Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

‘What are they saying?’ Guinevere had come to stand beside me.

‘They’re using charms, Lady,’ I said. ‘They’re beseeching their Gods to fill us with fear and turn our legs to water.’ I listened to the chanting again. ‘They beg that our eyes be blinded, that our spears be broken and our swords blunted.’ The man with the thigh bone caught sight of Guinevere and he turned on her and spat a vituperative stream of obscenities.

‘What’s he saying now?’ she asked.

‘You don’t wish to know, Lady.’

‘But I do, Derfel, I do.’

‘Then I don’t wish to tell you.’

She laughed. The wizard, only thirty paces away from us now, jerked his tattooed crotch at her and shook his head, rolled his eyes, and screamed that she was a cursed witch and promised that her womb would dry to a crust and her breasts turn sour as gall, and then there was an abrupt twang beside my ear and the wizard was suddenly silent. An arrow had transfixed his gullet, going clean through his neck so that one half of the arrow jutted behind his nape and the feathered shaft stuck out beneath his chin. He stared up at Guinevere, he gurgled, and then the bone dropped from his hand. He fingered the arrow, still staring at her, then shuddered and suddenly collapsed.

‘It’s considered bad luck to kill an enemy’s magicians,’ I said in gentle reproof.

‘Not now,’ Guinevere said vengefully, ‘not now.’ She took another arrow from her quiver and fitted it to the string, but the other five wizards had seen the fate of their fellow magician and were bounding down the hill out of range. They were shrieking angrily as they went, protesting our bad faith. They had a right to protest, and I feared that the death of the one wizard would only fill the attackers with a cold anger. Guinevere took the arrow off the bow. ‘So what will they do, Derfel?’ she asked me.

‘In a few minutes’ time,’ I said, ‘that great mass of men will come up the hill. You can see how they’ll come,’ I pointed down to the Saxon formation that was still being pushed and herded into shape, ‘a hundred men in their front rank, and nine or ten men in every file to push those front men onto our spears. We can face those hundred men, Lady, but our files will only have two or three men apiece, and we won’t be able to push them back down the hill. We’ll stop them for a while, and the shield walls will lock, but we won’t drive them backwards and when they see that all our men are locked in the fighting line, they’ll send their rearward files to wrap around and take us from behind.’

Her green eyes stared at me, a slightly mocking look on her face. She was the only woman I ever knew who could look me straight in the eyes, and I always found her direct gaze unsettling. Guinevere had a knack of making a man feel like a fool, though on that day, as the Saxon drums beat and the great horde steeled themselves to climb up to our blades, she wished me nothing but success. ‘Are you saying we’ve lost?’ she asked lightly.

‘I’m saying, Lady, that I don’t know if I can win,’ I answered grimly. I was wondering whether to do the unexpected and form my men into a wedge that would charge down the hill and pierce deep into the Saxon mass. It was possible that such an attack would surprise them and even panic them, but the danger was that my men would be surrounded by enemies on the hillside and, when the last of us was dead, the Saxons would climb to the summit and take our undefended families. Guinevere slung the bow on her shoulder. ‘We can win,’ she said confidently, ‘we can win easily.’ For a moment I did not take her seriously. ‘I can tear the heart out of them,’ she said more forcefully. I glanced at her and saw the fierce joy in her face. If she was to make a fool of any man that day it would be Cerdic and Aelle, not me. ‘How can we win?’ I asked her.

A mischievous look came to her face. ‘Do you trust me, Derfel?’

‘I trust you, Lady.’

‘Then give me twenty fit men.’

I hesitated. I had been forced to leave some spearmen on the northern rampart of the hill to guard against an attack across the saddle, and I could scarce lose twenty of the remaining men who faced south; but even if I had two hundred spearmen more I knew I was going to lose this battle on the hilltop, and so I nodded. ‘I’ll give you twenty men from the levy,’ I agreed, ‘and you give me a victory.’ She smiled and strode away, and I shouted at Issa to find twenty young men and send them with her. ‘She’s going to give us a victory!’ I told him loud enough for my men to hear and they, sensing hope on a day when there was none, smiled and laughed.

Yet victory, I decided, needed a miracle, or else the arrival of allies. Where was Culhwch? All day I had expected to see his troops in the south, but there had been no sign of him and I decided he must have made a wide detour around Aquae Sulis in an attempt to join Arthur. I could think of no other troops who might come to our aid, but in truth, even if Culhwch had joined me, his numbers could not have swelled ours enough to withstand the Saxon assault.

That assault was near now. The wizards had done their work and a group of Saxon horsemen now left the ranks and spurred uphill. I shouted for my own horse, had Issa cup his hands to heave me into the saddle, then I rode down the slope to meet the enemy envoys. Bors might have accompanied me, for he was a lord, but he did not want to face the men he had just deserted and so I went alone. Nine Saxons and three Britons approached. One of the Britons was Lancelot, as beautiful as ever in his white scale armour that dazzled in the sunlight. His helmet was silvered and crested with a pair of swan’s wings that were ruffled by the small wind. His two companions were Amhar and Loholt, who rode against their father beneath Cerdic’s skin-hung skull and beneath my own father’s great bull skull that was spattered with fresh blood in honour of this new war. Cerdic and Aelle both climbed the hill and with them were a half-dozen Saxon chieftains; all big men in fur robes and with moustaches hanging to their sword belts. The last Saxon was an interpreter and he, like the other Saxons, rode clumsily, just as I did. Only Lancelot and the twins were good horsemen.

We met halfway down the hill. None of the horses liked the slope and all shifted nervously. Cerdic scowled up at our rampart. He could see the two banners there, and a prickle of spear points above our makeshift barricade, but nothing more. Aelle gave me a grim nod while Lancelot avoided my gaze.

‘Where is Arthur?’ Cerdic finally demanded of me. His pale eyes looked at me from a helmet rimmed with gold and gruesomely crested with a dead man’s hand. Doubtless, I thought, a British hand. The trophy had been smoked in a fire so that its skin was blackened and its fingers hooked like claws.

‘Arthur is taking his ease, Lord King,’ I said. ‘He left it to me to swat you away while he plans how to remove the smell of your filth from Britain.’ The interpreter murmured in Lancelot’s ear.

‘Is Arthur here?’ Cerdic demanded. Convention dictated that the leaders of armies conferred before battle, and Cerdic had construed my presence as an insult. He had expected Arthur to come and meet him, not some underling.

‘He’s here, Lord,’ I said airily, ‘and everywhere. Merlin transports him through the clouds.’

Cerdic spat. He was in dull armour, with no show other than the ghastly hand on his gold-edged helmet’s crest. Aelle was dressed in his usual black fur, had gold at his wrists and neck and a single bull’s horn projecting from the front of his helmet. He was the older man, but Cerdic, as ever, took the lead. His clever, pinched face gave me a dismissive glance. ‘It would be best,’ he said, ‘if you filed down the hill and laid your weapons on the road. We shall kill some of you as a tribute to our Gods and take the rest of you as slaves, but you must give us the woman who killed our wizard. She we will kill.’