"Caius! What kept you?" Uther's welcoming roar told everyone I had arrived and they swung round as one to face me. As they did so Uther's long blade decapitated the rearmost of them and he kicked the headless, spouting corpse to fall among the legs of the others. The man who owned the hostelry, a one-eyed misanthrope who clutched a Roman sword, was right in front of me. I jammed the spear into his belly, just below the ribs and saw death come into his eyes as he dropped the sword and grasped at the shaft of the spear, stopping me from pulling it out. I gave it a vicious twist to lock the barbs and jerked him down towards me, stepping to my left to avoid his fall and almost plunging myself over the edge of the stairs. I hung there, my arms waving in the air, while they all had time to get over their surprise. I saw Uther plant his sword in another's back, but there were still three of them facing me with Uther's sword embedded and me defenceless.
One of them came at me with a roar just as I found my balance. I saw an axe whistling towards me and I jumped, out and backwards, flexing my knees and hoping to land without breaking a leg. In midair, I saw the axe bite deep into the step where I had been standing, and I saw Uther pick up the table that had sheltered him and rush the others on the stairs, sweeping all three of them off balance into a fall. By sheer good luck, I landed like a cat, easily, on all fours, and I was on the whoreson who had swung the axe before he landed at the bottom of the stairs. I had no thought of mercy in my head. The point of my sword grated on the stone floor beneath him and I had to plant my foot on his chest to pull my blade free. I heard a grunt, a chop and a death rattle as Uther clove another of them, and then came scuffling footsteps and the slam of a door. It was over. I collapsed onto the stairs, my head hanging between my knees as I fought for breath, and I heard the sound of the door again.
When I looked up, Uther was standing in the middle of the floor, grinning at me, his chest heaving as he gulped in great breaths. "One of them got away," he wheezed.
"Good riddance. Let him go." I was too exhausted to care.
He crossed the floor and sat on the steps beside me, hooking his right elbow around my neck and squeezing tightly, to my very great discomfort. I was too tired even to struggle and so I just sat there, pulled across him, seeing the curling hair on his thighs that were within inches of my face, smelling the well-known smell of him and thanking God I had arrived when I did.
Eventually he released me and lay back against the stairs and our breathing slowed down and began to return to normal. After the pressure and the tensions of the fight—the first real, life and death struggle in which I had ever been personally involved—I felt as weak as a baby, and I began to tremble all over. I sat erect and clasped my hands together tightly in an effort to control the shaking, and as I did so I became aware of the blood for the first time. It was everywhere. Wherever I looked I saw blood. It lay in puddles and gouts and rope-like streaks on the rushes of the floor. The man who had tried to kill me with the axe lay less than three feet from me, across the legs of the owner of the place whose upper body reared freakishly erect, impaled on Uther's broken spear. He had obviously landed on it as he fell, breaking the shaft and forcing the point clean through himself. Everything misted over and I vomited where I sat, choking and retching on the bitter gall of victory. When my vision, cleared again, I was kneeling on the floor and Uther was removing my helmet, letting the cool, fresh air reach my heated forehead and my sweat-matted hair.
"Feeling better?" I nodded, wiping my lips and chin and spitting to clear the sourness from my mouth. "Good," he went on. I've just decided I do not ever want you to be angry with me. You are a wild man, Cousin, when you are angry. You killed four of these people."
I looked around me at the slaughterhouse. "So did you."
He grinned. "Ah, but I killed them all from behind, while they were watching you."
"I was behind them too, remember. Lucky I found your spear on the floor over there." My voice was shaking. "And lucky you had them all involved at the top of the staircase. If things had been different, we would be dead now, you and I."
"Foolish talk. They weren't and we aren't."
I spat again. "My mouth tastes foul. I need a drink." I rose and crossed to the table with the casks and poured myself a cup of ale. It was flat and stale, bitter and sickening. Unable to swallow it, I rinsed my mouth and gargled and spat the stuff on the floor, feeling better with every second that passed. I looked around me then and nodded at the carnage. "What do we do about this?" As I spoke, I heard a sound above me and my head snapped up to see two women looking down at us from the loft, large-eyed and very frightened. I nodded towards them. "Some more friends of yours?"
Uther looked up and saw them. "Come down here, quickly!" When they had reached us, cowering with terror, their eyes flickering wildly from one to the other of us, he drew his sword again. "Take off those clothes!" They did as he said, and when they stood naked he shook his head slowly from side to side, looking at them in rueful amusement. "Caius, can you believe I almost got killed for this? We almost got killed for this, and I know you wouldn't stick mine into either of these, let alone your own!" The women stood close together, staring at him in fear, not knowing whether they were to live or die, but knowing completely that they were looking at Death himself in my cousin. "You!" he said, pointing his sword at the larger of them. "Turn around. Look at my friend." She turned to face me, her large breasts hanging heavy against her ribs, her belly sagging sadly over her pubic hair. "You almost got him killed, you slut, and he's a prince! He almost died because you teased my lust" with your great, squeezy teats!" He slapped her hard across the buttocks with the flat of his sword and she leaped in fright and pain, tears springing from her eyes. "Get out of my sight, both of you," he roared. "Out! Out, out, out, out!" The smaller one started to reach for her clothes, but he swung his sword again, catching her on the flank with the flat of it. "No!" he roared. "Take your thieving, murderous lives and let that be enough! No clothes. Be born again, as the Christians say. Go naked into a new life as you entered this one and think twice before you dare to tempt another witless reveller to his death! Out!" They ran, scampering in terror across the body-littered floor and out into the gathering dusk.
He watched them go, with that half-crazed grin of his that I loved, and then he slid his sword into the ring in the belt across his shoulders so that the blade hung down his back. "Should I have let them go, Cousin? They did try to kill me."