Amber Treasure, The (24 page)

My breakfast was interrupted,
though, as horns now sounded from outside the gates. Our sentries on the walls
waved at us. Eduard and I exchanged glances. Was that Aethelfrith already? I
scuttled up to the battlement, joined by Sabert, Harald and eventually, a
yawning, very sleepy, Aethelric.

I took in the view from the
battlements for the first time in the daylight. Owain’s army had camped in
scattered spots on the battlefield, avoiding the bodies of the fallen where
they could. I saw that a few of the slain were piled up in heaps, whilst their
weapons and shields had been collected and stacked together, but other than
that, no attempt had yet been made to clear the field and it looked truly
appalling. Ravens and crows as well as the occasional fox, were busy with their
grisly habit of picking over the bodies of the fallen. What yesterday had been
a thousand young fit men was now just food and bloody offal for the animals.
Occasionally, some of Owain’s men would throw stones at them to clear them
away, but soon they would be back. I tried not to think whether a bird would be
picking morsels from my dead flesh later in the day.

Owain’s army would have been as exhausted
as ours and had just found spots away from the dead, lit fires and slept. Now,
a small deputation was approaching the gates. Twenty or so warriors accompanied
the lords and carried banners. Under them stood Owain and Samlen, along with other
Welsh kings I did not recognise. I saw, with a scowl, that Hussa accompanied
them. He carried a banner as well, but he was dragging it across the ground in
apparent contempt. Anger seethed in me as I realised it was the wolfshead
banner of our company.

The deputation halted outside the
gates and looked up at us.

Owain, resplendent in his golden
armour, stepped out to the front. Hussa moved forward with him. Owain shouted
something in Welsh; Hussa then repeated it in English. So, Hussa was now moving
in the circles of kings, acting as a translator.

“Who has authority to negotiate
for you?” Hussa said.

“I do!” Aethelric shouted back,
his voice full of defiance and nobility. I had to admit that although he was
not much use for anything else, when we needed a speech giving, he was your
man.

Hussa whispered something to
Owain who replied.

“Prince Aethelric of Deira?”

Aethelric turned to me and said
in undertone, “Is that not the boy who bested you in that tournament? I gave
him his sword, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Lord, it’s Hussa!”

“You know who I am, traitor!”
Aethelric shouted down.

Owain continued talking and Hussa
translating.

“The Lords of Rheged, Elmet,
Strathclyde and Manau Goddodin are here and I speak for them. YOU are defeated.
We claim this land for the Kingdom of the Pennines and demand you lay down your
arms to prevent further loss of life.”

Aethelric did not hesitate. “Traitor,
tell your new masters that this fort and this land are ours and we will fight
to defend them.”

Owain laughed and replied.

“With what?” Hussa said with a
sneer. “You have what − four hundred or so men? We have three times your
number. You’ll be slaughtered.”

“I offer you a chance,” Aethelric
said, ignoring Hussa, “leave now and we will let you depart with weapons and
banners and what spoils you have taken.”

I glanced at him sharply. Did
that include Mildrith?

Owain laughed again and he turned
and said something to Samlen who nodded.

From behind him, his men dragged
out three young women, all dressed in fine clothes and wearing my mother’s
jewels. The sunlight caught the amber and it glowed. I almost cried out as I
noticed that one of them was Mildrith. She appeared to be unhurt, but was
clearly terrified. She looked up and saw me on the battlements.

“Cerdic!” she shouted, “help me!”

Samlen looked up at me smugly and
shouted in English.

“Our friend told us you were
here. Is it spoils like these you will let us take? Pretty aren’t they?” he
added, stroking Mildrith’s face. She shied away, shuddering at his touch.

“Samlen, if you have harmed her
...” I shouted, unable to contain myself.

“Oh, not yet: not quite yet. I am
saving that pleasure,” he emphasised the last word with a leer at his men, who
laughed, “for tonight, when you are dead. Then, my men are looking forward to
it as well. I’m a good lord and share the spoils round.”

“Bastard!” I shouted.

Owain now spoke again and Hussa
repeated his words in a taunting voice.

“So then, I think we can dispense
with your offer and come to ours.”

“What is that?” Aethelric asked.

“Oh, I believe we can be just as
generous. We will let you march away with all your weapons in full honour of
war. As you can see, our army is scattered and not ready to fight you. You can
safely go south to the bridge at Catraeth. You will leave this land and we will
let you survive ...” Hussa stopped for a moment and checked he had some words
right “... and King Owain will even allow you to take these spoils with you.”
He waved at Mildrith – his half-sister.

Samlen scowled at that and I was
grimacing at the offer, as well. Would they really let us go, give us back
Mildrith and permit us to march away unharmed? But, if they did, all we had
feared would come to pass. Eoforwic would rise up, we would get caught and
killed at the bridge and we would not be here when father arrived. When father
arrived .... The realisation hit me like a sledgehammer: of course, that is
what was behind it all.

