Born of the Sun (15 page)

“But will Ceawlin go?” asked Fara.

“Tell him I say he is to go. Tell him if he wants my help, he
must
go.”

“All right. But, Cutha, Niniane …” The friedlehe’s hazel eyes were troubled as they regarded the girl who was standing beside her. “If it were not for her …”

“We are offering her marriage with the future King of Wessex,” Cutha said, his voice impatient.

“I am not deaf,” Niniane said to him coldly. His eyes narrowed at her tone. “And perhaps I do not wish to marry the next King of Wessex. Perhaps I would prefer to go home to my brother unwed.”

“You cannot,” came the brutal reply. “No man of your people will marry you after you have been two years with us. They will have no way of knowing if you are still a virgin.”

This thought was not new to Niniane, but she had an answer for it. “I do not need to marry anyone, my lord.”

“Every woman must either be a wife or a concubine. What else are you good for?” He was annoyed by her recalcitrance. “Your birth is noble. Fara has watched over you;
we
know you are a virgin. Your blood is still pure. It is best for you to marry Ceawlin.”

“I could go into a nunnery!” Niniane flared. “There are still nunneries in the west. You forget, my lord, that I am a Christian.”

“And you forget, Princess, that you are merely a girl and will do as you are told.”

“But if she is so unwilling …” Fara said unhappily.

“Listen to me, both of you.” They were clearly trying Cutha’s patience. “First, the princess must go with Ceawlin. Guthfrid is certain to figure out who betrayed her plot to us, and Niniane will be no safer in Winchester than Ceawlin is. Do you understand that?” He was speaking now to Niniane.

“Yes,” said Niniane, her chin held high.

“Good. Next, if you go with Ceawlin to Bryn Atha, then you must be married. If you are not, if your people think that he has corrupted you, they will kill him.”

“Oh,” said Niniane. Then, “I will tell my brother the truth.”

“I can’t take that chance.”

Niniane did not reply.

Cutha turned to Ceawlin’s mother. “I will have two horses at the postern gate at midnight. Tell that to Ceawlin. I will see to it that the watchman is one of my thanes. They must leave tonight, Fara.”

Fara nodded.

“Ceawlin has gone hunting with Sigurd. I will leave word they are to come to you as soon as they return. Let Ceawlin and the girl take their vows in front of Sigurd before they leave. Obviously,” and the fantastic brows rose higher, “there is no time for a betrothal ceremony first.”

“All right,” Fara said in a low voice, and, looking at her, Niniane knew she had lost her ally.

Sigurd stood beside Ceawlin as Niniane recounted her story once again, and fury exploded in his brain. “The bitch! That she would
dare
…”

“Well, she has dared,” Fara replied in a tired voice. “And we can be certain that she will dare again.” She looked at Ceawlin. “You are not safe in Winchester, my son. I have known all along that she would try to harm you. She hates you. And she fears you as well. You will never be safe as long as she is queen.”

They all looked at Ceawlin. His face was closed and hard; it was but one month since his eighteenth birthday, but right now Sigurd thought he looked much older. He said nothing.

“You must leave,” Fara went on. “If the knife in the dark does not come tonight, then it will come some other night.”

“No,” he said.

“Yes. I have spoken to Cutha and he says the same.”

“You have spoken to my father?” Sigurd asked.

“Yes. I sent for him as soon as Niniane told me what she had heard. He says that Ceawlin is to take Niniane and go to Bryn Atha.”

“Take Niniane!” Sigurd looked at the princess’s lovely face. “What does this mean?” he asked her.

Her smoky blue eyes were troubled. “Your father says that Guthfrid is certain to suspect that I was the one who gave the warning. He says I am no longer safe in Winchester.”

It was probably true, Sigurd realized, after he had thought for a minute. But he did not like the idea of Niniane leaving Winchester. He did not like the idea of Niniane leaving him. He had only been waiting for the right moment to ask his father …

“Marry her,” he heard Fara saying.

“What?”
It was Sigurd, not Ceawlin, whose voice was raised in protest.

“I said that Cutha insisted that Ceawlin and Niniane be married first,” Fara repeated for Sigurd’s benefit. But she was looking at her son.

“Why?” said Ceawlin.

