Lies, Damned Lies, and History

by Jodi Taylor

  For a moment, I wondered why on earth Arthur’s men would sacrifice the safety of the fort to engage the Saxons face to face, but it actually made perfect sense. Of course, Arthur couldn’t afford to be penned up inside a remote hill fort for weeks. That wasn’t his style. He moved fast – always appearing where and when least expected. Building the legend. He would never lose the initiative to the Saxons. He would take the fight to them. Of course he would.

  He had the advantage of shock and awe. His horses had the advantage of a steep slope in their favour. They smashed into the Saxons at full speed. Men disappeared under hooves or were tossed aside by the impact. Those that didn’t fall under the horses were cut to pieces before they could get their shields up.

  Arthur fought like a lion. Or a warrior. Or a hero. He fought with both hands, striking to the left and right simultaneously. When one sword shattered on a helmet, he pulled out his long-handled axe and continued to lay about him like a demon. His horse fought too, all red-rimmed nostrils and blood-flecked foam. Giant metal-shod hooves rose and fell as he kicked and trampled those around him.

  The charge inflicted massive damage. In its wake, a small force of infantry followed on behind, mopping up the few who had survived that initial charge. With the Saxon army strung out down the hillside, the odds were in the defenders’ favour. A great hole opened up in the Saxon ranks.

  Their momentum carried Arthur’s men straight through. For one moment, I thought they would be carried away, victims of their own speed and weight, but I had underestimated them. A horn sounded and they dragged their horses to a halt. Some nearly sat down in an effort to stop in time. As one, they turned, reformed their line, and charged again. Back up the hill this time. Caught between the cavalry and the foot soldiers, the Saxons wavered.

  Another group of men issued forth from the gates and a hail of arrows darkened the sky still further as archers on the walls shot continually into the Saxon wings. Hissing death dropped from the skies. Men went down like trees. I looked at the slaughter around me and took a moment to wonder. This was not one of Arthur’s famous twelve battles against the Saxons and yet the ferocity was massive. Whatever must Mons Badonicus or Camlann have been like?

  I’d underestimated the Saxons, however. Arthur was not the only man on the battlefield with a grasp of tactics.

  The Saxons were splitting up, dividing themselves into smaller groups, thus forcing the riders to split up too, which considerably diminished their effectiveness. Arthur still had a fight on his hands. And these Saxons were the ancestors of those who would hold the shield wall at Hastings. This was not just a minor skirmish. This was going to be bloody.

  Small bands of Saxons, moving in tight-knit groups, were forcing the defenders to engage on their terms. A larger group of about twenty or so put their heads down and headed for the open gate. Voices shouted a warning and Arthur moved fast to engage. He was hampered by a force of seemingly suicidal Saxons who sacrificed themselves in vast numbers to ensure their fellows reached the gates. Their casualties were enormous, but the objective was gained.

  The men at the gates put their shoulders to them, struggling to get them closed before they were overwhelmed, but too late.

  The Saxons burst through, big men, red mouths open wide, blood-splashed, full of fighting frenzy. I could feel the blood pounding inside my head. We were about to be overrun. Was this why no record of this battle survived? Was this the one that Arthur lost? Was this the battle that was quietly forgotten? Because it was the one that didn’t build the legend.

  The few men in our enclosure left the walls and began to force us women and children towards the big central barn. I stood quietly at the wall and hoped to be overlooked, but there was no chance. A man pulled me away and shoved me along with the others. Everyone was being pushed into the barn. For our own safety. I hoped.

  I spoke softly. ‘Tim? You OK?’

  ‘Don’t worry about us, Max. We’re still on the Dark Age equivalent of potato peeling and latrine digging. You?’

  ‘About to be herded into a big hut, along with the other non-combatants. In order of importance – livestock, children, household implements, miscellaneous tat, and women.’ I paused, struggling with a sudden lack of words. ‘Look after yourselves.’

