Sagramor, Cuneglas and Agricola led the footmen. For the moment, and only until Arthur’s horsemen appeared, my men had the right-hand end of the line and I saw we were likely to be outflanked as the Saxon line was much wider than ours. They outnumbered us. The bards will tell you there were thousands of the vermin at that battle, but I suspect Aelle had no more than six hundred men. The Saxon King, of course, possessed far more spearmen than those we saw in front of us, though he, like us, had been forced to leave strong garrisons in his border fortresses, but even six hundred spearmen was a large army. And there were just as many followers behind the shield-wall; mostly women and children who would take no part in the battle but who doubtless hoped to pick our corpses clean when the fighting was done.
Our Druids laboriously hopped back up the slope. Sweat poured down Merlin’s face into the strapped plaits of his long beard. ‘No magic,’ he told us, ‘their wizards don’t know real magic. You’re safe.’ He pushed between our shields, going to seek Nimue. The Saxons marched slowly towards us. Their wizards spat and screamed, men shouted at their followers to keep the line straight while others shouted insults at us.
Our war horns had begun to blare their challenge and our men now began to sing. At our end of the shield-wall we were singing the great Battle Song of Beli Mawr that is a triumphant howl of slaughter that puts fire into a man’s belly. Two of my men were dancing in front of the shield-wall, stepping and leaping over their swords and spears that were laid crosswise on the ground. I called them back into the wall because I thought the Saxons would keep marching straight up the shallow hill and thus precipitate a quick bloody clash, but instead they stopped a hundred paces away from us and realigned their shields to make the continuous wall of leather-strengthened timber. They fell silent as their wizards pissed towards us. Their huge dogs barked and jerked at their leashes, the war drums pounded on, and every now and then a horn would make its sad wail, but otherwise the Saxons remained silent except to beat their spear butts against their shields in time to the drums’ heavy beat.
‘First Saxons I’ve seen.’ Tristan had come to my side and was staring at the Saxon army with its thick fur armour, double-bladed axes, dogs and spears.
‘They die easily enough,’ I told him.
‘I don’t like the axes,’ he confessed, touching the iron-sheathed rim of his shield for luck.
‘They’re clumsy things,’ I tried to reassure him. ‘One swing and they’re useless. Catch it plumb on your shield and thrust low with your sword. It always works.’ Or almost always.
The Saxon drums suddenly ceased, the enemy line parted in its centre and Aelle himself appeared. He stood and stared at us for a few seconds, spat, then ostentatiously threw down his spear and shield to show that he wanted to talk. He strode towards us, a huge, tall, dark-haired man in a thick black bearskin robe. Two wizards accompanied him and a thin, balding man whom I presumed was his interpreter.
Cuneglas, Meurig, Agricola, Merlin and Sagramor went to meet him. Arthur had decided to stay with his horsemen and, because Cuneglas was the only King on our side of the field, it was right that Cuneglas should speak for us, but he invited the others to accompany him and beckoned me forward as his interpreter. It was thus that I met Aelle for the second time. He was a tall, broad-chested man with a flat, hard face and dark eyes. His beard was full and black, his cheeks were scarred, his nose broken and there were two fingers missing from his right hand. He was dressed in a suit of mail and boots of leather, and he wore an iron helmet on which two bull’s horns had been mounted. There was British gold at his throat and on his wrists. The bearskin robe that covered his armour must have been swelter-ingly uncomfortable on that hot day, but such a rich pelt could stop a sword blow as well as any iron armour. He glared at me. ‘I remember you, worm,’ he said. ‘A Saxon turncoat.’
I bowed my head briefly. ‘Greetings, Lord King.’
He spat. ‘You think, because you are polite, that your death will be easy?’
‘My death has nothing to do with you, Lord King,’ I said. ‘But I expect to tell my grandchildren of yours.’
He laughed, then cast a mocking glance at the five leaders. ‘Five of you! And only one of me! And where’s Arthur? Voiding his bowels in terror?’
I named our leaders to Aelle, then Cuneglas took up the dialogue that I translated for him. He began, as was customary, by demanding Aelle’s immediate surrender. We would be merciful, Cuneglas said. We would demand Aelle’s life and all his treasury and all his weapons and all his women and all his slaves, but his spearmen could go free, minus their right hands.
