‘And maybe he’s right,’ Arthur confessed to me on the third morning.
‘No, Lord,’ I insisted, and to prove my point I gestured north towards the wide smear of smoke that betrayed where a growing horde of Saxons was gathering beyond the stream.
Arthur shook his head. ‘Aelle’s army is there, right enough,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t mean he’ll attack. They’ll watch us, but if he has any sense, he’ll let us rot here.’
‘We could attack him,’ I suggested.
He shook his head. ‘Leading an army through trees and across a stream is a recipe for disaster. That’s our last resort, Derfel. Just pray he comes today.’
But he did not come, and that was the end of the fifth day since the Saxons had destroyed our supplies. Tomorrow we would eat crumbs and in two days more we would be ravenous. In three we would gaze defeat in its horrid eyes. Arthur displayed no concern, whatever doom the grumblers in the army suggested, and that evening, as the sun drifted down over distant Dumnonia, Arthur beckoned for me to climb and join him on the growing wall of our crudely constructed hall. I clambered up the logs and pulled myself onto the top of the wall. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing east, and far off on the horizon I could see another smear of grey smoke and beneath the smoke, its buildings lit by the slanting sun, was a great town bigger than any I had ever seen before. Bigger then Glevum or Corinium, bigger even than Aquae Sulis. ‘London,’ Arthur said in a tone of wonder. ‘Did you ever think to see it?’
‘Yes, Lord.’
He smiled. ‘My confident Derfel Cadarn.’ He was perched on the wall’s top, holding onto an untrimmed pillar and staring fixedly at the city. Behind us, in the rectangle of the hall’s timbers, the army’s horses were stabled. Those poor horses were already hungry, for there was little grass on the dry heathland and we had brought no forage for them. ‘It’s odd, isn’t it,’ Arthur said, still gazing at London, ‘that by now Lancelot and Cerdic could have done battle and we’ll know nothing about it.’
‘Pray Lancelot won,’ I said.
‘I do, Derfel, I do.’ He kicked his heels against the half built wall. ‘What a chance Aelle has!’ he said suddenly. ‘He could cut down the best warriors of Britain here. By year’s end, Derfel, his men could hold our halls. They could stroll to the Severn Sea. All gone. All Britain! Gone.’ He seemed to find the thought amusing, then he twisted about and looked down at the horses. ‘We could always eat them,’ he said. ‘Their meat will keep us alive for a week or two.’
‘Lord!’ I protested at his pessimism.
‘Don’t worry, Derfel,’ he laughed, ‘I’ve sent our old friend Aelle a message.’
‘You have?’
‘Sagramor’s woman. Malla, her name is. What odd names these Saxons have. You know her?’
‘I’ve seen her, Lord.’ Malla was a tall girl with long muscular legs and shoulders broad as a barrel. Sagramor had taken her captive in one of his raids late in the previous year and she had evidently accepted her fate with a passivity that was reflected in her flat, almost vacant face that was surrounded by a mass of gold-coloured hair. Other than that hair there was no one feature of Malla’s that was particularly attractive, but somehow she was still oddly alluring; a great, strong, slow, robust creature with a calm grace and a demeanour as taciturn as her Numidian lover.
‘She’s pretending to have escaped us,’ Arthur explained, ‘and even now she should be telling Aelle that we plan to stay here through the coming winter. She says Lancelot’s coming to join us with another three hundred spears, and that we need him here because a lot of our men are weak with sickness, despite our pits being filled with good food.’ He smiled. ‘She’s spinning endless nonsense to him, or I hope she is.’
‘Or maybe she’s telling him the truth,’ I suggested gloomily.
‘Maybe.’ He sounded unworried. He watched a line of men bringing skins of water from a spring that bubbled at the foot of the southern slope. ‘But Sagramor trusts her,’ he added, ‘and I long ago learned to trust Sagramor.’
I made the sign against evil. ‘I wouldn’t let my woman go to an enemy camp.’
‘She volunteered,’ Arthur said. ‘She says the Saxons won’t harm her. It seems her father is one of their chiefs.’
‘Pray she loves him less than she loves Sagramor.’
Arthur shrugged. The risk was taken now and discussing it would not lessen its dangers. He changed the subject. ‘I want you in Dumnonia when all this is done.’
