Born of the Sun (4 page)

The women had reached the steps of the great hall and Fara mounted first. There was a set of double doors leading into the hall, and the men on duty there opened them ceremoniously for Fara and her companions. They passed through the double doors and into a porch, somewhat like the porch on the women’s hall. This porch was larger, however, and had been partitioned into two rooms, one on either side of a central anteroom. The doors that led into the main room were open and Fara beckoned to Niniane to come up beside her. Niniane obeyed and together the two women advanced into the great hall of Winchester.

It was the largest room Niniane had ever seen. The hearthplace in the middle of the floor was so long that there were two fires on it, one at each end. The room was so broad that the cross-beams were borne up on carven pillars. There were benches fixed along the two long walls, and above the benches hung a magnificent display of arms: great embossed shields and shining swords. Many of the benches were already occupied, and the men ceased talking for a moment as the women entered. Niniane had the unpleasant sensation of being stared at and then the voices picked up again and she walked beside Fara toward the high seat that was set in the middle of the right wall.

This seat, two seats actually, was distinguished from the other benches by its greater height and by the splendor of the arms that hung behind it. Long trestle tables had been set up in front of all the benches in the hall and Fara gestured Niniane to a seat to the left and at a little distance from the high seat. Niniane sat, bowed her head a little so her hair would fall forward to screen her face, and looked around.

The floor was wood but it was polished so brightly it shone.

The wall sconces were bronze and were blazing with torchlight. Even though it was still bright outside, the hall had no windows. The only natural light was from the doors and the smoke vents in the roof over the hearthplace.

The pillars were beautifully carved in a design that Niniane did not recognize.

The room had been quickly filling as Niniane looked around, the sound of male voices escalating. Then, abrupt as summer lightning, the room fell silent. Niniane looked toward the door, expecting to see the king, and saw there instead a golden-haired boy of about her own age, with a woman holding to his arm. The woman was as tall as the boy, and she glittered and shone with magnificent jewelry. Her hair was the same rich gold as the boy’s and elaborately dressed with jeweled golden combs.

“The queen,” Fara said as she rose to her feet.

“Who is that with her?” Niniane breathed, following Fara’s example and standing.

“Her son, Prince Edwin,” came the reply. The hall guests all remained respectfully standing until the queen took her place on the high seat. Then they resumed their seats and the murmur of voices began again.

Cutha came in with his wife and sons, and the rest of the eorls took their places as well. No food had as yet been served. They were all waiting, Niniane guessed, for the king.

The woman on the other side of Niniane leaned across her to ask Fara, “Where is Ceawlin?”

“I don’t know,” the friedlehe replied. “I have not seen him all day.”

The door was starting to open again. “Here is the king now,” the woman said, and everyone rose once more.

The old king looked splendid tonight, Niniane thought as she watched him cross the polished floor toward the high seat. His wool tunic was a deep, brilliant purple and he carried himself with all the dignity of a Roman emperor. Beside him walked a tall, slim boy with hair so pale and pure that Niniane thought instantly: So must the angels look. “Ceawlin,” said Fara. Pride sounded in her voice, and a distinct undertone of fear.

“Ceawlin!”
Guthfrid almost hissed the name as she too watched the boy who was Fara’s son crossing the floor beside his father. Then the queen looked, compulsively, toward her own son sitting on a bench to her right. Edwin did not notice her; he was staring with unwinking concentration at the figure of his half-brother.

Cynric took his place on the high seat beside Guthfrid, and Ceawlin took the bench on his father’s left. Guthfrid scarcely listened to the speech her husband was making to open the banquet formally. Her whole mind was preoccupied with the fact that Cynric had chosen to make his entrance with his bastard, not his true-born son, beside him.

What could it mean? Did he suspect anything about her and Edric? Was this his way of punishing her, through Edwin? She looked at her husband out of the side of her eyes as he resumed his seat. His granitelike profile told her nothing. It never did. Sixteen years they had been wed, and still she could not read him. Nor could she influence him. It was one of the great frustrations of her life, this lack of power over her husband. She was a beautiful woman; she had always wielded power over men. But not Cynric.

