Authors: Paul Bannister
We found the Saxons by their firelight. It shone redly on the low clouds and gave us early warning of their presence. They were camped in a loop of the River Chelmer, their longships drawn up to the bank and to judge by the occasional screams of a woman in distress, they were tasting the fruits of their pillaging. I conferred with Grabelius and the three sailors, then I sent them and several of my horsemen in search of my sea commander Grimr, who, his sailors assured me, would be somewhere downstream of the Saxons, waiting for our contact.
We set outposts around a small copse on a low hill a mile or so from the Saxons and the troopers settled themselves and their horses in it for a night’s rest. As I hoped, Grimr was not far away and by mid-morning my horsemen came back from him to report. They had given him my orders, which were to lie up concealed until first light, then to attack the Saxons from the river. I would bring my big horses into play from the land at the rear of the Saxons, once they were engaged with Grimr’s warriors. He had been joined by one more longship and crew, giving him about 90 men. My scouts reported that the Saxons had five ships tied up on the river bank, making that a roughly even contest. With surprise and my cavalry attack from the rear, I anticipated a slaughter.
I called my troop around and set out the position to them. “We remain here in this wood for the day, under cover,” I said. “No fires, no noise. The enemy are not to know we’re here until we ride them down in the morning. Get some rest, sharpen your weapons and remember: blades down, shields up, and the point beats the edge!”
Around noon, our outposts reported activity in the Saxon camp, which was a primitive thing of stretched sails for shelter and I crawled to the edge of the tree line to look. One ship was readying to move upstream and a dozen or so sea raiders were forming up, preparing to move out of the camp. “Probably scouting the land for the next couple of villages to raid,” I said. I noted 20 or so bedraggled prisoners, mostly women and a couple of children, yoked and penned on the river bank.
The longship began to pull upstream and I was considering how to trap her later when the file of Saxons who had been assembling their gear started to move out of camp. They crossed a water meadow, then angled abruptly onto firmer ground and began heading directly for our small wood. Our sentries slid back to hiss warnings and to silence the horses but I could see no way we could move away undetected. “Stay here,” I whispered. “Let them pass.”
It had to happen and it did. A horse whickered at the scent of the Saxons, they came cautiously alert to investigate our hiding place and we were discovered. Four of them died at once under our arrows, two more went down under blades, several stood to fight, but two began running back towards their camp, shouting an alarm. I swung a leg over Corvus, my big black Frisian stallion. “Mount up!” I shouted. “Ride them down!” Then, pausing only to find one of the horsemen who had ridden to Grimr’s camp last night, I gestured at him. “Go to Grimr. Tell him to come now,” I commanded. He nodded and kicked his heels into his horse’s ribs and I turned to the action in front of me.
The several Saxons who were still on the slope before the copse made good deaths, resolutely swinging their battle axes at us, killing one and wounding three of our troop, but they died, as did the two who tried to outrun our horses. We hacked them down as we thundered past, a spray of Saxon blood whipping across my face as Exalter claimed another soul. I wiped my eyes clear and gestured my troopers into a line. The Saxon camp was like a kicked-over wasps’ nest, swarming as they struggled into their war gear and hurried to form a shield wall.
“Walk close,” I shouted. “Do not charge. Wait for my command.” The situation was tricky. We were well outnumbered, but we could certainly break the shield wall. However, the confined space inside the loop of the Chelmer loop worked against the big horses. We could hack through the wall, but then would have difficulty turning to gain impetus for a second charge from the other direction. We needed more infantry. We needed Grimr’s fighting men.
The Saxons did well. They had their shield wall formed and ready before we could get there, even if we had galloped. Instead, we plodded through the soggy water meadow, which I sourly noted was unsuitable for cavalry and we halted on firmer ground about 100 yards from the wall of shields and spears. “Stay here,” I ordered, and nudged Corvus forward as one man detached himself from the Saxon line and came towards me.
He was tall, heavyset and blond, with lank hair to his shoulders and a trimmed beard. I took in his weapons and war gear: a well-polished, flat-bladed gladius stabbing sword hanging from a brass chain at his left hip, a round willow-plank shield faced with leather, boiled leather breastplate, and conical leather helmet with a stitched ridge and henna-dyed plume of horse hair. He had a heavy fur cloak thrown back to leave his arms free, arms that were bare and adorned with a dozen silver rings.