Aelle, as was customary, sneered at the demand, revealing a mouth of rotting, discoloured teeth. ‘Does Arthur think,’ he demanded, ‘that because he stays hidden we do not know he is here with his horses? Tell him, worm, that I shall pillow my head on his corpse this night. Tell him his wife will be my whore, and that when I’ve exhausted her she shall be the pleasure of my slaves. And tell that moustached fool,’ he gestured towards Cuneglas, ‘that by nightfall this place will be known as the Grave of Britons. Tell him,’ he went on, ‘that I shall snip off his whiskers and make them a plaything for my daughter’s cats. Tell him I shall carve a drinking cup from his skull and feed his belly to my dogs. And tell that demon,’ he jerked his beard at Sagramor, ‘that today his black soul will go to the terrors of Thor and that it will squirm in the circle of serpents for ever. And as for him,’ he looked at Agricola, ‘I have long wanted his death and the memory of it will amuse me in the long nights to come. And tell that limpid thing,’ he spat towards Meurig, ‘that I shall slice off his balls and make him into my cup-bearer. Tell them all that, worm.’
‘He says no,’ I told Cuneglas.
‘Surely he said more than that?’ Meurig, who was only present because of his rank, insisted pedantically.
‘You don’t want to know,’ Sagramor said tiredly.
‘All knowledge is relevant,’ Meurig protested.
‘What are they saying, worm?’ Aelle demanded of me, ignoring his own interpreter.
‘They are arguing which of them should have the pleasure of killing you, Lord King,’ I said.
Aelle spat. ‘Tell Merlin,’ the Saxon King glanced at the Druid, ‘that I offered him no insult.’
‘He knows already, Lord King,’ I said, ‘for he speaks your language.’ The Saxons feared Merlin, and even now did not want to antagonize him. The two Saxon wizards were hissing curses at him, but that was their job and Merlin took no offence. Nor did he appear to take any interest in the conference, but just stared loftily into the distance, though he did bestow a smile on Aelle after the King’s compliment.
Aelle stared at me for a few heartbeats. Finally he asked me, ‘What is your tribe?’
‘Dumnonia, Lord King.’
‘Before that, fool! Your birth!’
‘Your people, Lord,’ I said. ‘Aelle’s folk.’
‘Your father?’ he demanded.
‘I never knew him, Lord. My mother was captured by Uther when I was in her belly.’
‘And her name?’
I had to think for a second or two. ‘Erce, Lord King.’ I remembered her name at last.
Aelle smiled at the name. ‘A good Saxon name! Erce, the Goddess of the earth and mother of us all. How is your Erce?’
‘I have not seen her, Lord, since I was a child, but I am told she lives.’
He stared broodingly at me. Meurig was squeaking impatiently as he demanded to know what was being said, but he quietened when everyone else ignored him. ‘It is not good,’ Aelle said at last, ‘for a man to ignore his mother. What is your name?’
‘Derfel, Lord King.’
He spat on my mail coat. ‘Then shame on you, Derfel, for ignoring your mother. Would you fight for us today? For your mother’s folk?’
I smiled. ‘No, Lord King, but you do me honour.’
‘May your death be easy, Derfel. But tell this filth,’ he jerked his head at the four armed leaders, ‘that
I come to eat their hearts.’ He spat a last time, turned and strode back towards his men.
‘So what did he say?’ Meurig demanded.
‘He spoke to me, Lord Prince,’ I said, ‘of my mother. And he reminded me of my sins.’ God help me, but on that day I liked Aelle.
We won the battle.
Igraine will want me to say more. She wants great heroics, and they were there, but there were also cowards present, and other men who fouled their breeches in their terror yet still kept to the shield-wall. There were men who killed no one, but just defended desperately, and there were men who gave the poets new challenges to find words to express their deeds. It was, in short, a battle. Friends died, Cavan was one, friends were wounded, Culhwch was such, and other friends lived untouched, like Galahad, Tristan and Arthur. I took an axe blow to my left shoulder, and though my mail coat took most of the blade’s force, the wound still took weeks to heal and to this day there is a ragged red scar that aches in cold weather.
What was important was not the battle, but what happened after; but first, because my dear Queen Igraine will insist on my writing of the heroics of her husband’s grandfather, King Cuneglas, I shall tell the tale briefly.
