In the stir which comes with the waking of a camp, I and Erling
went out of the eastward gate and watched the sun coming up over
the Mercian hills across the river. The white morning mists lay
deep and heavy below us, and the little breeze from the southwest
drifted curls of it up the hill and across it, mixed with the smell
of the newly-lighted fires; and as the sun touched the drifts they
vanished. In the cattle enclosures the beasts moved restless and
ghostlike, lowing for their home meadows after the night on the
open hillside. Jefan had ridden out to go round his posts, and I
was waiting to bid Hilda good morrow before breakfast.
"What shall you do next?" asked Erling, with his eyes on the misty
treetops below us.
He was silent beyond his wont this morning, and I did not wonder at
it.
"I can hardly say. I have thought that by-and-by, when Sighard is
fit to move hence, we might get to one of the Welsh ports, and so
cross into my own land, Wessex, unknown to any in all Mercia."
Erling nodded.
"That is good," he said. "I only wish we were a trifle farther from
the Wye now, or that we had a few more men."
"You think that Gymbert is still to be feared?"
"T know it. Unless we get hence shortly we shall be fallen on. The
reeve told me that he could gather five-score men of the worst sort
in a day by the raising of his finger."
"It would need men of the best to take this place."
"Outlaws and suchlike I meant--men who will have Gymbert's promise
of inlawing again if they will do his bidding. See, here comes
Jefan!"
Up the hill from out of the mists rode the prince, and with him ran
a few of his men, swiftly as mountain men will, so that the horse
was no swifter up the steep. After them, through the mist, from men
I could not see, sped an arrow, badly aimed, which fell short, and
told of danger.
One of the two men who were at the gate on guard turned and
whistled, and the rest, busy over their cooking, dropped what they
held and ran to their weapons. Kynan came hastily to us, and
watched his brother as he rode up.
"Jefan is in a hurry," he said. "Get your arms, thane, for there
must be reason. Mayhap it is naught, however, for one is easily
scared in a fog."
Still he was anxious; for if he had looked at me he would have seen
that I was already armed, and that so also was Erling. We needed
but our spears to complete the gear for battle--if that was to
come--and they stood, each with the round shield at its foot, by
the fire where we slept, twenty paces off.
Now Jefan pulled up, and tried to look back through the mists. They
were thinning fast as the sun climbed higher, but were yet thick.
His men came on and entered the gate, while Kynan asked what was
amiss.
"There are men everywhere," one said--"Mercians. They must have
slain the outpost toward the ford, and so have crept on us under
cover of the thickness."
"Trying to see where their cattle are," said Kynan. "They will not
come up here."
The man shook his head, but laughed.
"They are bold enough to shoot at us, however," he said.
"You would do the same if you met a Mercian cattle lifter," laughed
Kynan. "That is naught."
Jefan rode in slowly, bidding us good morrow cheerfully as he came.
Kynan said that he supposed the owners of the kine were about.
"They, or some others who should be on the other side of the
river," answered his brother carelessly, as he dismounted. "Send a
picket down on the west side of the hill, and bid them be wary. Let
them eat their breakfast as they go, and send men to keep in touch
with them. I can see naught in this mist, and if we have to leave
here we must know in time. Come, let us get to our meal."
Plainly enough I saw that there was more in the matter than Jefan
would let his men know yet; but if I was anxious, I would no more
show it than he. So we sat down to the food his men had ready, and
before we had half finished a man came and spoke to him quietly and
went his way again.
"One of the western picket. It seems that here we must stay for a
while."
So said Jefan, and laughed a short laugh. But he did not look at
his brother, nor did Kynan look at him.
"That is the worst of a raid," said Kynan. "It stirs up such a
hornet's nest round one's ears. However, we on the border are
somewhat used to it. We can take care of ourselves."
We went on eating, and then a second man came; and Jefan told him
to call in the pickets, after he had heard what was said. Then he
turned to me at last.
"Thane," he said, "we seem to be beset here, but how and with what
force we cannot yet tell. I am sorry, for your sakes and the
lady's, that so it is. I fear our raid has made trouble for you, by
bringing Offa's men on us in the hope we may be forced to return
our booty."
"Our fault, I fear, for keeping you here, prince," said I. "I think
that of your kindness to us you have stayed longer near the river
than you might have done at any other time."
