I pulled Arthur's stifling helmet over my head and buckled its strap under my chin. Then, arrayed as my Lord, I also walked along the line of spears and warned my men that the fight would be hard, but victory certain so long as our shield-wall held. It was a perilously thin wall, in some places just three men deep, but those in the wall were all good men. One of them stepped out of the line as I approached the place where Sagramor's spearmen bordered mine. "Remember me, Lord?" he called.
I thought for a moment he had mistaken me for Arthur and I pulled the hinged cheek pieces aside so he could see my face, then at last I recognized him. It was Griffid, Owain's captain and the man who had tried to kill me at Lindinis before Nimue intervened to save my life. "Griffid ap Annan," I greeted him.
"There's bad blood between us, Lord," he said, and fell to his knees. "Forgive me."
I pulled him to his feet and embraced him. His beard had gone grey, but he was still the. same long-boned, sad-faced man I remembered. "My soul is in your keeping," I told him, 'and I am glad to put it there."
"And mine yours, Lord," he said.
"Minac!" I recognized another of my old comrades. "Am I forgiven?"
"Was there anything to forgive, Lord?" he asked, embarrassed at the question.
"There was nothing to forgive," I promised him. "No oath was broken, I swear it."
Minac stepped forward and embraced me. All along the shield-wall other such quarrels were being resolved. "How have you been?" I asked Griffid.
"Fighting hard, Lord. Mostly against Cerdic's Saxons. Today will be easy compared with those bastards, except for one thing." He hesitated.
"Well?" I prompted him.
"Will she give us back our souls, Lord?" Griffid asked, glancing at Nimue. He was remembering the awful curse she had laid on him and his men.
"Of course she will," I said, and summoned Nimue who touched Griffid's forehead, and the foreheads of all the other surviving men who had threatened my life on that distant day in Lindinis. Thus was her curse lifted and they thanked her by kissing her hand. I embraced Griffid again, then raised my voice so that all my men could hear me. "Today," I said, 'we shall give the bards enough songs to sing for a thousand years! And today we become rich men again!"
They cheered. The emotion in that shield-line was so rich that some men wept for happiness. I know now that there is no joy like the joy of serving Christ Jesus, but how I do miss the company of warriors. There were no barriers between us that morning, nothing but a great, swelling love for each other as we waited for the enemy. We were brothers, we were invincible and even the laconic Sa-gram or had tears in his eyes. A spearman began singing the War Song of Beli Mawr, Britain's great battle song, and the strong male voices swelled in instinctive harmony all along the line. Other men danced across their swords, capering awkwardly in their leather armour as they made the intricate steps either side of the blade. Our Christians had their arms spread wide as they sang, almost as though the song was a pagan prayer to their own God while other men clashed their spears against their shields in time to the music.
We were still singing of pouring our enemies' blood on to our land when that enemy appeared. We sang defiantly on as spear-band after spear-band came into view and spread across the far fields beneath kingly banners that showed bright in the day's cloudy gloom. And on we sang, a great torrent of song to defy the army of Gorfyddyd, the army of the father of the woman I was convinced I loved. That was why I was fighting, not just for Arthur, but because only by victory could I make my way back to Caer Sws and thus see Ceinwyn again. I had no claim on her, and no hopes either for I was slave-born and she a princess, yet somehow I felt that day as though I had more to lose than I had ever possessed in all my life.
It took over an hour for that cumbersome horde to make a battle line on the river's far bank. The river could only be crossed at the ford, which meant we would be given time to retreat when the moment came, but for now the enemy must have assumed that we planned to defend the ford all day for they massed their best men in the centre of the line. Gorfyddyd himself was there, his eagle banner stained by its dye that had run in the rain so that the flag looked as though it had already been dipped in our blood. Arthur's banners, the black bear and the red dragon, flew at our line's centre where I stood facing the ford. Sagramor stood beside me, counting the enemy banners. Gundleus's fox was there, and the red horse of Elmet, and several others we did not recognize. "Six hundred men?" Sagramor guessed.
"And more still coming," I added.