“Because her brother is Prince of the Atrebates and could possibly become your ally.”

“It is the match my father wanted for Edwin,” Ceawlin said. His voice was expressionless.

“It is the match he wanted for the future King of Wessex,” returned Fara.

Ceawlin slowly nodded his silver head, and for the first time he looked at Niniane. “It might be a way.” His voice was slow as well. Obviously he was thinking it out as he went along. “It would give me a base from which to operate.” Turquoise sparks began to light in his eyes. “It has been impossible, these last months under Guthfrid’s rule. I just did not know where it was best for me to go. This will serve very well.”

“Do you mean you will marry her?” Sigurd was whiter than usual, his voice constricted.

“Yes.” Ceawlin had come to a decision. “Yes,” he said again, his voice more confident. “It is a good move. Cutha is right. We will go to Bryn Atha.”

“What if my brother should object?” Niniane’s face was as pale as Sigurd’s, her soft lips pressed into an unusually thin line.

“Your brother has pledged not to bear arms against me. He is a prince. He will not break his word.”

Niniane bowed her head. She was going to do it, Sigurd thought. She was going to marry him.

“Cutha said you were to speak your vows in front of Sigurd before you left,” Fara was saying. “You can do it again with more ceremony later, but for now vows spoken in front of a witness are binding in law.”

“Niniane?” Sigurd turned to her. “Are you willing?”

She did not look up. “It seems I have no choice.”

“No more than I do, Princess,” returned Ceawlin pleasantly. “Well, then, let us get it over with. There are things I must do before tonight.”

True to his word, Cutha had two horses at the postern gate when Ceawlin arrived there sometime shortly before midnight. The guard, one of Cutha’s men, had been expecting him and said softly, “Prince Ceawlin?” as soon as Ceawlin’s shadowy figure moved into his field of vision.

“The girl is not here yet?” Ceawlin responded, looking around.

“Not yet, my lord. But it lacks some minutes until midnight.”

The two men stood in silence, listening. The day had been overcast and there were no lights in the sky. “My lord?” Ceawlin recognized Niniane’s surprisingly deep voice. She had moved so quietly he had not heard her approach.

“Yes,” he answered, looking toward the sound of her voice in the dark.

“You would make a good stalker, my lady,” the guard said humorously in broken British. “I never heard you coming.”

“I was country-raised,” Niniane replied in excellent Saxon.

“What an interesting time you must have had of it these past two years in Winchester,” Ceawlin remarked, and even though she could not see him, she could hear the sarcasm in his voice.

“When among the enemy, it is necessary to use what weapons come to one’s hand,” she replied, her husky voice cool and unruffled. “Lucky for you, Prince, that I did conceal my knowledge of Saxon, else you would be lying this night with a knife in your back.”

“I am not that easy to kill, Princess—” Ceawlin was beginning to answer, when the guard cut in.

“Prince, you had best be on your way. If you tarry too long you might be seen.”

“Of course,” said Ceawlin, annoyed at being caught in a stupid squabble with a girl. Without further speech, he lifted Niniane to the saddle of one of the horses. Then he mounted his own horse and took her reins into his hand. The horses’ hooves had been covered with cloth to muffle them, and the silence as they rode out through the gate was almost eerie.

The March night was cold and very dark. Ceawlin seemed to have no trouble seeing, however, and turned without hesitation to cut across the fields that lay to their right. Within ten minutes he had brought them to the road. Ceawlin took the cloth off the horses’ hooves and got back into his saddle once more, taking up Niniane’s reins.

“I am perfectly capable of guiding my own horse now that we are on the road,” Niniane said.

He gave her back her reins without an answer. Then, “Can you ride a canter? We will make better time if we canter.”

“Certainly I can ride a canter.”

He turned his head to look at her. She was sitting straight in the saddle and her posture looked balanced and relaxed. “All right,” he said, and gently pressed Bayvard forward into an easy canter. Niniane’s gelding followed, and after Ceawlin had ascertained that she was indeed capable of sitting to a canter, he concentrated instead on thinking about what he was going to do once they reached Bryn Atha.

