Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) (94 page)

‘A victory is when the whole of an Army runs away, not when even the smallest part of it stands and dies where it fights. We have defeated no one, because they were never afraid of us. Even when they ran, they were only taunting us.’ He stood up. ‘Hey, Syvno! Have you read the stars tonight? Will there be a battle tomorrow?’

‘No, no battle,’ Syvno cried back, confidently. ‘Tomorrow will be just like today. We will ride through them, and there will be a feast after it, and you and I will toast each other.’

‘Then look to all your harness straps,’ Precent warned me quietly, lest Syvno hear. ‘Telling the stars is as easy as telling the weather.’

At dawn, we came down from the fires where we had slept, chewing as we rode on cold bacon and wheat cakes, and drinking from our jars of mead so that we would fight with that last taste of home in our mouths. We crossed the South-flowing river, where the Romans had built a bridge. Now it had fallen, leaving only the columns on the banks, and there were no Magicians in the Island who could raise it again. Behind us, the burning thatch laid low across the land a ceiling of black smoke under a roof of grey cloud. We were not opposed.

We moved up from the river, Precent and I on the road itself, the skirmishers spread out on either side of us. We saw the town before we saw the enemy who lay in front of it. The old town was there, near the bridge. The houses were roofless. The Savages had built their village a half mile away. They never live in the towns, even when they find them empty and waiting. They prefer to stay outside the walls, or if, very bold, they come within the walls, they place their houses in the pleasant gardens where the real people of the place once grew their leeks and radishes. Savages never live in house of stone. They cannot mend the roofs when tiles fall, or hang doors again on metal hinges. Besides, they believe that all the houses are made by Magicians, and that if they come within doors they will fall a prey to the magic. And better it would be if they did.

The town had once been surrounded by a wall. It was ruined
now, and often collapsed into a continuous mound, rather than a rampart. There was a gentle slope of rubble in the ditch that went round the walls. The weeds came close to the walls on three sides, not on the one that faced the river.

‘Gone,’ said Precent, waving towards the town. ‘All gone, the people who lived there once. No one even remembers the name of the place.’

‘Oh, yes, they do,’ I told him. ‘The name is clear, where the old road crosses the river. How does it go? I think I remember:

‘Who first sang that? Did you?’

‘No, I do not know who was the first. It is an old song. By the language, it is from before the Savages came. Perhaps the town has been desolate before. Why do you ask?’

‘Because it is the first verse I have heard you speak for more than a year.’

I did not answer. I felt that I had been unguarded. What had softened me? The heat of the battle yesterday perhaps, the sight of the dead. And which dead had moved me most? Dyvnwal Vrych, eaten by the crows? The corpses, stiff, thrown into the ponds and wells? Or that first boy, barefoot, in Eudav’s woods?

But between where we sat and the two places, the town on the one hand and the village on the other, the enemy stood. To our left, the ground sloped down to the river. The pools shining black under the leaden sky, the rushes standing up like clumps of savage spears, showed that this was bogland. It was no ground to ride horses over. To our right, there was another wood, a rare sight in that land, but whether they were afraid again of magic, or whether they left it to feed their swine, or whether perhaps the ground was too poor for wheat, I do not know. At any rate, it was dense wood, with bushes undergrowing the trees. We had had enough of that the day before. Horsemen would not enter that wood. They had taught us that. The space between the wood’s edge and the river swamp was five hundred paces, not
less, perhaps seven hundred, certainly not as much as a thousand. Through that space led the road. Through that space we had to go. And in that gap stood Bladulf.

Oh, yes, I was sure it was Bladulf, even at that distance. I had seen him the once, and that once was enough. A giant, he was. There are giants among the Savages. We count a man tall at seventeen hands: they mostly top eighteen, and only Owain of all the Household came to that. And Bladulf stood half a head taller than any of his army. His yellow hair hung braided to his waist, not cut like a Christian, and he had wound black rags into the braids so that he could be told from behind. He wore a helmet of bronze, not iron, shining red through the gloom of that day. Over the crest of it ran a high ridge, worked to show a wolf’s face above his own. The wolf’s paws reached down to cover his nose and to spread out where they might guard his cheeks. This was no Savage work, but stolen somewhere in Gaul. He wore mail to the thigh, and trousers of stiff leather like ours.