“Reject the offer!” I hissed at
Aethelric.

“What are you saying lad, he will
let us go and you will get your sister back. Don’t you love her?” Sabert asked,
severely.

“I don’t think he will keep his
word. It’s just a trick to make us leave this place and get us out into the
open,” I now looked at the scattered camps of Welsh and quickly counted
numbers. I could see perhaps five hundred men. That meant a thousand were out
of sight, somewhere. My gaze fell on the edge of the battlefield where the land
dipped away down the southern slope: the same slope where we had hidden, out of
sight of the Welsh, only the day before.

“I’m sure of it. They have the
bulk of their men ready to ambush us.”

Behind me Grettir had been
standing, keeping silent, but now the veteran spoke.

“Master Cerdic is correct. I
count no more than four hundred men out there.”

“Why, what is he doing?” Sabert
asked.

I knew, or thought I did.

“Aethelfrith: Owain knows he is
coming and wants us dead quickly so he can defeat him in turn. Then, nothing
can stop him.”

“Very well then,” Aethelric said,
lifting his voice and shouting down to Owain and his lords. “I must reject your
offer. We will not surrender, viper, we die here or prevail here!”

I smiled and wished Cuthbert had
been around to hear that. I glanced at Harald and he winked at me. “You will
have to tell your friend,” he whispered, “our Prince is not as weak as he
thought.” Then his face looked serious again and I knew what he was thinking: we
had first to survive the day, of course.

“Very well,” Hussa shouted out
Owain’s reply. “You have sealed your fate. No prisoners will be taken this
day!”

Now, Owain’s horns sounded again,
but with a different tone. Suddenly, we saw their missing thousand men. They
came over the rise as we had done the previous noon, darkening the southern horizon
with their numbers and marched in formation towards us. The men around the camp
fires quickly assembled and I saw that most already had their weapons at hand.
They were already prepared and well organised and I knew that I had been right.
Owain had heard about Aethelfrith and was determined to finish us and then turn
and destroy him.

Harald yelled an order and our
own horns sounded and suddenly our men were arming and assembling on the battlements.
I glanced northwards over the far palisade as I tried and hoped to see an army
coming. But, there was nothing moving out there. Turning away and slapping my
own helmet on, I drew my sword and prepared for battle.

Towards us, fifteen hundred men
marched and far away, Loki laughed and rolled his dice.

Chapter Seventeen

Aethelfrith

A man has five
senses and each and every one of them gets used in a battle. That morning of
the second day of the Battle of Catraeth, my senses were overwhelmed. You see
with a terrifying clarity the approaching army; perceive the fear mingled
equally with hate in the eyes of the enemy as well as the terrified pleading
expressions of those you have struck down. You feel your heart pounding and
later, in the terrible crush of battle, the indescribable sensations of your
blade cutting flesh and bone, the searing pain of injury and the air burning in
your lungs. Your mouth tastes of blood and you can smell − gods, the
smell − sweat, shit and piss and the appalling stench of viscera as men’s
entrails spill steaming from their guts, and always the smoke of burning
buildings catching in your throat and making your eyes stream.

Above and beyond all of that,
however, is the sense of hearing: it is the sounds you will recall more than
anything else when you think of battles you have been in. At least, that is how
it is for me. That morning it was the horns and drums of Owain’s army echoing
up at us in daunting clamour that I hear in my nightmares still, and that even
today, years later, wake me in sweat-soaked terror. Then I hear again the screams;
the crashing of spears on shields and the taunting war cries the enemy shouted
at us. Finally, the voice of Owain, Samlen and a score of other kings, princes
and lords, calling them forward.

And forward, they came.

There was urgency in that charge
and a kind of heroic recklessness, which confirmed to me that Owain was keen to
have this business done and done quickly; so then he could turn to the real
task of this day. Almost all of his fifteen hundred men charged at once. There
was no reserve, apart from a hundred or so Goddodin cavalry. There was no
formation, save one large mass. There was little strategy except one: get inside
Stanwick camp and kill us all, as soon as they could.

We had but a few archers and
slingers left − maybe fifty − but these pelted the enemy with arrow
and stone. That brought some screams, as perhaps a dozen men caught a missile
in some unprotected part and fell beneath the feet of their countrymen to be
crushed. However, little that we did could disrupt their shield wall or
diminish their numbers and on they still came.

“Throw anything you can at them!”
Harald bellowed.

Grettir and Eduard took a dozen
men and returned with stones and bricks, burnt logs, axes and even the remains
of a roasted boar. Other companies did the same and brought back anything that
might make a missile. All went over the wall as the enemy closed on us and more
of them fell, killed or injured. Not enough though ... nowhere near enough.

