Born of the Sun (8 page)

Ceawlin looked up into his younger brother’s face. The dark eyes looking back at him were unreadable. Edwin’s eyes had always reminded him of an animal’s: opaque, unblinking, feral. He took the cup.

The king looked around the circle of his family. “May Woden take them all,” he said in the usual Saxon dedication to the enemy host. Woden, god of battles, selected from the men fighting in a battle those who were to be victorious and those who were to be slain.

Cynric drank and the others raised their cups as well. Just as the rim touched his lips, Ceawlin glanced toward Edwin. The dark, unwinking gaze was fixed on his mouth. With sudden decision Ceawlin moved his mouth and swallowed but did not allow the liquid to touch his lips. The failure to drink to the dedication of the enemy host was less dangerous, he thought, than what was likely awaiting him in that cup.

The fire died down and the voices around the fire began to run out as well. Even Cuthwulf seemed to weary of predicting his own great exploits upon the morrow. Cynric began to get to his feet and Edwin jumped up to assist him. Ceawlin made a move as if he too would help his father, but Edwin shook him off. As everyone else was watching the old king rise painfully from his seat on the ground, Ceawlin stooped and poured the contents of his cup into Edwin’s.

Finally the king was on his feet. As Cynric walked toward the sleeping place that had been made for him, Cutha at his side, Ceawlin raised his cup. “To Cynric, the king!” he said. “And to victory!”

His cousins and his brother picked up their cups and drank the pledge. Ceawlin went off to his own bedplace with a satisfied smile on his long, beautifully chiseled mouth.

In the middle of the night, Edwin became violently sick to his stomach. By the time the war band had broken camp it was clear that the prince was too ill to go with them. Cynric left his son with a small bodyguard and the rest of the Saxons began the march toward Beranbyrg in the dark.

“The gods were with you,” Sigurd murmured to Ceawlin as the two young men rode out of camp side by side.

“He put something in my drink last night,” Ceawlin answered. “When he wasn’t looking, I poured it back into his.”

There was a startled silence. Then, “Gods! What if it had been meant to kill?”

“I was rather hoping it was,” Ceawlin said.

Sigurd’s silence was even longer this time. Finally, “Someday, Ceawlin, it will be.”

“I don’t think so. He must depend on Guthfrid to get the poison, and she will not go that far. My father has a fondness for me, and she is afraid of him.”

“I cannot understand her! Why does she hate you so? You have never tried to take aught of hers.”

“Do you know, Sigurd,” Ceawlin said thoughtfully, “we have always blamed the way Edwin is on Guthfrid. What if it is the other way around?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we have always thought that Edwin hates me because he had been taught to by his mother. But suppose she hates me only because Edwin hated me first.”

“But why?” Sigurd said again. “He is the heir. You do not stand in his way.”

“It’s the way he is,” Ceawlin replied. “He cannot bear anyone to share the sun with him. That is all.”

The dawn was beginning to streak the sky with a pale gray light when the fort of Beranbyrg came into view. Ceawlin and Sigurd dismounted and handed their horses to grooms. As Saxon warriors, they would fight on foot. Then the two young men began to check their weapons: the large sword, the lighter spears, the sax dagger both wore thrust through their belts. Before they donned the mittened mail arm covering that would protect their sword arms, Ceawlin held out his hand to Sigurd. The two boys clasped their hands together strongly. Neither spoke but both knew what the other was thinking. Then they finished putting on their mail. They did not wear helmets, as the West Saxons always fought bareheaded.

All around them men were doing the same things they were. The sky was not growing brighter. The day was damp and Ceawlin thought it was probably going to rain. He listened intently but could hear nothing from inside the dirt walls of the fort. Could the Britons really be so unaware of the coming attack?

Cynric’s command began to assemble in front of the king. This attack force would take the brunt of the fighting, as the king wanted to draw most of the defenders’ attention to one side of the fort while the other two commands got over the wall quickly.

Ceawlin was not surprised when it began to drizzle. The early-dawn air was cold as well as damp. The visibility was poor, a factor which was to their advantage. Through the grayness Ceawlin saw Cynric walking up and down beside his men. Ceawlin exchanged one more look with Sigurd and went to stand in the front line of his father’s command. This way, he would be one of the first over the wall. Cynric saw him and smiled.

