The Saxons must have been watching us all morning for they had assembled a small war-band to face us. Those men, sixty or seventy strong, trailed out of the trees behind their leader, a broad-chested man who walked beneath a chieftain’s banner of deer-antlers from which hung shreds of tanned human skin.
The chieftain had the Saxon’s love of fur; a sensible affection for few things stop a sword stroke so well as a thick rich pelt. This man had a collar of heavy black fur about his neck and strips of fur around his upper arms and thighs. The rest of his clothing was leather or wool: a jerkin, trousers, boots, and a leather helmet crested with a tuft of black fur. At his waist hung a long sword, while in his hand was that favourite Saxon weapon, the broad-bladed axe.
“Are you lost, weal has he shouted. Wealhas was their word for us Britons. It means foreigners and has a derisive ring, just as our word Sais does for them. “Or are you just tired of life?” He stood firmly in our road, feet apart, head up and with his axe resting on his shoulder. He had a brown beard and a mass of brown hair that jutted sharply out from under his helmet’s rim. His men, some in iron helmets, some in leather, and almost all carrying axes, formed a shield-wall across the road. A few had huge leashed dogs, beasts the size of wolves, and of late, we had heard, the Sais had been using such dogs as weapons, releasing them against our shield-walls just a few seconds before they struck with axe and spear. The dogs frightened some of our men far more than the Saxons did.
I walked with Arthur, stopping a few paces short of the defiant Saxon. Neither of us carried spear or shield and our swords rested in their scabbards. “My Lord,” I said in Saxon, ‘is Arthur, Protector of Dumnonia, who comes to you in peace.”
“For the moment,” the man said, ‘peace is yours, but only for the moment.” He spoke defiantly, but he had been impressed by Arthur’s name and he gave my Lord a long curious inspection before glancing back to me. “Are you Saxon?” he asked.
“I was born one. Now I am British.”
“Can a wolf become a toad?” he asked with a scowl. “Why not become a Saxon again?”
“Because I am sworn to Arthur’s service,” I said, ‘and that service is to bring your King a great gift of gold.”
“For a toad,” the man said, ‘you howl well. I am Therdig.”
I had never heard of him. “Your fame,” I said, ‘gives nightmares to our children.”
He laughed. “Well spoken, toad. So who is our King?”
“Aelle,” I said.
“I didn’t hear you, toad.”
I sighed. “The Bretwalda Aelle.”
“Well said, toad,” Therdig said. We Britons did not recognize the title Bretwalda, but I used it to placate the Saxon chief. Arthur, who understood nothing of our talk, patiently waited until I was ready to translate something. He had trust in those he appointed and would not hurry me or intervene.
“The Bretwalda,” Therdig said, ‘is some hours from here. Can you give me some reason, toad, why I should disturb his day with news that a plague of rats, mice and grubs have crawled into his land?”
“We bring the Bretwalda more gold, Therdig,” I said, ‘than you can dream of. Gold for your men, for your wives, for your daughters, even enough for your slaves. Is that reason enough?”
“Show me, toad.”
It was a risk, but Arthur willingly took it, taking Therdig and six of his men back to the mules and there revealing the great hoard stowed in the sacks. The risk was that Therdig might decide the fortune was worth a fight there and then, but we outnumbered him, and the sight of Arthur’s men on their big horses was a fearsome deterrent, so he merely took three gold coins and said he would report our presence to the Bretwalda. “You will wait at the Stones,” he ordered us. “Be there by evening and my King shall come to you in the morning.” The command told us that Aelle must have been warned of our approach and must also have guessed what our business was. “You may stay at the Stones in peace,” Therdig told us, ‘until the Bretwalda decides your fate.”