Born of the Sun (33 page)

“Ceawlin! Stop it!” It was Sigurd, grabbing his arm and dragging him away from his wife. Ceawlin shook him off and, turning, crashed out of the room.

The dogs dashed up to him as he left the villa by the rear door. The day had brightened and the late-afternoon sky was now partly blue. Ceawlin noticed nothing, however, as he strode toward the stable. His only desire was to get away from Niniane, to be alone. There were several thanes talking in the stableyard, but they fell silent as soon as they saw his face. He did not even bother to saddle Bayvard, just bridled him, leapt on him bareback, and rode out of the villa grounds toward the fields.

She did not understand what she had done. He realized that as he walked Bayvard around the edges of the hayfield that was filled with high grass getting ready to be cut. She was not Saxon. She could not understand. He had told her once, had tried to explain how he felt about who he was, what he was. Not just a man, but a man born to be king. Woden-born, with the blood of the god running in his veins. And now she had claimed his son for another god, this god who was born in a stable among animals. This weak, gentle god who was good enough for women perhaps, but was not a god for a king.

His son. Her son too. She had said that, and he was too essentially just a man to deny the truth of it. He remembered still her screams the night Cerdic was born.

But she had betrayed him. She had promised never to … He thought back. She had not promised. He had said he did not wish his son to be baptized and had assumed she would obey. She seemed so mild, Niniane, so soft and yielding…. He was beginning to realize that about some things she was not yielding at all. There was the farm, and the food she had made them grow last year. And now, this baptism….

He could not allow them to go to Glastonbury with the priest. Niniane was too much under the influence of this religion as it was. But where else could he take them that they would be safe?

He rode around and around the hayfield, his brain going in the same large circle as his horse. It was dusk before he realized that he had better be returning to Bryn Atha.

Niniane had not been knocked out by Ceawlin’s blow, just stunned. She opened her eyes to see Sigurd’s white face bending over her. “Are you all right?” he asked her, his voice sounding as strained as his face looked.

“Yes. I think so.” She put her hand to her cheek. It stung badly. She flexed her jaw. It hurt. She looked around the room and then at the door.

“He’s gone.” It was Father Mai, also looking very pale. “My daughter, I am so sorry. I did not realize … I should not have said anything about the baptism. You should have told me not to say anything.”

“It is all right,” Niniane replied. Sigurd lifted her to her feet. “He had to be told. I would not keep such a thing from him.”

“He should not have hit you.” Sigurd’s gray eyes were harder than Niniane had ever seen them look. “I understand how he feels, but he should not have hit you.”

“Ceawlin’s anger is hot, not cold,” Niniane replied. “But I have never seen him as angry as this.” She was shaking, and stepped away from Sigurd so he should not notice. “Where has he gone?”

“I don’t know,” Sigurd replied.

Niniane was feeling sick to her stomach. She had known Ceawlin would be angry, but she had not quite expected this …

“He should not have hit you,” Sigurd repeated.

The trembling was becoming worse. Niniane looked at Ceawlin’s friend with troubled eyes. How could she explain that it was not the blow that was distressing her so much as the fear that Ceawlin would never forgive her for what she had done? She clasped her arms across her chest and said determinedly, “We will have the marriages first, then dinner. I am going to put it out in the dining room, as there is not room enough in the reception room to seat all these people. The thanes will have to serve themselves and eat standing up.”

“Are you sure you are feeling all right?” the priest asked. “You should put a cold cloth on your face, Princess.”

“I will,” she answered. Then, “Sigurd, would you mind telling the thanes to come to the reception room in an hour? We will have the marriages then.”

“All right,” he answered, looked at her cheek with those hard eyes, and left the room.

Niniane and the priest were alone. “He is a pagan through and through, is he not?” Father Mai asked. He was not speaking of Sigurd.

“Yes,” said Niniane, her voice low. “He is.”

“Your duty is to your children, my daughter. You did right in having your son baptized.” Then, carefully, “If you wish to remain at Glastonbury, I think that can be arranged.”

“No!” Niniane stared at him with horrified eyes. “Leave Ceawlin, do you mean? I cannot do that, Father. I love him.”

