Vortigern’s men were hardly settled after their headlong flight from Snowdon, when Ambrosius’ army came up the valley of the Wye, and encamped due west of Doward Hill, at a place called Ganarew. I never heard what store of provisions Vortigern had; but the place had been kept prepared, and it was well known that there were two good springs within the fortress which had not yet been known to fail; so it might well have taken Ambrosius some time to reduce it by siege. But a siege was just what he could not afford, with Hengist gathering his forces, and the April seas opening between Britain and the Saxon shores. Besides, his British allies were restless, and would never have settled down for a prolonged siege. It had to be quick.

It was both quick and brutal. I have heard it said since that Ambrosius acted out of vengeance for his long-dead brother. I do not believe this to be true. Such long-standing bitterness was not in his nature, and besides, he was a general and a good fighting commander before he was even a man. He was driven only by necessity, and in the end, by Vortigern’s own brutality.

Ambrosius besieged the place in the conventional way for about three days. Where he could, he drew up siege engines and tried to break the defences. He did indeed breach the outer rampart in two places above what was still called Romans’ Way, but when he found himself stopped by the inner rampart and his troops exposed to the defenders, he withdrew. When he saw how long the siege would take, and how, even in the three days, some of his British troops quietly left him and went off on their own, like hounds after the rumour of Saxon hares, he decided to make an end quickly. He sent a man to Vortigern with conditions for surrender. Vortigern, who must have seen the defection of some of the British troops, and who well understood Ambrosius’ position, laughed, and sent back the messenger without a message, but with the man’s own two hands severed, and bound in a bloody cloth to the belt at his waist.

He stumbled into Ambrosius’ tent just after sundown of the third day, and managed to stay on his feet long enough to give the only message he was charged with.

“They say that you may stay here, my lord, until your own army melts away, and you are left handless as I. They have food in plenty, sir, I saw it, and water—”

Ambrosius only said: “He ordered this himself?”

“The Queen,” said the man. “It was the Queen.” He pitched forward on the word at Ambrosius’ feet, and from the dripping cloth at his belt the hands fell, sprawling.

“Then we will burn out the wasps’ nest, queen and all,” said Ambrosius. “See to him.”