‘Willingly, Lord, if you promise me Ceinwyn will be safe,’ I answered and, when he tried to dismiss my fears with a wave of his hand, I persevered. ‘I hear tales of a dog being killed and its bloody pelt draped on a bitch.’
Arthur twisted about, swung his legs over the wall and dropped down into the makeshift stables. He shoved a horse aside and beckoned for me to join him where no man could see us or hear us. He was angry. ‘Tell me again what you hear,’ he commanded me.
‘That a dog was killed,’ I said when I had jumped down, ‘and its bloody pelt was draped on a crippled bitch.’
‘And who did that?’ he demanded.
‘A friend of Lancelot’s,’ I answered, unwilling to name his wife.
He struck a hand against the crude timber wall, startling the closest horses. ‘My wife,’ he said, ‘is a friend to King Lancelot.’ I said nothing. ‘As am I,’ he challenged me, and still I said nothing. ‘He’s a proud man, Derfel, and he lost his father’s kingdom because I failed in my oath. I owe him.’ He said the last three words coldly.
I matched his coldness with my own. ‘I hear,’ I said, ‘that the crippled bitch was given the name Ceinwyn.’
‘Enough!’ He slapped the wall again. ‘Stories! Just stories! No one denies there’s resentment for what you and Ceinwyn did, Derfel. I am not a fool, but I will not hear this nonsense from you! Guinevere attracts these rumours. People resent her. Any woman who is beautiful, who is clever, and who has hard opinions and isn’t afraid to speak them attracts resentment, but are you saying she would work some filthy spell against Ceinwyn? That she’d slaughter a dog and skin it? Do you believe that?’
‘I would like not to,’ I said.
‘Guinevere is my wife.’ He had lowered his voice, but the tone was still bitter. ‘I don’t have other wives, I don’t take slaves to my bed, I am hers and she is mine, Derfel, and I will not hear anything said against her. Nothing!’ He shouted that last word and I wondered if he was remembering the filthy insults hurled by Gorfyddyd at Lugg Vale. Gorfyddyd had claimed to have bedded Guinevere, and claimed further that a whole legion of other men had bedded her as well. I remembered Valerin’s lover’s ring, cut by the cross and decorated with Guinevere’s symbol, but I thrust the memories aside.
‘Lord,’ I said quietly, ‘I never mentioned your wife’s name.’
He stared at me, and for a second I thought he was going to strike me, then he shook his head. ‘She can be difficult, Derfel. There are times when I wish she was not so ready to show scorn, but I cannot imagine living without her advice.’ He paused and gave me a rueful smile. ‘I cannot imagine living without her. She has killed no dogs, Derfel, she has killed no dogs. Trust me. That Goddess of hers, Isis, doesn’t demand sacrifices, at least not of living things. Of gold, yes.’ He grinned, his good mood suddenly restored. ‘Isis swallows gold.’
‘I believe you, Lord,’ I said, ‘but that doesn’t make Ceinwyn safe. Dinas and Lavaine have threatened her.’
He shook his head. ‘You hurt Lancelot, Derfel. I don’t blame you, for I know what drove you, but can you blame him for resenting you? And Dinas and Lavaine serve Lancelot, and it’s only right that men should share their master’s grudges.’ He paused. ‘When this war is done, Derfel,’ he went on, ‘we shall make a reconciliation. All of us! When I make my band of warriors into brothers, we shall make peace between us all. You, Lancelot and everyone. And until that happens, Derfel, I swear Ceinwyn’s protection. On my life if you insist. You can impose the oath, Derfel. You can
demand whatever price you want, my life, my son’s life even, because I need you. Dumnonia needs you. Culhwch is a good man, but he can’t manage Mordred.’
‘Can I?’ I asked.
‘Mordred is wilful,’ Arthur ignored my question, ‘but what do we expect? He’s Uther’s grandson, he has the blood of Kings and we don’t want him to be a milksop, but he does need discipline. He needs guidance. Culhwch thinks it’s enough to hit him, but that just makes him more stubborn. I want you and Ceinwyn to raise him.’
I shuddered. ‘You make coming home ever more attractive, Lord.’
He scowled at my levity. ‘Never forget, Derfel, that our oath is to give Mordred his throne. That is why I came back to Britain. That is my first duty in Britain, and all who are sworn to me are sworn to that oath. No one said it would be easy, but it will be done. Nine years from now we shall acclaim Mordred on Caer Cadarn. On that day, Derfel, we are all released from the oath and I pray to every God who will listen to me that on that day I will be able to hang up Excalibur and never fight again. But till that good day comes, whatever the difficulties, we shall cleave to our oath. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes, Lord,’ I said humbly.