It was that bitch of a friedlehe, of course. She had put a spell on him. And now she was trying to push her son into a position of prominence over Edwin.

Guthfrid’s long sharp nails cut into the palms of her hands and she looked once more toward her golden-haired son. It will never happen, she promised him silently. Mother will never let him supersede you. Edwin. My son.

The first platter of meat was placed on the table before the king and queen and Cynric reached for the parts that were his favorites. Guthfrid took only a small portion.

“You are not hungry?” her husband asked. They were the first words he had spoken to her since his return. He had not come to the queen’s hall all day.

“No.” She forced herself to smile at him. “I am too excited, my lord, to have you home.”

He grunted.

She bit her lip. “Who is the girl you captured?” she asked after a minute.

He swallowed. “A princess of the Atrebates.”

Her arched brows rose high. “A princess?”

“Yes. A princess from Bryn Atha.”

“So …” Her mouth thinned. He had not seen fit to tell her, yet he had lodged the girl with his bitch of a friedlehe. She forced down the words that were hovering on her lips. It had never done her any good to show jealousy of Fara. “You took Calleva, then?”

He shrugged. “There was not much to take. Calleva is a dead city.

But the land up there is fertile. There will be estates enough for all my eorls, and farms for the rest.”

Guthfrid’s brown eyes, so striking against her golden hair, were calculating. “Atrebates land?”

“Atrebates land. They are farmers up there, not warriors. There is nothing left of the spirit that gave Arthur his victories.”

“It will be easy, then, for you to expand Wessex.”

Cynric reached once more for the platter. “Easy enough to conquer them, yes. But while I want to conquer the Atrebates, I also need them. There are too few of us. If Wessex is to become the equal of East Anglia and Sussex and Mercia, then I need the labor of the Britons.”

Beyond her husband’s bulk she could just see Ceawlin’s silvery head, turning to talk to Cutha, who was on his other side. Guthfrid’s brown eyes narrowed. How had he managed that entrance with the king?

“A good match for Ceawlin,” Cynric was saying.

“What?”

He ripped the leg off a chicken. “I said this girl may make a good match for Ceawlin. A marriage between the West Saxon royal family and the Atrebates could be beneficial to me. As I said, I need the Britons to work for me, not against me.”

“What about Edwin?” The line of her mouth was now thin, like her narrowed eyes. “Why would not this girl be a good match for him?
He
is your heir, Cynric. Not Ceawlin.”

His still-strong teeth tore into the meat of the leg. “I did not think you would deem a British princess good enough for Edwin. You have talked too often of matches to other of the Anglo-Saxon royal houses.”

This was true, of course. But she had no intention of allowing Ceawlin to gain even a nominal foothold among the Britons. He would push Edwin aside if he could. She had always known that. He was a threat to her child. Over the years she had made several attempts to do away with the bastard, but she had not yet been successful. She had failed only because she had always to be so careful not to show her hand to the king. Cynric cared for Ceawlin. Guthfrid sometimes thought he loved the bastard even more than his true-born son. This, of course, only added fuel to the fire of her hatred.

“Give her to Edwin,” she heard herself saying. “It would bind the Atrebates to you for now, and if it became politic in the future, he could always put her aside and make a more advantageous match.”

His light eyes scanned her face. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shrugged. “I’ll think about it.” His eyes turned to the servant who was approaching them carrying a great golden drinking horn.

Guthfrid saw the servant too and rose to her feet. She accepted the horn from the servant and stepped to the floor of the hall. The queen waited a moment until silence had fallen and all eyes were upon her. Then she raised the cup and turned to the king to make the banquet pledge: “Take this cup, my lord and king. Be glad, gold-friend of warriors, in your victory. Enjoy while you may many rewards, and be generous to these your followers who have risked themselves at your side.”

Cynric nodded to her gravely and she offered him the horn. He drank and she took the vessel next to Edwin. Looking down into her son’s face, the mirror image of her own, she knew again the fierce stab of hot maternal love she always felt for this, her only child. His dark eyes looked into hers for a brief, wordless minute, then he gave her back the horn.

