Ithel nodded, then barked something at Haerarddur, who got to his feet, if somewhat clumsily, due to his bound wrists. He lifted his head proudly as he did so, challenging any who looked in his direction with a stare, though I didn’t see that he had much to be proud about.
I left him to the care of the Welshmen under the serpent banner while I returned to my conroi and to Nihtfeax. Already the crows were flocking in their scores to where we had piled the enemy’s bodies, their savage beaks digging into the open wounds, scratching at skin, tearing flesh from faces and gouging eyes from their sockets, as if they had not fed in a month or more. Others wheeled about above our heads, cawing in chorus, calling more of their kind from far and wide to partake of the feast that in kindness we had laid out for them. Their share in the spoils was our parting gift; they would finish what we had begun, and if we happened to pass by here again some days from now, not one of those corpses would be recognisable as the men they had once been. In death was every man made equal.
Only when Serlo offered me my banner did I manage to tear my gaze away. Unfurling the cloth, I raised it high for all to see at the same time as Pons sounded the horn and we started on our way. Yet even many hours later, still it seemed as though the stench of that place remained with me, rising off the blood spattered across my helmet and my hair, the blood that even now was congealing upon my mail, soaking through the chain links, staining my tunic, clinging to my skin. And somehow I sensed that, this time, it would take more than water to cleanse myself of that smell.
We did not make for Mathrafal; not straightaway at any rate. Instead of following the old road north we struck out west along the ridge above the wide river plains, where the brothers had assured me the raiding would be good and we might send further warnings to the enemy. True to their word, an hour after we had left Caerswys behind us we came upon a modest village, perhaps thirteen or fourteen hovels in all, which made it only slightly smaller than Earnford. Around it the fields grew thick with barley, while higher up the slopes sheep grazed: white specks against the green.
Perhaps they mistook us for some of their kinsfolk, or perhaps they simply refused to believe that any raiding-army would venture so far beyond the dyke, for at first the villagers did nothing. Only once we had ridden down from the ridge and approached close enough that they could see our banners, our hauberks, the devices painted on our shields, was the cry finally raised. All across the valley men abandoned their oxen and their flocks, threw down their spades and their pails, while their wives and daughters scooped the younger ones up into their arms as they scattered, some making for the safety of the woods, others for the collapsed mill that stood by the river: anywhere they could escape our swords.
No more than half a dozen remained to fight us – the brave and the foolhardy – and they were the ones who fell. They were few and we were many, and whereas they armed themselves with sickles and hayforks and one with an axe, we came upon them with lances and swords and mail. There was little glory to be had in killing peasants and few knights took much pleasure in doing so. Nonetheless, in choosing to make a stand rather than flee with their families they understood that they were also choosing to die. A part of me admired them, for in spite of their meagre numbers and their lack of skill they were fearless fighters, between them managing to unhorse two of our knights as well as wound another on his sword-arm, which was no small feat.
Quickly, however, they were overwhelmed and we set to work, tearing thatch from roof-beams and pulling up floorboards in search of anything of value the people might have hidden there, putting to slaughter the hogs in their sties and the sheep in their folds, laying the torch to storehouses and to the mill. The village was not large and we did not take long to scour it, and when we had finished there was little left of that place save for a trail of animal carcasses, broken fences, collapsed timbers and blackened ruins. Plumes of smoke and ash billowed in the breeze, blowing in my face, choking my lungs, the heat and the dust stinging my eyes and forcing an unwelcome tear that I quickly blinked away.