she had hurt Denise. Her heart was a man’s heart as she watched the Earl’s left wing streaming away in rout with the mailed knights and men-at-arms scudding through it, and spearing the burghers as they ran. Away down the slope of Offham Hill, and across the level towards Hamsey and Barcombe went the tide of slaughter. The flying Londoners trailed a fatal lure for Edward the Prince that morning. The paradox proved true in the main, that by running away they won Earl Simon the battle, for Edward hunted them for a league and a half, wiping out the insults they had thrown at his mother. And while he trampled the Londoners into the grass, and drove many of them into the river, Earl Simon won the battle of Lewes, and taught Prince Edward a lesson in the self-restraint of war. The reckless assurance that possessed the King’s army betrayed itself in an incident that followed the routing of Simon’s left wing. A crowd of women had followed on the heels of Edward’s lords and gentlemen, their lovers of the night before. The women had come out prepared to enjoy the battle as a spectacle, and perhaps to gain their share of the plunder. Some of them were mounted on mules and palfreys, others went on foot. And no sooner had the Londoners been driven off the field than these bona-robas came laughing and shouting up the hill, waving their kerchiefs and making a great to do. Most of them followed in the track of Prince Edward’s victorious banners, though a few spread themselves abroad to plunder the dead. Marpasse and Denise had a distant view of all that happened after the flight of the Londoners down Offham Hill. They saw the massive centres of the two hosts come to grips, and stand like two bulls with locked horns, neither able to budge the other. Then Earl Simon’s genius gleamed out. Reinforcing his right wing with the reserve, he fell upon the left of the royal army under Richard, King of the Romans, crushed and scattered it in rout. Turning, he fell furiously with his flushed troops on the exposed flank of the King’s centre, broke through their ranks, and gave Gloucester’s men their opportunity.