With great dignity Guthfrid completed the rest of the ceremony, bearing the drinking horn from one man to the next all around the great hall. The women she passed by, not sparing them a glance. When she reached Edric her heart skipped a beat, but her outward semblance showed no more emotion than she had displayed for any other of the thanes. His pale blue eyes looked back at her with the same cool distance that hers showed to him. Watching them, no one would ever know that they had been lovers for more than a year.

She passed by Fara and her women with arrogant disdain. Let the friedlehe sit there, in her lesser seat, and watch the queen bestow the cup honors, Guthfrid thought viciously. Her eyes flicked to the side only once, to catch a glimpse of the British princess.

A little thing, she thought. Edwin would soon break her to his will.

Finally she had reached the last of the tables, where sat Cutha and his family. First she gave the horn to the eldest son, Cuthwulf, who drank more deeply than he should before he returned the horn to her. Then Sigurd, the second son, whom she disliked intensely because he was Ceawlin’s friend. Then Cutha himself: so close to her husband, so enigmatic to her. And then Ceawlin.

She hesitated for a fraction of a second before handing him the horn. I wish it was poison, she thought.

His eyes, an even more brilliant blue-green than Cynric’s, returned her look. He had always hated her fully as much as she hated him. He took the cup, being careful not to touch her fingers, drank, and gave it back to her. With head held high, Guthfrid returned to her place. Once she was seated, Cynric rose.

It was the time for the king to reward his men. The hall thanes stirred eagerly. The silence was intense. “Warriors of Wessex,” Cynric began. His voice was perhaps not as strong as it had once been, but it filled the hall nevertheless. “You have upheld the glory of your nation. From this time forward, the borders of Wessex will stretch as far as the Aildon hills. The British have been defeated.” A cheer went up from the hall and Cynric waited for silence to descend once again. “There is little in the way of treasure of gold among the Britons, but there is richness of land. Henceforth the West Saxon eorls will be no less than the great eorls of the Franks. This I, Cynric, your king, promise. Lands for my eorls, and lands too for the thanes who have followed me so bravely into battle. From this day forth, the name of the West Saxons will be great in this land.”

A roar of approval burst from the hall men and Cynric sat down. After a minute he gestured to the scop, who was supping at the table next to Edwin’s. The scop picked up his wooden harp and advanced to the hearthplace. As soon as he plucked a string, silence fell.

He gave them the song he had written for Cynric when the West Saxon army had taken Venta and they had seen for the first time a city of the Romans:

Firmly the builder set the foundations,

Cleverly bound them with iron bands;

Stately the palaces, splendid the baths,

Towers and pinnacles pointing on high;

Many a mead-hall rang with their revelry,

Many a court with the clang of their arms,

Till Fate the all-leveling laid them low.

I too have a reverence for harpers.
The words of the Saxon king sounded once again in Niniane’s brain. She could not understand what the harper was singing, but she was spellbound by the sound of his voice. It was not singing, precisely, she thought; it was more like chanting. It was also profoundly moving. Every note was plangent with sorrow. She looked around and saw that the hallful of pagan barbarians was listening with riveted attention.

The voice died away and a great sigh ran through the hall, as if everyone listening had been holding his breath and had just discovered he could breathe again. “That was beautiful,” Niniane said. “I wish I
could
understand him.”

“He is Alric, the most famous scop in England,” Fara returned. “He was telling of the fall of Venta.” And she translated some of the words.

Niniane stared at her in astonishment. Never had she expected to hear such elegiac poetry on the lips of a Saxon. “Hush now,” Fara said. “He will play again.”

After the scop had finished, the drinking cups began to pass more swiftly around the hall. Men’s voices and men’s laughter grew louder and louder. Finally the queen rose.

Guthfrid made her departure in the same way she had made her entrance, on the arm of her son. Then Cutha’s wife and the wives of the other eorls rose, and Fara turned to her own women and said, “Come.”