Æthelstan turned and stared at the arena, its bloodred walls lit by fire and half obscured by snow. “It is my intention,” he said, “to kill every man inside.”

The priest made the sign of the cross. “Cadwallon ap Gruffudd is a hostage, lord.”

“A hostage!” Æthelstan could not hide his surprise. “Are you telling me that Cynlæf doesn’t trust Gruffudd of Gwent?” Æthelstan asked, but the priest did not answer, nor did he need to. Gruffudd’s son had clearly been taken hostage as a surety that the Welsh warriors would not desert Cynlæf’s cause. And that, I thought, meant that Gruffudd must have given Cynlæf cause to doubt the Welshmen’s loyalty.

“How many of your seventy-four men still live, priest?” I asked.

Æthelstan looked annoyed at my intervention, but said nothing. “Sixty-three, lord,” the priest answered.

“You lost eleven men assaulting the walls?” I asked.

“Yes, lord.” Father Bledod paused for a heartbeat. “We put ladders against the northern gate, lord, we took the tower.” He meant one of the two bastions that flanked the Roman gate. “We drove the sais from the rampart, lord.” He was proud of what Gruffudd’s men had achieved, and he had every right to be proud.

“And you were driven from the gate,” Æthelstan remarked quietly.

“By you, lord Prince,” the priest said. “We took the tower, but could not keep it.”

“And how many sais,” I used Bledod’s word for the Saxons, “died with you on the gate?”

“We counted ten bodies, lord.”

“No,” I said, “I want to know how many of Cynlæf’s men died with you.”

“None, lord,” Father Bledod could not hide his scorn, “not one.”

Æthelstan understood my questions now. Cynlæf had let the Welshmen lead the assault and had done nothing to support them. The Welsh had done the fighting and the Saxons had let them die, and that experience had soured Gruffudd and his men. They could have resisted our arrival the previous day, but had chosen not to fight because they had lost faith in Cynlæf and his cause. Æthelstan looked at the warriors lined behind the priest. “What can Gruffudd,” he asked, “give me in return for his son’s life?”

The priest turned and spoke with the short, broad-chested man who wore the gold chain about his neck. Gruffudd of Gwent had a scowling face, a gray tangled beard, and one blind eye, his right eye, which was white as the falling snow. A scar on his cheek showed where a blade had taken the sight from that eye. He spoke in his own language, of course, but I could hear the bitterness in the words. Father Bledod finally turned back to Æthelstan. “What does the lord Prince wish from Gruffudd?”

“I want to hear what he will offer,” Æthelstan said. “What is his son worth? Silver? Gold? Horses?”

There was another brief exchange in the Welsh language. “He will not offer gold, lord,” the priest said, “but he will pay you with the name of the man who hired him.”