‘Tonight she’ll be mine, you worm.’ He took two steps nearer me so that he was just a dozen paces away, then tossed the big axe up in the air again. His men were cheering him from the northern slope, while my men were shouting raucous encouragements from the ramparts.
‘If you’re frightened,’ I said, ‘I can give you time to empty your bowels.’
‘I’ll empty them on your corpse,’ he spat at me. I wondered whether to take him with the spear or with Hywelbane and decided the spear would be faster so long as he did not parry the blade. It was plain that he would attack soon for he had begun to swing the axe in fast intricate curves that were dazzling to watch and I suspected his intention was to charge me with that blurring blade, knock my spear aside with his shield, then bury the axe in my neck. ‘My name is Wulfger,’ he said formally, ‘Chief of the Sarnaed tribe of Cerdic’s people, and this land shall be my land.’
I slipped my left arm out of the shield loops, transferred the shield to my right arm and hefted the spear in my left hand. I did not loop the shield on my right arm, but just gripped the wooden handle tight. Wulfger of the Sarnaed was left-handed and that meant his axe would have attacked from my unguarded side if I had kept the shield on its original arm. I was not nearly so good with a spear in my left hand, but I had a notion that might finish this fight fast. ‘My name,’ I answered him formally, ‘is Derfel, son of Aelle, King of the Aenglish. And I am the man who put the scar on Liofa’s cheek.’
My boast had been intended to unsettle him, and perhaps it did, but he showed little sign of it. Instead, with a sudden roar, he attacked and his men cheered deafeningly. Wulfger’s axe was whistling in the air, his shield was poised to knock my spear aside, and he was charging like a bull, but then I hurled my own shield at his face. I hurled it sideways on, so that it spun towards him like a heavy disc of metal-rimmed wood.
The sudden sight of the heavy shield flying hard at his face forced him to raise his own shield and check the violent whirling of his blurring axe. I heard my shield clatter on his, but I was already on one knee with my spear held low and lancing upwards. Wulfger of the Sarnaed had parried my shield quickly enough, but he could not stop his heavy forward rush, not could he drop his shield in time, and so he ran straight onto that long, heavy, wicked-edged blade. I had aimed at his belly, at a spot just beneath his iron breastplate where his only protection was a thick leather jerkin, and my spear went though that leather like a needle slipping through linen. I stood up as the blade sank through leather, skin, muscle and flesh to bury itself in Wulfger’s lower belly. I stood and twisted the haft, roaring my own challenge now as I saw the axe blade falter. I lunged again, the spear still deep in his belly and twisted the leaf-shaped blade a second time, and Wulfger of the Sarnaed opened his mouth as he stared at me and I saw the horror come to his eyes. He tried to lift the axe, but there was only a terrible pain in his belly and a liquefying weakness in his legs, and then he stumbled, gasped and fell onto his knees. I let go of the spear and stepped back as I drew Hywelbane. ‘This is our land, Wulfger of the Sarnaed,’ I said loudly enough for his men to hear me, ‘and it stays our land.’ I swung the blade once, but swung it hard so that it razored through the matted mass of hair at the nape of his neck and chopped into his backbone.
He fell dead, killed in an eyeblink.
I gripped my spear shaft, put a boot on Wulfger’s belly and tugged the reluctant blade free. Then I stooped and wrenched the wolf skull from his helmet. I held the yellowing bone towards our enemies, then cast it on the ground and stamped it into fragments with my foot. I undid the dead man’s golden collar, then took his shield, his axe and his knife and waved those trophies towards his men, who stood watching silently. My men were dancing and howling their glee. Last of all I stooped and unbuckled his heavy bronze greaves which were decorated with images of my God, Mithras. I stood with my plunder. ‘Send the children!’ I shouted at the Saxons.
‘Come and fetch them!’ a man called back, then with a swift slash he cut a child’s throat. The other two children screamed, then they too were killed and the Saxons spat on their small bodies. For a moment I thought my men would lose control and charge across the saddle, but Issa and Niall held them to the rampart. I spat on Wulfger’s body, sneered at the treacherous enemy, then took my trophies back up the hill.
I gave Wulfger’s shield to one of the levy, the knife to Niall and the axe to Issa. ‘Don’t use it in battle,’
I said, ‘but you can chop wood with it.’
I carried the golden collar to Ceinwyn, but she shook her head. ‘I don’t like dead men’s gold,’ she said. She was cradling our daughters and I could see she had been weeping. Ceinwyn was not a woman to betray her emotions. She had learned as a child that she could keep her fearsome father’s affections by being bright-natured, and somehow that habit of cheerfulness had worked itself deep into her soul, but she could not hide her distress now. ‘You could have died!’ she said. I had nothing to say, so I just crouched beside her, plucked a handful of grass and scrubbed the blood from Hywelbane’s edge. Ceinwyn frowned at me. ‘They killed those children?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Who were they?’
I shrugged. ‘Who knows? Just children captured in a raid.’
Ceinwyn sighed and stroked Morwenna’s fair hair. ‘Did you have to fight?’
‘Would you rather I had sent Issa?’
‘No,’ she admitted.
‘So yes, I had to fight,’ I said, and in truth I had enjoyed the fight. Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war. We warriors dressed for battle as we decked ourselves for love; we made ourselves gaudy, we wore our gold, we mounted crests on our silver-chased helmets, we strutted, we boasted, and when the slaughtering blades came close we felt as though the blood of the Gods coursed in our veins. A man should love peace, but if he cannot fight with all his heart then he will not have peace.
‘What would we have done if you had died?’ Ceinwyn asked, watching as I buckled Wulfger’s fine greaves over my boots.
‘You would have burned me, my love,’ I said, ‘and sent my soul to join Dian.’ I kissed her, then carried the golden collar to Guinevere, who was delighted by the gift. She had lost her jewels with her freedom, and though she had no taste for heavy Saxon work, she placed the collar about her neck.
‘I enjoyed that fight,’ she said, patting the golden plates into place. ‘I want you to teach me some Saxon, Derfel.’
‘Of course.’
‘Insults. I want to hurt them.’ She laughed. ‘Coarse insults, Derfel, the coarsest that you know.’
And there would be plenty of Saxons for Guinevere to insult, for still more enemy spearmen were coming to the valley. My men on the southern angle called to warn me, and I went to stand on the rampart beneath our twin banners and saw two long lines of spearmen winding down the eastern hills into the river meadows. ‘They started arriving a few moments ago,’ Eachern told me, ‘and now there’s no end to them.’