  ‘You too.’

  ‘Tim …’

  Silence.

  I tried again. ‘Tim …’

  His voice wasn’t quite steady. ‘I have to do this, Max. I have to prove to the world, and to myself, that I’m not completely useless.’

  I knew it. I knew he wasn’t as OK as everyone thought he was. I knew it.

  ‘Tim …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you had no arms at all. Or legs, either … Or even if your head dropped off … you’d never be useless to me.’

  Silence.

  Just as I was about to close the link, he said, ‘Or you to me.’

  Then the link went dead.

  I didn’t know how much to protest and I didn’t want to make myself conspicuous. All around me, women were gathering up livestock and children impartially and pushing them towards the big, central barn. It made sense to get us out of harm’s way. To clear the decks for action. I allowed myself to be driven along with the old, the young, and the four-legged.

  They pushed us inside and slammed home the bars. We were locked in. Whatever was going to happen, there wouldn’t be a thing I could do about it. I know it was for our own safety. The fighting was only yards away, on the other side of the wall, but every instinct I had was telling me not to be trapped in a building with no way out. I couldn’t help remembering the Temple of the Divine Claudius at Colchester. The Romans bundled their families inside for safety and they were fine until Boudicca sent her men onto the roof. To prise away the tiles. To drop down onto the helpless people beneath. To indulge in an orgy of slaughter until the floors ran red with blood, and no Roman, man, woman or child was left alive. A whole city died that day.

  I tried to peer through a chink in the door. As far as I could see, peering from side to side, there were just two guards out there, standing swords drawn.

  I stepped back thoughtfully. Two guards were a complete waste of time. Should the Saxons come boiling into our enclosure, what good could two men possibly be? And then it hit me. They weren’t to keep the Saxons out. They were to keep us in.

  I looked around me. It was a bit of a squeeze, but the barn was large enough to house us all fairly comfortably. I could smell hay, dust, animals, and earth. There were no windows, but light filtered through chinks in the pitch walls. Looking up, the roof was supported by sturdy beams, over which had been layered brushwood and then the thatch, all supported by four central pillars set in a square. The floor was of beaten earth with a stone threshold. It was a good barn. Sturdy, well made and mostly weatherproof.

  A pile of hay stood against one wall. Not a huge pile – I suspected it was the end of last winter’s store. The sheep were already making inroads.

  People got themselves organised. Elderly people sat in the middle with the smaller children on their laps. Older children and some women chivvied aside the sheep and sat themselves down on the pile of hay. Worryingly, all the children were very quiet. Big-eyed, they sat listening. We were all listening, because in the time it had taken to get us all inside and for us to sort ourselves out, things had gone very quiet outside.

  What was happening? Had the Saxons withdrawn and gone home? Unlikely. Or were they preparing themselves for an all-out assault? Much more likely.

  The silence was unbearable. Not knowing what’s happening is a bugger. I looked at the wooden door and pushed gently. It gave a fraction, but only a fraction. There was no way out.

  I suspected, however, that there were many ways in. In my mind, I saw big, blond men tearing aside the thatch and jumping down, swords stained with blood. Or using their weapons to force their way through the mud walls, to fall on us in a blood lust.

  Which just goes to show there’s something s
eriously wrong with my imagination – it was probably on pregnancy overload, or something – because there was nothing to stop them killing the two guards outside, lifting the bar, and just strolling in through the door.

  Yes, there was. There was us.

  I stared thoughtfully at the door and then looked around to find Granny doing the same. I suspected she’d had exactly the same thought.

  We tend to think of people in the past as less intelligent than us because they can’t drive cars or understand computers. Actually, that applies to me as well. On both counts. But Granny, who was probably only in her forties, although she looked much older, had almost certainly done this several times in her life. Looking around the barn, a good number of them had probably been in similar situations before. These were turbulent times. The departing Romans had left a vacuum, which the Saxons were determined to exploit. Arthur would fight his famous twelve battles all over the country, before dying at Camlann.

