Born of the Sun (11 page)

“Why did you challenge him?” Guthfrid asked her son as soon as she closed the door of her sleeping room behind him to give them privacy. “You know how good Ceawlin is with a sword, Edwin! Are you mad?”

Edwin was pale with fury, his brown eyes so lightless they looked almost black in the pallor of his face. “I can bear him no more.” His voice was flat, cold, and absolutely final.

“But what did he
do?”

“What he always does. Tried to take what was mine.”

“What did he try to take?”

“He knows Hilda sleeps in my bed. He tried to take her away from me. I saw him smiling at her.”

“Smiling at her!” Guthfrid almost screamed the words. “What do you care about Hilda?”

“I don’t care about Hilda. But she is mine.” The set, white look on his face had not changed.

Guthfrid put her hand on his arm. “Edwin, my son, listen to me. This duel … he could hurt you.”

“He won’t. He is afraid to hurt me. But I am going to hurt him.” The lightless eyes fixed themselves on Guthfrid’s frantic face. “Don’t worry, Mother.” He sounded irritated, impatient. “I will be safe. And I promise you that today will see the end of the bastard and all his ambition.” He pulled his arm out of her grasp. “Now I must go and collect my weapons. Come to the dueling grounds with me, if you like, and see what I mean.”

For the first time in the history of their relationship, Guthfrid and Fara were in agreement about something. Fara was so concerned about the proposed duel that she sent a man into Venta to bring back Cynric, even though she knew it would not be possible for the king to return to Winchester in time.

“I hoped that just the threat of the king’s return would force them to wait. It seems I was wrong,” Fara said to Sigurd shortly after her messenger had ridden out of Winchester for Venta.

“I am sorry, my lady.” Sigurd’s voice was gentle. He had come to the women’s hall in answer to Ceawlin’s mother’s summons and he had come reluctantly. “Ceawlin cannot in honor draw back. Edwin was the one to challenge him.”

“But it is so foolish! All because Ceawlin smiled at one of the bower girls!”

“Edwin was just looking for an excuse, my lady. Everyone knows that.”

“Sigurd”—Fara’s white face was piteous—“cannot you persuade Ceawlin to wait for his father?”

“If he would not listen to you, my lady, be sure that he will not listen to me.”

“I could not move him.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sigurd said frankly. “I saw his face. Nor do I blame him.” He smiled at Fara reassuringly. “There is no cause for such concern, my lady. Edwin cannot best Ceawlin in a duel. This past year I doubt there is anyone in Winchester who could best Ceawlin in a duel. Stop worrying.”

Fara’s voice was bitter. “And do you really think Edwin is planning to fight fair?”

“He has to,” Sigurd answered in surprise. “The rules must be followed. And all of Winchester will be watching him. He will have to fight fair.”

“That is what Ceawlin said.” Fara’s voice was even more deeply bitter. “And you are both fools for thinking so.”

Sigurd drew himself up. “It is something a woman would not understand,” he said with dignity.

“I am sorry I bothered you, Sigurd,” Fara said. He thought, suddenly, that she looked as old as Cynric. “I’m sure you wish to go to Ceawlin.”

He patted her on the shoulder, a clumsy gesture of comfort, and left the hall with obvious relief.

Niniane had seen duels before in Winchester but, like everyone else, she knew this particular duel would be different. She had seen Ceawlin as he left the women’s hall after talking with his mother. His face had been hard as iron. She was not surprised to learn that Fara had been unable to persuade him to wait for Cynric.

Niniane found herself hoping, with an intensity that almost frightened her, that he would kill Edwin or at least injure him badly enough to incapacitate him. She felt sorry for Fara, but in her heart Niniane wanted the duel to go forward. She saw in it her only hope of escape from this terrifying marriage.

Everyone who could walk in Winchester went to see the duel. Niniane accompanied Fara and the rest of the household women to the flat dueling field near the stables. The squares of pegged-out cloaks had already been set in the ground by the time the women arrived, and Ceawlin was there as well, standing by his cloak and talking to Cuthwulf.

The rules of a Saxon duel were clear. Each man had to keep his feet on his own cloak. If you were forced off your cloak, you were considered disarmed. The first man to be forced off his cloak two times lost. These were rules calculated to produce few serious injuries and thus allow dueling to continue as a major recreation for otherwise inactive warriors.