"Like as not." He spat towards the ford. "And they'll have seen that Tewdric's bull is missing." He gave one of his rare smiles. "It'll be a fight worth remembering, Lord Derfel."
"I'm glad to share it with you, Lord," I said fervently, and so I was. There was no warrior greater than Sagramor, no man more feared by his enemies. Even Arthur's presence did not raise the same dread as the Numidian's impassive face and ghastly sword. It was a curved sword of strange foreign make and Sagramor wielded it with a terrible quickness. I once asked Sagramor why he had first sworn loyalty to Arthur. "Because when I had nothing," he explained curtly, "Arthur gave me everything."
Our spearmen at last stopped singing as two Druids advanced from Gorfyddyd's army. We only had Nimue to counter their enchantments and she now waded through the ford to meet the advancing men who were both hopping down the road with one arm raised and one eye closed. The Druids were lorweth, Gorfyddyd's wizard, and Tanaburs in his long robe embroidered with moons and hares. The two men exchanged kisses with Nimue, talked with her for a short while and then she returned to our side of the ford. "They wanted us to surrender," she said scornfully, 'and I invited them to do the same."
"Good," Sagramor growled. lorweth hopped awkwardly to the ford's farther side. "The Gods bring you greeting!" he shouted at us, though none of us answered. I had closed my cheek pieces so that I could not be recognized. Tanaburs was hopping up the river, using his staff to keep his balance. lorweth raised his own staff level above his head to show that he wished to speak further. "My King, the King of Powys and High King of Britain, King Gorfyddyd ap Cadell ap Brychan ap Laganis ap Coel ap Beli Mawr, will spare your bold souls a journey to the Otherworld. All you need do, brave warriors, is give us Arthur!" He levelled the staff at me and Nimue immediately hissed a protective prayer and tossed two handfuls of soil into the air.
I said nothing and silence was my refusal. lorweth whirled the staff and spat three times towards us, then he began hopping down the river's bank to add his curses to Tanaburs's spells. King Gorfyddyd, accompanied by his son Cuneglas and his ally Gundleus, had ridden halfway to the river to watch their Druids working, and work they did. They cursed our lives by the day and our souls by night. They gave our blood to the worms, our flesh to the beasts and our bones to agony. They cursed our women, our children, our fields and our livestock. Nimue countered the charms, but still our men shivered. The Christians called out that there was nothing to fear, but even they were making the sign of the cross as the curses flew across the river on wings of darkness.
The Druids cursed for a whole hour and left us shaking. Nimue walked the shield-line touching spearheads and assuring men that the curses had not worked, but our men were nervous of the Gods' anger as the enemy spear-line at last advanced. "Shields up!" Sagramor shouted harshly. "Spears up!"
The enemy halted fifty paces from the river while one man alone advanced on foot. It was Valerin, the chief whom we had driven from the vale in the dawn, and who now advanced to the ford's northern edge with shield and spear. He had suffered defeat in the dawn and his pride had forced him to this moment when he could retrieve his reputation. "Arthur!" he shouted at me. "You married a whore!"
"Keep silent, Derfel," Sagramor warned me.
"A whore!" Valerin shouted. "She was used when she came to me. You want the list of her lovers? An hour, Arthur, would not be time enough to give that list! And who's she whoring with now while you're waiting to die? You think she's waiting for you? I know that whore! She's tangling her legs with a man or two!" He spread his arms and jerked his hips obscenely and my spearmen jeered back, but Valerin ignored their shouted insults. "A whore!" he called, 'a rancid, used-up whore! You'd fight for your whore, Arthur? Or have you lost your belly for fighting? Defend your whore, you worm!" He walked through the ford that came up to his thighs and stopped on our bank, his cloak dripping, just a dozen paces away from me. He stared into the dark shadow of my helmet's eye-hole. "A whore, Arthur," he repeated, 'your wife is a whore." He spat. He was bare-headed and had woven sprigs of protective mistletoe into his long black hair. He had a breastplate, but no other body armour, while his shield was painted with Gorfyddyd's spread-winged eagle. He laughed at me, then raised his voice to call to all our men. "Your leader won't fight for his whore, so why should you fight for him?"
