Melwas, striding up to join them, clenched both fists and started forward with a snarl of hatred. Cadorius grabbed his arm and slung the younger king to a forcible halt. "No. Let the jackal speak."

Cutha smirked at them from across the five walls. "Give this jackal your decision, old man."

Cadorius stared levelly into the Saxon's eyes. "I will answer the puppy of Sussex when it suits me. Return here in a quarter hour and I will give you an answer."

Cutha's lips twitched and he lifted fingertips in a mocking salute. "By all means, confer with your brother kings."

He set spurs to his horse's flanks and the animal leaped away, tossing its head unhappily at the steep descent. Cadorius turned a brooding gaze toward Ancelotis. "We have lost much that we needed to hold out."

"Artorius will come. He cannot be far away, now. Tell Cutha when he returns that you must persuade others to surrender, as the safety of the women and children is your greatest personal desire."

Cadorius' eyes flashed. "Surrender is the furthest thought from my mind, Ancelotis!"

"And from mine. But two can play the game of lies that Cutha delights in so greatly. Unless I am very much mistaken, we can strike them a blow at dawn they'll not soon forget."

Cadorius frowned, clearly unhappy, but nodded. "Very well. After these past few days, I trust your judgement and cunning implicitly."

When Cutha returned, Cadorius called his answer across. "It is in my mind to accept your offer of clemency, Saxon, but my brother kings need more persuasion. Grant me the night to confer with them and I will give you our combined answer with the dawn. But look you, I will not give such a reply to mere princelings and go-betweens. If Aelle of Sussex wants to hear terms of surrender, he must come to these walls and take them in his own person."

Cutha's smirk was a mortal insult. "Of course. My father, King of the Saxons, will greet you at dawn. Take very great care that you do not disappoint him." He put spurs to his horse's flanks and galloped recklessly down the steep hillside once more. Melwas sent an obscene gesture after him, then spat out, "Terms of surrender?"

Cadorius smiled tightly. "You will please note that I carefully did not say whose."

A bark of laughter broke from the younger king. "Very well. Let us go and discuss how to force the Saxons to their knees."

Ancelotis and the other kings made the rounds of the hill fort, making sure the wounded were being properly succored, seeing to it the children and women were fed, overseeing the repairs to structures only damaged while work crews labored to clear the charred wreckage of destroyed structures out of the way, should rapid troop movements be required again. They had just retired to the assembly hall for discussion of the Saxons' ultimatum when the lookout in the tower high overhead gave a shout and came skinning down the ladder, bursting a moment later into the room.

"Come quick!" he gasped, snatching at Ancelotis' arm. "A signal light!"

Ancelotis raced outside, climbing the ladder in haste. The lookout shinnied up behind him and pointed to the northwest, where a light blazed in the darkness atop the highest of the Mendip Hills. The light flickered in a definite pattern. Ancelotis counted flashes, translating numbers in his head.

"Artorius is camped at the edge of the Salisbury Plain," he said tersely. "He plans a charge at the Saxons' northeastern flank at dawn. Besides infantry numbering five hundred, he's brought more than a thousand heavy cavalry. Fetch me a lamp, quickly."

The sentry vanished into the darkness, returning a few moments later with a lit oil lamp. Stirling shielded the light with the edge of his cloak while his host took a moment to compose his reply, then used a corner of the woolen cloak to occlude the lamp in his own coded series of numerical flashes.

"Dawn charge acknowledged. Saxon command halfway to summit, southeast flank. Greatest force to southeast, two thousand strong. They are without supplies and grow evil-tempered. Aelle demands surrender by dawn. Signal your departure, we will coordinate surprise attack."

The light flashed back from Mendip's heights. "Message acknowledged. We ride at dawn."

When Stirling turned, he found Cadorius perched on the top rung of the ladder, peering northward, his cloak whipping like a maddened snake in the rising wind.

"What is it?" Cadorius asked tersely.

Ancelotis pointed. "Artorius' signal, in code. He camps at the edge of Salisbury Plain and will charge the Saxon flank at first light."

"That's the best news I've had in days."

Ancelotis chuckled, albeit a trifle grimly. "Indeed. Come, we still have much to prepare. And I, for one, could do with a hot meal and a cup of ale to wash it down with, if anything fit to eat survived the fire."

Cadorius smiled wanly in the starlight. "A keg or two, at any rate."

They downed hot stew while issuing orders for a double watch through the night, to prevent the Saxons from copying their own night-sortie tactics. "We'll need to bunch them up, in the morning," Stirling said around a mouthful of boiled beef, "which shouldn't be too difficult, under the circumstances. I'm willing to bet Cerdic and Creoda, not to mention Cutha, will insist on being present for the surrender. And they'll bring a fair number of their ranking eoldormen and thegns with them, as a show to their own troops, demonstrating their high status."

Melwas snorted. "Aelle doesn't travel anywhere without at least twenty of his picked favorites riding guard around him. Doesn't even trust his own peasants, that one."

"Which works to our advantage," Cadorius nodded. "At one blow, we can cripple their entire leadership."

"Precisely. Covianna—" Ancelotis glanced across to where the master healer sat at the edge of their council. "How goes it with our wounded?"

She answered gravely, "Not so badly as I had feared. Some two score and ten have suffered serious wounds that may yet prove fatal. We've had to take shattered arms and legs in a few cases, but no more than eighteen have been so maimed, to my knowledge." She bit one lip. "The worst is perhaps three dozen men with the onion sickness, for whom I can do nothing. No healer in Britain could save them."

Onion sickness? Stirling frowned. What the deuce is that?

Ancelotis answered grimly, The women feed onion soup to men with gut wounds. If the scent of onion comes out the open wound, the bowel has been penetrated. Such men will die sometime within the next two to three days. In the old days, victims with the onion sickness were given merciful release with a knife at the throat. Since the coming of Christ, such mercy is called murder, so the poor wretches die slowly. Their sole comfort is the hope of heaven, rather than hell. The women dose them liberally with alcohol and herbs, to keep them as comfortable as possible while they wait for death.

Stirling winced inwardly. In the twenty-first century, even a fourth-year medical student knew enough surgical procedures to save such men. In the sixth century, however... "Thank you, Covianna. I'm sure you will do whatever you can to ease their last hours."

She bowed her head in silent assent.

Cadorius said, "We've lost some hundred more, killed at the walls. Our fighting strength is down to slightly more than five hundred men-at-arms. How fared your archers, Ancelotis?"

"Very well, indeed. I lost one archer in the night operation and two more at the walls during that last charge. That leaves three score and nine remaining. More than enough to gift the Saxon commanders with our barbed reply."

Grim smiles ran through the council chamber.

"In that case," Cadorius grunted, rising to his feet, "the best thing we can do for our troops and ourselves is get a fair night's sleep. Even with Artorius on the horizon and the tricks we've prepared for the bastards, tomorrow will not be an easy day."