“He is a beautiful young man, my daughter, and I can see how a woman would find it easy to fall under his sway. But I must tell you that in remaining married to him you may well be endangering your immortal soul.”

Niniane shook her head. “No, I cannot believe that. Ceawlin is a truly good man, Father.” At the priest’s look of skepticism she added impatiently, “Don’t tell me no Christian man ever hit his wife!”

“I cannot tell you that, of course …”

“Well, I will tell you this,” Niniane said passionately. “I would far rather live with a man like Ceawlin, who loses his temper and knocks me down, than with a ‘good Christian’ who rules by icy despotism and blights every honest emotion with his disapproval.”

“Princess, I do not know of whom you speak, but I can assure you that the church does not wish to blight honest emotions.”

“I’m sorry.” Niniane pushed a shaking hand through her hair. “Forgive me, Father. I’m upset. I shall go and put some cold water on my face.”

“Do that, my daughter,” the priest said kindly. “In the meanwhile, I shall prepare to perform the marriages.”

The evening seemed to Niniane to go on forever. Ceawlin did not return for either the marriages or the feast, and Sigurd had to make the gift pledges over the beer cups. Niniane’s cheek bore a distinct bruise, and while no one asked her about it, there were a great many speculative looks.

“I will let the beer cups be filled one more time,” Sigurd said to her when the platters of food were empty. “We must all be fit to ride in the morning.”

“Thank you, Sigurd.” She smiled at him. “You are a good friend.” She looked around the room, filled with the noise of male voices and male laughter. “I am going to go feed the baby now. I will be back later.”

He nodded. She could feel him watching her as she made her way out of the room.

Her bedroom door was closed. Niniane frowned. It was always left open when the baby was there by himself, so that if he cried, someone might hear. She pushed the door open softly, so as not to wake him if he were sleeping, and stopped in surprise as she saw that someone had come into the room before her. It was Ceawlin. He was standing beside the baby’s basket, looking down at his son, a distinctly apprehensive expression on his face. Niniane suddenly understood. He was looking for some outward sign of the baptism.

“Ceawlin,” she said softly, and came into the room, closing the door behind her.

His head came up and he gave her a wary, almost hunted look. Her heart swelled with compassion. “Nothing has happened to Cerdic, I promise you. He is just the same as he always was.”

“If that is so, then why did you need to have him baptized?”

“It is for the afterlife, not for this life. If he is baptized, then he may go to heaven when he dies.”

“I don’t care about the afterlife,” he said. “I care about this life. I care about fulfilling my fate in this life. And that is what I care about for my son.”

“That has not been changed. His destiny, his fate, whatever that is, has not been changed by the baptism. He still has all his strength, all his power.”

“A king must answer for his people, must stand between his people and the gods.”

She drew a long breath. “You believe in many gods, I in one. Whatever Cerdic believes, he will be able to answer for his people. He will be a king. He is your son, Ceawlin. Nothing can change that.”

He turned away from the basket and went to look out the window. After a minute she followed him. She put her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his back. He stiffened but did not pull away. “I don’t want you to go to Glastonbury,” he said. “I do not trust that priest.”

“All right. If you don’t want me to go, I won’t.”

There was a long silence. She kept her arms around him and closed her eyes, feeling the strong muscles under her uninjured cheek. “Perhaps I could go to Coinmail,” she said doubtfully.

He turned around, freeing himself, and looked down at her. The pale light from the dying day illuminated her face and the bruise on her cheek. “No.”

She searched his eyes, trying to read his thoughts. “I will stay with the women in Glastonbury,” she offered. “I will swear not to let the priests do aught else to Cerdic.”

His face was closed. “You will swear?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” he said after a minute. “You may go to Glastonbury.”

They were standing close to each other but not touching. “It is just that I cannot think of anywhere else,” she explained. “I do not want to go, Ceawlin.” Her white teeth bit into her slightly chapped lower lip. “I wish I could go with you.”

He sighed, as if a hard vise that had been squeezing his lungs had just given way. “Nan,” he said. He touched her cheek with his forefinger. Gently. “Did I hurt you?”