The Welsh army had reached the
outer ditch. Some of them, led by Owain, were lucky and had come up against the
gate where there was no ditch. They threw themselves against it, trying by
brute force to smash their way in. Glancing that way, to my left, I saw that
Harald’s men were on my side of the gate and Sabert’s company, beyond it.
Harald had the remnants of the Stanwick garrison in reserve behind the gate. I
turned to look to my front again across the southern ditch at the enemy army.

Most of them had to traverse the
ten-foot deep ditch, which ran around the camp at the foot of the palisade. A
few hours before, the agile Cuthbert had passed across the same ditch,
carefully and slowly by himself, but this army just fell down into it. A good
number fell too fast and too far and smashed ankles or landed on elbow joints
which snapped on impact. Their peril was made worse when dozens more of their
comrades tumbled down on top of them, crushing them. And then still more fell
upon these men. Soon, the ditch was full of a writhing mass of warriors, trying
to make headway across the bloody debris below them.

Others though ... too many
others, slid down the outer ditch wall or held on to the spear shafts of their
fellow warriors and dropped down more carefully. These were better placed to
come across to the near side of the ditch. We pelted them with stones and
rubble to little effect. I heaved up a large blackened stone, retrieved from
the nearby camp fire, and tossed it downwards. As I did, one youth, no older
than I, looked straight up at me and saw − too late − the stone
coming for him. It smashed into his face and with a blood-curdling cry he fell
back, dead. A moment later, a sling stone fired from the far side of the ditch
ricocheted off my helmet and I tumbled backwards myself, my head now spinning.

I felt strong arms heave me up
and as my sight returned, saw the anxious face of Grettir staring at me. His
lips were moving and for a moment the ringing in my ears prevented me hearing
his words. I remember thinking that the terrible din of the battle was gone and
maybe that I was dying. Then, with a rapidity that made me dizzy, the noise was
back and I could hear the old retainer speaking.

“...you hear me, Master? Can you
see me? ... it’s Grettir.”

I nodded and put my hand on my
head, then took it away and inspected it. I had expected to see blood, but my
helmet had saved me. I looked around for it and saw that Grettir was holding it
out to me.

“I ... I am fine, Grettir, just a
bit stunned,” I said, climbing unsteadily to my feet and shaking my head to
clear it. Grettir nodded and handed me the helmet, before stepping back into
the line at the wall.

I stood for a moment to regain my
senses and looked at the battle below. Owain was leading repeated charges at
the gate, but as yet the sturdy oak structure was holding and Sabert’s men from
one side and Harald’s from the other were causing great injury to any Welshman
that approached. Beyond the gate still more of Sabert’s men were pelting the
right wing of the Welsh as they tried to climb the wall there. In front of us,
the enemy had reached the ditch below our section of the palisade and were
trying to clamber up it.

Eduard was yelling foul abuse at
the warriors beneath him and − standing beside him − Aedann seemed
to be repeating his words in Welsh. Below, I could hear furious replies. I
smiled for a moment at some of Eduard’s juicer words and wondered how well they
translated; then I stepped forward next to Eduard and looked down.

My smile dropped.

Immediately underneath us, scores
of the enemy had come up to only a few feet below the palisade. We kept on
throwing what we could at them, but our supplies of effective missiles had all
but run out and unhindered now, the enemy were climbing up each other, or using
knives thrust into the packed earth as hand holds to pull themselves up. So, at
last, when fifty or so had reached the palisade, one of their chieftains gave a
loud bellow and they made a surge at it.

The top of a head popped up over
the palisade and I cracked it open like a nut with my sword and the warrior
fell back down. To my side, Eduard gave a roar and using an axe he had found,
was hacking mercilessly left and right. Dozens died as they tried to come over
the top, but still more came on and suddenly, with a cry, the lad next to me
was impaled on a spear and fell screaming down into the camp behind. A pair of
huge warriors leapt over the wall and in an instant the enemy were amongst us.
One of them, with a ragged black beard, still had his shield and rammed it into
my stomach so that I doubled over in agony. Eduard stepped back and cut at him,
slicing his shoulder open, but in doing so, left the wall for a moment and so
another pair of Welshmen were over in a flash.

I scrambled to my feet,
protecting myself with my shield and swung wildly left and right with my sword.
Eduard was doing the same and I now saw that Aedann had also been forced back
from the wall. All three of us were teetering on the inside edge of the
fighting platform that ran around the camp, with no place to go backwards except
a sharp fall onto the hard-packed earth below, where a number of our men were
already lying groaning or dead.

Grettir was the other side of the
pair of warriors who had come over first. He shouted something at them and as
the nearest one turned, hacked at his neck. The man fell to his knees, blood
gushing from an artery, then his eyes rolled upwards and he lay still. That
left the one with the black beard, whom Eduard had injured, and as he turned to
cut at Grettir, I slashed at his legs and cut them from under him. Grettir
stepped forward and finished him with a stab to the throat.