  I looked around me. In these days, women did not fight, but we could defend ourselves. We did not have to sit, helpless, waiting for whatever came through that door.

  I think the same idea had occurred to several other women as well.

  We formed a small group by one of the central pillars. There was always the language barrier of course, but I’m pretty good at conveying my meaning through the medium of mime. There were some sacks of something stacked in the corner. They’d been there for some time by the looks of things. I think they contained grain of some kind maybe, carelessly stored, and the rats had got at them, but they were heavy and the door opened inwards. They were a start.

  I pointed at the sacks and then at the door. They nodded.

  There was what looked like the remains of an old plough – we could use that to wedge the door – and a pile of stones. I had no idea why someone would want to store rocks in a barn, but we could certainly throw them at anyone we didn’t like the look of.

  Several women brought up tools of some kind. No scythes or sickles, sadly, but the old wooden handles could be used as staffs. Even buckets can be nasty weapons if wielded with malicious intent. And we intended to be very malicious.

  We set to work building our barricade. As barricades go, it wasn’t that brilliant. I suspected it would hold them for five, possibly six seconds, but it gave us something to do. Anything was better than sitting passively waiting for whatever was going to happen to us. It gave us at least the illusion of control, and best of all, it took our minds off what was going on out there. Of husbands, fathers, brothers, colleagues, all of them fighting for their lives. And ours.

  Sadly, it didn’t take our minds off things for very long.

  Astoundingly, I had Peterson in my ear. ‘Max what’s happening?’ He sounded breathless but intact.

  ‘Safe. We’re all together and guarded.’ Probably not a good idea to tell him it was just two men. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Still safely at the back. We’re the reserve. No cause for concern. We’re all drawn up ready to go. Just awaiting the word.’

  The noise around him increased to a deafening clamour. The Saxons must be almost on top of them. Shouts rang out.

  ‘Shit,’ said Peterson. ‘This is it, Max. Talk to you later.’

  They would fight. It was useless to expect them not to. And they would almost certainly die. Either at the hands of the Saxons or History itself, and if they tried to save themselves by refusing to fight then the British would kill them out of hand. And Peterson – looking for an opportunity to prove to himself and the world that he could still function. How long would he last? How long would any of them last?

  Hard on this thought, I heard Peterson, breathless and jerky. ‘Heads up Max. Coming your way.’ The link went dead.

  They were indeed coming our way. I could hear shouting and the clash of metal on metal drawing ever closer. A ripple ran through us all. People instinctively drew closer together.

  Something crashed hard against the door. People jumped in shock and began to back away. In my mind’s eye, I saw our two defenders being cut down as a horde of Saxons burst into our enclosure and encircled the hut, roaring, clashing their swords on their shields. Looking for the way in.

  Around me, children whimpered in fear. We drew closer together, clutching our pathetically inadequate weapons. Even the sheep had stopped eating.

  I’d found myself a piece of wood about the size and shape of a rounders bat. God knows what I thought I’d do with it – I was crap at rounders at school, but it was probably much easier to hit a big Saxon than a small ball. Or so I told myself. And of course, in rounders, the balls don’t usually come at you with homicidal intent. That’s hockey.

  We stood in silence. I could hear people around me. I could hear their breathing and the occasional rustle of their clothing. I heard someone sneeze in the dust.

  Granny stood facing the door. I stood with her. What would you have done? I couldn’t not fight. It just wasn’t in me. Maybe if I just hit them very gently, History would let me get away with it. Other women joined us, their faces grimly determined. The smaller children and babies had been hidden under the hay.

  In the silence, we could hear the Saxons as they circled the barn. I’m not sure how many there were, but not more than six or seven, I was sure. The vast majority were still slugging it out elsewhere.

  We turned slowly, listening hard. No one made a sound. Even the babies were quiet. Everywhere, women tightened their grip on whatever weapon they had found and prepared to defend themselves and their children.

