Excalibur

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘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.

  The Saxons crossed the last hedge and began their long climb up the empty slope. Their best men were in the front rank and I saw how tight their shields were locked, how thick their spears were ranked and how brightly their axes shone. There was no sign of Lancelot’s men; it seemed this slaughter would be left to the Saxons alone. Wizards preceded them, rams’ horns urged them on, and above them hung the bloody skulls of their kings. Some in the front rank held leashed war-dogs that would be loosed a few yards short of our line. My father was in that front rank while Cerdic was on a horse behind the Saxon mass.

  They came very slowly. The hill was steep, their armour heavy, and they felt no need to rush into this slaughter. They knew it would be a grim business, however short-lived. They would come in a shield-locked wall, and once at the rampart our shields would clash and then they would try to push us backwards. Their axes would flash over our shield rims, their spears would thrust and jab and gore. There would be grunts and howls and shrieks, and men wailing and men dying, but the enemy had the greater number of men and eventually they would outflank us and so my wolftails would die.

  But now my wolftails sang as they tried to drown the harsh sound of the horns and the incessant beat of the tree drums. The Saxons laboured closer. We could see the devices on their round shields now; wolf masks for Cerdic’s men, bulls for Aelle’s, and in between were the shields of their warlords: hawks and eagles and a prancing horse. The dogs strained at their leashes, eager to tear holes in our wall. The wizards shrieked at us. One of them rattled a cluster of rib bones, while another scrabbled on all fours like a dog and howled his curses.

  I waited at the southern angle of the summit’s rampart which jutted like the prow of a boat above the valley. It was here in the centre that the first Saxons would strike. I had toyed with the idea of letting them come and then, at the very last moment, pulling back fast to make a shield-ring about our women. Yet by retreating I ceded the flat hilltop as my battlefield and gave up the advantage of the higher ground. Better to let my men kill as many of the enemy as they could before we were overwhelmed.

  I tried not to think of Ceinwyn. I had not kissed her farewell, or my daughters, and maybe they would live. Maybe, amidst the horror, some spearman of Aelle’s would recognize the little ring and take them safe to his King.

  My men began to clash their spear shafts against their shields. They had no need to lock their shields yet. That could wait till the last moment. The Saxons looked uphill as the noise battered their ears. None of them raced ahead to throw a spear – the hill was too steep for that – but one of their war-dogs broke its leash and came loping fast up the grass. Eirrlyn, who was one of my two huntsmen, pierced it with an arrow and the dog began to yelp and run in circles with the shaft sticking from its belly. Both huntsmen began shooting at other dogs and the Saxons hauled the beasts back behind the protection of their shields. The wizards sca
mpered away to the flanks, knowing that the battle was about to begin. A huntsman’s arrow smacked into a Saxon shield, then another glanced off a helmet. Not long now. A hundred paces. I licked my dry lips, blinked sweat from my eyes and stared down at the fierce bearded faces. The enemy was shouting, yet I do not remember hearing the sound of their voices. I just remember the sound of their horns, the beat of their drums, the thump of their boots on the grass, the clink of scabbards on armour and the clash of shields touching.

  ‘Make way!’ Guinevere’s voice sounded behind us, and it was full of enjoyment. ‘Make way!’ she called again.

  I turned and saw her twenty men were pushing two of the food wagons towards the ramparts. The ox-wagons were great clumsy vehicles with solid wooden discs for wheels, and Guinevere had augmented their sheer weight with two further weapons. She had stripped the pole shafts from the front of the wagons and wedged spears in their place, while the wagon beds, instead of holding food, now carried blazing fires of thorn brush. She had turned the wagons into a massive pair of flaming missiles that she planned to roll down the hill into the enemy’s packed ranks, and behind her wagons, eager to see the chaos, came an excited crowd of women and children.

  ‘Move!’ I called to my men, ‘move!’ They ceased singing and hurried apart, leaving the whole centre of the ramparts undefended. The Saxons were now only seventy or eighty paces away and, seeing our shield wall break apart, they scented victory and quickened their pace.