He smiled.
"That were to credit me with too much," he said. "Mostly the
Mercians care little to follow us. There lies our mistake."
"Then it may be that Gymbert is after us," said I, "and this has
happened because he knows that we are here. He is doing
Quendritha's bidding."
"Not likely in the least," said Kynan; "it is just a cattle affair.
It is my fault for suggesting a raid last evening. I would go,
though Jefan had no mind for it."
"Wrong, brother.
"Do not listen to him, thanes. I did but stay here because it was
his turn to go. One of us must needs bide in the camp."
Then they both laughed, and I dare say would have gone on with
their jest; but there came a cry from the gate, and they both
leaped up. It was the word that a man bearing a white scarf on a
spear was coming.
They went to the gate, which was not yet closed, and Erling and I
climbed the rampart near and looked over, bareheaded, lest our
English helms should tell who we were. In my own mind I was pretty
sure that we were sought.
The mists had thinned to nothing, and only lingered in the hollows
and round the scattered tree clumps. Long ago the Welsh had bared
all this hillside, and there was no cover for a foe as he came up
the hill. Across the grass came one man alone, and that man was
Gymbert, as I had half expected. It was ourselves whom he was
after. Maybe his only chance of regaining favour with the king
being through Quendritha, he was trying his best to pleasure her.
Or else she had threatened him. Either would be enough to set him
on his mettle, for none with whom I had spoken thought that the
forced retirement of the queen would last long. She would soon be
as powerful as ever, they said.
Now he came within half arrow shot of the gate, outside of which
the two princes stood. There he halted, and lowered his spear to
the ground.
"Jefan ap Huwal the prince?" he said in the best of Welsh.
"You know me well enough by sight," Jefan replied. "There needs no
ceremony. Tell us what you want here."
"I bring a message from Offa the king. It is his word that, if you
will give up the English fugitives you have with you, this matter
of the cattle will not be noticed."
"We have no objection to its being noticed," said Jefan. "I don't
know what else you could do about it. But you say this message is
from Offa?"
"Ay. You have here with you a Frankish thane, so called, being a
Wessex man in disguise, a heathen Dane his servant, and a girl,
escaped thrall of the queen. Doubtless you have apprehended them
for us, and I only need ask you to give them up."
"This needs no answering, Gymbert. You never were known as a truth
teller. This is your own affair, or Quendritha's, for Offa has seen
no man to give any such order to. Nor dare you go near him on your
own account, or short would be your shrift. Get hence, and take
your lies back to her who sent you. Mayhap you have told that queen
that you have slain Sighard the thane. If so, another lie or two
will make no odds."
Thereat Gymbert grew purple with passion. Plainly that was just
what he had told the queen. And now he began to bluster, after his
wont, stammering with rage. He had forgotten what we must have told
the princes.
"You hear the message? Pay heed to it, or it will be the worse for
you. Set these folk outside the walls straightway, or else--"
He shook his spear at the gate.
"I will not give them up," said Jefan; "and if--"
He set his hand on his sword hilt and laughed. Naught more was
needed.
Then Kynan, who was fairly stamping, broke in, being nowise so
patient as his brother:
"Hence, knave and liar! If there were naught else, it were enough
that you have called a freeborn thane's daughter a thrall to your
evil mistress. The truce is at an end."
His sword flashed out, and Gymbert was ware of bent bows on the
rampart which had more than a menace for him. He turned his horse
slowly and went his way, only quickening his pace when he was out
of range. Just before that some man loosed an arrow at him, which
missed him but nearly; and at that Jefan's pent up rage found a
vent.
"Take that man and bind him!" he cried to those on the rampart.
"Shame on us that a truce bearer should be shot at. Bind him, and
set me up a gallows that the country round may see."
I saw the man throw down his bow and hold out his hands.
"The prince is right," he said in a dull voice.
Jefan walked up to him and looked at him.
"So you own that? Well, you shall not die.
"Set him in a hut till this affair is ended, and then we will think
of what shall be done to him."
His passion had blazed up and passed as the fierce rage of the
Cymro will. They took the man away, and he turned to us with a word
of regret on his lips, and that was cut short by a yell from the
rampart, while the gate was swung to and barred hastily. I ran to
my spear and shield, while Kynan cried to his men to get to their
places; and scattered enough they seemed as they lined the
ramparts. Already they had driven the cattle from the enclosures
westward down the hill to the woodlands.