Niniane followed Fara to the place that had been set aside for the women and looked around slowly. Ceawlin, she saw, was wearing a long-sleeved mail tunic with a leather vest over it. He carried the sword Cynric had presented him with after Beranbyrg. He looked grim.

On the other hand, the thanes who ringed the dueling ground looked distinctly cheerful. Today’s sport promised to be more exciting than the usual contest they saw in Winchester. Niniane knew from Fara that Cuthwulf had refused her plea to stop the duel until the return of his father and the king. Dueling was a privilege accorded all Saxon warriors, he had said. Cuthwulf was to be the judge today, and his obvious exhilaration was in distinct contrast to Ceawlin’s somber mien.

Men’s heads were turning and Niniane looked too in the direction of the princes’ hall. Edwin was approaching, with Guthfrid beside him. The queen was as pale as Fara.

She is against this too, Niniane thought.

And, indeed, just before Edwin reached the circle of men, the queen put her hand on his arm and began to say something. He shook her off impatiently and strode forward to stand on his own cloak.

A light breeze was blowing, stirring the hair at Niniane’s brow. She could smell the horses in the stable beyond them. The sun shone down on the two blond-haired princes. Gold and silver, Niniane thought, watching the two fair heads shining in the brilliant spring sun. Ceawlin was considerably taller than Edwin, but he was also more lightly made. Edwin was like a bull. Niniane stared at his neck and shoulders. She feared his strength would more than balance Ceawlin’s superior height.

Cuthwulf began to recite the rules in a loud, important voice. His rather prominent blue eyes were vivid with pleasure. Cuthwulf loved a fight. After what seemed like a very long time he stepped back, and the two princes were left alone, facing each other, their feet firmly planted on their own cloaks.

It was Edwin who made the first move, raising his heavy sword and bringing it down straight at Ceawlin’s unhelmeted head. Ceawlin took the blow on his shield and shook it off, his own sword already in motion. Edwin quickly covered his exposed side, but in so doing was forced to step to his right. Ceawlin pressed him, with a hammering of sword blows landing again and again on Edwin’s raised shield. Edwin’s shield held steady, but he was forced to give ground under the attack, stepping always to his right, coming closer and closer to the end of his cloak.

Niniane’s fingernails bit into her palms. “Go on, Ceawlin!” she found herself saying under her breath. “Go on!”

Step by step, Edwin was being forced to the edge of his cloak. The golden-haired prince was breathing audibly, his lips drawn away from his teeth. Ceawlin followed, relentless, his own face hard and intent, all his concentration on his sword and on the man he was driving so mercilessly before him. He was making no attempt to reach his brother’s flesh with his sword; plainly all he wanted was to force him off the cloak.

The power of those blows must be tremendous, Niniane thought. Edwin could not even get his own sword up, so intent was he on keeping his shield in place.

Cuthwulf was standing by the edge of the cloak, ready to make a call the minute Edwin’s foot should touch the ground.

“Off!” he shouted, and a great sigh of disappointment went around the watching circle. It had happened too quickly, too easily. Ceawlin dropped his shield and turned to walk back to the center of his cloak. He would have to best Edwin one more time in order to be declared the victor.

Almost everyone present was watching Ceawlin, walking with bent head, sword and shield held by his side, but Niniane was watching Edwin. The snarl was still on his lips; his teeth looked white and canine in the bright sun. And as she watched, he lifted his sword and sprang at his unsuspecting brother’s back.

“Ceawlin!” It was Niniane’s cry that warned him, and he spun around, shield and sword instinctively lifting. Edwin’s strike landed on his blade and not in his back. For a long moment the two swords held, locked together, then Ceawlin slowly began to press his brother’s hand back. He must have amazingly strong wrists, Niniane thought with awe, as Edwin’s grip began to loosen. Then, as the younger brother’s fingers opened, he brought his shield down on Ceawlin’s sword arm with a tremendous blow.

Both swords dropped to the ground at once.

Quick as lightning, Ceawlin bent and retrieved the one closest to him. Niniane saw that he had picked up Edwin’s sword and not his own.

“Give me my sword!” Edwin’s voice was harsh from lack of breath. Then, as Ceawlin stared at him out of narrowed eyes,
“Give me my sword!”

Ceawlin bent, eyes still on Edwin’s face, and picked up his own sword. It was the sword Cynric had presented to him, and now Ceawlin handed it to his brother. “You wanted it,” he said. “Now you fight with it.
Brother.”

