Clash of Kings (38 page)

‘There are walls,’ Catigern retorted. He had no respect for his brother’s caution.

‘Yes, but the city has grown beyond those walls and they are now totally inadequate. Any clever, well-organised commander can simply row up the river, just as the Romans did. Londinium is a huge prize and it is very, very vulnerable. I also heard that Durobrivae is sending troops. Apparently, Ambrosius explained to its city fathers the need for a large army to send the Saxons back across the Litus Saxonicum where they belong. The masters of Londinium are aware of the seafaring skills of the Saxons and Jutes, whose ships are capable of sacking the very heart of their city. Nor does Ambrosius care if Hengist learns of our plans, because he realises that the Frisian is no fool. He will guess anyway that we are on the move and attacking in strength, and Ambrosius wants the Saxons to experience the taste of fear.’

Vortimer looked out over the growing camp of warriors, most of them still trained and disciplined in the old Roman way. Londinium had been a great fortress of the legions, so the warriors still set out their camp in the squares that the legions had demanded. For a moment, Vortimer felt tears leap into his eyes. He had been a very small child when the Dracos Legion had sailed out of Glevum for the last time. He remembered the Red Dragon insignia blazing in the sun before the pennon was furled and the galleys set their huge sails. He had felt a similar sensation when his grandfather had deserted him in death.

‘Why so glum, brother? We’ll have over a thousand men while Hengist will take to the field with four hundred if he’s very lucky. We can’t lose.’ Catigern managed to sneer and smile at the same time, suggesting wordlessly that his brother was an old woman who was weighted down with the fear of failure.

Vortimer held his temper, although sometimes he longed to smash his brother’s sardonic face and perfect teeth. As a bastard, Catigern had never been expected to succeed in everything he touched, unlike Vortimer, and he existed in a world where snide, unkind whispers were used to denigrate those you detested. If too much had been loaded on Vortimer’s shoulders, then Catigern was trusted with too little. Even now, Vortimer displayed an empathy that his brother derided, while still being aware that it was his greatest strength. That he managed to resist the temptation to strike Catigern showed the patience and self-control that had contributed so much to the defeat of his father in the recent pitched battle. Sometimes, Vortimer felt very alone, for he knew that Catigern would kill him without a second thought if he sensed a weakness, or believed that he could capture the loyalty of the tribes. As for Ambrosius, Vortimer had been told the route Vortigern had taken to become High King, so he wondered if Ambrosius wasn’t using Hengist to destroy the sons of his old enemy.

‘You’re an idiot at times, Catigern.’

‘And you’re an over-cautious old woman, shit head!’ Catigern responded cheerfully. ‘We can’t lose, brother, so stop looking for problems that don’t exist.’

‘Hengist will. That bastard frightens me. He always managed to make the hairs rise on my arms, even when he stood behind Father’s chair looking meek and subservient. Horsa is a good-natured ox who was born to follow a stronger mind and a more controlled sword arm, but Hengist is different. Right now he’s thinking very hard.’

Catigern gave an exclamation of disgust and stalked away, and Vortimer turned to his personal guard, suddenly energised the way his brother never was, for all his furious activity. ‘Call out the captains. We leave for Durobrivae in five hours by forced march. Now, bring me my armour.’

Hengist issued orders in a flurry of activity and urgency. ‘Send the women, children and old men to Rutupiae. The ceols must be ready to run if we should fail in the field. Accept no excuses. Not a woman or a child can be risked, for they are our future. They are both Britons and Saxons, and they will avenge us if we should fall in this battle. Move it, Horsa!’

Hengist had a remarkable mind, in that he forgot almost nothing. Unlike the other thanes and warriors, he had taken easily to horseback and checked every mile of his land. He could remember every hill, every fold in the ground and every stream and river between his army and the sea. His people had no maps, a lack he regretted, and he decided to put this matter to rights at some time in the future if he survived the coming conflict. For now, he must find land of his own choosing as the site of the imminent battle. His captives had regrettably died under torture, but all men soon volunteer information when in extremities of pain, no matter how brave or patriotic they might be. Even hatred cannot defeat unremitting agony. Hengist had been told the size of the horde he faced under the command of Vortimer and Catigern.