It was the king’s command that was to initiate the attack. They waited fifteen minutes to give Cutha and Cuthwulf an opportunity to circle the fort and find their positions. Ceawlin thought that his father would never give the signal for them to go. Woden, he prayed in a burst of heartfelt intensity, give me glory. Then the signal came and the wedge of men under Cynric began to move.

The rain was coming down harder now. Ceawlin ran forward, light on his feet even with the weight of armor and weapons. As the Saxons scrambled into the ditch, a second rain, this one of javelins, began to fall from behind the earthen bank in front of them. So the British had not been unprepared. Ceawlin raised his shield to cover his head and ran swiftly onward. Without once looking back, he began to climb the bank.

The javelins thudded off his shield. Behind him he could hear men grunting with the effort of the climb. The rain was making the dirt slippery and he concentrated on keeping his footing. Then he was at the top.

Men were lined up behind the protection of the bank. He saw that there were several rows of them and that they all seemed to be staring up at him with open mouths. For a brief, glorious moment he was alone on the top of the wall. Then he threw back his own head, gave his father’s great war cry, and, sword drawn, leapt into the men below. As steel clashed on steel, he could hear the sound of his men coming behind him.

A blade was hurtling toward his neck and he raised his shield to protect himself. Then he thrust with his own sword, quick and deadly, and a man went down. Ceawlin grinned. There were more Saxons behind him now and, badly outnumbered, they were being hemmed in against the bank. “Forward, children of Woden!” Ceawlin shouted, and, slinging his shield over his back so that he; could wield his sword more forcefully with two hands, he began to press forward. His men came after him.

The fighting was furious. The Saxons fought to achieve the wedge-shaped formation that would allow them to cover themselves on all sides, but under the intense pressure of larger numbers, they wavered. “Stay by me!” Ceawlin shouted. “Forward!” And they held.

Suddenly there was a shout from the far side of the fort. The British had just spotted the second attack party. The pressure on Ceawlin’s men lifted and the wedge began to move inexorably forward. Then the pressure relaxed altogether as the British fragmented, not knowing which way to turn. The fort was suddenly filled with Saxons. In five more minutes, the battle was over.

Cynric had been one of the last of the initial attack party, making it up the bank slowly but with no assistance. The first thing that had met his eyes as he topped the bank was the sight of his son, his shield slung over his back, slicing through the Britons like a knife going through butter. Now, as the defeated Britons were being herded into one of the rough shelters they had built for themselves over the winter, he sent for Ceawlin.

The heavy rain had let up and it was drizzling again. Cynric stood in the shelter of an overhang on one of the buildings, his purple cloak pulled over his mail byrnie, and waited for his son. Cutha came up to join him, and then Cuthwulf. Then he saw Ceawlin coming from the far side of the fort.

The rain had plastered Ceawlin’s thick hair to his head, and drops still clung to his cheeks and his lashes. He was muddy and bloody and Cynric’s heart swelled with pride as he watched him come. What a warrior the boy was going to be! The gods had vouchsafed him only two sons, but they had not stinted him when it came to quality. This one, in particular, he had always known was marked for greatness. He pushed down in his mind the familiar regret that it was Ceawlin who was the bastard. Edwin would have done just as well if he had not become so untimely ill.

Ceawlin went down on one knee before him and Cynric placed his hand on top of the rain-soaked head. Even wet, his hair was unearthly fair. Just like his mother’s, Cynric thought. He had never seen another woman to equal Fara as she had been in her youth.

He pressed down on the bent head before him and said, in a voice that was husky but strong, “To you, Ceawlin, my son, I dedicate this day’s battle. To you there will be no lack of the good things of the world that I have in my possession. Today you take a place of honor among my warrior heroes.”

He could hear the effort the boy was making to hide his emotions, to keep his voice level in reply. “Cynric, son of Cerdic. Great king,” said his elder son. “It is reward enough to know that I have won your heart’s love by my deeds.” And Cynric had no doubt that the boy meant every word he had said.

There was the sound of footsteps, and the king looked over Ceawlin’s head to see the other man he had sent for approaching. Then he gestured Ceawlin to rise and stand beside him.