This Coinmail, her brother, clearly objected to Saxon encroachment into his territory. He had gone to war to try to halt it. He had lost, and now was honor-bound not to take up arms against the Saxons again. But Ceawlin did not anticipate Coinmail would be pleased to harbor a Saxon prince within Bryn Atha. He must be convinced that it was to the benefit of the Atrebates to support Ceawlin over Guthfrid and her child. Any way he looked at it, Ceawlin was going to have to make concessions to the Atrebates.

They rode through the night, the silence growing longer and longer as Ceawlin thought and plotted. He had not had time to do much thinking this afternoon; he had been too much occupied with other things. The marriage itself had been a matter of minutes, a few vows sworn in front of Sigurd, but there had been other people it was necessary for him to talk to before he left. He had
some
faithful adherents among the young thanes who slept in the princes’ hall, and it had been necessary to give them instructions.

“What is the chief objection your people have to us?” he said abruptly, turning to Niniane. They had been riding for two hours.

“Wh-what?” She could scarcely speak, her teeth were chattering so much. The night had grown progressively more clear and cold as they rode north.

He brought Bayvard down to a walk; then, when her gelding slowed also, he leaned out of his saddle to feel her fingers on her reins. “You’re freezing! Why didn’t you say something?”

“I th-thought you w-wanted to get to Br-Bryn Atha …”

“I do, but I don’t want you frozen to death first.” He looked around. “I know where we are and there is a vil not too far ahead. Just a settlement of peasants’ huts, I’m afraid, but we could rest and get warm in one of the storage barns.”

“All … all right.”

Ceawlin pressed Bayvard into an energetic trot and began to watch the left side of the road carefully. There was a small track along here somewhere…. “Here it is.” He turned to where she was riding beside him. “We will have to go single file—the track is not wide. Follow me.” And he turned his horse off the road and onto a narrow dirt path. After a short space they came out of the woods and began to cross a series of fields. Niniane concentrated on keeping her stiff, frozen body on top of her horse and let the gelding follow on his own.

“I see it.” He turned to look at her. “Only a few more minutes.”

Ahead of her Niniane saw a small settlement of sunken huts arranged in a circle. Ceawlin halted and looked around, then began to walk Bayvard toward a large timber building standing some distance from the circle of huts. When they reached the building he dismounted, broke the lock on the door, and peered inside.

It was very dark in the windowless barn and it took a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to the change in light. Then he saw that it was indeed what he had thought it to be, a storage barn for winter fodder. The first floor was almost empty. It was March and most of the fodder had been consumed. He turned back to Niniane and said, “It’s all right. We can tie the horses and climb up into the loft ourselves to get warm.”

He held her horse’s bridle so she could dismount, but when she slid to the ground her knees buckled and she would have fallen had she not held to the saddle to support herself.

“Go in,” Ceawlin said abruptly. “I’ll bring the horses.”

She obeyed him, walking on stiff and shaking legs through the door and into the cavernous blackness of the barn. Ceawlin followed, leading the horses. Niniane stood perfectly still in the middle of the dirt floor and listened to Ceawlin tying up the horses somewhere to her right. Then he said, “I’m just going to climb into the loft to see if there is any hay.” She did not hear him going up the ladder, but she heard faint footsteps overhead. Then, suddenly, his voice came out of the darkness beside her. “Yes, there is hay. Come, we’ll make a nice nest for you to get warm in.”

“How can you see?” He was a virtually invisible presence to her; there was not even light enough to catch his hair.

“I have always been able to see well in the dark. Come. Hold on to my belt. You need to climb the ladder to the loft.”

He took her hand and guided it to his belt and she followed him blindly to the ladder. She went up the ladder by touch and he was waiting for her at the top. “Over here.” He took her hand. “We can rest for a few hours and be on our way at dawn.”

He led her to the place where he had spread a bale of hay to make a bed for them. “Here,” he said, picked her up in his arms, and laid her down as if she were a child. When he had picked her up, he felt how uncontrollable were the shivers that racked her. “You should have said you were cold,” he scolded, as if she were indeed a child.

“I d-didn’t want to hold you u-up. There is d-danger.”

He was unpinning the brooch that held his cloak as she was speaking. Then he lay down beside her and, spreading his cloak over them both, gathered her into the warmth of his arms. He felt her stiffen and said in a soothing, comforting voice, “It’s all right. We will keep each other warm this way.”