Except that it didn’t seem as if they were coming to attack us, but rather as though they were in flight. I soon saw why. From the woods that ran along the ridge emerged an array of shield-bosses and spearpoints: too many to count, but at a guess I’d have said there were easily more than a thousand. In the centre of the line flew two identical banners that I recognised in an instant, even though I had never before seen them with my own eyes. Banners in pale yellow, each emblazoned with a scarlet lion that had a tongue of blue. The symbol of the house of Cynfyn. Of the self-proclaimed kings Rhiwallon and Bleddyn.
A chill ran through me as I stared at it, my mouth too dry even to let out a curse. I had thought to trap some of the enemy horsemen, when in fact they themselves had been but the morsel in a larger snare.
And I had taken it. Like a fish to a hook I had been drawn in, and now we faced a battle if ever I had known one. A battle from which we would now be lucky to escape with our lives. For they commanded both the ridge and the valley north of the mill, and already they were sending a party of foot-warriors to cut off our withdrawal back south. At the same time we had the river at our backs, and while there was a chance we could swim it if we divested ourselves of our mail, we would make ourselves easy targets for the enemy’s archers, and it would mean surrendering most of our animals besides.
‘We’re trapped,’ said Turold as I rallied my conroi in front of the mill. I could see the panic spreading across his face, as it was among the men in our shield-wall. ‘They will drive us into the water, drown us without mercy.’
‘Shut up,’ I told him. ‘Let me think.’
Turold was young; he had never faced a fight like this before. Yet there must have been countless occasions when I had fought against odds worse than these and still had made it through. Not that I could recall them then. The enemy probably had at least three men to every one of ours, and while numbers were not everything, they counted for a lot.
All along the ridge they thumped their spear-hafts against the ground, hollering out curses and insults. Rather than attacking straightaway, instead they were holding back while their full army drew up in its battle-lines, waiting either for us to surrender or for fear to engulf our ranks. Only once they thought us too disheartened to fight properly would they finally come and tear us apart. Had I been them, I would probably have done the same, for it was a strategy that I had seen work before, and indeed it was working now. Among our own host, men were jostling so as not to find themselves in the first line of the wall, despite their lords’ efforts to keep them under control.
‘Keep your ranks!’ I bellowed at them as I rode along the front of the line, untying my chin-strap, unhooking my ventail, taking off my helmet with its red tails and drawing back my coif so that they could see my face clearly. ‘Stand firm and hold the line!’
I saw Snocca and Cnebba standing by the packhorses not far off and signalled for them to bring me the hawk banner, which I had entrusted to them. They did so, and I gave it flight for all our host to see, before driving the pole into the soft earth.
‘Here,’ I said. ‘This is where we fight. Bring your men forward; defend the banner!’
As it was, our back rank was almost standing in the river, and that was where we would all quickly end up if we didn’t leave at least some open ground behind us.
The barons glanced at each other nervously but did not move until Eudo joined me.
‘Do it,’ he shouted as he showed them his blade. ‘Unless you wish to feel my sword-edge, do it now!’
He spoke with such force that for a moment I almost believed he would make good on his threat, and perhaps the barons did too, since one by one they began to marshal their retainers, exhorting them with threats and curses, and gradually the line shuffled forward. On the other side of the mill the Welsh brothers were dismounting, not far from where Wace was rallying the right wing of our battle-line, roaring at them to hold their positions.
‘Take charge here,’ I said to Eudo as I leapt down from the saddle and broke into a jog towards the Welshmen. The ground was boggier downstream of the mill, where the blocked leats had overflowed, and within a few paces my boots were sinking through the long grass into the mud.
‘They were waiting for us,’ Maredudd said breathlessly when I reached him. There were bright thorn-scratches upon his body, and there was a pained expression on his face as he clutched at the lower part of his shield-arm where it was unprotected by his hauberk, which came only to his elbow. ‘They came upon us by surprise in the woods. We had no chance.’
‘Are these all the men you have left?’ I asked, gesturing at the small band he had brought. I’d sent them with around one hundred and fifty men, of whom half remained. A few were doubled over, vomiting, while others were too shocked even to stand, and had collapsed on the ground.
‘Get up!’ Wace was saying to them, and when they did not respond, Ithel joined him, yelling: ‘Kyuodwch chwi!’
Maredudd nodded. ‘This is all we have.’
I cursed aloud, but we had no time to waste standing around if any of us we were to survive this day. The enemy would not hold back for ever; soon their battle-hunger would outweigh their patience and they would come streaming down from the woods upon that ridge, swords and spears in hand, death in their eyes.
Until they did, however, we had work to do.
‘Rally your men,’ I told the brothers. ‘Their spears will be needed before long.’
Even as I left them an idea was forming in my mind: one that might just give us a chance. It wasn’t much, but we had nothing to lose by it, and if it worked we could at the very least be sure of taking a good number of the enemy with us.
Fifteen
Snocca and Cnebba were waiting when I returned to the head of our host. Other boys were attending to their lords, bringing them spears and shields, leading their destriers away and corralling them with the packhorses on the open ground behind our lines. This battle would not be won in the charge but in the clash and grind of shield-bosses, the crush of men, the struggle of wills. Not with swordcraft but with the grim, close work of spears and knives.
‘Come with me,’ I said to the twins, and then to a group of sturdy lads carrying bundles of spears under their arms: ‘You too.’
I would need strong arms for what I had in mind, and so I called over Pons and Turold and Serlo too.
‘See those carts, the ones the enemy left behind? I want them laid on their side, blocking the gaps in that wall.’
The wall ran along the firmer ground on our left wing, coming to an end where the mill-pool had once been. It rose only to waist-height in most places and chest-height in some, and so on its own hardly presented much of an obstacle. Together with the carts, though, I hoped it would be enough to frustrate the enemy’s approach and present them with a choice. Either they could waste time and lives trying to clear the obstruction before they could meet our shield-wall, or else they would have to attack across the marshier ground on our right, where Wace and our Welsh allies were positioned.
We got to work without delay. The carts were heavy things, and it took several men to pull them, and to turn them over on to their sides. Other men, seeing what we intended, pulled timbers from the ruined mill and added them to our crude barricade. It wasn’t much, but it all helped. Had we more time, I would have tried to find some way to set fire to the whole thing, but we didn’t, and so it was a futile thought.
‘Quickly!’ I shouted, at the same time throwing my shoulders and my back into tipping one of the carts over, grabbing the rough timbers from beneath as Snocca and Cnebba each took a corner. It took the effort of all three of us with Serlo as well, but eventually I felt it slipping from my fingers, falling away from me and coming down with a crash on to its side. The barrels it had been carrying spilled and rolled into the long grass that grew in the open ground between us and the enemy. I’d half hoped they might contain something that we could use, but luck wasn’t with us, for they were all empty.