The Saxons cheered themselves hoarse, for Liofa’s triumph was an omen for their victory. Liofa himself had time only to seize Cuneglas’s sword, then he ran Iithely away from the men who chased him for vengeance. He easily outstripped them, then turned and taunted them. He had no need to fight them, for he had won his challenge. He had killed an enemy King and I did not doubt that the Saxon bards would sing of Liofa the Terrible, the slayer of kings. He had given the Saxons their first victory of the day.

Arthur dismounted and he and I insisted on carrying Cuneglas’s body back to his men. We both wept. In all the long years we had possessed no stauncher ally than Cuneglas ap Gorfyddyd, King of Powys. He had never argued with Arthur and never once failed him, while to me he had been like a brother. He was a good man, a giver of gold, a lover of justice, and now he was dead. The warriors of Powys took their dead King from us and carried him behind the shield wall. ‘The name of his killer,’ I said to them, ‘is Liofa, and I will give a hundred gold coins to the man who brings me his head.’

Then a shout turned me. The Saxons, assured of victory, had started their advance.

My men stood. They wiped sweat from their eyes. I pulled on my battered and bloody helmet, closed its cheekpieces, and snatched up a fallen spear.

It was time to fight again.

This was the biggest Saxon attack of the day and it was made by a surge of confident spearmen who had recovered from their early surprise and who now came to splinter our lines and to rescue Aelle. They roared their war chants as they came, they beat spears on shields and they promised each other a score of British dead apiece. The Saxons knew they had won. They had taken the worst that Arthur could hurl at them, they had fought us to a standstill, they had seen their champion slay a King, and now, with their fresh troops in the lead, they advanced to finish us. The Franks drew back their light throwing-spears, readying themselves to rain a shower of sharpened iron on our shield wall.

When suddenly a horn sounded from Mynydd Baddon.

At first few of us heard the horn, so loud were the shouts and the tramp of feet and the moans of the dying, but then the horn called again, then a third time, and at the third call men turned and stared up at Mynydd Baddon’s abandoned rampart. Even the Franks and Saxons stopped. They were only fifty paces from us when the horn checked them and when they, like us, turned to gaze up the long green hillside.

To see a single horseman and a banner.