‘Praise to Odin,’ he whispered aloud as Horsa re-entered Hengist’s small room in the Saxon stockade.

‘For what?’ Horsa responded, his face alive with excitement. Horsa was still a boy, although he had bedded a wife and fathered two children in three years. Hengist grinned with affection for a brother who never failed him in thought or deed.

‘We will face Vortimer and his brother in battle, rather than Ambrosius, or even Vortigern who is a bear when he is cornered. From all reports, Ambrosius fights like an intelligent Roman and therefore is less predictable than the sons of Vortigern. The brothers will try to swamp us by sheer numbers while Ambrosius risks very little – either in men or in prestige.’

‘Our men are taller and stronger than the Celts, and they are the best fighters in this whole land,’ Horsa muttered as he bit into a crisp apple with noisy appreciation. ‘Damn me, but this earth grows wonderful fruit.’

‘Our men fight as individuals and, like individuals, they can be cut down by inferior warriors with better leadership. Numbers, Horsa. It’s numbers and organisation that win battles, not skill or talent.’

‘You’re saying that we’re defeated before we begin, brother.’ Horsa struck the timbers of the log wall with his open hand. ‘I can’t believe that you’d just cut and run. I’ll never believe it.’

Hengist slammed both his leather boots onto the sod floor with a dull thud. When he rose to his feet, his back uncurled until he stood like a tree, his feet wide apart, and faced Horsa down until the younger man’s eyes dropped in respect.

‘Listen, brother. Just shut your mouth and try to follow my reasoning. We cannot win if we fight as individuals. They’ll chop us off at the knees in the same way that Caesar defeated our brethren in Gaul and all the way up to Germania. Hear me, Horsa. They will attack us in squares so we can run at them like demons, but we’ll only impale ourselves on their spears. No, we must use a new technique. We must make them come to us.’

Taking his brother literally, Horsa kept his mouth shut.

‘To the south of Durobrivae and Durovernum, and a little to the east, there is a hill that I believe could make the perfect defensive position. We will occupy the crown of that hill. Vortimer’s army will be forced to run up the slopes to engage us. On such terrain, his fighting square then becomes a useless tactic, because we will use a shield ring as part of our defensive strategy. If we can hold the high ground, I believe we can kill two of them for every man that we lose.’

Horsa’s mouth split into a wide grin. Hengist saw complete acceptance of his risky plan reflected in his brother’s admiring eyes. Gods! To fail! To risk everything on a hill, and on the inexperience of Vortimer who had only fought one battle as a commander, and that against his own father as foe. Hengist understood how terrible the coming war would be, and how vulnerable the Saxons would become if they were cut off from an effective retreat. Holding the hill might cost his army everything.

‘I have no other choice,’ he told Horsa roughly as a cover for the sudden lump that had formed in his throat. Beyond the stockade, he could see the rich, deep lands of the Cantii, backed by low hills and deep forests. If he craned his neck and looked eastward, he could see the ocean, miles away over land that was so fair and so flat that, in time, his warriors could learn to become farmers and tillers of the soil.

He hungered for land that he could call his own. These isles were Hengist’s last hope and he would risk a great deal to secure his dream for his people. The thane had always known that every slight, slur, setback and bitter disappointment had only been preludes to the achievement of his hearts’ desire. All he had to do to win his dream was to hold one sodding little hill.

Loki laughed as he crouched at the feet of the world tree, Ygdrasil. The trickster god of Hengist’s forefathers smelled the man’s desire and was amused.

Somehow, Hengist had cajoled and convinced the thanes that running directly at Vortimer’s force at breakneck pace would be stupid, wasteful suicide, without any trace of honour in it. Like many northerners, the Saxons prized courage above all other virtues. Saxon men and women could not stand heads high in the sunshine without brave hearts. But to endure, Saxons also needed the qualities of duty and self-sacrifice. In the harsh winters of the northern countries, the snow trapped the younger hunters within their huts and the cold became a living monster. When food supplies ran low, the old ones walked outside into the darkness, naked, to ensure that the children and grandchildren were fed. Hengist now called upon these deep instincts in his men.