‘Good.’ Arthur pushed a horse aside. ‘Aelle will come tomorrow,’ he said confidently as he walked away, ‘so sleep well.’
The sun sank over Dumnonia, drowning it in red fire. To the north our enemy chanted war songs, and about our campfires we sang of home. Our sentinels gazed into the darkness, the horses whinnied, Merlin’s dogs howled and some of us slept.
At dawn we saw that Merlin’s three pillars had been thrown down during the night. A Saxon wizard, his hair dunged into spikes and his naked body barely hidden by the tattered scraps of wolfskin hanging from a band at his neck, whirled in a dance where the pillars had stood. The sight of that wizard convinced Arthur that Aelle was planning his assault.
We deliberately made no show of readiness. Our sentinels stood guard; other spearmen just lazed on the forward slope as if they expected another uneventful day, but behind them, in the shadows of the shelters and under the remains of the whitebeam and yew, and inside the walls of the half-built hall, the mass of our men made ready.
We tightened shield straps, honed swords and blades that were already ground to a wicked edge, then we hammered spearheads tight onto their staffs. We touched our amulets, we embraced each other, we ate what little bread we had left and prayed to whatever Gods we believed would help us this day. Merlin, Iorweth and Nimue wandered among the shelters touching blades and distributing sprigs of dried vervain to offer us protection.
I donned my battle gear. I had heavy knee-length boots with strips of iron sewn to protect my calves from the spear stroke that comes under the shield’s edge. I wore the woollen shirt made from Ceinwyn’s crudely spun wool and over it a leather coat on which I had pinned Ceinwyn’s little golden brooch that had been my protective talisman all these long years. Over the leather I hauled a coat of chain mail, a luxury I had taken from a dead Powysian chief at Lugg Vale. It was an ancient coat of Roman make and had been forged with a skill that no man now possesses, and I often wondered what other spearmen had worn that knee-length coat of linked iron rings. The Powysian warrior had died in it, cut down through the skull by Hywelbane, but I suspected at least one other of the coat’s wearers had been killed wearing the mail for its rings had a deep rent over the left breast. The shattered mail had been crudely repaired with links of iron chain.
I wore warrior rings on my left hand, for in battle they served to protect the fingers, but I put none on my right for the iron rings made gripping a sword or spear more difficult. I strapped leather greaves on my forearms. My helmet was of iron, a simple bowl shape lined with cloth-padded leather, but at the back of it there was a thick flap of hog leather to protect my neck, and earlier in the spring I had paid a smith at Caer Sws to rivet two cheek pieces onto its flanks. The helmet was surmounted by an iron knob from which hung a wolf-tail taken in the deep woods of Benoic. I belted Hywelbane at my waist, pushed my left hand through the leather loops of my shield and hefted my war spear. The spear was taller than a man, its shaft thick as Ceinwyn’s wrist, and at its head was a long, heavy, leaf-shaped blade. The blade was razor sharp, and the steel’s butt ends were rounded smooth so that the blade could not be trapped in an enemy’s belly or armour. I wore no cloak for the day was too hot.
Cavan, dressed in his armour, came to me and knelt. ‘If I fight well, Lord,’ he asked, ‘can I paint a fifth point on my shield?’
‘I expect men to fight well,’ I said, ‘so why should I reward them for doing what is expected of them?’
‘Then if I bring you a trophy, Lord?’ he suggested. ‘A chieftain’s axe? Gold?’
‘Bring me a Saxon chief, Cavan,’ I said, ‘and you can paint a hundred points on your star.’
‘Five will suffice, Lord,’ he said.
The morning passed slowly. Those of us in metal armour sweated heavily in the heat. From beyond the northern stream, where the Saxons were shrouded by trees, it must have looked as if our encampment was asleep, or else peopled by sick, unmov-ing men, but that illusion did not serve to bring the Saxons through the trees. The sun climbed higher. Our scouts, the lightly armed horsemen who rode with only a sheaf of throwing spears as weapons, trotted out of the camp. They would have no place in a battle between shield-walls and so they took their nervous horses south towards the Thames. They could come back quickly enough, though if disaster struck they were under orders to ride westwards and take a warning of our defeat to distant Dumnonia. Arthur’s own horsemen donned their heavy armour of leather and iron, and then, with straps that they draped about their horses’ withers, they hung the clumsy leather shields that protected their horses’ breasts.