  Guinevere shouted at her men to hurry and more spearmen ran to put their weight behind the smoking wagons. ‘Go!’ she called, ‘go!’ and they grunted as they shoved and tugged and as the wagons began to roll faster. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ Guinevere screamed at them, and still more men packed in behind the wagons to force the cumbersome vehicles up across the banked earth of the ancient rampart. For a heartbeat I thought that low earth bank would defeat us, for both the wagons slowed to a halt there and their thick smoke wreathed about our choking men, but Guinevere shouted at the spearmen again and they gritted their teeth to make one last great effort to heave the wagons over the turf wall.

  ‘Push!’ Guinevere screamed, ‘push!’ The wagons hesitated on the rampart, then began to tip forward as men shoved from beneath. ‘Now!’ Guinevere shouted and suddenly there was nothing to hold the wagons, just a steep grass slope in front and an enemy beneath. The men who had been pushing reeled away exhausted as the two flaming vehicles began to roll downhill.

  The wagons went slowly at first, but then quickened and began to bounce on the uneven turf so that flaming branches were flung over the burning wagon sides. The slope steepened, and the two great missiles were hurtling now; massive weights of timber and fire that thundered down onto the appalled Saxon formation.

  The Saxons had no chance. Their ranks were too tight packed for men to escape the wagons, and the wagons were well aimed for they were rumbling in smoke and flame towards the very heart of the enemy attack.

  ‘Close up!’ I shouted at my men, ‘make the wall! Make the wall!’

  We hurried back into position just as the wagons struck. The enemy’s line had stalled and some men were trying to break away, but there was no escape for those in the direct path of the wagons. I heard a scream as the long spears fixed to the wagons’ fronts drove into the mass of men, then one of the wagons reared up as its front wheels bounced on fallen bodies, yet still it drove on, smashing and burning and breaking men in its path. A shield broke in two as a wheel crushed it. The second wagon veered as it struck the Saxon line. For a heartbeat it was poised on two wheels, then it tumbled onto its side to spill a wash of fire down into the Saxon ranks. Where there had been a solid, disciplined mass, there was now only chaos, fear and panic. Even where the ranks had not been struck by the wagons there was chaos, for the impact of the two vehicles had caused the careful ranks to shudder and break.

  ‘Charge them!’ I shouted. ‘Come on!’

  I screamed a war shout as I jumped from the rampart. I had not meant to follow the wagons down the hill, but the destruction they had caused was so great, and the enemy’s horror so evident, that now was the time to add to that horror.

  We screamed as we ran down the hill. It was a scream of victory, calculated to put terror into an enemy already half beaten. The Saxons still outnumbered us, but their shield wall was broken, they were winded, and we came like avenging furies from the heights. I left my spear in a man’s belly, whipped Hywelbane free of her scabbard, and laid about me like a man slashing at hay. There is no calculation in such a fight, no tactics, just a soaring delight in dominating an enemy, in killing, in seeing the fear in their eyes and watching their rearward ranks running away. I was making a mad keening noise, loving the slaughter, and beside me my wolftails hacked and stabbed and jeered at an enemy that should have been dancing on our corpses.

  They still could have beaten us, for their numbers were so great, but it is hard to fight in a broken shield wall going uphill and our sudden attack had broken their spirits. Too many of the Saxons were also drunk. A drunken man fights well in victory, but in defeat he panics quickly, and though Cerdic tried to hold them to the battle, his spearmen panicked and ran. Some of my youngsters were tempted to follow further down the hill, and a handful yielded to the temptation and went too far and so paid for their temerity, but I shouted at the others to stay where they were. Most of the enemy escaped, but we had won, and to prove it we stood in the blood of Saxons and our hillside was thick with their dead, their wounded and their weapons. The overturned wagon burned on the slope, a trapped Saxon screaming beneath its weight, while the other still rumbled on until it thumped into the hedge at the foot of the hill.

