Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

‘Did you sleep, Lady?’ I asked.

‘A little.’ She crawled out under the low branch that served as roof and door. ‘It’s cold.’

‘It will be warm soon.’

She crouched beside me, swathed in her cloak. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were puffy from sleep. ‘What do you think about in battle?’ she asked me.

‘Staying alive,’ I said, ‘killing, winning.’

‘Is that mead?’ she asked, gesturing at the horn in my hand.

‘Water, Lady. Mead slows a man in battle.’

She took the water from me, splashed some on her eyes and drank the rest. She was nervous, but I knew I could never persuade her to stay on the hill. ‘And Arthur,’ she asked, ‘what does he think about in battle?’

I smiled. ‘The peace that follows the fighting, Lady. He believes that every battle will be the last.’

‘Yet of battles,’ she said dreamily, ‘there will be no end.’

‘Probably never,’ I agreed, ‘but in this battle, Lady, stay close to me. Very close.’

‘Yes, Lord Derfel,’ she said mockingly, then dazzled me with a smile. ‘And thank you, Derfel.’

We were in armour by the time the sun flared behind the eastern hills to touch the scrappy clouds crimson and throw a deep shadow across the valley of Saxons. The shadow thinned and shrank as the sun climbed. Wisps of mist curled from the river, thickening the smoke from the campfires amongst which the enemy moved with an unusual energy. ‘Something’s brewing down there,’ Cuneglas said to me.

‘Maybe they know we’re coming?’ I guessed.

‘Which will make life harder,’ Cuneglas said grimly, though if the Saxons did have wind of our plans, they showed no evident preparation. No shield wall was formed to face Mynydd Baddon, and no troops marched west towards the Glevum road. Instead, as the sun rose high enough to burn the mist from the river banks, it appeared as if they had at last decided to abandon the place altogether and were preparing to march, though whether they planned to go west, north or south it was hard to tell for their first task was to collect their wagons, pack-horses, herds and flocks. From our height it looked like an ant’s nest kicked into chaos, but gradually some order emerged. Aelle’s men gathered their baggage just outside Aquae Sulis’s northern gate, while Cerdic’s men organized their march beside their encampment on the river’s bend. A handful of huts were burning, and doubtless they planned to fire both of their encampments before they left. The first men to go were a troop of lightly armed horsemen who rode westwards past Aquae Sulis, taking the Glevum road. ‘A pity,’ Cuneglas said quietly. The horsemen were scouting the route the Saxons hoped to take, and they were riding straight towards Arthur’s surprise attack.

We waited. We would not go down the hill until Arthur’s force was well within sight, and then we had to go fast to fill the gap between Aelle’s men and Cerdic’s troops. Aelle would have to face Arthur’s fury while Cerdic would be prevented from helping his ally by my spearmen and by Cuneglas’s troops. We would almost certainly be outnumbered, but Arthur hoped he could break through Aelle’s men to bring his troops to our aid. I glanced to my left, hoping for a sight of Oengus’s men on the Fosse Way, but that distant road was still empty. If the Blackshields did not come, then Cuneglas and I would be stranded between the two halves of the Saxon army. I looked at my men, noting their nervousness. They could not see down into the valley, for I had insisted they stay hidden until we launched our flank attack. Some had their eyes closed, a few Christians knelt with arms outstretched while other men stroked sharpening stones along spear blades already quickened to a razor’s edge. Malaine the Druid was chanting a spell of protection, Pyrlig was praying and Guinevere was staring at me wide-eyed as though she could tell from my expression what was about to happen.

The Saxon scouts had disappeared in the west, but now they suddenly came galloping back. Dust spurted from their horses’ hoofs. Their speed was enough to tell us that they had seen Arthur and soon, I thought, that tangled flurry of Saxon preparations would turn into a wall of shields and spears. I gripped my own spear’s long ash shaft, closed my eyes and sent a prayer winging up through the blue to wherever Bel and Mithras were listening.

‘Look at them!’ Cuneglas exclaimed while I was praying, and I opened my eyes to see Arthur’s attack filling the western end of the valley. The sun shone in their faces and glinted offhundreds of naked blades and polished helmets. To the south, beside the river, Arthur’s horsemen were spurring ahead to capture the bridge south of Aquae Sulis while the troops of Gwent marched in a great line across the centre of the valley. Tewdric’s men wore Roman gear; bronze breastplates, red cloaks and thick plumed helmets, so that from Mynydd Baddon’s summit they appeared as phalanxes of crimson and gold beneath a host of banners that showed, instead of Gwent’s black bull, red Christian crosses. To the north of them were Arthur’s spearmen, led by Sagramor under his vast black standard that was held on a pole surmounted by a Saxon skull. To this day I can close my eyes and see that army advancing, see the wind stirring the ripple of flags above their steady lines, see the dust rising from the road behind them and see the growing crops trampled flat where they had passed.

While in front of them was panic and chaos. Saxons ran to find armour, to save their wives, to seek their chiefs or to rally in groups that slowly joined to make the first shield wall close to their encampment by Aquae Sulis, but it was a scant wall, thin and ill-manned, and I saw a horseman wave it back. To our left I could see that Cerdic’s men were quicker in forming their ranks, but they were still more than two miles from Arthur’s advancing troops which meant that Aelle’s men would have to take the brunt of the attack. Behind that attack, ragged and dark in the distance, our levy was advancing with scythes, axes, mattocks and clubs.

I saw Aelle’s banner raised among the graves of the Roman cemetery, and saw his spearmen hurry back to rally under its bloody skull. The Saxons had already abandoned Aquae Sulis, their western encampment and the baggage that had been collected outside the city, and maybe they hoped Arthur’s men would pause to plunder the wagons and pack-horses, but Arthur had seen that danger and so led his men well to the north of the city’s wall. Gwentian spearmen had garrisoned the bridge, leaving the heavy horsemen free to ride up behind that gold and crimson line. Everything seemed to happen so slowly. From Mynydd Baddon we had an eagle’s view and we could see the last Saxons fleeing over Aquae Sulis’s crumbled wall, we could see Aelle’s shield wall at last hardening and we could see Cerdic’s men hurrying along the road to reinforce them and we silently urged Arthur and Tewdric on, wanting them to crush Aelle’s men before Cerdic could join the battle, but it seemed as though the attack had slowed to a snail’s pace. Mounted messengers darted between the troops of spearmen, but no one else seemed to hurry.

Aelle’s forces had pulled back a half-mile from Aquae Sulis before forming their line and now they waited for Arthur’s attack. Their wizards were capering in the fields between the armies, but I could see no Druids in front of Tewdric’s men. They marched under their Christian God, and at last, after straightening their shield wall, they closed on the enemy. I expected to see a conference between the lines as the leaders of the armies exchanged their ritual insults and while the two shield walls judged each other. I have known shield walls stare at each other for hours while men summoned the courage to charge, but those Christians of Gwent did not check their pace. There was no meeting of opposing leaders and no time for the Saxon wizards to cast their spells, for the Christians simply lowered their spears, hefted their oblong shields that were painted with the cross, and marched straight through the Roman graves and into the enemy’s shields.