I left him, and somehow I did snatch a few moments’ sleep in the moon-cast shadow of a looming stone, though before I slept I lay thinking about that far-off night when Merlin had made Arthur’s arm ache with the weight of the sword and his soul heavy with the greater burden of fate. Why had Merlin chosen Arthur, I wondered, for it seemed to me now that Arthur and Merlin were opposed. Merlin believed that chaos could only be defeated by harnessing the powers of mystery, while Arthur believed in the powers of men. It could be, I thought, that Merlin had trained Arthur to rule men so as to leave himself free to rule the dark powers, but I also realized, however dimly, that the moment might come when we would all have to choose between them and I feared that moment. I prayed it would never come. Then I slept until the sun rose to lance the shadow of a single stone pillar that stood isolated outside the circle straight into the very heart of the Stones where we tired warriors guarded a kingdom’s ransom.
We drank water, ate hard bread, then buckled on our swords before spreading the gold on the dew-wet grass beside the altar stone. “What’s to stop Aelle taking the gold and continuing his war?” I asked Arthur as we waited for the Saxon’s arrival. Aelle, after all, had taken gold from us before and that had not stopped him from burning Durocobrivis.
Arthur shrugged. He was wearing his spare armour, a coat of Roman mail that was dented and scarred from frequent fights. He wore the heavy mail under one of his white cloaks. “Nothing,” he answered, ‘except what little honour he might have. Which is why we might have to offer him more than gold.”
“More?” I asked, but Arthur did not reply because, on the dawn-blazoned eastern skyline, the Saxons had appeared.
They came in a long line spread across the horizon with their war drums beating and their spearmen arrayed for battle, though their weapons were tipped by leaves to show that they meant us no immediate harm. Aelle led them. He was the first of the two men I ever met who claimed the title Bretwalda. The other came later and was to give us more trouble, but Aelle was trouble enough. He was a tall man with a flat, hard face and dark eyes that revealed none of his thoughts. His beard was black, his cheeks were scarred from battle and two fingers were missing from his right hand. He wore a coat of black cloth that was belted with leather, boots of leather, an iron helmet on which bull horns were mounted, and over it all a bearskin cloak that he dropped when the heat of the day became too much for such a flamboyant garment. His banner was a blood-daubed bull’s skull held aloft on a spear-shaft.
His war-band numbered two hundred men, maybe a few more, and over half those men had great war dogs leashed with leather ropes. Behind the warriors was a horde of women, children and slaves. There were more than enough Saxons to overwhelm us now, but Aelle had given his word that we were at peace, at least until he had decided our fate, and his men made no hostile show. Their line stopped outside the circling ditch while Aelle, his council, an interpreter and a pair of wizards came to meet Arthur. The wizards had hair stiffened into spikes with dung and wore ragged cloaks of wolfskin. When they whirled around to say their charms, the legs, tails and faces of the wolves flared out from their painted bodies. They shouted those charms as they came closer, nullifying any magic we might be working against their leader. Nimue crouched behind us and chanted her own counter charms
The two leaders weighed each other up. Arthur was taller and Aelle broader. Arthur’s face was striking, but Aelle’s was terrifying. It was implacable, the face of a man who had come from beyond the sea to carve out a kingdom in a strange land, and he had made that kingdom with a savage and direct brutality. “I should kill you now, Arthur,” he said, ‘and have one less enemy to destroy.”