‘This miserable hill is the key to our strategy. We must hold the crown until we are threatened with overwhelming defeat, or we secure a great victory. Then, and only then, will we use a wedge like an arrowhead to drive into the Celtic forces, either to escape or to advance to victory.’

‘Do you fear that we might lose the coming battle, Thane Hengist?’ one tall, red-bearded warrior challenged him, his hairy jaw jutting forward aggressively.

‘I fear to lose this land . . . not necessarily these particular acres, Otha, but these soft lands whose tribes have grown fat and complacent under Roman rule. Even if we lose this battle, I swear to you that we will ultimately win the war.’

‘If we lose, my thane, I vow that I’ll not leave the battlefield alive,’ Otha swore, his blue-green eyes glittering with a kind of madness. Hengist would have torn great tufts out of his own beard in frustration had he not needed to sway these stubborn men, who mistrusted anything that their fathers had not known. He had learned through painful experience that old ways are not necessarily the best ways.

‘I honour your courage, Otha, but who will father sons on your wife if you die needlessly here? Who will sing of your deeds at the feastings a hundred years from now, when we have sunk our roots so deeply into this soil that nothing and no one will ever root us out? You must live, if you can, to father children who belong in these lands by the right of birth.’

Otha was mollified, but unconvinced. Like many of the thanes, he couldn’t think beyond the immediate problem. Sometimes Hengist despaired of his people.

‘Each thane will command a defensive ring at the top of the hill. Use your shields to repel arrows and to fight in tandem with your fellow thanes. When the first ring is weary, the next ring can take their place, and so on. Each of you must hold your ring and prevent your warriors from allowing the chain to break. Are you equal to this task?’

Faced with such a challenge, what thane would deny his ability to maintain discipline among his warriors? To a man, they roared their approval.

‘Most important of all, if we are in danger of being swamped by what will be a huge Celtic force, we must change our defensive position into the shape of an arrowhead. Then our warriors must charge at the attackers and cut a swathe through the enemy so that our survivors can reach the ceols at Rutupiae. Our families will be waiting there, and we’ll live to fight another day. I am determined that we will hold a kingdom in this land, one way or another. The Celts are idle from years of protection by the Romans, and their resolve has been weakened. This is our time!’ He smiled encouragement at his audience. ‘And this is our land! I have served Vortigern, and his will is not as strong as ours. I have watched the young Vortimer and he has never felt the pangs of hunger, nor feared the agony of watching his children die. I have not met Ambrosius, but he is a Roman and a man raised in plenty. We are the new way! We are the new kings!’

As the thanes saluted Hengist’s speech, which had been delivered with such strength and certainty, Horsa experienced a moment of surprise. His brother had always been a leader, had always planned and thought ahead, but never before had he shown a capacity to change the destiny of his people. In the wake of his brother’s optimism, Horsa now harboured no doubts. These isles would belong to the Saxons till the end of time.

Vortimer had marched into the field with a combined army of legion-trained troops, a number of archers, the dour Celtic warriors of Dyfed and Glywising and a very small contingent of cavalry consisting largely of officers and the sons of kings. Because of the flat terrain, he believed that horses would be less than useless in this battle, where force of numbers and disciplined strategies would bring an easy victory. As the horde approached Durobrivae, Vortimer made camp and sent out mounted scouts to determine the location of the Saxon forces. When they returned and recounted their discoveries, he was perplexed.

‘The Saxon stockade is deserted, my lord. The smallholdings, the huts and the wooden forts with their rings of sharpened tree trunks are all empty,’ one young lord of Dyfed reported, his eyes expressing his disappointment.

‘I don’t believe that Hengist would retreat without striking a blow,’ Vortimer snapped, his temper stretched uncharacteristically by nerves. ‘He’s waiting for us – somewhere.’

In the long, frightening hours of anticipation that followed, the young warrior lordlings expressed their disappointment that the Saxons had run like mongrel dogs. Vortimer knew better, and his bowels clenched with nervousness. Once again, he remembered Hengist’s sharp, proud eyes, and determined to wait for the last of his scouts to return before he took precipitate action.

Near nightfall, the last two scouts from the Dyfed levy returned to camp on spent horses, and were ushered into Vortimer’s command tent where the king, his brother and the chieftains waited.