His wizards, naked beneath their moth-eaten skins, crouched behind him. One chewed a mouthful of earth, the other rolled his eyes while Nimue, her empty eye-socket bared, hissed at them. The struggle between Nimue and the wizards was a private war that the two leaders ignored.
“The time will come, Aelle,” Arthur said, ‘when maybe we shall meet in battle. But for now I offer you peace.” I had half expected Arthur to bow to Aelle who was, unlike Arthur, a king, but Arthur treated the Bretwalda as an equal and Aelle accepted the treatment without protest.
“Why?” Aelle asked bluntly. Aelle used no circumlocutions like we British favoured. I came to notice that difference between ourselves and the Saxons. The British thought in curves, like the intricate whorls of their jewellery, while Saxons were blunt and straight, as crude as their heavy gold brooches and chunky neck chains. Britons rarely broached a subject headlong, but talked around it, wrapping it with hints and allusions, always looking for manoeuvre, but Saxons thrust subtlety aside. Arthur once claimed I had that same Saxon straightforwardness and I think he meant it as a compliment.
Arthur ignored Aelle’s question. “I thought we had peace already. We had an agreement sealed with gold.”
Aelle’s face betrayed no shame at having broken the truce. He merely shrugged, as though a broken peace was a small thing. “So if one truce fails, why buy another?” he asked.
“Because I have a quarrel with Gorfyddyd,” Arthur replied, adopting the Saxon’s blunt manner, ‘and I seek your help in that quarrel.”
Aelle nodded. “But if I help you destroy Gorfyddyd I make you stronger. Why should I do that?”
“Because if you do not then Gorfyddyd will destroy me and he will then be stronger.”
Aelle laughed, displaying a mouth of rotting teeth. “Does a dog care which of two rats it kills?” he asked.
I translated that as does a dog care which stag it pulls down. It seemed more tactful and I noted that Aelle’s interpreter, a British slave, did not tell his master.
“No,” Arthur allowed, ‘but the stags are not equal.” Aelle’s interpreter said the rats were not equal and I did not tell Arthur. “At best, Lord Aelle,” Arthur went on, “I preserve Dumnonia and make Powys and Siluria my allies. But if Gorfyddyd wins he will unite Elmet, Rheged, Powys, Siluria and Dumnonia against you.”
“But you will also have Gwent on your side,” Aelle said. He was a shrewd man, and quick.
“True, but so will Gorfyddyd if it comes to a war between the British and the Saxons.”
Aelle grunted. The present situation, with the British fighting amongst themselves, served him best, but he knew that the British wars would eventually cease. Since it now seemed Gorfyddyd must win those wars soon, Arthur’s presence gave him a way of prolonging his enemies’ conflict. “So what do you want of me?” he asked. His wizards were now leaping up and down on all fours like human grasshoppers while Nimue was arranging pebbles on the ground. The pebbles’ pattern must have disturbed the Saxon sorcerers for they began to utter small yelps of distress. Aelle ignored them.
“I want you to give Dumnonia and Gwent three moons of peace,” Arthur said.
“You’re only buying peace?” Aelle roared the words and even Nimue was startled. The Saxon threw a gloved hand towards his war-band that squatted with their women, dogs and slaves beyond the shallow ditch. “What does an army do in peace? Tell me that! I promised them more than gold. I promised them land! I promised them slaves! I promised them weal has blood, and you give me peace?” He spat. “In the name of Thor, Arthur, I will give you peace, but the peace will be across your bones and my men will take turns with your wife. That’s my peace!” He spat on the turf, then looked at me. “Tell your master, dog,” he said, ‘that half my men have just arrived in boats. They have no harvest gathered and no means to feed their folk through winter. We cannot eat gold. If we don’t take land and grain, then we starve. What good is peace to a starved man?”