The King's Name
“I think the folk of Dun Morr who are mounted could look to the defense of the road and the carts, with the Derwen levies,” Urdo said. Emer looked as if she was about to object. “It’s essential to have some strong defense there, and you’re used to each other,” he went on. She subsided. “And that way it’ll be all infantry in the center.”
“And we Isarnagans will be on the left, with the slope down to the boggy ground in front of us,” Atha said. She looked most alarming, being normally dressed, but with her hair limed and her face and arms already painted. She had not brought her captain this morning.
“I’m sure you can hold the left,” Urdo said, and smiled encouragingly. “The alae will begin on the right, mobile, and ready to go where they’re needed. Just give them room if they need it. If they don’t shift them with the first charge, we’ll rally, and I’ll try to hold the second one back until there’s a really good moment to shift the other side.”
I stared down at the drawing. I had slept badly. I had learned late how to wield an ala as one weapon, even though an ala trains together and uses the same weapons and knows the signals and commands as second nature. These troops didn’t even all speak the same language, but Urdo could see them all as one weapon to strike the blow he wanted struck.
“What about the farm?” I asked.
“The farmers have left it,” Raul said.
I knew it had come to that, and I could imagine it only too well; the little family fleeing, clutching their children and livestock. I hoped they had somewhere to go. “Not that,” I said, putting the thought of the breaking of Urdo’s Peace as far out of my mind as I could. “I meant to say that it’s here, down the slope from where we said we would put the wagons. Won’t it be in our way when we charge?”
“Only if we go straight down,” Urdo said. “We can go around, down the center.”
“And from where will you direct the battle?” Atha asked.
“We will make a command post here,” Urdo said, pointing to a spot uphill from the main Jarnish line. “I will be there with scouts and signalers. I would rather be mobile with my ala, but in a battle like this, I need to be able to see it all.”
“That is wise,” Darien said.
“Take some strong defenders in case they get through,” Alfwin said, very firmly.
“I will have bodyguards there, of course,” Urdo said. “But right up here is well out of anyone’s path.”
“I will send you some more bodyguards,” Ohtar growled, and I saw the other infantry commanders raising their chins in agreement.
It seemed to take all day moving everyone up to Agned and getting in position. It was raining harder, and the grass was wet and slippery. The other side was doing the same, shifting about, getting ready for noon. They also took up a position about three quarters of the way up the slope opposite us. I wondered why it always had to be charging uphill. There was no sign of Angas. The troops I could see clearly all seemed to be Cinon and Flavien’s militia. There were very few banners flying on the other side, in marked contrast to every other time I had seen them. I wondered about it idly. I could see Ayl’s red-ribboned standard way over to the other side, on the bridge, but that was the only clear signal of identity, though there were clearly Jarnish troops behind the militia in several places. Directly in front of us I could see some Narlahenan horses, and some war machines. I squinted at them through the rain. One of them looked like the way Antonina described a javelin-hurler. Others were clearly stone-throwers. They looked as if they belonged on a city wall, not on a battlefield.
“Are we going to have to charge at those?” Govien asked, seeing me looking.
“If we do, we’ll be going too fast for them to hit us before we hit them,” I said, as reassuringly as I could.
Raul went down in the rain to confer with Father Cinwil, and came back. I noticed that Father Cinwil was riding one of the old greathorses we kept at Magor for teaching recruits to ride, a black mare blotched with white unkindly known as “Old Cloak,” because she fitted anyone but not very well. I wondered who had said he could take her. I almost rode over to ask Nodol if he knew, before I realized what a ridiculous thing it was to be worrying about.
I made sure my ala ate the food they had brought with them, and dealt with the last-minute rash of problems. I sang the elder charm over three armigers who thought they might be coming down with fever. Then, at last, we got the signal to mount, and got into position, in front of the wagons.