Beyond Grettir, the Welsh had not
managed to reach the wall, but to my right I saw that we were losing the
battle. On the far side of Aedann, fifty enemy warriors were now massing on the
battlements and had killed our men there or pushed them over the edge. Now they
had an opening and none of our army stood the other side of them. All they needed
to do was push along the battlements, down the steps and they could come behind
us wherever they wished or − more likely − fall on the men at the
gate and open it. More Welsh were poised to come up and over the wall: we had
to act fast.

“Shield wall, Wicstun Company,
shield wall!” I shouted and locked shields with Grettir and Eduard.

“Form a column, three wide.
Shields locked!” I ordered and hesitating, the men started to turn towards me.

“Quickly men!” Grettir backed me
up and soon the men were shuffling into a long column facing along the
battlements towards us, three men wide and with shields locked behind each
other.

“Now!” I shouted at Eduard and
Grettir and we pushed forward as a few more Welshmen came over the wall.
Surprised by us, they were unbalanced and fell back, screaming, into the ditch
behind taking two more with them.

“Turn!” I shouted and we wheeled
round to the right. The rest of the company came up behind us and now we were a
long column of steel and iron: a battering ram with one purpose − to
clear the battlements.

We pushed along the battlements
up to the first Welshmen, who now turned to face us. They were not formed up,
however, and we were and as we cut and hacked and pushed, they fell to our
blades and spears. We stepped forward and I had Grettir angle his shield left
to protect us from men trying to come over the wall, or from missile fire from
beyond the ditch, whilst Eduard and I kept ours facing along the wall.
Gradually, though, the enemy realised the danger and a huge brute of a warrior
chieftain dragged and kicked his men into line and with a rattling and banging
of wood on wood, they dragged their shields together and formed a wall.

Now, it was down to brute force:
our will against their will. They were desperate to finish us fast and to be
ready for their next battle. We were desperate to hold on for just another hour
or so. When it comes to brute force and a trial of strength, there are few men
stronger than Eduard and I was glad to have him at my side.

I have no idea how long that
struggle lasted, but it seemed an age. Muscles ached and sinews popped under
the effort. Knives, spears and blades stabbed back and forth over the shields.
Gradually as men fell on both sides we edged along, inch by inch and yard by
yard until I felt I could stand the effort no longer. Then, with shocking
suddenness, the shield wall ahead of us just gave way. The enemy started to
pull back, then a few started to run and in an instant the sixty or so of them
were hurtling away from us along the battlements. We advanced and cut several
more down and then there were no more left. I shouted in triumph, but then the
cry caught in my throat, as I saw that the danger was not yet over.

The giant leading the Welsh had
held us long enough to plan his action. Now I could see that he was leading his
men down from the battlements and swinging round to the gateway. I looked that
way expecting that Harald would lead a counter attack with the hundred men he
had held in reserve at the gate. Then I saw that there was no reserve company.
Over on the other side of the battle Sabert’s men had been swept off the
battlements and down to the camp, so Harald had committed the reserve to repel the
enemy back over the wall. This meant that as the chieftain led his fifty men
towards the gate, there were just ten of our warriors there, struggling to hold
the gates shut as Owain forced his way in.

The men at the gate never saw the
danger until it was too late. With a vicious cry, the giant chieftain hacked
two down with the same swing of his huge blade and in an instant his men had
killed the others. They were busy clearing the rubble we had piled against the
gates. Soon, the gates would be opened and if that happened ...

“Wicstun Company, follow me!” I
shouted and without looking to see if they followed, I ran along the
battlements to the steps. Now, as I tumbled down them, I did glance back and
saw that almost the whole company was following me, save half a dozen men
Grettir had ordered to stay with him and try to guard the wall.

It was a risk. Whilst we
abandoned the wall the enemy might bring more men across, but the gates were
critical. If they opened, then all was lost. At the gates, the last of the
rubble had been cleared and now the bar was being lifted. I had no time to form
up into any formation.

“Charge!” was all I could find
the breath to yell, as we crashed into the rear of the Welsh and a confused
swirling melee began. Now again, all the senses were bombarded and overwhelmed
and in the end, ignored. All that was left was an almost blind madness, as you
lay about you at anything that moved and hoped to the gods it was an enemy and
not a friend. We fought with fury and abandon, as we strove to reach the gates
and prevent them opening.

But we failed.

With a thud, the bar was dropped
to the ground and the chieftain himself reached out both arms and pulled the
gates open. Twenty yards away, Owain was standing surrounded by hundreds of
warriors, rallying them after the latest charge at the gates had failed. Scores
had died trying to force their way in. Now, they gave a huge shout of triumph
and came on again.