Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

I had walked to my horse that was cropping grass among the molehills. ‘I’m going south,’ I said.

‘Do that,’ Guinevere said, ‘and we risk losing you too.’

She was right and I knew it, but frustration was beginning to boil inside me. Why had Issa not sent a message? He had fifty of my finest warriors and they were lost. I cursed the wasting day, cuffed a harmless boy who was strutting up and down pretending to be a spearman, and kicked at thistles. ‘We could start north,’ Ceinwyn suggested calmly, indicating the women and children.

‘No,’ I said, ‘we must stay together.’ I peered southwards, but there was nothing on the road except for more sad refugees trudging north. Most were families with one precious cow and maybe a calf, though many of this new season’s calves were still too small to walk. Some calves, abandoned by the road, called piteously for their mothers. Others of the refugees were merchants trying to save their goods. One man had an ox-wagon filled with baskets of fuller’s earth, another had hides, some had pottery. They glared at us as they passed, blaming us for not having stopped the Saxons sooner. Seren and Morwenna, bored with their attempt to denude the wood of bluebells, had found a nest of leverets under some ferns and honeysuckle at the trees’ edge. They excitedly called Guinevere to come and look, then gingerly stroked the little fur bodies that shivered under their touch. Ceinwyn watched them. ‘She’s made a conquest of the girls,’ she said to me.

‘A conquest of my spearmen too,’ I said, and it was true. Just a few months ago my men had been cursing Guinevere as a whore, and now they gazed at her adoringly. She had set out to charm them, and when Guinevere decided to be charming, she could dazzle. ‘Arthur will have a great deal of trouble putting her back behind walls after this,’ I said.

‘Which is probably why he wanted her released,’ Ceinwyn observed. ‘He certainly didn’t want her dead.’

‘Argante does.’

‘I’m sure she does,’ Ceinwyn agreed, then stared southwards with me, but there was still no sign of any spearmen on the long straight road.

Issa finally arrived at dusk. He came with his fifty spearmen, with the thirty men who had been the guards on the palace at Durnovaria, with the dozen Blackshields who were Argante’s personal soldiers and with at least two hundred other refugees. Worse, he had brought six ox-drawn wagons and it was those heavy vehicles that had caused the delay. A heavily laden ox-wagon’s highest speed is slower than an old man’s walk, and Issa had fetched the wagons all the way north at their snail’s pace. ‘What possessed you?’ I shouted at him. ‘There isn’t time to haul wagons!’

‘I know, Lord,’ he said miserably.

‘Are you mad?’ I was angry. I had ridden to meet him and now wheeled my mare on the verge.

‘You’ve wasted hours!’ I shouted.

‘I had no choice!’ he protested.

‘You’ve got a spear!’ I snarled. ‘That gives you the right to choose what you want.’

He just shrugged and gestured towards the Princess Argante who rode atop the leading wagon. The wagon’s four oxen, their flanks bleeding from the goads that had driven them all day, stopped in the road with their heads low.

‘The wagons go no farther!’ I shouted at her. ‘You walk or ride from here!’

‘No!’ Argante insisted.

I slid off the mare and walked down the line of wagons. One held nothing but the Roman statues that had graced the palace courtyard in Durnovaria, another was piled with robes and gowns, while a third was heaped with cooking pots, beckets and bronze candle-stands. ‘Get them off the road,’ I shouted angrily.

‘No!’ Argante had leapt down from her high perch and now ran towards me. ‘Arthur ordered me to bring them.’

‘Arthur, Lady,’ I turned on her, stifling my anger, ‘does not need statues!’

‘They come with us,’ Argante shouted, ‘otherwise I stay here!’

‘Then stay here, Lady,’ I said savagely. ‘Off the road!’ I shouted at the ox drivers. ‘Move it! Off the road, now!’ I had drawn Hywelbane and stabbed her blade at the nearest ox to drive the beast towards the verge.

‘Don’t go!’ Argante screamed at the ox drivers. She tugged at one of the oxen’s horns, pulling the confused beast back onto the road. ‘I’m not leaving this for the enemy,’ she shouted at me. Guinevere watched from the roadside. There was a look of cool amusement on her face, and no wonder, for Argante was behaving like a spoiled child. Argante’s Druid, Fergal, had hurried to his Princess’s aid, protesting that all his magical cauldrons and ingredients were loaded on one of the wagons. ‘And the treasury,’ he added as an afterthought.

‘What treasury?’ I asked.

‘Arthur’s treasury,’ Argante said sarcastically, as though by revealing the existence of the gold she won her argument. ‘He wants it in Corinium.’ She went to the second wagon, lifted some of the heavy robes and rapped a wooden box that was hidden beneath. ‘The gold of Dumnonia! You’d give it to the Saxons?’

‘Rather that than give them you and me, Lady,’ I said and then I slashed with Hywelbane, cutting loose the oxen’s harness. Argante screamed at me, swearing she would have me punished and that I was stealing her treasures, but I just sawed at the next harness as I snarled at the ox drivers to release their animals.

‘Listen, Lady,’ I said, ‘we have to go faster than oxen can walk.’ I pointed to the distant smoke.

‘That’s the Saxons! They’ll be here in a few hours.’

‘We can’t leave the wagons!’ she screamed. There were tears in her eyes. She might have been the daughter of a King, but she had grown up with few possessions and now, married to Dumnonia’s ruler, she was rich and she could not let go of those new riches. ‘Don’t undo that harness!’ she shouted at the drivers and they, confused, hesitated. I sawed at another leather trace and Argante began beating me with her fists, swearing that I was a thief and her enemy.

I pushed her gently away, but she would not go and I dared not be too forceful. She was in a tantrum now, swearing at me and hitting me with her small hands. I tried to push her away again, but she just spat at me, hit me again, then shouted at her Blackshield bodyguard to come to her aid. Those twelve men were hesitant, but they were her father’s warriors and sworn to Argante’s service, and so they came towards me with levelled spears. My own men immediately ran to my defence. The Blackshields were terribly outnumbered, but they did not back down and their Druid was hopping in front of them, his fox-hair woven beard wagging and the small bones tied to its hairs clicking as he told the Blackshields that they were blessed and that their souls would go to a golden reward. ‘Kill him!’

Argante screamed at her bodyguard and pointing at me. ‘Kill him now!’

‘Enough!’ Guinevere called sharply. She walked into the centre of the road and stared imperiously at the Blackshields. ‘Don’t be fools, put your spears down. If you want to die, take some Saxons with you, not Dumnonians.’ She turned on Argante. ‘Come here, child,’ she said, and pulled the girl towards her and used a corner of her drab cloak to wipe away Argante’s tears. ‘You did quite right to try and save the treasury,’ she told Argante, ‘but Derfel is also right. If we don’t hurry the Saxons will catch us.’ She turned to me. ‘Is there no chance,’ she asked, ‘that we can take the gold?’

‘None,’ I said shortly, nor was there. Even if I had harnessed spearmen to the wagons they would still have slowed us down.

‘The gold is mine!’ Argante screamed.

‘It belongs to the Saxons now,’ I said, and I shouted at Issa to get the wagons off the road and cut the oxen free.