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I do not think that I took in all the terror of it at the time, for on that field there was death in so many forms death brought needlessly by his contriving again, and in all injustice and this end of his was to me but right and fitting. Some terrible fate the man deserved, and he had met it. Now I had my own friends to think of. "See to Jefan!" I said to Kynan, without a word of Gymbert.
And he went forward into the castle and into the hall, and there he saw Kynan the son of Eudav, and Adeon the son of Eudav, playing at chess. And he saw Eudav the son of Caradawc, sitting on a chair of ivory carving chessmen. And the maiden whom he had beheld in his sleep, he saw sitting on a chair of gold. "Empress of Rome," said he, "all hail!"
The man shook his head, but laughed. "They are bold enough to shoot at us, however," he said. "You would do the same if you met a Mercian cattle lifter," laughed Kynan. "That is naught." Jefan rode in slowly, bidding us good morrow cheerfully as he came. Kynan said that he supposed the owners of the kine were about.
"Kynan," I cried, "have a care! This is what they want you to do! Wait!" For I could see that in the open Gymbert had the advantage of numbers, and I suspected that he was trying to draw the fiery Welsh from their works. There was surely some reason for this half-hearted attack on the stockade that had been already proved too strong. He did not hear me.
And the emperor was glad because of them, and embraced them. Then they looked at the Romans as they attacked the city. Said Kynan to his brother, "We will try to attack the city more expertly than this." So they measured by night the height of the wall, and they sent their carpenters to the wood, and a ladder was made for every four men of their number.
He was coming, but the press before us was thick. So we fought, and I fell to thinking what a wondrous sword this was which Carl the Great had given me. It shore the spear shafts, and the brass-studded shields seemed to split before it touched them, and the tough leather jerkins of the forest men could not hold its edge back. The wild song of Kynan never ceased, and he seemed to sing of it.
He was getting nearer, but the Mercians thronged between his men and us. Now there seemed to be a grim joy in the faces of the men before me, and the Briton at my right fell. There was none left to take his place, and there were but three of us in the gate. "Kynan! Kynan!" I cried, for in a moment he would find his retreat barred.
It hardly seemed possible that it was only a matter of six weeks since I took him from the Norwich marketplace. The thunder rolled round us while we talked of him, passing but slowly, and the rain fell in sheets, washing away the more terrible stains of war. Through it came back, unarmed and humbly, some of the Mercians, begging truce wherein to take away their comrades, and Kynan spoke to them.
"A good fight for a man's last, master," said Erling to me through his teeth, standing steadily as a rock with his hacked shield linked in mine, and his notched sword swinging untiringly to the grim old viking war shout "Ahoy!" as it fell. Kynan was twenty yards from us, and now I saw Gymbert among those whom he was steadily driving back. A shadow swept over me, and it grew darker.
After that crash came a dead silence, and then were yells of terror such as the fight had had no power to raise from men on either side. And among them one voice cried shrill that this was the work of Ethelbert, the slain king. Then as the foe fled back the gates swung to, and I heard the bars clatter into their sockets, and Kynan came to me. "Holy saints!" he said; "look yonder!"
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