The Saxon scouts had disappeared in the west, but now they suddenly came galloping back. Dust spurted from their horses’ hoofs. Their speed was enough to tell us that they had seen Arthur and soon, I thought, that tangled flurry of Saxon preparations would turn into a wall of shields and spears. I gripped my own spear’s long ash shaft, closed my eyes and sent a prayer winging up through the blue to wherever Bel and Mithras were listening.

‘Look at them!’ Cuneglas exclaimed while I was praying, and I opened my eyes to see Arthur’s attack filling the western end of the valley. The sun shone in their faces and glinted off hundreds of naked blades and polished helmets. To the south, beside the river, Arthur’s horsemen were spurring ahead to capture the bridge south of Aquae Sulis while the troops of Gwent marched in a great line across the centre of the valley. Tewdric’s men wore Roman gear; bronze breastplates, red cloaks and thick plumed helmets, so that from Mynydd Baddon’s summit they appeared as phalanxes of crimson and gold beneath a host of banners that showed, instead of Gwent’s black bull, red Christian crosses. To the north of them were Arthur’s spearmen, led by Sagramor under his vast black standard that was held on a pole surmounted by a Saxon skull. To this day I can close my eyes and see that army advancing, see the wind stirring the ripple of flags above their steady lines, see the dust rising from the road behind them and see the growing crops trampled flat where they had passed.

While in front of them was panic and chaos. Saxons ran to find armour, to save their wives, to seek their chiefs or to rally in groups that slowly joined to make the first shield wall close to their encampment by Aquae Sulis, but it was a scant wall, thin and ill-manned, and I saw a horseman wave it back. To our left I could see that Cerdic’s men were quicker in forming their ranks, but they were still more than two miles from Arthur’s advancing troops which meant that Aelle’s men would have to take the brunt of the attack. Behind that attack, ragged and dark in the distance, our levy was advancing with scythes, axes, mattocks and clubs.

I saw Aelle’s banner raised among the graves of the Roman cemetery, and saw his spearmen hurry back to rally under its bloody skull. The Saxons had already abandoned Aquae Sulis, their western encampment and the baggage that had been collected outside the city, and maybe they hoped Arthur’s men would pause to plunder the wagons and pack-horses, but Arthur had seen that danger and so led his men well to the north of the city’s wall. Gwentian spearmen had garrisoned the bridge, leaving the heavy horsemen free to ride up behind that gold and crimson line. Everything seemed to happen so slowly. From Mynydd Baddon we had an eagle’s view and we could see the last Saxons fleeing over Aquae Sulis’s crumbled wall, we could see Aelle’s shield wall at last hardening and we could see Cerdic’s men hurrying along the road to reinforce them and we silently urged Arthur and Tewdric on, wanting them to crush Aelle’s men before Cerdic could join the battle, but it seemed as though the attack had slowed to a snail’s pace. Mounted messengers darted between the troops of spearmen, but no one else seemed to hurry.