‘He will not move quickly in those,’ I told Precent.

‘He does not mean to run,’ Precent agreed. ‘That one will stand where he stands, whether his men stay with him or not. Watch that sword. He will try to come up at you under your shield. Do not let him attack you on the shield side.’

We could see, even from here, that Bladulf had a real sword, long and double-edged and pointed, such as few of his men carried. This was a sword a man could strike with, putting his weight behind the point to thrust. This was no edge that a village smith could beat out, to spoil by cutting hay or splitting wood or cracking lobster claws. I wondered where he had stolen it. It was no Roman work, too long, too big.

Owain came to us. We three rode forward, close enough to see faces. The Savages did not move, just stood firm. They began to make a noise, beating on their shields, and taking up a rhythmical chanting shout, bellowing in chorus one word again and again, perhaps a hundred times, before they found another word.

‘What is the word they cry?’ Owain asked.

‘
Blood
,’ I told him.

‘Then the Bloodfield let this place be,’ he told me. But it was Cattraeth, all the same.

Cynrig joined us, and Peredur Ironarms.

‘Eight to one, would you say, or ten?’ asked Precent. He counted nice enough, seeing they were well pressed together all across our front, and three or four lines deep in most places, close on each other’s heels. But Owain replied, ‘Nearer twenty to one, counting us all together, horse-holders and all. Hear that, Aneirin, hear that, twenty to one, and sing it. Oh there shall be glory for us this day, honour and glory for us all.’

We looked close at the Savages, standing there in line, waiting for us. All giants they were, that is true, all of them far taller than most of us. Many of them in the front rank had a piece or two of mail to hide their shoulders or their breasts. Most of them had the saxes they used on their farms, too long to be called knives, too short for swords, and too useful to be kept only for battle. Besides there was a forest of spears, and axes as well. And every man had a shield, not oval and leather-covered like ours but round and heavy, of limewood planks joined together, with iron-bosses deep and pointed, and iron rims a hand wide. They looked a dirty lot, all dressed in their undyed garments of grey or brown coloured only with grease and dirt, a line of dun ants, frugal as the ants, not knowing what art or poetry or civilisation is, needing only each man his handful of wheat to live. Satisfied with that little, too.

Behind Bladulf, a mocking parody of Bradwen, a soot-daubed giant carried his banner. It was black, long and narrow, the edges stiffened with willow-canes, so that it stood out for us to see all the day, and never dropped on the staff. It was embroidered with a dragon, in white. His helmet did not, however, show the dragon’s wings, but the horns they liked to wear. In the rear rank, there were men with neither helmet nor even a cap of wool or leather, and these were Aidan’s horned men indeed, because they had twisted their braids in tallow to stand out like stiff horns before their heads. A strange people, among whom a horned man had honour. And we could smell them, too, even at that distance, the strange almost-sweet smell of wheat flour, leavened with yeast.

‘How do we take them, Owain?’ Cynrig asked. It was something, that we were able to sit there, within a spear’s cast of the
enemy line, and discuss what we would do, as calmly as if we were in the paddocks under the Giant’s Seat.

‘As we always planned,’ Owain answered. He did not move, though, but sat still a moment, looking at the long dun line of swaying chanting warriors. The rhythm of their voices was a seductive, diverting thing, numbing thought. But under that strange deliberate assault, not on the body but on the senses, Owain still was able to plan, to change his mind.

‘No, not as we always planned it. Precent, I want you to command the reserve Squadron.’

‘That was not what you promised me.’

‘I do not break promises lightly. Twenty to one there may be, but it cannot yet be the whole host of the Savages. It may well be that Bladulf has hidden men in the wood, to try to take us in the rear when we attack. If they do, I want my most experienced commander to be ready for them.’

‘I take it Bradwen will ride with us, then?’ I asked.

