Clash of Kings (43 page)

For a moment, Myrddion’s old sight reasserted itself and he smelled the stench of voided bowels, the hot stink of urine and the sweat of fear. Over the nauseous smells, the healer saw a dead tree, blazing and being consumed, with a warrior in black waiting behind the collapsing limbs. Something old and dead hovered over the scene, and then Myrddion could see no more.

‘Continue, Finn!’ Vortigern growled. ‘What happened next?’

‘They killed us all, King Vortigern. Every one of us – except for me! I was spared by Hengist to tell you of the revenge he took during the Night of the Long Knives. He allowed me to live, my King. Why?’

CHAPTER XVIII

FATHERS AND SONS

Painfully, in excoriating detail, Finn detailed his recollection of the slaughter that occurred on the Night of the Long Knives, a few brief hours that would shape the relationship between Saxons and Celts for generations. As Finn spoke, every person in the tent saw what he saw and felt his terrible pangs of fear and shame. The listeners were transformed as profoundly as Finn had been, and would repeat the blood-soaked tales of that night to their companions and their families for years to come. From his first words, Finn held Vortigern, the healers and the king’s guard in thrall as he told how Hengist enacted his terrible revenge on Catigern.

Hengist waited impassively in the atrium of the ruined villa with the remains of the burning tree blazing at his back and his twelve warriors in a semicircle behind him. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he sensed his brother’s presence just beyond his peripheral vision, watching and waiting for the inevitable bloodshed that would be unleashed by Catigern’s arrival. A large chest with the lid thrown back revealed treasures looted from the Christian churches and a huge quantity of gold and silver that the Saxons had stripped from the Cantii towns.

Silence fell. The Saxons were content to wait, as they had done for days while Hengist had planned his revenge and Otha had infiltrated the countryside with small groups of warriors who regrouped at the villa.

The Saxons smelled the Celts before they saw them. Perfumed hair, nard, sword oil and the sickly sweetness of death teased Saxon nostrils as Catigern and his warriors dismounted in the forecourt of the villa. The Celts made no attempt to muffle the sound of their horses’ hooves and Hengist grinned appreciatively at Catigern’s predictable arrogance.

The wooden doors, unlatched, were pulled open with a noisy crash, and Catigern entered the ruined colonnade at the head of twenty armed warriors. So great was his confidence that the concept of defeat had never occurred to the prince, a man who considered Saxons hairy servants who were only slightly superior to his horses in usefulness. That they could embrace honour, anger or a desire for revenge was never a consideration.

‘Hengist?’ he called silkily. ‘Where are you hiding? I bring news from Gunter, your messenger. He’d have come in person, but he’s indisposed.’

Catigern’s voice echoed through the empty room with a hollow, eerie sound. The long shadows of his warriors crawled up the walls and a disturbed owl spread barred wings and flew at the prince’s head, causing him to flinch momentarily. He recovered quickly, although his warriors whitened, clutching their amulets and sword pommels in superstitious dread.

‘She’s out and she’s hungry,’ one man whispered, before his companion stood painfully on his foot to ensure that no further words were spoken.

‘I thought you wanted your brother’s body, Saxon,’ Catigern shouted. ‘We have it with us, although it’s a bit ripe.’ He negotiated the colonnade and entered the atrium with its blazing tree, now collapsing into ash.

Hengist stepped forward so that his form was outlined with a rim of fire.

‘The gold is here. It’s yours, Catigern. I’ve given my word, so take it and leave Horsa’s body for us to bury. Then I’ll retreat to Belgica.’

Catigern advanced into the barren, confined space that was, paradoxically, wide open to the skies. His booted feet crunched through the dried flowers and dead grasses until he stood over the chest with its piles of looted gold.

‘You did well during your years in the south, Hengist. I’m surprised that you stayed to be trounced by our army, for any sensible man would have taken what you have and run.’

The sneer in Catigern’s voice caused the Saxons to stiffen a little, but Hengist had ordered them to remain silent and to keep their hands away from their weapons.

‘Take the treasure and go, Catigern. I gave my terms to Gunter, so there could be no misunderstanding in any agreement between us.’

‘None whatsoever,’ Catigern replied casually. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t asked about Gunter. Don’t you care where your courier might be?’