Sigurd was coming toward them with the leader of the Britons by his side, the brother of the little British princess he had in Winchester. “My lord,” said Sigurd formally. He too was covered with mud and blood. “This is the leader of the rebellion, Prince Coinmail of the Atrebates.”

Cynric saw a man with soaking-wet hair that would be red when it was dry. The British prince had a cut on his forehead that was still oozing blood. He was limping but his head was high and the dark gray eyes that looked from Cynric to Ceawlin and back were bleak and wintry.

“He bore arms against me and thus his life is forfeit,” Cynric said to his son. “But I give him into your hands. What shall I do with him?”

Ceawlin did not let the surprise he felt show on his face. The Briton, who was not much older than he, raised his chin very slightly. He understood enough to know his future was about to be decided. There was no fear on his face. So this, Ceawlin thought, is her brother.

Ceawlin spoke to him in British. “My father has given your fate into my hands.”

The gray eyes flickered with surprise at the perfect British, but Coinmail said nothing. “If I give you your life, will you swear never to bear arms against me or my father or any West Saxon king again?”

Color flushed into Coinmail’s pale cheeks. He hesitated for a moment, his eyes hard on Ceawlin’s face. Then the color drained away, leaving the British prince deathly pale. “Yes,” he said. “I will swear it.”

Ceawlin nodded. “Then you may go free.”

The air was warm and heavy with mist the day Cynric’s war band returned to Winchester. Ceawlin’s heart swelled with pride as he watched his father, so majestic in his golden helmet, lead his men through the great wooden gate and up the main street of Winchester.

Bringing back victory for the West Saxons.

“Sigurd! Sigurd!” It was a little girl with long brown hair, who was jumping up and down beside her nurse and waving to them.

Sigurd waved back to his little sister as unobtrusively as he could. “Coenburg has no dignity,” he said to Ceawlin as he faced forward again.

“You mean she has no respect for
your
dignity,” Ceawlin replied with amusement. It surprised neither of them that Coenburg’s welcome had been for Sigurd and not for her father or Cuthwulf. Sigurd was the one who always took the time to notice her.

Sigurd gave his friend a mock-haughty look, then pretended to ignore him. The horses were still moving slowly up the street, past the slaves’ hall, past the halls of Cynric’s eorls, past the temple where Ceawlin had prayed for Woden’s blessing. It was only a few short weeks since they had left Winchester, but it seemed to Ceawlin like a lifetime ago. He had left home a boy and was returning as a man.

His eyes rested once more on the figure of his helmeted father, and a faint frown furrowed his brow. Cynric too had changed on this journey, Ceawlin thought, but the king was traveling a different road from his son’s. The rigors of the war band had made obvious what Cynric had largely been able to disguise in Winchester: he was growing old.

A horse moved up on Ceawlin’s other side and a voice said, pitched for his ears only, “Well may you fear the day of his death, for then I shall be king.” Edwin’s dark eyes were narrow and oddly shining. “Brother,” he added, the word spoken as if it were an obscenity. Then he pushed his horse ahead of Ceawlin’s, crowding him toward Sigurd so that his knee slammed into that of his friend. Ceawlin’s horse laid back his ears and Ceawlin closed his fingers on the reins to prevent the stallion from taking a bite out of the rump of his brother’s gray. Sigurd cursed as his own horse sidled, but Ceawlin said nothing.

They had reached the top of the street and Ceawlin looked toward the women’s hall, at the group of women waiting in front of the porch. He recognized his mother immediately, so much taller than the women around her. He did not see Niniane. The war band was dismounting. Ceawlin gave his bay to one of the slaves to take to the stable and crossed the courtyard to where Fara awaited him. Her hazel eyes were smiling as she greeted him. “I hear you were successful, my son.” Cynric had sent word of the battle to Winchester weeks ago.

“Yes.” He bent his head so she could kiss his cheek. “They are brave, but they are not warriors. We lost fifteen men ourselves, but they died with glory.”

“And you. You fought with glory, my son. Your father’s messenger told us all about it. Alric has been busy composing a song in your honor.”

His eyes blazed. It was what he had dreamed of all his life, to do such deeds that the harpers would sing of them. His mother knew what he was thinking and squeezed his arm. “I am happy that you are safe.”