Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

‘She killed the wizard on my orders,’ I said, ‘in return for Merlin’s beard.’ It had been Cerdic who had slashed off a hank of Merlin’s beard, an insult I had no mind to forgive.

‘Then we shall kill you,’ Cerdic said.

‘Liofa tried to do that once,’ I said, needling him, ‘and yesterday Wulfger of the Sarnaed tried to snatch my soul, but he is the one who is back in his ancestors’ sty.’

Aelle intervened. ‘We won’t kill you, Derfel,’ he growled, ‘not if you surrender.’ Cerdic began to protest, but Aelle hushed him with an abrupt gesture of his maimed right hand. ‘We will not kill him,’ he insisted. ‘Did you give your woman the ring?’ he asked me.

‘She wears it now, Lord King,’ I said, gesturing up the hill.

‘She’s here?’ He sounded surprised.

‘With your grandchildren.’

‘Let me see them,’ Aelle demanded. Cerdic again protested. He was here to prepare us for slaughter, not to witness a happy family meeting, but Aelle ignored his ally’s protest. ‘I would like to see them once,’ he told me, and so I turned and shouted uphill.

Ceinwyn appeared a moment later with Morwenna in one hand and Seren in the other. They hesitated at the rampart, then stepped delicately down the grass slope. Ceinwyn was dressed simply in a linen robe, but her hair shone gold in the spring sun and I thought, as ever, that her beauty was magical. I felt a lump in my throat and tears at my eyes as she came so lightly down the hill. Seren looked nervous, but Morwenna had a defiant look on her face. They stopped beside my horse and stared up at the Saxon Kings. Ceinwyn and Lancelot looked at each other and Ceinwyn spat deliberately on the grass to void the evil of his presence.

Cerdic pretended disinterest, but Aelle clumsily slid down from his worn leather saddle. ‘Tell them I am glad to see them,’ he told me, ‘and tell me the children’s names.’

‘The older is called Morwenna,’ I said, ‘and the younger is Seren. It means star.’ I looked at my daughters. ‘This King,’ I told them in British, ‘is your grandfather.’

Aelle fumbled in his black robe and brought out two gold coins. He gave one each to the girls, then looked mutely at Ceinwyn. She understood what he wanted and, letting go of her daughters’ hands, she stepped into his embrace. He must have stunk, for his fur robe was greasy and full of filth, but she did not flinch. When he had kissed her he stepped back, lifted her hand to his lips, and smiled to see the small chip of blue-green agate in its golden ring. ‘Tell her I will spare her life, Derfel,’ he said. I told her and she smiled. ‘Tell him it would be better if he went back to his own land,’ she said, ‘and that we would take much joy in visiting him there.’

Aelle smiled when that was translated, but Cerdic just scowled. ‘This is our land!’ he insisted, and his horse pawed at the ground as he spoke and my daughters backed away from his venom.

‘Tell them to go,’ Aelle growled at me, ‘for we must talk of war.’ He watched them walk uphill. ‘You have your father’s taste for beautiful women,’ he said.

‘And a British taste for suicide,’ Cerdic snapped. ‘Your life is promised you,’ he went on, ‘but only if you come down from the hill now and lay your spears on the road.’

‘I shall lay them on the road, Lord King,’ I said, ‘with your body threaded on them.’

‘You mew like a cat,’ Cerdic said derisively. Then he looked past me and his expression became grimmer, and I turned to see that Guinevere was now standing on the rampart. She stood tall and long-legged in her hunter’s clothes, crowned with a mass of red hair and with her bow across her shoulders so that she looked like some Goddess of war. Cerdic must have recognized her as the woman who had killed his wizard. ‘Who is she?’ he demanded fiercely.

‘Ask your lapdog,’ I said, gesturing at Lancelot, and then, when I suspected that the interpreter had not translated my words accurately, I said them again in the British tongue. Lancelot ignored me.

‘Guinevere,’ Amhar told Cerdic’s interpreter, ‘and she is my father’s whore,’ he added with a sneer. I had called Guinevere worse in my time, but I had no patience to listen to Amhar’s scorn. I had never held any affection for Guinevere, she was too arrogant, too wilful, too clever and too mocking to be an easy companion, but in the last few days I had begun to admire her and suddenly I heard myself spitting insults at Amhar. I do not remember now what I said, only that anger gave my words a vicious spite. I must have called him a worm, a treacherous piece of filth, a creature of no honour, a boy who would be spitted on a man’s sword before the sun died. I spat at him, cursed him and drove him and his brother down the hill with my insults, and then I turned on Lancelot. ‘Your cousin Bors sends you greetings,’ I told him, ‘and promises to pull your belly out of your throat, and you had better pray that he does, for if I take you then I shall make your soul whine.’

Lancelot spat, but did not bother to reply. Cerdic had watched the confrontation with amusement.

‘You have an hour to come and grovel before me,’ he finished the conference, ‘and if you don’t, we shall come and kill you.’ He turned his horse and kicked it on down the hill. Lancelot and the others followed, leaving only Aelle standing beside his horse.

He offered me a half smile, almost a grimace. ‘It seems we must fight, my son.’

‘It seems we must.’

‘Is Arthur really not here?’

‘Is that why you came, Lord King?’ I answered, though not answering his question.

‘If we kill Arthur,’ he said simply, ‘the war is won.’

‘You must kill me first, father,’ I said.

‘You think I wouldn’t?’ he asked harshly, then held his maimed hand up to me. I clasped it briefly, then watched as he led his horse down the slope.

Issa greeted my return with a quizzical look. ‘We won the battle of words,’ I said grimly.

‘That’s a start, Lord,’ he said lightly.

‘But they’ll finish it,’ I said softly and turned to watch the enemy kings going back to their men. The drums beat on. The last of the Saxons had finally been mustered into the dense mass of men that would climb to our slaughter, but unless Guinevere really was a Goddess of war, I did not know how we could beat them.

The Saxon advance was clumsy at first, because the hedges about the small fields at the foot of the hill broke their careful alignment. The sun was sinking in the west for it had taken all day for this attack to be prepared, but now it was coming and we could hear the rams’ horns blaring their raucous challenge as the enemy spearmen broke through the hedges and crossed the small fields. My men began singing. We always sang before battle, and on this day, as before all the greatest of our battles, we sang the War Song of Beli Mawr. How that terrible hymn can move a man! It speaks of killing, of blood in the wheat, of bodies broken to the bone and of enemies driven like cattle to the slaughter-pen. It tells of Beli Mawr’s boots crushing mountains and boasts of the widows made by his sword. Each verse of the song ends in a triumphant howl, and I could not help but weep for the defiance of the singers.

I had dismounted and taken my place in the front rank, close to Bors who stood beneath our twin banners. My cheekpieces were closed, my shield was tight on my left arm and my war spear was heavy in my right. All around me the strong voices swelled, but I did not sing because my heart was too full of foreboding. I knew what was about to happen. For a time we would fight in the shield wall, but then the Saxons would break through the flimsy thorn barricades on both our flanks and their spears would come from behind and we would be cut down man by man and the enemy would taunt our dying. The last of us to die would see the first of our women being raped, yet there was nothing we could do to stop it and so those spearmen sang and some men danced the sword dance on the rampart’s top where there was no thorn barricade. We had left the centre of the rampart clear of thorns in the thin hope that it might tempt the enemy to come to our spears rather than try to outflank us.