He wore more rings, iron ones, on most of his fingers and a slender, horn-handled, leaf-shaped dagger on his right side. It was, I noted a seax, single-bladed and used by the Saxons who took their name from it as a tool as well as a weapon. In his hand he hefted an ash pole javelin with a long iron spearhead. I noted with some surprise that the lead-weighted head was fastened to the shaft with a small wooden peg that would break on impact.
That was a Roman device designed to prevent the spear being made useless after impact. It could not then be thrown back. This Saxon with his Roman short sword and Roman spear was no war novice.
I rode closer, looked down at him and said: ”My name is Arthur. This is my country. You have no right to be here. Leave.”
He looked steadily at me. “I am Guthric,” he said. “This is a fine place and I shall enjoy it. Stand aside or I shall kill you and your men.”
“That,” I said, “is a proud boast, but it is an empty one. Get back in your ships, leave the prisoners and your loot and I may spare your lives.” It was the usual conversation before battle, and it served its usual purpose, which was none. The Saxon was not about to retreat, nor was I. What was really happening was that I was buying time, giving Grimr and his ships time to get here so we could kill or enslave these invaders. Kill, preferably, I thought.
The Saxon scratched at his beard and looked again at the line of horsemen behind me. “You don’t really think you can stop us with that weak force?” he asked. “Or do you have more troops elsewhere and you’re hoping to keep us talking for days until they arrive? I’m done with you.” He turned and strode back to his shield wall, which was now several ranks deep. I saw him point his spear at two of his men, probably officers, and gesture them to him. I glanced down river. No sign of Grimr. The situation was crumbling. We’d lost the surprise element, our longship crews would be at a disadvantage as they debarked from their vessels, the water meadow was unsuitable for cavalry… This could be a costly victory.
We backed our horses to the edge of the firmer ground, we were then about 200 paces from the Saxon line. “Hold here,” I said. My thought was that if they advanced, we’d crash through their line and hopefully have enough room to turn, gain speed and crash back through again. If we did enough damage, they might not pursue us, and we could take them on properly when the British crews arrived.
A movement caught my eye and I turned to see a horseman galloping to join us, it was one of the troopers I’d sent to report to Grimr. “He’ll be here in about an hour, lord,” he gasped as he hauled up his sweating, foam-flecked horse. “I told him the situation and he said he’d march his men, not sail them. They’re about four miles away.” I nodded. “Good,” I said, wondering how to stall the Saxons for an hour. Over in front of the shield wall, one of them was walking up and down in the no man’s land, waving his battle axe and shouting.
I understood the Saxon tongue, and his shouts. He was challenging our champion to come and fight him. Inside me, a small voice was saying: ”Your poor judgement in lying up so close got us into this. Now get us out of it.” Almost without my volition, I was nudging Corvus forward and moments later, I was looking down at the big blond Saxon champion. I spat full in his face, drove my spear into the ground, turned Corvus away and dismounted.
I dropped my red sagum, the hooded, oiled-wool officer’s cloak that could one day, not this, I hoped, be my burial shroud, to the ground. For reassurance, I slapped the leather-wrapped hilt of Exalter, my over-long great sword that hung at my left side. Like the Saxon chieftain, I too had a punching dagger on my other hip, a slender ribbed blade under a bone handle. Behind my neck I had another, shorter dagger, sheathed and part-concealed under my segmentata armour. It was handily placed for an over-the shoulder draw.
My segmentata armour had long ago replaced the usual chain mail. It was much lighter and its lobster-like hoops, held by internal leather straps, moved easily over a lanolin-greased leather jerkin. I was not wearing metal greaves to protect my shins – vital in a shield wall - but I noticed that my opponent was, although his feet were relatively unprotected. That weight on the legs could be a factor in slowing down his pace a little.
I assessed what his war kit told me. Like me, he had on a Roman-style helmet with cheek pieces, but his breastplate was leather and over it he wore a bear’s pelt jerkin that would not only keep him warm but would deflect or absorb most blows. His arms were bare, heavily tattooed and sported bronze bands at bicep and wrist. In his right hand he carried a war axe, double-bitted. That meant I’d have to be aware of the backswing, I thought. What looked like an iron-bladed sword was thrust into his broad belt and he had a short dagger strapped to the inside of his right forearm. Interesting. Was he left-handed?
Like me, he carried no shield, like me he was a big man. I considered that he would be faster on his feet because I have a mutilated left foot from a long-ago duel like this one, but he could well be slower and clumsier in his arm movements with that huge axe. He wore trews and short boots that looked soft and loose. My own footwear was standard legionary issue: toeless, heel-less socks and open-toed marching boots with nailed soles. We were on sheep-nibbled turf, level and springy. I felt I would have an advantage in the footing.
