'Is she your woman?' I asked, though I was sure she was not, for she was beautiful and I could not imagine Penda showing tenderness.
'Not yet, Raven, but an itch has got to be scratched, lad.' I laughed as Penda absently stroked the scar on his cheek. 'I don't know what's so funny,' he muttered. 'If you can daydream about poking Ealdorman Ealdred's scrawny daughter, I can fancy a roll in the hay with the redhead.'
'I'll wager you wouldn't be the first,' I said.
'Wouldn't want to be, lad. You can keep the sweet young virgins, keep 'em all and good luck to you. They just lie there like planks of pine. Don't even seem to enjoy it, God bless their mothers. No, Raven, give me a woman who knows what gets her wet.' He bent, snatched up a pebble and cast it high into the air so that it landed halfway down the slope. 'Let's hope we both get the chance to dip our wicks,' he said, his face as hard as stone. Then I felt a sudden churning in the depths of my stomach. For the gate of the fortress, now bathed in dawn sunlight, had opened. The Welsh were coming.
'Here they come!' I yelled to the others, who were checking their war gear and sharpening their blades one last time. Many of them were mumbling prayers and crossing themselves. Even the experienced fighters amongst them hefted their round shields and inspected their long spears as though they had never fought with the things before, as though they wondered if wood and steel would hold when the killing began. The inexperienced men looked to the warriors, mimicking their actions and asking advice, the pride they had worn previously abandoned now. The eight with bows strung the yew staves and chose the arrows they would shoot first, and those men knew they would be the safest of us all, at least in the beginning, for they would stand behind our skjaldborg, our shieldwall, pouring their wicked arrows into the advancing Welsh. But they would run out of arrows eventually and then they would take their places, filling the gaps in the wooden wall where men had fallen.
I gripped the thick ash spear. It was not Glum's any more, but mine, and its weight gave me confidence. I imagined the weapon as an extension of my body and believed I had gained some of the magic and strength of the tree from which it was fashioned. Whether there was any truth or magic in this, I could not say, but at least it helped to squash the fear that was gnawing at my bowels and tenderizing the insides beneath my sternum.
I watched the Welsh form their shieldwall with their backs to the fortress, and for some reason my mind turned to Griffin, the warrior from my village who had faced Sigurd with strength and bravery when he must have known there was no hope. Then there had been Olaf's son, white-haired Eric, who could not hide his fear as some men could, barely a warrior when he gave his life for his fellowship. Lastly, I thought of old Ealhstan, brave Ealhstan. He was feeble and mute and had had more courage than them all.
'Look how eager they are to come and die,' I shouted over my shoulder, grimacing at the tremor I heard in my own voice. Penda was building his own shieldwall so that every third man was a warrior, for then each levy man would have an experienced fighter beside him to give him heart and maintain the cohesion of the line.
'Keep your shields overlapping,' Penda barked. 'Half the width of the man's beside you. I'll gut any man who lets daylight through. And then you stand! You hear me? You bloody well stand!'
'We'll stand, Penda!' Oswyn shouted. 'Won't we, lads?' There was a chorus of yells and more than one man banged his spear against the back of his shield.
'You are oaks!' Penda yelled. 'You are no longer the bastard scum of Wessex, but great Wessex oaks that no pissing Welshman is going to move!'
The men knew the task facing them, knew what they must do to survive. Even the craftsmen and traders had been trained in the discipline of the shieldwall. But they listened to Penda, let his words sting them like wasps, the spit flying from his mouth. For the words gave them heart. For his part Penda knew he needed every one of them to fight with the strength of two. He knew that only if the wall remained solid could it become the foundation from which to stab and cut, to claw and bite. Then the shields might advance as one man, step by step, crushing the enemy underfoot and driving him from the field. 'No gaps! No openings! No weakness!' he screamed, for such will cleave the wall just as a man splits an oak along the grain. 'If we break we die!'
'We'll hold,' short Saba growled.
'No need to whisper now, lads!' Penda called. 'Look, the bastards are awake, so let them hear you!'
'Wessex!' Oswyn roared, hefting his spear above his head. 'Wessex!' Then every man took up the shout. 'Wessex! Wessex! Wessex!'
Penda caught my eye and nodded grimly. 'Welsh bastards will be wishing they'd stayed in their beds!' he shouted.