“Bugger the oath,” ugly Morfans said, “I want to fight.”
Arthur had tears in his eyes. For a time he could not speak, so instead he busied himself ramming at the fire with a log until he had succeeded in halving its warmth and doubling its smoke. “Your men are not oath-bound,” he said thickly, ‘and I want none but willing men in Lugg Vale tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow?” Culhwch asked. “Why not the day after? The more time we have to prepare, the better, surely?”
Arthur shook his head. “We’ll be no better prepared if we wait a whole year. Besides, Gorfyddyd’s spies will already be going north with news that Tewdric is accepting Gorfyddyd’s terms, so we must attack before those same spies discover that we Dumnonians have not retreated. We attack at dawn tomorrow.” He looked at me. “You will attack first, Lord Derfel, so tonight you must reach your men and talk to them, and if they prove unwilling, then so be it, but if they are willing then Morfans can tell you what they must do.”
Morfans had ridden the whole enemy line, flaunting himself in Arthur’s armour but also reconnoitring the enemy positions. Now he took handfuls of grain from a pot and piled them on his outspread cloak to make a rough model of Lugg Vale. “It’s not a long valley,” he said, ‘but the sides are steep. The barricade is here at the southern end.” He pointed to a spot just inside the modelled valley. “They felled trees and made a fence. It’s big enough to stop a horse, but it won’t take long for a few men to haul those trees aside. Their weakness is here.” He indicated the western hill. “It’s steep at the northern end of the valley, but where they built their barricade you can easily run down that slope. Climb the hill in the dark and in the dawn you attack downhill and dismantle their tree fence while they’re still waking up. Then the horses can come through.” He grinned, relishing the thought of surprising the enemy.
“Your men are used to marching by night,” Arthur told me, ‘so at dawn tomorrow you take the barricade, destroy it, then hold the vale long enough for our horse to arrive. After the horse our spearmen will come. Sagramor will command the spearmen in the vale while I and fifty horsemen attack Branogenium.” Sagramor showed no reaction to the announcement which gave him command of most of Arthur’s army.
The rest of us could not hide our astonishment, not at Sagramor’s appointment, but at Arthur’s tactics. “Fifty horsemen attacking Gorfyddyd’s whole army?” Galahad asked dubiously.
“We won’t capture Branogenium,” Arthur admitted, ‘we may not even get close, but we shall stir them into a pursuit and that pursuit will bring them down to the vale. Sagramor will meet that pursuit at the vale’s northern end, where the road fords the river, and when they attack, you retreat.” He looked at us in turn, making sure we understood his instructions. “Retreat,” he said again, ‘always retreat. Let them think they win! And when you have sucked them deep into the valley, I shall attack.”
“From where?” I asked.
“From behind, of course!” Arthur, energized by the prospect of battle, had regained all his enthusiasm. “When my horsemen retreat from Branogenium we won’t go back into the vale, but hide outside its northern end. The place is smothered in trees. And once you’ve sucked the enemy in, we’ll come from their rear.”
Sagramor stared at the piles of grain. “The Blackshield Irish at Coel’s Hill,” he said in his execrable accent, ‘can march south of the hills to take us in the rear,” he pushed a finger through the scattered grains at the Vale’s southern end to show what he meant. Those Irish, we all knew, were the fearsome warriors of Oengus Mac Airem, King of Demetia, who had been our ally until Gorfyddyd had changed his loyalty with gold. “You want us to hold an army in front and the Blackshields behind?” Sagramor asked.
“You see,” Arthur said with a smile, ‘why I offer to release you from your oaths. But once Tewdric knows we’re embattled, he’ll come. As the day passes, Sagramor, you will find your shield-line thickening by the minute. Tewdric’s men will deal with the enemy from Goel’s Hill.”