The Saxons attacked us. It took Aelle over an hour to persuade his men to assault our shield-wall and for all that time the dung-spiked wizards screamed at us, the drums beat and skins of ale were passed around the Saxon ranks. Many of our men were drinking mead, for though we might have exhausted our food, no British army ever seemed to run out of mead. At least half the men in that battle were fuddled by drink, but so men were at every battle for little else serves to give warriors the nerve to attempt that most terrifying of manoeuvres, the straightforward assault on a waiting shield-wall. I stayed sober because I always did, but the temptation to drink was strong. Some Saxons tried to provoke us into an ill-timed charge by coming close to our line and flaunting themselves without shields or helmets, but all they received for their trouble were some ill-aimed spears. A few spears were hurled back at us, but most thudded harmlessly into our shields. Two naked men, turned blood-mad by drink or magic, attacked us, and Culhwch cut down the first and Tristan the second. We cheered both victories. The Saxons, their tongues loosened by ale, shouted insults back.
Aelle’s attack, when it came, went horribly wrong. The Saxons were relying on their war dogs to break our line, but Merlin and Nimue were ready with their own dogs, only ours were not dogs, but bitches, and enough of them were on heat to drive the Saxon beasts wild. Instead of attacking us the big war dogs headed straight for the bitches and there was a flurry of growls, fights, barks and howls, and suddenly there were fornicating dogs everywhere, with other dogs fighting to dislodge the luckier ones, but not one dog bit a Briton and the Saxons, who had been ready to launch their killing charge, were thrown off balance by the failure of their dogs. They hesitated and Aelle, fearing we would charge, roared them forward and so they came at us. But they came raggedly instead of in a disciplined line.
Coupling dogs howled as they were trampled underfoot, then the shields clashed with that terrible dull sound that echoes down the long years. It is the sound of battle, the sound of war-horns, men shouting, and then the splintering dull crash of shield on shield, and after the crash the screams began as spear-blades found the gaps between the shields and axes came hurtling down, but it was the Saxons who suffered most that day. The dogs between the shield-walls had broken their careful alignment and wherever that had happened to their advancing shield-wall our spearmen found gaps and pushed into them, while the ranks behind funnelled into the gaps to make shield-armoured wedges that drove ever deeper into the Saxon mass. Cuneglas led one of those wedges and very nearly reached Aelle himself. I did not see Cuneglas in the fight, though the bards sang of his part afterwards and he modestly assured me they did not exaggerate much.
I was wounded early. My shield deflected the axe blow and took most of its force, but the blade still struck my shoulder and numbed my left arm, though the wound did not stop my spear from slicing the throat of the axeman. Then, when the press of men was too great for the spear to be of more use, I drew Hywelbane and stabbed and hacked her blade into the grunting, swaying, shoving mass of men. It became a pushing match, but so do all battles until one side breaks. Just a sweaty, hot, filthy pushing match.
This one was made more difficult because the Saxon line, that was everywhere about five men deep, outflanked our shield-wall. To guard against envelopment we had bent our line back at its ends to present two smaller shield-walls to the attackers, and for a time those two Saxon flanks hesitated, perhaps hoping that the men in the centre would break through us first. Then a Saxon chieftain came to my end of the line and shamed his men into an assault. He ran forward on his own, swept aside two spears with his shield, and hurled himself at the centre of our flank’s short line. Cavan died there, pierced by a lunge of the Saxon chief’s sword, and the sight of that brave man single-handedly opening up our flank wall brought his men roaring forward in a wild, elated rush.
It was then that Arthur charged out of the unfinished hall. I did not see the charge, but I heard it. The bards say his horses’ hooves shook the world, and indeed the ground did seem to quiver, though perhaps that was only the noise of those great beasts that were shod with flat iron plates strapped tight to their hooves. The big horses hit the exposed end of the Saxon line and the battle really ended with that terrible impact. Aelle had supposed that his men would break us with dogs, and that his rearward ranks would hold off our horsemen with their shields and spears, for he knew well enough that no horse would ever charge home into a well-defended spear-wall and I did not doubt that he had heard how Gorfyddyd’s spearmen had thus kept Arthur at bay in Lugg Vale. But the exposed Saxon flank had become disordered as it charged and Arthur timed his intervention perfectly. He did not wait for his horsemen to form up, he just spurred out of the shadows, shouted at his men to follow and drove Llamrei hard into the open end of the Saxon ranks.