Hengist allowed the silence to stretch out almost unbearably. His face was impassive, as heavy and as dark as seasoned oak above his beard.

‘Cat got your tongue, Hengist?’ Catigern probed.

‘Gunter knew you would order his death. We realised that you would act dishonourably and he was prepared to die for his people. Whether you killed him or whether he killed himself is immaterial. I don’t need to know how Gunter chose to go to meet his gods.’

Silence fell again, pregnant with foreboding and the promise of sudden death. Catigern was compelled to break the unnatural stillness as the largest limb of the burning tree broke away from the trunk with a nerve-stretching snap.

‘Your brother’s corpse is outside, if you’d care to see it. I presume that two of your men will carry the chest out to our horses.’

‘I’d prefer the exchange to take place inside. I don’t trust you an inch.’

‘Hengist, my friend, I don’t believe you’re in a position to demand anything, do you?’

‘Otha?’ the thane called. ‘Did the prince come alone?’

Otha climbed back into the atrium through broken shutters from a side room off the opposite colonnade. Stepping carefully to the ground, he avoided a sagging door and dusted off his rough homespun shirt with an epicure’s expression of distaste.

‘The Celt came with a large number of warriors. Most of them are hiding in the orchard.’ Otha snickered with contempt as he stroked his axe with his forefinger. ‘But there’s another large group down by the riverbank.’ The warrior smiled at Catigern. The effect of that curving, delicate mouth below a pair of hard green eyes was unnerving. ‘I haven’t used my lady here since I sliced through the belly of your horse during the battle at the river. My aim was right off that day!’

‘You’re an uncouth lout,’ Catigern snapped. ‘Why do you query the size of my guard?’

He pointed to a pair of his warriors, whose eyes became round with apprehension.

‘You two! Pick up the box and let’s get out of this shit-hole. The smell of unwashed Saxons is making me sick.’

Hengist turned to Otha. ‘Send half your warriors out to the orchards by the rear of the villa to circle behind Catigern’s men,’ he ordered quietly, one eye on Catigern to check that the Celt’s attention was elsewhere. ‘The others will attack the warriors on the riverbank. Ensure that the men are as quiet as they can be, for our advantage will be lost soon enough.’

Suddenly alert to danger, Catigern and his warriors began to back away, including the two who had been instructed to bring the treasure chest with them. The narrow colonnade seemed even longer and more claustrophobic now, while the wicked hiss of iron and steel sliding out of scabbards was very loud in the confined, shadowy space. The Celts retreated cautiously, until the villa door slammed open behind them with a sudden, dislocating crash.

The men in the rear whirled round to find themselves confronted by half a dozen huge Saxons, grinning through their beards with obvious pleasure. With neither warning nor mercy, the Saxons attacked Catigern’s men while Hengist waited, his sword still sheathed as Catigern looked around the colonnade and atrium in an attempt to remain calm.

‘Use the rear door!’ the prince ordered. ‘Cut them down!’ He pointed his sword at Hengist and the twelve warriors at his back. He was still confident that he could break through the Saxons before him to escape into the open, re-join his concealed force in the woods and then destroy the last of the Saxon enclave.

‘I’ll make you beg for death,’ he promised. ‘You’ll wish you’d died like your hulking brother before I’m through with you.’

‘You talk too much,’ Hengist grunted, drawing sword and axe, and rejecting the use of a shield in such an enclosed space.

Catigern charged at him with a banshee scream of rage, but Hengist avoided the shoulder-high swipe of the prince’s sword by a simple, graceful sideways movement of his hips. His answering stroke was so elegant that any gladiator, used to performing for the admiration of the crowds, would have been proud to perform it. He twisted, with a straight back, bent his knees and sliced through Catigern’s hamstrings with a single, delicate swing of his axe. As Catigern dropped to his knees, screaming, on the mosaic floor, Hengist moved on to the next warrior – and the next – bringing death with both hands in a grim dance of death. The skills of a lifetime that had been developed in the service of many masters brought a beautiful economy to the thane’s movements.

From outside, peering through the spaces in the walls of the old dairy, Finn heard the screams and was torn between shame that Catigern would attack men during a truce and his own superstitious horrors. He had seen the six muffled shapes enter the villa and, mistakenly, had cursed the captain of the reserves in the orchard for acting before his orders had been given. Now, with his heart thudding painfully in his breast, Finn watched Saxons pour out of the side entry of the villa where, unknown to the Celts, the baths were situated. There were so many of them – fifty, sixty, perhaps as many as a hundred. At once, Finn instinctively understood that no Celt who had ridden into this trap with Catigern would survive the night.