Just before noon, Raul and Father Cinwil rode down, exchanged a few words, and rode back up toward their own sides. As Raul reached us, he turned his horse to face the enemy. He waited for Father Cinwil to do the same on his side, Old Cloak taking her time as always. Then, when they were facing each other, they each threw down the herald’s branch they carried, and that was the signal that the truce was over and the battle had begun.
Almost at once the signal came for us to charge. In that one moment there seemed to be freedom and the chance to make a difference. I could almost forget that I needed to direct the whole ala and see it all as an extension of my spear. They were waiting for us, ready and defiant, and we were charging uphill, and against a hail of thrown spears and stones. All the same, we made an impact on them. However good infantry are, they can’t withstand a five-ala charge without noticing it. The front row went down under the impact, but the men behind had long spears and did not break. As soon as the charge had stalled I signaled for the rally banner to be flown, and heard from the trumpets that the other alae were doing the same. Soon we were back up the ridge again. To my surprise I had been right; most of us had gone too fast for the war machines. We had only lost two riders in Galba’s Ala, with half a dozen more wounded.
Meanwhile Ohtar and Alfwin and the rest of the central infantry block had advanced under the cover of our charge, and were attacking to the left and center. They seemed to be doing well at first, but then to my horror I saw fire erupting into their lines. There were more war machines down there. Each warrior who was touched by the evil clinging fire burned up, as Geiran and Morwen had burned at Caer Lind, burning everyone they touched. I had not known machines could work sorcery. I had to look away. I took a drink from my water bottle and caught ap Madog’s eye. “Is there a word for more horrible than horrible?” he asked. I shook my head, sickened.
I looked toward the command point, hoping to be ordered to charge, even though the turmoil below still looked terrible. It was so hard to wait for the right moment. I looked back to it and saw that some of our Segantians had broken and were running uphill. Ayl’s troops on the bridge had attacked them unexpectedly from the side, which had been too much for them. Alfwin’s men were fighting steadily and evenly, but clearly retreating, and so were Ohtar’s. Some of Flavien’s men, or so I assumed, for they were fighting under his snake banner, rushed forward in pursuit of the scattering Segantians. Then, at last, I saw Angas, leading his ala down through the massed infantry. They were going very slowly; there was no chance for them to build up the momentum for a charge. They were moving through Jarnish infantry, which I thought at first must be Ayl’s or Arling’s, but then they raised their banner at last and I saw the silver swan of Cennet. Guthrum had come, but not to us. After almost forty years of keeping quiet unless attacked, Guthrum had finally moved. Clearly his family ties to Angas had won out above those to Urdo. Maybe, like Ayl’s, his own men had been so eager to fight that he could not keep them home. I ground my teeth and wondered what Rowanna would say to her sister when next they met.
Our troops were still retreating, at different speeds. The Bereichers had hardly moved at all, but the Segantians and the Isarnagans of Dun Morr were well back. Flavien’s militia were pursuing them wildly, but the Jarnish infantry were either engaging with Ohtar and Alfwin or advancing slowly and steadily. Right in the center a group of them had come right past the retreating and disorganized militia. I looked desperately toward Urdo and the command post. It couldn’t be long before Angas was through, even with
all those troops in his way, and once they had an ala out there things would be desperate. If it had been my choice I would have been charging already. The ala were ready to move on a twitch.
After what seemed an age the command came. The trumpets blew the five notes of “I’m coming to get you” and we charged right into them. The relief of doing it was tremendous, even with the wind blowing the rain right into our faces. This time the timing was exactly right. We hit them at the right speed and they broke. Even Angas’s ala retreated before us. I led my ala straight toward them, and they skulked away behind the infantry.
I don’t know how many of them we killed in that charge. It was almost like Foreth again. I thought for a moment that we were going to knock them right back. We pushed them down into the valley bottom. Then Atha and her Isarnagans came running down the hill to help. They were better suited to fighting on the broken ground than we were. Masarn and Cadraith stayed down to support them while Luth and ap Erbin and I rallied and prepared to go back to make sure the Jarmsmen we had seen before had not got any further up our hill.