I looked into the fellow’s face and was amazed to see that he was chewing something. He grinned, mistaking my surprise for fear and when he spoke I thought what I saw was a mushroom cap in his mouth. “I’ll be keeping that,” he said, nodding to my sagum, a prized piece of equipment. “And that, too,” looking at the beautiful sword that was Exalter. I let him boast and pretended fear. The longer we delayed the more the hallucinogenic mushrooms would have time to act.
“Do we have to do this?” I said
in a low voice.
He grinned again. “Strip naked, pile your clothes and weapons on the ground and crawl away. You’ll have to say politely ‘Thank you, Boartooth, for letting my miserable self live.’ I’ll take your horse and equipment, and I might let you liv
e,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I think I’ll just take your head. After I knock the teeth out, it will make good eating for my pigs. The tee
th don’t digest well, you see.”
His face flushed. “We’ll see who takes whose head,” he growled. I was watching for it, and I saw the first tiny upwards movement as he suddenly swung the axe in his right hand, so I easily sidestepped the lunge, and I drew Exalter in the same motion.
Perhaps, I mused as we circled each other, he was not left-handed, or maybe it was a ruse. I had Exalter pointed at him and suddenly, I tossed it from my right to my left hand. His eyes widened and I knew he was left-handed and now considered his advantage of surprise was over. I silently thanked the gladiator instructors at the Carnutum school who had taught us those street-fighting techniques so many years ago. Their tricks had saved my life several times, now they would be tested again. I tossed the sword back to my right hand again, confusing him more.
Boartooth was grasping his axe handle in both hands, holding the weapon out in front of him, bitts horizontal. It was a clumsy position, and I judged he planned a stab at my chest to unbalance me, because a swing would give me too much warning. When he brought his elbows back from their extended position, I judged he was about to thrust, so I deliberately half-stumbled to my left and lowered the tip of Exalter. The Saxon’s thrust came on cue, I dropped beneath it, my left hand reaching for the turf, Exalter’s tip rising under the axe, and she slid under the leather breastplate, biting deep into his right side. He staggered backwards, I pushed off the turf and followed, still attached to him by the steel of my sword.
He was a strong man and the wound was not fatal. I wrenched Exalter free and circled him, as he shifted the axe to his left hand and clutched at his side, where blood was running freely down his trews. “Now you’ll die painfully, you bastard,” he hissed at me. He tugged his short sword free of his belt and circled cautiously, a weapon in each hand.
I held Exalter out in front of me, two handed, her point following his face. Boartooth was more guarded now, he’d been stung, and I saw sweat trickling from under his leather helmet. That would be in his eyes soon, I considered. I kept circling, waiting for the maddened rush that I judged he would bring at me, the usual berserk charge induced by the mushrooms.
A glance spared to look at his short sword confirmed what I’d thought: it was an iron sword. Exalter would shatter it. The axe was another matter. A lucky or well-aimed blow could take Exalter out of my hands, maybe even break the blade. He was leading with the sword, a weapon much shorter than Exalter. I judged he would try to swipe me with the axe while I focused on the sword, so I flicked Exalter at his eyes, distracting him for an eyeblink, then backswung her, two-handed and hard, at the probing iron blade. The collision ran up my arms, the loud clang sounded like a smith’s hammer on an anvil and the Saxon’s flawed sword snapped near the hilt. I let myself be carried in a semi-circle away from the whirling axe blow that came on the instant and I heard the whistle as the bitt went by, but it missed me.
Now the odds were stacked against the big Saxon. He was wounded, he had lost his secondary weapon, he must be panicking. A puncturing stab wound can kill quickly, but even the deepest slicing cut from a blade’s edge can allow the victim several more hours of life before he bleeds out. My thrust into his right side had hit nothing vital, and although the blood loss would eventually weaken the man, he was still dangerous, and it was likely that the mind-changing mushrooms would numb him to the pain.
He paused, gasping, his eyes filled with hate for me. I moved back a half-step. His name was accurate. He reminded me of a wounded boar, gathering himself for a rush at his tormentors. Behind me, I became aware of encouraging cries from my cavalrymen. The Saxons stood mute, they had seen the blood flow on their champion, and soldiers are superstitious creatures. If he were to die as they watched, it would be an evil omen for their chances in a conflict, however few our forces.
