For the power of the Sais was broken.
PART THREE
Nimue’s Curse
Queen Igraine sat in my window and read the last sheets of parchment, sometimes asking me the meaning of a Saxon word, but otherwise saying nothing. She hurried through the story of the battle, then threw the parchments onto the floor in disgust. ‘What happened to Aelle?’ she demanded indignantly, ‘or to Lancelot?’
‘I shall come to their fates, Lady,’ I said. I had a quill trapped on the desk with the stump of my left arm and was trimming its point with a knife. I blew the scraps onto the floor. ‘All in good time.’
‘All in good time!’ she scoffed. ‘You can’t leave a story without an ending, Derfel!’
‘It will have an ending,’ I promised.
‘It needs one here and now,’ my Queen insisted. ‘That’s the whole point of stories. Life doesn’t have neat endings, so stories must.’ She is very swollen now, for her child is close to its time. I shall pray for her, and she will need my prayers for too many women die giving birth. Cows do not suffer thus, nor cats, nor bitches, nor sows, nor ewes, nor vixens, nor any creature except humankind. Sansum says that is because Eve took the apple in Eden and so soured our paradise. Women, the saint preaches, are God’s punishment on men, and children his punishment on women. ‘So what happened to Aelle?’ Igraine demanded sternly when I did not respond to her words.
‘He was killed,’ I said, ‘by the thrust of a spear. It struck him right here,’ I tapped my ribs just above my heart. The story was longer than that, of course, but I had no mind to tell her just then for I take little pleasure in remembering my father’s death, though I suppose I must set it down if the tale is to be complete. Arthur had left his men pillaging Cerdic’s camp and ridden back to discover whether Tewdric’s Christians had finished off Aelle’s trapped army. He found the remnants of those Saxons beaten, bleeding and dying, but still defiant. Aelle himself had been wounded and could no longer hold a shield, but he would not yield. Instead, surrounded by his bodyguard and the last of his spearmen, he waited for Tewdric’s soldiers to come and kill him.
The spearmen of Gwent were reluctant to attack. A cornered enemy is dangerous, and if he still possesses a shield wall, as Aelle’s men did, then he is doubly dangerous. Too many spearmen of Gwent had already died, good old Agricola among them, and the survivors did not want to push forward into the Saxon shields another time. Arthur had not insisted that they try, instead he had talked with Aelle, and when Aelle refused to surrender, Arthur summoned me. I thought, when I reached Arthur’s side, that he had exchanged his white cloak for a dark red one, but it was the same garment, just so spattered with blood that it looked red. He greeted me with an embrace, then, with his arm about my shoulders, led me into the space between the opposing shield walls. I remember a dying horse was there, and dead men and discarded shields and broken weapons. ‘Your father won’t surrender,’ Arthur said, ‘but I think he will listen to you. Tell him that he must be our prisoner, but that he will live with honour and can spend his days in comfort. I promise the lives of his men, too. All he needs do is give me his sword.’ He looked at the beaten, outnumbered and trapped Saxons. They were silent. In their place we would have sung, but those spearmen waited for death in utter silence. ‘Tell them there’s been enough killing, Derfel,’ Arthur said.
I unbuckled Hywelbane, laid her down with my shield and spear, then walked to face my father. Aelle looked weary, broken and hurt, but he hobbled out to meet me with his head held high. He had no shield, but held a sword in his maimed right hand. ‘I thought they would send for you,’ he growled. The edge of his sword was dented deep and its blade was crusted with blood. He made an abrupt gesture with the weapon when I began to describe Arthur’s offer. ‘I know what he wants of me,’ he interrupted, ‘he wants my sword, but I am Aelle, the Bretwalda of Britain, and I do not yield my sword.’
‘Father,’ I began again.
‘You call me King!’ he snarled.
I smiled at his defiance and bowed my head. ‘Lord King, we offer your men their lives, and we. ’
Once again he cut me off. ‘When a man dies in battle,’ he said, ‘he goes to a blessed home in the sky. But to reach that great feasting hall he must die on his feet, with his sword in his hand and with his wounds to the front.’ He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was much softer. ‘You owe me nothing, my son, but I should take it as a kindness if you would give me my place in that feasting hall.’
‘Lord King,’ I said, but he interrupted me for a fourth time.
‘I would be buried here,’ he went on as though I had never spoken, ‘with my feet to the north and my sword in my hand. I ask nothing more of you.’ He turned back to his men, and I saw that he could hardly stay upright. He must have been grievously wounded, but his great bear cloak was hiding the wound.
‘Hrothgar!’ he called to one of his spearmen. ‘Give my son your spear.’ A tall young Saxon came out of the shield wall and obediently held his spear out to me. ‘Take it!’ Aelle snapped at me, and I obeyed. Hrothgar gave me a nervous glance then hurried back to his comrades. Aelle closed his eyes for an instant and I saw a grimace cross his hard face. He was pale under the dirt and sweat, and he suddenly gritted his teeth as another ravaging pain seared through him, but he resisted the pain and even tried to smile as he stepped forward to embrace me. He leaned his weight on my shoulders and I could hear the breath scraping in his throat. ‘I think,’ he said in my ear, ‘that you are the best of my sons. Now give me a gift. Give me a good death, Derfel, for I would like to go to the feasting hall of true warriors.’ He stepped heavily back and propped his sword against his body, then laboriously untied the leather strings of his fur cloak. It dropped away and I saw that the whole left side of his body was soaked in blood. He had suffered a spear thrust under the breastplate, while another blow had taken him high in the shoulder, leaving his left arm hanging useless, and so he was forced to use his maimed right hand to unbuckle the leather straps that held his breastplate at his waist and shoulders. He fumbled with the buckles, but when I stepped forward to help he waved me away. ‘I’m making it easy for you,’ he said, ‘but when I’m dead, put the breastplate back on my corpse. I shall need armour in the feasting hall, for there is much fighting there. Fighting, feasting and. ’he stopped, racked once again by pain. He gritted his teeth, groaned, then straightened to face me. ‘Now kill me,’ he ordered.
‘I cannot kill you,’ I said, but I was thinking of my mad mother’s prophecy that it would be Aelle’s son who killed Aelle.
‘Then I shall kill you,’ he said, and he clumsily swung his sword at me. I stepped away from the swing, and he stumbled and almost fell as he tried to follow me. He stopped, panting, and stared at me. ‘For the sake of your mother, Derfel,’ he pleaded, ‘would you have me die on the ground like a dog? Can you give me nothing?’ He swung at me again, and this time the effort was too much and he began to sway and I saw there were tears in his eyes and I understood that the manner of his death was no small thing. He willed himself to stay upright and made an immense effort to lift the sword. Fresh blood gleamed at his left side, his eyes were glazing, but he kept his gaze on mine as he took one last step forward and made a feeble lunge at my midriff.
God forgive me, but I thrust the spear forward then. I put all my weight and strength into the blow, and the heavy blade took his falling weight and held him upright even as it shattered his ribs and drove deep into his heart. He gave an enormous shudder and a look of grim determination came to his dying face and I thought for a heartbeat that he wanted to lift the sword for one last blow, but then I saw he was merely making certain that his wounded right hand was fastened tight about his sword’s handle. Then he fell, and he was dead before he struck the ground, but the sword, his battered and bloody sword, was still in his grip. A groan sounded from his men. Some of them were in tears.