Then came a great blast of trumpets from some ships that had been slipping unnoticed up the river, brought by the same wind that had brought the rain. They were flying the dampened banner of Munew, and they disembarked in good order, not far from us, below the bridge. Thurrig was there, and Custennin, and his young son Gorai, and a fair part of the levy of Munew, and Thurrig’s fighting sailors. I sat and gaped at them for a moment, as the battle slackened around me. I signaled that we should wait for a little while. Nobody moved toward them. I did not have the least idea whose side they were on. From the look of things, neither did anyone else. Then I saw ap Erbin call up his signalers and deliberately raise their ala banner high. Gorai saw it and pointed excitedly, saying something to his father. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen; he looked far too young to be on a battlefield. I couldn’t imagine what Custennin was thinking. The battle was still going on, but with the ala around me I could safely pay attention to the disembarking troops.
Thus I saw Marchel ride confidently toward her father. She was at the head of a pennon of Narlahenan horse. Although I was behind her and away across the battlefield I saw by the casual arrogance of the way she held her head that she knew these troops were on her side. I drew breath to give the signals that would gather the ala to ride back and be ready to charge again. But Thurrig said something to a sailor by him. I saw the woman look at Custennin as if for confirmation. Young Gorai waved his arms enthusiastically. Then the red-and-green banner of the High Kingdom rose over the ship, and at the same moment Thurrig drew his ax with one smooth movement and stood waiting.
I didn’t see what happened when they met, because a pair of maniac Jarnish monks threw a bucket of water over me at that moment, while shouting praise to the White God. I don’t know what they expected to happen. They and their friends had pushed and fought their way through to me, but the two with the water didn’t even have any weapons. Cadarn killed one of them and I killed the other. The rest were dead already. I wasn’t much wetter than I had been already, from the rain, but I was much angrier. When I looked toward the ships again everything was a confused melee.
I decided that it had wasted enough of my time. Luth and ap Erbin and I exchanged signals and headed back up the hill.
There was a disruption then as a great flaming ball fell in the midst of ap Erbin’s ala. Ap Erbin and his horse were caught right in the heart of it. I don’t know if the horse went mad or if ap Erbin did it on purpose. Unlike everyone else there, he and I had seen the fire before. I have always liked to think he had time to decide what to do. They ran clear of the ala without touching anyone else, making for Guthrum’s line, near the flame machine. The enemy faltered and fell back before him, as well they might. His bones and the horse’s bones shone through the fire, and his sword flashed blue as he brought it down one last time before his bones scattered as he fell.
Then Alswith raised a great cry of “Death!” She stood up in her stirrups and threw off her helmet, letting her long red hair loose. It did not fly out behind her as it had at Foreth; the rain flattened it to her head. Still, we all recognized it as the mourning sign it was.
Ap Erbin’s ala, who really should have known better, followed her as she turned and raced back to the main part of the battle, where the Jarnish shield wall was reforming. They were calling “Geraint,” which was ap Erbin’s name, though he didn’t like it and I never used it, and “Flamehair” and “Death.” They fell on the flame machine and hacked it and the crew to pieces, and then set about hacking all around them with no discipline or order. This kind of thing is what Duncan always used to say would happen if husband and wife, or even lovers, fight in the line together and one of them is killed. In all my years of fighting this is the only time I have ever seen it. I’ll agree it’s reprehensible, but it’s human, and I have felt the same when I have seen a friend killed. It might be possible, if cruel, to separate husbands and wives in the alae, but it isn’t possible to fight only with people about whom one feels dispassionate. At the time I understood Alswith entirely, and the rest of the ala better than I should. I had tears on my face and I missed ap Erbin already. Shouting “Death!” and laying about me blindly would have been such a relief.
Luth and I looked at each other for a moment, then I wiped my hand across my eyes and gave the signal to continue up toward the Jarnsmen who were harassing Ohtar and Alfwin, which was where we were needed.