As I took my spear from the place where it stood upright, I looked
toward the hut where Hilda was, and saw her standing in the door.
It was the first sight I had of her that morning, and now her eyes
were wide with wonder at the cries and bustle of armed men.
"Wilfrid, what is it all?" she cried.
"Gymbert has gathered some men, and is trying to make Jefan give us
up," I said, knowing it was best to tell her plainly. "But you need
have no fear; this place is strong, and the man cannot have any
following worth naming."
"There will be fighting?"
"I think there will be little; but the arrows may come over the
rampart, and you must keep under cover."
"Shall you take part if there is any?"
"Why, of course," said I, laughing; "it is for you."
She looked at me, and I know that for a moment she had a mind to
beg me not to fight; but that she could not do, and so she only
smiled a wan smile and bade me have a care. So I bent and kissed
her hand, and she went back into the hut. Sighard was calling to
her to come and tell him what all the turmoil was.
Then I hurried to where Jefan stood on the works by the gate,
whence one could see all over the camp, and half round the hillside
as well. Not a shred of mist was left, and it was as glorious a
morning as one could see; only it was hotter than the wont of a
Maytime morning, and over the southward hung a heavy, white-topped
cloud bank, with a promise of thunder in its pile. Not that I noted
it now, but I had done so. From the ramparts there was more than
enough to keep my eyes on the hillside.
Up the steep came three bodies of men, to right and left, where the
hill was sharpest, and straight for the gate, where there was a
long, even slope ending in a platform, as it were, before it.
Gymbert himself headed this company on foot, and men whose names
the princes seemed to scorn altogether led the others. Altogether
there were not less than a hundred and fifty men; but as they drew
nearer I saw that they were not at all the sort of force with which
I should hope to take so strongly stockaded a place as this.
Outlaws, runaway thralls, and such-like masterless men they were,
ill armed and unkempt and noisy. Their only strength was in their
numbers, so far as I could see.
As for ourselves, the gate was the weakest place, by reason of
there being no ditch before it, and that the ground was level, or
nearly so, for twenty paces outside. I did not think it in the
least likely that our men could not hold off the two side attacks;
for the stockade was well placed and high, and the ditch
sheer-sided and deep. Take it all round, it was hard to see how
Gymbert expected to take the place, or why he would try it at all.
"Quendritha is driving him," said Kynan, laughing, when I said as
much. "If that woman bids a man do a thing, he has to do it, or woe
betide him. But it will be a fight, for a time."
Now Gymbert halted his men beyond bow shot, and called to Jefan
once more to give us up; and so finding no answer beyond a laugh
from the men who were watching him from the rampart, drew his sword
and bade his men fall on.
They broke into a run for a dozen paces, and then some half of
either company halted, and while the rest went forward, those who
stood began to try to clear the way with arrow flights, shooting
over their heads so that the shafts might drop within the
stockading. And at the same time our men began to shoot, somewhat
too soon; for the Welsh bow will not carry so far as the English,
though the arrows are more deadly, being heavier.
Seeing that, Jefan bade his men hold their hands until he gave the
word; on which Gymbert called to his men, and they came the faster.
The arrows met them then at short range, and in a deadly hail, and
they faltered. Many fell under them, yet they still came on; and
now the men who had been shooting found that the Welsh were too
well sheltered under the stockade timbering for much harm to be
done them, and they ran and joined their comrades at some call from
their leaders. Then without stay the whole three companies threw
themselves with a great shout against the defences, leaping into
the ditch on either side, and surging up against the gate itself.
In a breathing space our Welsh were ready with the long spears, and
as one by one the heads of those who climbed gate or stockade
showed themselves, hoisted up by their comrades, or climbing in
some way or other, back they were sent with a flash of the terrible
weapon, falling on those below them. And now and again the Welsh
spears darted through the spaces between the timbers of the
stockade at some man who came close to them and was spied, or at
those who tried to help their comrades to climb. The whole place
was full of yells and shouting.