  Some of our women came down to plunder the dead and kill the wounded. Neither Aelle nor Cerdic were among those Saxons left on the hill, but there was one great chief who was hung with gold and wore a sword with a gold-decorated hilt in a scabbard of soft black leather criss-crossed with silver; I took the belt and sword from the dead man and carried them up to Guinevere. I knelt to her, something I had never done. ‘It was your victory, Lady,’ I said, ‘all yours.’ I offered her the sword.

  She strapped it on, then lifted me up. ‘Thank you, Derfel,’ she said.

  ‘It’s a good sword,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not thanking you for the sword,’ Guinevere said, ‘but for trusting me. I always knew I could fight.’

  ‘Better than me, Lady,’ I said ruefully. Why had I not thought to use the wagons?

  ‘Better than them!’ Guinevere said, indicating the beaten Saxons. She smiled. ‘And tomorrow we shall do it all over again.’

  The Saxons did not return that evening. It was a lovely twilight, soft and glowing. My sentries paced the wall as the Saxon fires brightened in the spreading shadows below. We ate, and after the meal I talked with Issa’s wife, Scarach, and she recruited other women and between them they found some needles, knives and thread. I had given them some cloaks that I had taken from the Saxon dead and the women worked through the dusk, then on into the night by the light of our fires.

  So that next morning, when Guinevere awoke, there were three banners on Mynydd Baddon’s southern rampart. There was Arthur’s bear and Ceinwyn’s star, but in the middle, in the place of honour as befitted a victorious warlord, there was a flag showing Guinevere’s badge of a moon-crowned stag. The dawn wind lifted it, she saw the badge and I saw her smile.

  While beneath us the Saxons gathered their spears again.

  THE DRUMS BEGAN AT dawn and within an hour five wizards had appeared on Mynydd Baddon’s lower slopes. Today, it seemed, Cerdic and Aelle were determined to exact revenge for their humiliation.

  Ravens tore at more than fifty Saxon corpses that still lay on the slope close to the charred remnants of the wagon, and some of my men wanted to drag those dead to the parapet and there make a horrid array of bodies to greet the new Saxon assault, but I forbade it. Soon, I reckoned, our own corpses would be at the Saxons’ disposal and if we defiled their dead then w
e would be defiled in turn.

  It soon became clear that this time the Saxons would not risk one assault that could be turned to chaos by a tumbling wagon. Instead they were preparing a score of columns that would climb the hill from the south, the east and the west. Each group of attackers would only number seventy or eighty men, but together the small attacks must overwhelm us. We could perhaps fight off three or four of the columns, but the others would easily get past the ramparts and so there was little to do except pray, sing, eat and, for those who needed to, drink. We promised each other a good death, meaning that we would fight to the finish and sing as long as we could, but I think we all knew the end would not be a song of defiance, but a welter of humiliation, pain and terror. It would be even worse for the women. ‘Should I surrender?’ I asked Ceinwyn.

  She looked startled. ‘It isn’t for me to say.’

  ‘I have done nothing without your advice,’ I told her.

  ‘In war,’ she said, ‘I have no advice to give you, except maybe to ask what will happen to the women if you don’t surrender.’

  ‘They’ll be raped, enslaved, or else given as wives to men who need wives.’

  ‘And if you do surrender?’

  ‘Much the same,’ I admitted. Only the rape would be less urgent.

  She smiled. ‘Then you don’t need my advice after all. Go and fight, Derfel, and if I don’t see you till the Otherworld, then know that you cross the bridge of swords with my love.’

  I embraced her, then kissed my daughters, and went back to the jutting prow of the southern rampart to watch the Saxons start up the hill. This attack was not taking nearly so long as the first, for that had needed a mass of men to be organized and encouraged, while today the enemy needed no motivation. They came for revenge and they came in such small parties that even if we had rolled a wagon down the hill they could easily have evaded it. They did not hurry, but they had no need for haste.