I was spitting at a bearded toothless Saxon who was cursing over the rim of our two shields when Arthur struck. His white cloak streamed behind, his white plumes soared above, and his bright shield threw down the Saxon chief’s banner that was a blood-painted bull’s skull as his spear lanced forward. He abandoned the spear in a Saxon’s belly and ripped Excalibur free, carving it right and left as he drove deep into the enemy’s ranks. Agravain came next, his horse scattering terrified Saxons, then Lanval and the others crashed into the breaking enemy line with swords and spears.
Aelle’s men broke like eggs under a hammer. They just ran. I doubt that battle took more than ten minutes from the dogs beginning it to the horses ending it, though it took an hour or more for our horsemen to exhaust their slaughter. Our light horsemen raced screaming across the heath as they carried their spears towards the fleeing enemy and Arthur’s heavier horses drove among the scattered men, killing and killing, while the spearmen ran after, eager for every scrap of plunder.
The Saxons ran like deer. They threw away cloaks, armour and weapons in their eagerness to escape. Aelle tried to check them for a moment, then saw the task was hopeless and so cast off his bearskin cloak and ran with his men. He escaped into the trees just a bare moment before our light horsemen plunged after him.
I stayed among the wounded and the dead. Injured dogs howled in pain. Culhwch was staggering with a bleeding thigh, but he would live and so I ignored him and crouched by Cavan. I had never seen him weep before, but his pain was terrible for the Saxon chief’s sword had gone right through his belly. I held his hand, wiped his tears and told him that he had killed his enemy with his counter-thrust. Whether that was true I did not know nor care, I only wanted Cavan to believe it and so I promised him he would cross the bridge of swords with a fifth point on his shield. ‘You will be the first of us to reach the Otherworld,’ I told him, ‘so you will make a place for us.’
‘I will, Lord.’
‘And we shall come to you.’
He gritted his teeth and arched his back, trying to suppress a scream, and I put my right hand round his neck and held my cheek against his. I was weeping. ‘Tell them in the Otherworld,’ I said in his ear, ‘that Derfel Cadarn salutes you as a brave man.’
‘The Cauldron,’ he said. ‘I should have…’
‘No,’ I interrupted him, ‘no.’ And then, with a mewing sound, he died.
I sat beside his body, rocking back and forth because of the pain in my shoulder and the grief in my soul. Tears ran down my cheeks. Issa stood beside me, not knowing what to say, so saying nothing. ‘He always wanted to go home to die,’ I said, ‘to Ireland.’ And after this battle, I thought, he could have done that with so much honour and wealth.
‘Lord,’ Issa said to me.
I thought he was trying to comfort me, but I did not want comfort. The death of a brave man deserves tears and so I ignored Issa and held Cavan’s corpse instead while his soul began its last journey to the bridge of swords that lies beyond Cruachan’s Cave.
‘Lord!’ Issa said again, and something in his voice made me look up.
I saw he was pointing east towards London, but when I turned in that direction I could see nothing because the tears were blurring my view. I cuffed them angrily away.
And then I saw that another army had come to the field. Another fur-swathed army beneath banners of skulls and bullhorns. Another army with dogs and axes. Another Saxon horde.
For Cerdic had come.
I REALIZED LATER THAT all the ruses we had devised to make Aelle attack us and all that good food we had burned to entice his assault had been so much wasted effort, for the Bretwalda must have known that Cerdic was coming and that he was not coming to attack us, but to attack his fellow Saxon. Cerdic, indeed, was proposing to join us, and Aelle had decided that his best chance of surviving the combined armies was to beat Arthur first and deal with Cerdic afterwards.
Aelle lost that gamble. Arthur’s horsemen broke him and Cerdic arrived too late to join the fight, though surely, for a few moments at least, the treacherous Cerdic must have been tempted to attack Arthur. One swift attack would have broken us and a week’s campaigning would certainly have finished off Aelle’s shattered army, and Cerdic would then have been the ruler of all southern Britain. Cerdic must have been tempted, but he hesitated. He had fewer than three hundred men, plenty enough to have overwhelmed what Britons remained on the heath’s low summit, but Arthur’s silver horn sounded again and again, and the horn-call summoned enough of the heavily armoured cavalry from the trees to make a brave show on Cerdic’s northern flank. Cerdic had never faced those big horses in battle and the sight of them gave him pause long enough for Sagramor, Agri-cola and Cuneglas to assemble a shield-wall on the heath’s summit. It was a perilously small wall, for most of our men were still too busy pursuing Aelle’s warriors or sacking his encampment in search of food.