Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff Page B

matter. But it would be seven or eight years yet before we could hope to draw much from the Deva training runs. We had lost upward of a
score of horses in the past two days, and they would be harder to replace than the men.
    The countryman in charge of the herd (the horse herding and breaking was the only work of the community not done by the Brothers themselves) took one look at us from the hummock of land that was
his lookout post, and tossing up his spear ran back toward the monastery building. We heard him shouting, ‘They are coming! They are back! Holy Brothers, it is the Count of Britain!’
And a few moments later the bell of the little church began to throb out its round bronze notes in greeting and rejoicing. ‘Truly, we are to have a hero’s welcome!’ said Bedwyr;
and he let his hand fall from the harp strings, so that the weary smother of hoof-beats behind us grew suddenly louder.
    The fire was fading from the sky as we reached the gateway in the thorn hedge; the huddle of reed-thatched sleeping cabins and farm buildings about the church and wattle dining hall were dark
against the fading brightness of the west, and the few wind-stunted apple trees of the monks’ orchard were pale and insubstantial clouds of blossom; and suddenly I thought of that other
community over toward the sunset in the Island of Apples. The Brothers and the poor folk who had taken refuge with them had come crowding down to their gateway, save for whichever Brother it was
who was still ringing the bell. Their hands reached out to us, their anxious faces were full of questioning; they called down blessings on us as we clattered through. They had brought a lantern
with them, and by its light I saw the haggard face of a woman with a babe asleep at her shoulder, and that Brother Vericus the ancient Prior was crying.
    In the clear space between the ring hedge and the huddled buildings, I dropped from the saddle and pulled off my war cap. The others were dismounting all about me, clattering to a weary
standstill, more than one of them swaying with the weakness of a wound. The sharp yellow gleam of the lantern was in my eyes, and people pressing about me, catching at my hands, or my knees, and I
was aware of the tall spare figure of the Abbot moving toward me; aware that I was expected to kneel down for his blessing as I had done when we rode out. I wanted to get the wounded under cover,
but I knelt down. Cabal lay beside me with a grunt.
    ‘How went the day, my son?’ He had a beautiful voice, like the bronze notes of the bell still floating out above us.
    ‘We burned their winter camp,’ I said. ‘There is one Saxon settlement the fewer to foul the grass, and this place may rest secure from the Barbarians, at least until the next
thrust.’
    His hands were light as skeleton leaves on my head. ‘May the Grace of God be upon you. And may your shield, under His, be over all Britain, as it has been over us this day; and may you
find His peace when the fighting is over.’
    But it was not the Grace of God that I wanted at that moment, it was salves and bandage linen and food for my men. I got to my feet again, slowly, for I was so tired that I could scarcely bear
my own weight up from the ground. ‘Holy Father, I thank you for your blessing. I have wounded men with me – where may I send them for tending?’
    ‘Wounded men, alas, we had expected,’ he said. ‘All is ready for you in the hall; Brother Lucius, our Infirmarer, will go with you.’
    The drivers whom we had left behind with the baggage train were already busy with the horses, and some of the village men among them. I saw Arian lead off with my bronze and bullhide buckler
clanking softly at the saddletree, then turned to the business of getting the wounded together. Gault, one of my best youngsters, had a long spear wound in the thigh, and slid half fainting into
the arms of his friend Levin, who had ridden close beside him all the way; but the rest of us