Some of Ayl’s troops from the bridge had met up with some of the advancing Jarnish troops, and I saw that Arling was there. They were pressing our people hard. We took them on both sides, while our Jarnsmen stood firm against the enemy. There, even as my first pennon hit and their line wavered, I saw Walbern ap Aldred, fighting in the Jarnish line but with Tanagan weapons.
I looked for Ohtar to see his reaction. He was among his men, not far back. He was taking off his armrings and giving them to his companions, who seemed to be protesting. Then he handed over his sword, sheath, belt, and all, and murmuring something to the man he gave it to. I heard afterward it was “Make sure this gets to Anlaf if it needs to, and don’t disgrace me.” Then, unarmed, he looked at the sky, and raised his hand to the bear’s head on his cloak. His line stepped back a little, leaving him half a step ahead of them. Ayl’s troops rushed into the gap, but almost as soon as they moved forward they were moving back again, tripping over each other in their hurry to back off. Quietly and calmly, without any fuss at all, Ohtar had turned into a bear, his great cloak billowing over his skin and his face pressing forward to become a bear’s mask. It didn’t seem the least bit startling at the time, merely inevitable. He was still Ohtar, he was just all bear now, and that was only how it ought to be. He stood fully four foot high at the shoulder; he was a great bear of the woods of Norland or Jarnholme such as had never been seen in Tir Tanagiri. He was taller than I am when he stood up on his hindpaws and roared. Ayl’s men began to retreat in earnest then, even though Luth’s ala were ready behind them.
Then Walbern stepped forward from his lines and copied his grandfather’s gesture. The two bears both rose on their hind legs, roaring and growling. Within seconds they were biting and buffeting at each other. The men of Aylsfa steadied and drew up their line again. Some of them even grinned and made rude gestures at the men of Bereich. I wondered whether to intervene, or how to intervene. There was no possibility of confusing the two bears. Ohtar was taller and darker. He seemed to be getting the best of the fight, too, though they both had blood on their fur. I happened to catch sight of Luth’s astonished face over Ohtar’s shoulder as I was looking and couldn’t stop myself laughing out loud.
Ohtar somehow seemed to grow ever taller and more bearlike as the fight went on. It ended very suddenly, with Walbern dropping to all fours and running off through his own lines, setting off another panic there as he bowled over some of his former companions. Ohtar followed him, loping steadily after, striking out at men of
Aylsfa who tried to hinder him. Before long they were all in flight. Luth, wide-eyed and gaping, gave way for the bears, and they loped off toward the northeast, Walbern still ahead and Ohtar following.
Luth’s ala seemed to be dealing well enough with the men of Aylsfa who had broken. The Bereichers gave a cheer and took a few ragged steps forward, but before they could do anything rash, Alfwin began shouting commands and they steadied their line.
There were those who said later that they found the bodies of grandfather and grandson among the slain. But nobody ever claimed to have found Ohtar’s cloak, or brought any token of Walbern’s back to his mother’s kin.
— 19 —
She hewed him down, the hell-cursed woman,
with Wulfstan and Wolmar, his shoulder companions,
his faithful followers who long in life
stood at his side waiting his word
fallen before him led the way forward
back from the battlefield down into death.
—“The Battle of Agned”
After Ohtar had gone and they had closed up again, we had a hard fight to shift the enemy. After a while, when it seemed that we were winning for the time, I caught sight of Arling making a stand, his house lords around him. I gave the signal for each pennon to fight as seemed good to them and led mine in toward him.
That was when I killed Ayl, getting to Arling. I didn’t mean to, and I’ve been sorry ever since. Ayl was a friend, and I had broken bread with him, and he was a good man, for a Jarnish king. Furthermore, we had to deal with his awful brother Sidrok for years after until his son was grown up. I didn’t think of any of that then, only that he was between me and Arling. He stepped forward thinking that I would hesitate, and the look on his face as I pulled my sword out of his chest was comically surprised. I went on, laughing, and took down two more of Arling’s house lords before we crossed swords at last.