“No.” Edwin began to back away, but Ceawlin raised his brother’s sword and followed. The healing scar beside his eye stood out like a line of blood on his white face. Even from a distance Niniane could see the brilliant turquoise of his narrowed eyes. “You rotten little weasel,” he said through shut teeth. “Come on. Fight me.”

“No!”

“Stop it!” It was the queen’s shrill voice, full of panic. “Cuthwulf! Part them. They are incensed.”

The entire surrounding circle of men was shifting with uneasiness. As Cuthwulf stepped forward, a sword in his hand to forcibly part the two brothers, Ceawlin came in below Edwin’s panic-stricken guard. The blade sliced the flesh on Edwin’s bare sword hand.

“Aahh!”
His sword clattered to the ground as the golden-haired prince grabbed for his hand.

“Come now,” said Cuthwulf. “It is not that bad. You will survive it, my lord.”

But Edwin was curled on the ground, moaning. A horrible suspicion began to form in Niniane’s mind as she watched him grovel there.

“Edwin. My son.” Guthfrid was kneeling beside him now. “What is the matter?”

He held his hand up to her. “Suck it out, Mother! He has killed me. Suck the poison
out!”

Niniane pressed the back of her hand against her teeth. Ceawlin, standing alone in the middle of the two cloaks, was looking down at the queen and Edwin. Guthfrid had begun to raise her son’s hand to her mouth when she was thrust aside by a man.

“You cannot take the chance. You are with child. Let me,” said Edric and, bending his head, he sucked the blood from Edwin’s hand and spat it on the ground.

Ceawlin stood like a statue, watching Edwin. Niniane found herself hoping that no one would ever look at her the way Ceawlin was looking at his brother now.

They got the prince back to the queen’s hall where he could be tended to. By the time Cynric returned to Winchester, his younger son was dead.

Guthfrid was beside herself with grief at the death of her son. After the burial she had a tremendous fire built on the dueling grounds and thereon she burned all of Edwin’s clothing and possessions. When she called for his jewelry to be melted down by the flames as well, Edric tried to remonstrate with her.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed at him hysterically. “I want nothing of him left to remind me. Don’t you see? I cannot bear to be reminded!”

First she had tried to get the king to have Ceawlin put to death. “I call for vengeance!” she cried, flinging herself at Cynric’s feet in full view of all of Winchester as they stood together before Edwin’s burial mound. “A life for a life, my lord. It is my right. I demand it.”

“No vengeance,” Cynric had replied in heavy voice. “Ceawlin is my son as well. No vengeance, Guthfrid.”

“Then send him away. Banish him.
Punish him.”

“It was Edwin who tried to kill Ceawlin by treachery. He was killed with his own poison. Come,” and Cynric had raised her to her feet. His voice was kind. “Come, Guthfrid. Let me take you back to your hall. You bear a new child. Remember that and let it comfort you.”

But no thought of the coming child could comfort her. Nothing could comfort her. Only vengeance on the slayer of her son.

Cynric’s grief was not so flamboyant as Guthfrid’s, but the death of Edwin, and the manner of that death, had wounded him grievously. As the months went by, it could be seen by even the lowest slave in Winchester that the king was beginning to fail.

“He blames me,” Ceawlin said to Fara one morning in the women’s hall. He had come to see his mother, and all the rest of the women had quickly found errands that would take them out of Fara’s way.

“There is nothing to blame,” Fara replied. She ached to reach out and take him into her arms as she had done when he was a small boy and had come to her with his sorrows. He looked so bitterly weary, so alone. But she knew he would reject any attempt at comfort on her part. It was many years since he had deemed himself too old for his mother to hug. So she said instead, “The fault was Edwin’s, not yours.”

“I killed him.”

“You had no choice, Ceawlin.”

“Yes. I did. You were there, Mother. You saw. I did not have to wound Edwin with the sword. He was backing away from me. You can be sure that my father has been well-informed of exactly what happened. He blames me.”

“If he does, he is wrong.”

Ceawlin shrugged. Then he asked the question he had come to ask. “Has he said anything to you about the succession?”

Fara’s heart ached for him. “No, my son. He has said nothing.” She paused, then added carefully, “Under the circumstances, it is not a question I myself can raise.”