‘I cannot ride into battle without my standard. It is my ravens that will drink blood today, and peck out eyes tonight.’

‘I will carry your standard,’ Cynrig offered.

‘Will you dare to try to take it from her?’ Owain asked him. ‘I have tried to persuade her, but she insists that she will fight. I have told her to ride in the second line, not the first, in case the standard is captured. It is the only argument she will listen to. Gwenabwy and a dozen others will keep close around her. I think she will be safer in the second line than in the reserve, if there should be an attack from the wood. If you want to go and argue yourself, then you can, but I have little hope that you will change her mind.’

There was no more to say. Only Owain asked, ‘Their shout has changed. What are they saying now?’

‘
Victory
, they are bawling, over and over again,
Victory
.’

‘For whom? Go with God,my friends.’

We turned again and joined our squadrons. Precent, Cynrig and I rode together to the reserve line. Between us and the leading squadrons rode Bradwen; Gwenabwy rode close at her right hand, and Cynrain at her left. As we rode back, though, I heard Precent ask Owain, ‘Am I to use my own discretion when to throw in the reserve?’

‘No! Charge when you see we have broken through, or when you hear me call to you. Otherwise, sit still!’

Owain rode forward again. We saw him speak to Bradwen before he went to his own place at the centre of the front rank. The chant of the Savages rose louder and louder. From our ranks rose only the voice of Gelorwid, in the words of the Virgin’s Hymn. We were ready to put down this proud Bladulf from his throne.

Then we of the reserve stood beside our horses and watched the opening of the battle. The Household spread out in two lines, one behind the other. The Savages suddenly fell silent, keeping their breath for the fight. Owain rode in the centre, in the gap between the two front squadrons. Oh, there is never a sight in all the world like an army of cavalry riding into action, all gleaming in red and shining iron, all the gay shields bobbing and the pennants flying, the plumes tossing as they went forward, silent now as the enemy.

Owain did not ride at the whole of the enemy’s line, as he could have done if he had spread out his men as far as they would go. He made his soldiers ride knee to knee, where they could help each other, but not so close that they could not move. They trotted steadily across the empty field, an eye always for bad ground or molehills or traps dug for us by night. And the Savages waited for us, not running forward to meet our people. A spear’s throw from the enemy line, the Household halted. The men of the first rank raised their arms, and a shower of spears fell on the enemy. Immediately, the second line rode forward, squeezing through the gaps in the first line, only Owain and Bradwen keeping their places. The men of the second line, now in the front, threw their spears, and then, with swords drawn, rode forward again at the walk, crushing and pressing against the Savage front as if to push it aside by sheer force. But as our men threw their spears, so did the enemy, and sword rang against sword, and long pikes thrust from where swords could not reach. I saw men fall from their saddles, and riderless horses rear in the press and trot back, where they could, saddlecloths blackened with blood or their riders trailing by the feet from the stirrups.

The lines were locked for as long as it took Gelorwid, at my
elbow, to repeat twice the Virgin’s Prayer that he had learnt from a hermit in the South. But, at length, we heard above the din, above the screech of the Savages, the shouts of the Household, the braying of horns, the screams of men struck down, and the clatter of sword against shield and spear against mail, the voice of Owain, splendid as a trumpet of silver. We saw the second line of horsemen, pressing behind their leaders, slacken, and then the Raven banner came back towards us, and Owain riding behind it, and all the rest of our horsemen following it, in a streaming rout.

Any leader can carry men with him into an attack. Only an Owain can lead them away from the enemy, and then halt them where he pleases. The Raven banner halted where it had stood before, and the squadrons re-formed around it. Again, Owain led them forward, not now at the centre of the enemy’s line but at their right flank, our left, where they held their flank against the bog. Now, of course, the ranks were reversed, and it was fresh men who first closed with the line of foot, cutting and slashing at the bearded faces below them, shearing off the tow braids with the tow heads, swords falling in severed hands. Again we would see Owain in the centre of the front line, his plumes tossing, his arms flailing as he dealt out pain and death on either side. Behind him, steady, above his head, the Ravens flew.