  I was so tempted to call up the others, even if only for reassurance, but if they were safe then they would call me. And if they weren’t safe, there was nothing I could do to help them. The last thing they needed was me distracting them.

  We waited.

  But not for long.

  Chapter Six

  I think, actually, that a full-scale assault, full of sound and fury, would have been less terrifying than standing helpless, listening to them whisper to each other as they circled the hut.

  They weren’t sure what was inside. They suspected we’d been shoved in here for safe keeping, but they weren’t certain. For all they knew, they could open the door and twenty or so fully armed warriors would burst out and cut them to pieces. So they crept around and around the hut. I could hear their quiet footsteps, the murmured comments. I could hear them dragging their hands across the mud walls, looking for weak spots. Chinks of light shone through the door and occasionally, one would be obscured as someone cautiously tried to peer in. They were unlucky. It wasn’t light outside, but it was considerably gloomier in here, and they could only risk a very brief glimpse. No one wanted a sword through their eye. The battle still raged in the distance, but all their attention was here.

  I was proud of us. No one screamed. No one panicked or tried to run away. We were all frightened. I could hear our gasping breaths in the silence, but other than that, no one made a sound. Not even the babies. Everyone knew that once the men on the other side of the wall realised we were just an undefended group of women and children … with the added bonus of livestock thrown in … We wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Someone tried the door. I heard the bar scraping in its holders. Heard it placed softly against the wall. Someone pushed very cautiously. I saw the door move an inch or so but no further. Our barricade of heavy sacks held.

  They tried again. I think more of them must have pushed this time. One or two of the sacks moved but nothing serious.

  I heard a thump and then a series of thumps as they put their shoulders to it, but the barricade held.

  Turning back to the other women, I nodded encouragingly. Every second the barricade held was another second nearer rescue. We had only to hold on until Arthur triumphed.

  We all stood motionless, inadequate weapons raised and ready. I wiped my sleeve across my forehead. It was a muggy day. There were a lot of us in this enclosed space. The air was stuffy. And I was shit-scared. Just to be clear.

&nbs
p; The silence seemed to drag on for a very long time. Had they given up and gone away? Had they gone to re-join the others? Or had they just wandered off to look for easier pickings? Unlikely. We were the easiest pickings.

  I stood motionless, eyes fixed on the wooden door, waiting for just the tiniest movement that would tell me they were still there.

  And then, behind me, someone knocked something over. I don’t know who or what it was. Something wooden clattered onto something else. Not a loud noise, but it was enough to give us away. Now they knew we were here.

  I heard a lot of whispering and then a strange, scraping noise against the wall. For a moment, I couldn’t think what on earth it could be and then something floated down from the roof.

  A stir ran around the barn as, simultaneously, we all realised what they were doing. They were climbing the walls. They would come at us through the roof.

  I looked up. There were the four central pillars, supporting the timber beams. They’d laid brushwood over those to support the thatch. Everything was loose. It wouldn’t hold them for long. They would pull away the thatch and drop through. And we were trapped.

  The same thought occurred to all of us. Women threw themselves at the barricade, heaving sacks aside. We had to get out. We were no safer outside, but at least there would be room to move. To run, maybe, or find somewhere to hide until this was over. Because Arthur would win, I was sure of it. The only question was whether we would be alive to see it.

  Old people began to yank children out from under the straw. Babies were securely tied to their mothers who herded themselves into a tight group, clutching their pathetic weapons. They were terrified. Many of them were crying. Tears ran down their grubby cheeks. Their eyes were distended with fear as they stared wildly about them. But they stood their ground.

  Because there’s something in the female genes. Something carried down from the dawn of time, maybe, from when we were bottom of the food chain and everything was a threat. Something that, despite overwhelming odds, makes us turn, stand at bay, teeth bared, weapons raised, and defend our children.