“Oh, Ceawlin.” Great tears brimmed in her eyes. “I did not want to disobey you. It was just … I
had to.”
She flung her arms around him and began to cry.

“It’s all right,” he said. Very briefly his cheek came down to touch the top of her head. “Stop crying, Nan. It’s all right.” Then, “Look, now, you’ve waked the baby.”

When Edric marched into Bryn Atha the following day, he found it deserted save for a few female slaves. The slaves were East Saxons and remarkably stupid; all they knew was that the prince had come to Bryn Atha several days ago and taken the princess away. Where he had taken her, they did not know.

Edric set fire to the house and the stable and the storage barns before leaving, in a fury, to wreak the same vengeance on the tribe who had dared to shelter his enemy. The day was hot and the air was still thick with smoke from the burning buildings when the Winchester war band began its march along a forest track that gave promise of leading them somewhere. The Saxons had gone but a mile when, out of the trees on either side of the path, came an unexpected shower of arrows. The thanes shouted and cursed as they raised their shields to protect themselves from the death that was flying toward them from the wood.

“Go after them!” Edric shouted, and several thanes began to run toward the forest, toward the men they knew must be hidden in the summer foliage of the trees. A new barrage of arrows flew through the greenish air and found their targets. Those thanes still standing retreated.

“We must get under cover!” one of the eorls shouted to Edric.

“Make a shield wall!” Edric shouted. “Those in the middle, hold the shields over your heads.” The thanes crowded together on the track, which, even when they jammed together, was only wide enough to hold three abreast. They formed a long line, shields turned outward, middle shields overhead. The arrows continued to fly for perhaps another minute; then there was nothing. The thanes searched the wood, shields up, javelins at the ready. They found no one. Finally Edric called his men back to the path. They had four dead from arrows and two wounded.

“We will return to Bryn Atha,” Edric said bitterly. “If we go on, we are likely to find the same ambush waiting for us up ahead.” Then, as the war band began to retrace its steps, “Name of the gods, when will we find an enemy to fight?”

Summer passed into autumn. Edric quartered his war band in the old Roman houses in Calleva and the eorls quarreled among themselves as to what course they ought to pursue: return to Winchester or continue the hunt for Ceawlin. The Saxons were disgusted by the progress, or the lack of progress, of the war. They had lost over one-fifth of their own men and, so far as they knew, had not wounded Ceawlin in the least.

Edric finally prevailed. “If we allow him to go free, he may very well rouse more of the British to join him. Then we will be facing him outside the gates of Winchester.” The truth of this statement was reluctantly acknowledged by the other eorls. Edric’s proposal also won reluctant approval: “Our first step,” said Edric, “must be to lure him out of the hills, where he is safe. He cannot stand against us in battle. If he could, he would not be running and hiding like a fox with the hounds on its tail.”

After a great deal of discussion, the eorls finally agreed on a plan. They would lure Ceawlin out of the hills by pretending to return to Winchester. Then, when the prince had been fooled into thinking himself safe, they would fall on him and cut him to

pieces.

It was a day of unusual warmth for October when the scouts Ceawlin had posted to keep watch on the Saxons in Calleva came galloping into Bryn Atha. Ceawlin had been at the villa for the last month, for almost all the while the Saxons had been at Calleva. He had kept his thanes from idleness by having them rebuild the parts of Bryn Atha that Edric had burned, but the time had dragged. Now it seemed something was finally going to happen.

The news was even better than Ceawlin had hoped. “My lord,” said Bertred, one of the two scouts who had returned to report, “Edric has put all his men on the road to Winchester. It seems they are going home!”

Ceawlin looked toward Calleva, as if he could see the road from where he stood. “Are you sure?” he asked, and then looked again at Bertred.

“Yes, my lord. We watched them for at least ten miles before we came back here to report to you.”

Ceawlin let out his breath. “Well, that is good news, indeed. They must be going into winter quarters at Winchester. They have done nothing in the north for the last month, that is for certain.”

“They made themselves comfortable at Calleva, Prince, I can tell you that.” It was Ine, Bertred’s fellow scout, speaking. “They had wagon loads of food brought in from the vils near Winchester. I doubt they have taken it back with them.”