Sagramor growled at me to ignore the taunts, but Valerin's defiance was unsettling our men whose souls were already chilled by the Druids' curses. I waited for Valerin to call Guinevere a whore one more time and when he did I hurled my spear at him. It was a clumsy throw, made awkward by the scale armour's constriction, and the spear tumbled past him to splash into the river. "A whore," he shouted and ran at me with his war spear levelled as I scraped Hywelbane out of her scabbard. I stepped towards him and had time to take just two paces before he thrust the spear at me with a great shout of rage.
I dropped to one knee and raised the polished shield at an angle so that the spear-point was deflected over my head. I could see Valerin's feet and hear his roar of rage as I stabbed Hywelbane under my shield's edge. I lunged upwards with the blade, feeling it strike just before his charging body struck my shield and drove me down to the ground. He was screaming instead of roaring now, for that sword thrust beneath the shield was a wicked cut that came up from the ground to pierce a man's bowels and I knew Hywelbane had plunged deep into Valerin, for I could feel his body's weight pulling the sword blade down as he collapsed on to the shield. I heaved up with all my strength to throw him off the shield and gave a grunt as I jerked the sword back from his flesh's grip. Blood spilt foul beside his spear that had fallen to the ground where he now lay bleeding and twitching in awful pain. Even so he tried to draw his sword as I clambered to my feet and put my boot on to his chest. His face was going yellow, he shuddered and his eyes were already clouding in death. "Guinevere is a lady," I told him, 'and your soul is mine if you deny it."
"She's a whore," he somehow managed to say between clenched teeth, then he choked and shook his head feebly. "The bull guards me," he managed to add, and I knew he was of Mithras and so I thrust Hywelbane hard down. The blade met the resistance of his throat, then swiftly cut to end his life. Blood fountained up the blade, and I do not think Valerin ever knew it was not Arthur who sent his soul to the bridge of swords in Cruachan's Cave.
Our men cheered. Their spirits, so abraded by the Druids and chilled by Valerin's foul insults, were instantly restored for we had drawn the first blood. I walked to the river's edge where I danced a victor's steps as I showed the dispirited enemy Hywelbane's bloodstained blade. Gorfyddyd, Cuneglas and Gundleus, their champion defeated, turned their horses away and my men taunted them as cowards and weaklings.
Sagramor nodded as I returned to the shield-wall. The nod was evidently his way of offering praise for a well-fought fight. "What do you want done with him?" He gestured to Valerin's fallen body.
I had Issa strip the corpse of its jewellery, then two other men heaved it into the river and I prayed that the spirits of the water would carry my brother of Mithras to his reward. Issa brought me Valerin's weapons, his golden torque, two brooches and a ring. "Yours, Lord," he said, offering me the plunder. He had also retrieved my spear from the river.
I took the spear and Valerin's weapons, but nothing else. "The gold is yours, Issa," I said, remembering how he had tried to give me his own torque when we had returned from Ynys Trebes.
"Not this, Lord," he said, and he showed me Valerin's ring. It was a piece of heavy gold, beautifully made and embossed with the figure of a stag running beneath a crescent moon. It was Guinevere's badge, and at the back of the ring, crudely but deeply cut into the thick gold, was a cross. It was a lover's ring and Issa, I thought, had been clever to spot it.
I took the ring and thought of Valerin wearing it through all the hurt years. Or maybe, I dared to hope, he had tried to revenge his pain on her reputation by cutting a false cross into the ring so that men would think he had been her lover. "Arthur must never know," I warned Issa and then I hurled the heavy ring into the river.
"What was that?" Sagramor asked as I rejoined him.
"Nothing," I said, 'nothing. Just a charm that might have brought us ill luck."
Then a ram's horn sounded across the river and I was spared the need to think about the ring's message.
The enemy was coming.
THE BARDS STILL SING of that battle, though the Gods only know how they invent the details they embroider into the tale because to hear their songs you would think none of us could have survived Lugg Vale and maybe none of us should. It was desperate. It was also, though the bards do not admit as much, a defeat for Arthur.
