whistle of air as one passed no more than a hand’s span by my helmet, another dropped just in front of Nihtfeax’s hooves, and then they were everywhere, raining down in their dozens and their scores.
‘Shields!’ I heard someone cry, and it might even have been me except that it sounded somehow distant, and I couldn’t remember having willed myself to speak.
After that all was confusion. Even when it was all over, still I struggled to recall exactly the order of things. Whoever gave the warning, it came too late. Horses shrieked as steel pierced their flanks and their riders were thrown from the saddle. Some of the knights had slowed, uncertain what to do, but that only made them easier targets. Others tried to turn their mounts too quickly; the beasts went down in a writhing mess of hooves and grass, earth and blood, falling upon their masters and crushing them. Not ten paces ahead of me, one of Wace’s men caught an arrow in the neck, the point piercing his ventail. He tumbled backwards across his horse’s flank, dead even before he hit the ground.
‘Retreat,’ Wace was shouting, ‘Retreat!’
Another volley of arrows shot out from the trees, arcing over the meadows that sloped down from the rise. From out of the clump emerged spearmen in their scores, beating their spear-hafts and their sword-hilts upon the rims of their shields, raising the battle-thunder as they marched to meet us.
My first thought was that Berengar had been right: that the princes had indeed betrayed us. After everything, I ought to have listened to him. A furious heat rose up inside me: at the brothers for having deceived us for so long; at myself for having failed to see it.
‘Back,’ I called, waving to catch the attention of my knights. Some dozen or so lay on the ground, blood coursing from wounds that would not be healed. ‘Conroi with me!’
On either side of me shafts thudded into the sodden turf. Nihtfeax wheeled about and then we were galloping back in the direction we had come, towards the mill, where the rest of our host were now rallying, drawing up in their ranks and their conrois.
That was when I saw Ithel and Maredudd together with their teulu galloping down from the ridge: forty or fifty men on horseback with pennons of gold and green on their lances. Behind them, running and stumbling over the tussocks, came an assortment of foot-soldiers with leather jerkins, bows in hand or else slung over their shoulders, and a few with bucklers strapped to their arms.
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: ‘
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
