On the field, as I made my way across, the stretcher parties still strove to separate friend from foe. The Saxon dead had been flung into a heap in the centre of the field; I guessed they would be burned according to custom. Beside the growing hill of bodies a platoon stood guard over the glittering pile of arms and ornaments taken from the dead men. The British dead were being laid nearer the wall, in rows for identification. There were small parties of men, each with an officer, bending over them one by one. As I picked my way through trampled mud oily and stinking with blood and slime, I passed, among the armed and staring dead, the bodies of half a dozen ragged men—peasants or outlaws by the look of them. These would be looters, cut down or speared by the soldiers. One of them still twitched like a pinned moth, hastily speared to the ground by a broken Saxon weapon which had been left in his body. I hesitated, then went and bent over him. He watched me—he was beyond speech—and I could see he still hoped. If he had been cleanly speared, I would have drawn the blade out and let him go with the blood, but as it was, there was a quicker way for him. I drew my dagger, pulled my cloak aside out of the way, and carefully, so that I would be out of the jet of blood, stuck my dagger in at the side of his throat. I wiped it on the dead man’s rags, and straightened to find a cold pair of eyes watching me above a levelled short sword three paces away.

Mercifully, it was a man I knew. I saw him recognise me, then he laughed and lowered his sword.

“You’re lucky. I nearly gave it to you in the back.”

“I didn’t think of that.” I slid the dagger back into its sheath. “It would have been a pity to die for stealing from that. What did you think he had worth taking?”

“You’d be surprised what you catch them taking. Anything from a corn plaster to a broken sandal strap.” He jerked his head towards the high walls of the fortress. “He’s been asking where you were.”

“I’m on my way.”

“They say you foretold this, Merlin? And Doward, too?”

“I said the Red Dragon would overcome the White,” I said. “But I think this is not the end yet. What happened to Hengist?”

‘‘Yonder.” He nodded again towards the citadel. “He made for the fort when the Saxon line broke, and was captured just by the gate.”

“I saw that. He’s inside, then? Still alive?”

“Yes.”

“And Octa? His son?”

“Got away. He and the cousin—Eosa, isn’t it?—galloped north.”

“So it isn’t the end. Has he sent after them?”