Arthur, hidden with his horsemen inside the half-built hall, was wearing his famous scale armour that was a Roman suit made of thousands of small iron plates sewn onto a leather jerkin so that the scales overlapped like fish scales. There were silver plates among the iron so that the suit seemed to shimmer as he moved. He wore a white cloak and Excalibur, in its magical cross-hatched scabbard that protected its wearer from harm, hung at his left hip, while his servant Hygwydd held his long spear, his silver-grey helmet with its plume of goose feathers and his round shield with its mirror-like coating of silver. In peace Arthur liked to dress modestly, but in war he was flamboyant. He liked to think his reputation was made by honest government, but the dazzling armour and polished shield betrayed that he knew the real source of his fame.
Culhwch had once ridden with Arthur’s heavy horsemen, but now, like me, he led a band of spearmen and at midday he sought me out and dropped beside me in the small shade of my turf shelter. He wore an iron breastplate, a leather jerkin and had greaves of Roman bronze on his bare calves. ‘Bastard isn’t coming,’ he grumbled.
‘Tomorrow, maybe?’ I suggested.
He sniffed disgustedly, then offered me an earnest look. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Derfel, but I’ll ask you just the same, though before you answer I want you to consider something. Who was it who fought beside you in Benoic? Who stood shield to shield with you at Ynys Trebes? Who shared his ale with you and even let you seduce that fisher-girl? Who held your hand at Lugg Vale? It was I. Remember that when you answer me. So what food have you got hidden?’
I smiled. ‘None.’
‘You’re a big Saxon bag of useless guts,’ he said, ‘that’s what you are.’ He looked at Galahad who was resting with my men. ‘Have you got food, Lord Prince?’ he asked.
‘I gave my last crust to Tristan,’ Galahad answered.
‘A Christian act, I suppose?’ Culhwch asked scornfully.
‘I should like to think so,’ Galahad said.
‘No wonder I’m a pagan,’ Culhwch said. ‘I need food. Can’t kill Saxons on an empty belly.’ He scowled about my men, but no one offered him anything, for they had nothing to offer. ‘So you’re going to take that bastard Mordred off
my hands?’ he asked me when he had abandoned hope of a morsel.
‘That’s what Arthur wants.’
‘It’s what I want,’ he said vigorously. ‘If I had food here, Derfel, I’d give you every last bite in return for that favour. You’re welcome to the snivelling little bastard. Let him make your life a misery instead of mine, but I warn you, you’ll wear your belt out on his rotten skin.’
‘It might not be wise,’ I said cautiously, ‘to whip my future King.’
‘It might not be wise, but it’s pleasurable. Ugly little toad.’ He twisted to look past the shelter. ‘What’s the matter with these Saxons? Don’t they want a battle?’
His answer came almost immediately. Suddenly a horn sounded its deep, mournful call, then we heard the thump of one of the big drums that the Saxons carried to war and we all stirred in time to see Aelle’s army come from the trees beyond the stream. One moment it was an empty landscape of leaves and spring sunshine, and then the enemy was there.
There were hundreds of them. Hundreds of fur-clad, iron-bound men with axes, dogs, spears and shields. Their banners were bull skulls lofted on poles and hung with rags, while their vanguard was a troop of wizards with dung-spiked hair who pranced ahead of the shield-wall and hurled their curses at us.
Merlin and the other Druids went down the slope to meet the wizards. They did not walk, but, like all Druids before battle, they hopped on one leg and kept their balance with their staffs while holding their free hands in the air. They stopped a hundred paces from the nearest wizards and returned their curses while the army’s Christian priests stood at the top of the slope and spread their hands and gazed into the sky as they called for their God’s aid.
The rest of us were scrambling into line. Agricola was on the left with his Roman-uniformed troops, the rest of us made up the centre, and Arthur’s horsemen who, for the moment, remained hidden in the crude hall would eventually form our right wing. Arthur pulled on his helmet, struggled onto Llam-rei’s back, draped his white cloak over the horse’s rump, then took his heavy spear and shining shield from Hygwydd.