The Cornishmen, thigh-deep in the water, waited for the rest. Barely thirty of them reached the shore, struggling to land only to meet the swords of the troopers. Of the survivors, the first three, by Baudouin’s orders, were dragged alive from the water and bound, to be taken back for questioning. The rest were killed as they reached the shallows, and their bodies thrown back into the sea for the current to take. But first they were robbed of what valuables they carried, and this, too, at Baudouin’s bidding. “For,” said he, “we still have to face our real battle, with the fishermen whose boats I have just destroyed. So take what weapons there are, but set the rest of the takings aside – yes, here beside me. I shall see that none of you is the loser by this day’s work, but the villagers must get their due. Believe me, the loss of their catch, for as long as it will take them to build new boats, will soon seem far more dreadful to them than the chance of a Saxon raid!”

“Chance! It was real enough!” said one man, pulling a broadsword from its scabbard. “Look at this! These notches! Every one a death, I’ve no doubt!” He handled the sword lovingly, but threw it, with its belt and gilded buckle, down on the pile.

“A thing is only real once it has happened,” said Baudouin. He looked around him at the troopers who, some of them with outspoken regrets, but all cheerfully, were following suit. “And thanks to your speed and readiness, this did not.” He laughed. “But let us hope that the villagers saw enough of that chance to make them spare their boats to us! See yonder. They’re coming now.”

A small crowd of villagers was heading down the coomb. Some of the men carried weapons, hastily snatched up, but word must have gone round that the fighting was done, for the women were with them, and even some children, skirmishing and crying out shrilly on the outskirts of the crowd.

They came to a halt a few yards away, and after some muttering and shuffling one man, presumably the headman of the village, was pushed forward towards the prince.

He cleared his throat, but before he could speak Baudouin said quickly: “Rhu, isn’t it? Well, Rhu, the danger is past, and I – the king and I – have to thank you for giving us the fire and the tinder.” His teeth showed in a brief grin of satisfaction. “As you see, it sufficed. There were five Saxon longships, fully armed, and God knows what they had planned to do, had they once landed, but you may be sure that by this, not even your children would have been left alive.”

There were murmurs at that, and it could be seen that some of the women gathered their children closer to their skirts, while eyes went to the sea’s edge, where a couple of bodies bobbed and wallowed in the shallows. A woman called out suddenly, shrill with anger. Two small boys, excited and curious for a closer view of the corpses, had crept from the back of the crowd and started down the shingle. They were caught and dragged back, to smacks and scolding from their mothers, and looks of amused indulgence from the men. In the brief flurry of action, the tension slackened, and Baudouin, seizing the moment, laughed and said, easily: “I’m sorry about your boats, but this should help you build new and better ones, and keep you and your families meantime.”