Half the group set out in the characteristic, effortless lope of Saxon warriors as they sprinted towards the nearby river, while the other group moved stealthily towards the orchard on the other side of the villa.

Finn’s thoughts raced. She has come! The goddess Blodeuwedd is abroad and the reckoning will be terrible. My comrades in the orchard can hear that the attack has begun, but they’re waiting for a signal to join Catigern’s forces. The Saxons will be upon them before they know it.

Finn’s mind scrambled for his next move, for he must try to warn the warriors in the orchard, regardless of the risk to himself. Reaching into his pouch, he found his tinderbox with fingers that shook with urgency and a superstitious undercurrent of fear. As he struck the flints to set old straw ablaze, his mind couldn’t escape an image of the goddess of flowers, angry because the sons of Vortigern had raised their hands against the sanctified king.
She
would have blood on her soil in reparation, no matter what he did in an attempt to thwart her. Even now, the empty building seemed filled with the large, swivelling eyes of owls, Blodeuwedd’s other self, and he heard the stirring of great wings as the mouldy straw finally caught alight.

‘Forgive me, Blodeuwedd, but I am oath-bound to Vortimer and Catigern,’ he prayed aloud, as flames threatened to cut him off from the barn entrance and safety. ‘I must fulfil my vows. Forgive me and mine, for I have no choice.’

Scrambling out of danger, he began to run towards the orchard screaming a warning, but he heard wings close behind him. He stumbled and fell, and something hard seemed to rise out of the earth and strike him with a mind-numbing blow.

His senses fled.

With the exception of Catigern, every Celt inside the villa was dead for the loss of only three Saxon warriors. The thane kicked Catigern’s sword away as he stepped over the prince’s twisting body, pausing long enough to proffer advice to his fallen enemy.

‘If I were you, Catigern, I’d kill myself while I had the chance. I’ll be back to deal with you when I have more time.’

Then Hengist and his remaining warriors ran unhurriedly through the villa doors to join the battle in the orchard.

Alone, and unable to do more than crawl on his belly, Catigern checked the slaughtered bodies of his men. He found a long, curved knife and attempted to cut his wrists, but the life force remained strong in his veins and each time he tried to sever his wrists he only succeeded in leaving superficial cuts. Crying with frustration, he rammed the knife into his belt and dragged himself along the colonnade by his elbows, leaving a snail’s trail of blood behind his body, all the way to the open villa doors.

The night seemed full of fire as outbuildings blazed and created shadows that seemed even darker and more threatening because of the scarlet light that outlined every detail of the villa’s forecourt with a wash of flame. Catigern found himself beside a crudely wrapped, stinking bundle and recoiled with an oath. The corpse of Horsa seemed to move in the flickering light, as if the Saxon was trying to tear away the untanned hides that concealed his mutilations so that Catigern’s handiwork could be exposed for his enemy to see.

Just as Catigern mustered the strength to crawl towards the picketed horses, which were screaming and struggling in their fear, two coarsely booted feet filled his vision. A hand holding a rock swung at his head and Catigern collapsed beside the body of his victim.

The confrontation in the overgrown orchard was quick, bloody and inevitable. For all Finn’s attempts to warn his fellows of their danger, the Saxons fell on Catigern’s confused troops like a wave of death. Frustrated by their defeat in the Battle of the Mount, the Saxons enjoyed their revenge in dozens of vicious, individual combats, and regained some of their lost honour in personal acts of valour and savagery. Although Catigern’s men were taller than average, few stood higher than five feet eight inches, while the Saxons were at least three inches taller and possessed significantly longer arms than their enemies. The men of Dyfed and Glywising died like flowers that withered during early, unseasonal snow.

The second group of Saxons had set out to circle behind the warriors who had been held in reserve near the river, but the Celts had been alerted by a blood-red sky over the burning villa, the sound of distant screams and the eventual silence that all men of war recognise – the chill quiet that comes with death. They were already preparing to head for the villa when a pack of Saxons appeared over a fold in the ground, running towards the Celtic position near the stream.