I began to goad the Saxon. I wanted him to keep moving, not to rest. I called on his ancestry among the pigs who would feed on him, I taunted his inability to even scratch me, I spat at his face. And always, I kept circling, so he had to keep moving to face me.
He switched his axe to his right hand and I knew the attack was seconds away. Up came the bright axehead, circling in the air to draw my gaze to my left. His left hand – he WAS left-handed – flashed to the underside of his right forearm. Time ticked by slowly, as it does for me in times of danger and I watched almost laconically as he drew the double-edged punching knife from its concealed sheath.
Exalter seemed to move of her own accord and knocked aside the swinging axe handle, diverting the heavy bitt harmlessly groundwards, then she looped around and across the Saxon’s front and crashed into the bronze wristbands at his left hand where he was lunging the pugio’s blade at me. The knife went flying, a gout of blood squirted a crimson arc from the half-severed wrist and the Saxon screamed like a girl. He was on his knees in agony, axe dropped and forgotten as he clutched his mangled limb. Under his helmet, the nape of his neck was bared, I stepped in quickly, reversed Exalter in my right hand, grasped the unsharpened ricasso below the guard with my left and drove the point straight down into the Saxon’s spine.
It was the exact killing stroke you’d use sacrificing a bull to Mithras, a downward stab through the vertebrae to cut the spinal cord. It was swift, merciful and deadly. Boartooth keeled forward onto his face, dying even before he hit the turf. I yanked Exalter free and wiped her clean on his bear’s pelt jerkin, stepped over him to pick up his knife as a trophy and raised Exalter in salute to my cheering troopers.
The Saxon shield wall stood silent, watching as I whistled Corvus to me, swung up onto his broad back and turned his head away from them. I looked around, scanned the fields in hopes of seeing Grimr’s men but there was no sign of them yet. The sword fight had been brief, and had not provided much delay, but maybe the Saxons would wait a while longer. Several of them were taking away the body of their dead champion. Grabelius was ordering our men to remain still, intelligently not wanting to provoke the Saxons into action. I debated turning away from the enemy, taking my horsemen to safety, but then they might move elsewhere and not be as vulnerable to the attack I planned. We’d stay a little longer and hope Grimr’s reinforcements arrived quickly.
Before the sun had moved a hand’s span, my sea raider’s men did arrive, and my heart sank. They were marching up the wrong side of the river. The Saxons saw them and let out a great yell. They and their ships were safely on our side of the Chelmer, so Grimr’s men were in no position to trap them. If our relief tried to cross, wading and swimming, they’d be hacked down as they struggled up the banks. And if they did not cross, the Saxons could simply embark and sail downriver. We might wound a few with arrows and spears, but the raiding party would be relatively untouched.
I looked to Grabelius. “We have to attack them before they slip away,” I said. “We have no choice and not much time.” My cavalry commander nodded. “I have a suggestion,” he said.
The bards still sing of that day. Grimr’s men had reached the bank opposite the Saxon longships and the few who could swim stripped off their heavy armour and waded and swam across with swords in their teeth.
The Saxons were scrambling into their ships under a spatter of arrows from the British on the far bank when we heavy cavalry smashed into their disintegrating shield wall. That result was as I expected, a slaughter of the infantry that stood against us. But Grabelius’ stratagem was more than just a charge and a fight. A handful of our horse soldiers stayed circling on the near bank, protecting the arrival of the swimmers while most of the troop galloped their mounts into the Chelmer and swam them to the other side. There, they turned their heads back to our shore. As they did, two or three soldiers grabbed on to each horse’s mane, tail or equipment and were pulled safely through the water to the little beach head held by their comrades.
Then the horsemen went back for more. In scant minutes, the Britons captured a Saxon longship and a few brave souls poled it over the river to bring more troops while a hard-fought conflict raged between those who’d crossed and the escaping Saxons.
The fight went as fights always do, a fierce initial resistance, a gradual dawning that the day is being lost, and a sudden, sullen surrender. We took several dozen Saxons prisoner. “Do not kill them,” I ordered. “I have use for them.”
Grim use, if they but knew it. They were destined to act as gravediggers and corpse-carriers in my plague-wracked towns. Normally, I would have ordered them killed on the spot. Captured soldiers make poor slaves, they are usually strong men and resentful, difficult to control, but Britain needed men to bury our plague dead. I saw their leader, Guthric, bloodied and scowling, among the captives. I’d show him what land he had tried to conquer. He was going to be digging graves in it.