The British host had diminished, too. We numbered little more than ten thousand: two thousand horse, and the rest on foot. But a good few of those were fresh troops, who had been with Cai and Bors. These had seen no fighting yet, and were eager to win their mead portion and a share of the plunder.
The siege of Caer Gwynnion commenced on a cold, windswept day of the kind that come so frequently and suddenly in the north. Light rain whipped at our faces. The trails became slippery with mud. The horses and wagons were left behind in the valley below, where Arthur directed the camp to be established. An ala in full flying gallop is not much use against the stone walls of a fortress.
We were not foolish enough to storm the walls unaided. That is madness and defeat, as anyone knows. So Arthur turned his memory back to the same Romans who had built the fortress, adopting a tactic the legionaries used with unrivalled success against the timber hill forts of the Celts. We laid siege to the stronghold, and then set about constructing battle machines.
Myrddin's knowledge served us here, for he knew how such machines should be made, and he directed their construction. We made a wheeled tower with a doorway slightly higher than the walls of the fortress. We also built an onager with which to hurl stones into the walls and yard.
The machines were made of timber that had to be dragged up from the dale below by horse. It was slow and tedious work, but in five days they were finished and the battle could begin in earnest.
When the barbarians saw the tower erected they set up a hideous howl. But when the first stones began streaking from the sky like comets, they screamed in rage and frustration. They stripped naked and ran along the tops of the walls, presenting themselves openly, hoping to draw us into range of their axes and hammers and stones.
But Arthur remained unmoved. He commanded that no man should approach the walls and we all stayed well back and let the war machines do their work. We kept the stones flying day and night, moving the onager continually, so that the enemy could find no safe refuge within the walls.
Within three days they were well battered and hungry. When the seventh day had passed, they were weak and stupid with hunger. Then did Arthur order the tower to be wheeled to the wall. The best warriors were inside the tower, led by Cai, who demanded the privilege of directing the battle.
God love him, he argued so ardently and so well that Arthur gave him Caledvwlch to wear, to show that Cai had the Duke's full authority in command.
The warriors formed the tortoise – a simple manoeuvre by which a barrier of interlocked shields is raised over the heads of those who must approach the wall – and advanced slowly, pushing the great tower before them. Arthur and I watched the battle from the fair vantage of a rock outcrop nearby.
Brave I am, foremost in battle, yet I cannot say I would gladly have been the first to leap through the tower door onto the wall. Cai did that, showing magnificent courage, battling with a dozen or more alone until one by one his men joined him. I do not know how he was not killed the moment his foot touched the wall.
Gwalchavad, Cador and Owain led their warbands into the tower next, followed by Maelgwn, Bors and Ceredig. Once these first gained the fortress wall, we could not keep the rest away. The other kings crowded one another for places beneath the tower, so that a long line of warriors stretched back from the fortress wall.
The first fighting took place on the wall itself, as I have said. But the battle quickly carried to the yard below, and that was dreadful. There was no room to swing a sword without hitting foe or friend alike, so the Cymbrogi worked with their spears. Had they been threshers they could not have taken a greater harvest! The barbarians thought to crush the attack by sheer weight of numbers and so threw their naked bodies against the British spears. The bodies fell one upon the other – a wall of twitching limbs – before Cai and the Cymbrogi, and the enemy were forced to crawl over the corpses of their kin to fight.
The British were swarming over the wall now, hurling spears down into the churning chaos. There were so many Angli pent up within the caer that our warriors killed with every throw.
'There is no honour in this,' I observed. 'It is a slaughter of unknowing beasts.'
'Baldulf is as stubborn as he is proud,' Arthur said. 'But it will be ended soon.'
As if to make a prophet of Arthur, the gate – which had been stopped up with rocks and rubble, suddenly collapsed outward in a white cloud of dust and the enemy stormed out. The British kings were ready. Custennin, Ennion, Ogryvan and Ceredig ran forth to engage the foe. The sound of the clash reached the rock where we sat.
'Are we going down there?' I indicated the battle spreading before us.
Arthur gave his head a sharp shake. 'There is no need. We will let Cai and the kings have this victory.' He turned his horse away. 'Come, we will await them in the valley.'
Baldulf s stubbornness cost him the battle. His pride cost him his life.
The barbarian would not surrender and, even when the battle was well lost, he refused quarter. Cador killed him -and set the Bretwalda's head on the end of his own skull-and-bone battle standard. He then set the standard over the corpses heaped before Caer Gwynnion.
Arthur received the victorious host in the dale. Cai, Cador, Bors and Gwalchavad led the long march down to the camp. Arthur set up his camp chair before the ford and, when the warriors crossed, he welcomed them as heroes and champions and gave them all gifts.
Cai and the others were well pleased, for the pickings were meagre on the hill. Not so much as a gold ear-ring or even a brass pin did they get there. Arthur made up the lack from the share of plunder he had saved for them. He then proposed a victory feast.
Ah, but our hearts were not in it. Weary of battle, our thoughts were on the homeward road. Harvest time was drawing near; the kings were anxious to return to their realms. They had been gone from their affairs long enough. The war, for this year at least, was won. It was time to go home.
So we formed ranks and traversed the long, wide dale of Twide eastward to where the ships lay at anchor on the coast. Then we set sail for the south.
Highest Heavenlies, be praised! Our return to Caer Melyn was all golden gladness and sweet joy. The people gathered at Arthur's hill fort and thronged the track from the ford to the very gates of the stronghold. They cheered and sang as we passed among them. Most of them were Meurig's folk, with a good few from surrounding cantrefs as well. But their welcome was every whit as genuine and heartfelt.
Arthur, first in generosity, feasted them and stood the celebration of our summer's victories out of his own treasury. The other kings enjoyed his largesse, but none offered to help provide so much as a pig or a goat for the feast.
If that is all their renown is worth, so be it. For myself, I would not care to risk a bard's mocking tongue for the price of a few pigs or bullocks.
After the feast the kings departed to their own realms, and we set about ordering the stores – for the tribute had already begun to flow into Caer Melyn from all who had pledged to uphold the War Leader. The news of Arthur's victories had stirred the lords of Britain to something resembling extravagance.
Though the winter proved dark and cold, and the snow deep – as deep as ever I have seen it, I think: clothing the hilltops and mountains in cloaks of purest white, and enfolding the valleys in mantles of thick fleece – we did not mind. The fire burned bright in Arthur's hall, and Myrddin sang the songs of valour and great deeds. Our hearts soared.
At mid-winter we observed a fine and holy Christ Mass. The new-made Bishop Teilo performed the mass, joined by Illtyd and other churchmen of renown in the region. Indeed, the church seemed especially eager to lavish its blessing on Arthur's golden head, for they saw in him the preservation of their sacred work from the ravages of the barbarians and their loathly idols. Indeed, the good brothers were the first to suffer the slaughter and torture of the heathen; always it was a priest's blood spilled on the ruined altar, the monk's body put to the flame.