But it was harder work at the gate, for there the foemen were more
densely packed before us, and they seemed to climb in an unending
stream. More than one fell inside the gate, and there lay still;
but none had won his way to the ground alive, nor had we yet lost a
man. The loss was all on the side of the attack.
Then at last the men at the gate drew back for a time; but from the
side attacks came a new danger. With spear butt and seax they were
trying to undermine the stockade, and one could hear the creaking
of the stout timbers as they tried to tear them down. It would have
gone hardly with us had there been but a few more men, or if these
had brought pick and spade with them.
As it was, that attempt did not last long. Into the crowd of men
who worked the heavy javelins fell, and through the timbering the
reddened spears went and came, driving at last the foe to safer
distance. And so the first attack ended, and for all that Gymbert
from the gate tried to urge them on, his men stood sullenly in the
deep ditch and under the gate, where we could not well reach them,
save by casting javelins and darts high into the air, that they
might pitch among them; but there were few throwing weapons to
spare.
"He would have done better to attack at one point only," said
Jefan, sitting down on the rampart above the gate. "He might have
overwhelmed us so, for he has men enough."
His brother laughed.
"There is a difference between us in this way," he said, "and it is
a great one: there is little fight in his men, and we must needs
fight our best. Listen! they are passing some word round."
So it was, for there fell a silence on the humming men below us,
and we could hear muttered words from one to another. Then the
attack came again from the same three places, but I thought it was
not pushed home as at first. Nor did it last so long. In a few
minutes men began to get out of the ditch and away down the
hillside while the Welsh were too busy to shoot at them. There they
scattered, and stood and watched. And then the attack on the gate
ceased, and back the foe went.
"After them, and scourge them home to their mistress," shouted
Kynan, leaping down to the gateway, where his men did but wait some
word which should tell them to throw it open for a sally.
I looked for Jefan; but he was across the camp, seeing hastily to
the weakened places in the stockade.
"Kynan," I cried, "have a care! This is what they want you to do!
Wait!"
For I could see that in the open Gymbert had the advantage of
numbers, and I suspected that he was trying to draw the fiery Welsh
from their works. There was surely some reason for this
half-hearted attack on the stockade that had been already proved
too strong.
He did not hear me. It is in my mind that I may have called to him
in the Frankish tongue of my last warfare. That is likely enough,
for with the clash of arms again I know I had been thinking in the
familiar tongue once more. I do not know, but again I called him,
and he seemed not to hear. The gate flew open, and with a wild yell
of victory out went the Welshmen, with the prince at their head.
Jefan heard and turned back, and called to him to stay; but he also
was too late. He had but a dozen men with him, while from the
opposite side of the camp those who had driven off their foes had
joined those who poured out with Kynan. One or two of Jefan's men
shouted, and went with them, unheeding the call of their leader to
stay.
Then in a moment I knew what the word which had been passed meant.
The Mercians who had drawn off from the side attacks closed up and
charged down on the scattered Welsh, on whose pursuit Gymbert and
his men turned. We could do naught but stand and watch, helpless,
for we dared not leave the gate, which we could not close against
the retreat which must come.
Round Kynan and his men Gymbert's force swarmed, and the din of
wild battle rang as the ancient foes, Welsh and Mercian, met on the
level turf. I saw Kynan's red sword rise above the turmoil, and
heard his voice rallying his men to him; and then he had them
together in a close body, outnumbered indeed by two to one, but
better fighters and better trained than the mob against them. And
then they began to cut their way back to the gate.
We stood there across it, waiting, and then it was our turn. Of a
sudden out of the ditch on either hand leaped men who had waited
there unnoticed for this moment, and they fell on us. We were
eight, and but four of us could stand in the gateway at a time.
Jefan and I and Erling and a tall Welshman were the first, and
before us were some dozen Mercians, and more to come as they could
find room on the narrow causeway.
Now it was a question whether we might hold the gate till Kynan won
back to it, or whether when he did come he should find it held
against him; and for one terrible moment I had a fear that men
would be coming over the stockade in the rear upon us. And I could
not look round, for I had all my time taken up in keeping my own
life from the attack in front.
I think it was about that time that Kynan began to sing some
wonderful old Welsh war song, which rang above the clash of weapons
and the cries of those who fought. It took hold of me, and I seemed
to smite in time to its swinging cadence. Yet he came back very
slowly.
Jefan went down first. Into the ditch he rolled, with his grip on
the throat of a Mercian; for his sword snapped, and he flew at the
man. One from behind us took his place with a yell of rage, and he
went too far, and was gone also, speared at once. Then another, and
another to my left; for the tall Briton was down, and still Erling
and I were not hurt. I would that Kynan would get back more
quickly. He was coming, but the press before us was thick.
So we fought, and I fell to thinking what a wondrous sword this was
which Carl the Great had given me. It shore the spear shafts, and
the brass-studded shields seemed to split before it touched them,
and the tough leather jerkins of the forest men could not hold its
edge back. The wild song of Kynan never ceased, and he seemed to
sing of it. He was getting nearer, but the Mercians thronged
between his men and us.
Now there seemed to be a grim joy in the faces of the men before
me, and the Briton at my right fell. There was none left to take
his place, and there were but three of us in the gate.
"Kynan! Kynan!" I cried, for in a moment he would find his retreat
barred. I do not know whether any voice came from me, but I seemed
to call him.
Then Erling and I were alone in the gateway, and the snarling
Mercians leaped at us. The last Welshman had fallen, hurling his
broken sword at a man who smote at me, and so staying the blow.
"A good fight for a man's last, master," said Erling to me through
his teeth, standing steadily as a rock with his hacked shield
linked in mine, and his notched sword swinging untiringly to the
grim old viking war shout "Ahoy!" as it fell.
Kynan was twenty yards from us, and now I saw Gymbert among those
whom he was steadily driving back.
A shadow swept over me, and it grew darker. I saw all the land
below me lying in brightest sunlight, and then the great swift
cloud shadow fled across it, though round us there was not a breath
of wind. I think the men before us two shrank back a little at that
moment, so that I had time to note all that went on, as a man will
at such a time, and yet without taking his eyes from the foe before
him.
That was but a breathing space. With a fresh yell the Mercians fell
on us again, and I had three of them on me; and my hands were full,
though they hampered one another. The old Wessex war cry which I
had not heard for so long came back to me, and I shouted "Out!
out!" and met them. There needed but a little time and Kynan would
be on the causeway. His song rang close to us.
Erling reeled and steadied himself against me, and the Mercians
howled. His war shout rang once, and then he fell across my feet,
face downward, and I stood over him in a white rage, and set my
teeth and smote. It came to me that there were more men on the
causeway now, but that they would not near me. I was fending
spearheads from me, and I forgot Kynan.
Then of a sudden those who were on me seemed to know that his song
was in their very ears, and they looked round. His men were on the
narrow gate path, and they were between them and me; and with that
they yelled and fled into the ditch on either side the causeway,
and I was aware that for a long minute I had kept the gate alone.
But I did not think of that. Out of the way of heedless, tramping
feet of those who came back into safety I must get my fallen
comrade, and I threw my sword within the gate and stooped and
dragged him after it, setting him on one side, on the steep rampart
bank, out of the way. He smiled and tried to speak, but could not;
and even so much cheered me, for I had thought him dead.
Some one came swiftly and touched me as I bent over him, and I saw
the old priest.
"Leave him to me," he said. "See to Kynan now; there may be work
yet for the lady's sake."
Even as I rose at his word, loath to leave my comrade, but knowing
that I must, and while I still had my face from the gate, there
came a blinding flash of lightning from the ragged black edge of
the cloud overhead, and with it one short, awesome crash of
thunder. The storm which had crept up behind us had broken on the
hilltop.
After that crash came a dead silence, and then were yells of terror
such as the fight had had no power to raise from men on either
side. And among them one voice cried shrill that this was the work
of Ethelbert, the slain king.
Then as the foe fled back the gates swung to, and I heard the bars
clatter into their sockets, and Kynan came to me.
"Holy saints!" he said; "look yonder!"
I went a pace or two up the earthwork and looked over toward the
foe. Some twenty yards from the gate lay as it were a blackened
heap, round which reeled and staggered men with hands to blinded
faces, and from which those who were unhurt fled in wildest terror
down the hill, casting even their weapons from them. Save only
those who could not fly, not one Mercian was staying.
"Yonder lies Gymbert," Kynan said in a still voice. "The bolt
struck him. It is the judgment of Heaven on him for that which he
wrought in darkness."