Born of the Sun (30 page)

He would not do that to her.

But in this, as in so many other things, the gap between pagan and Christian was wide. He would not do that to her, she told herself as she buried her face in the comforting baby-smell of Cerdic. But she was not sure.

Ceawlin was gone for almost two weeks, and when he rode back into Bryn Atha it was with a herd of cattle and an additional ten men for his war band, but no women.

“What happened?” It was Sigurd whom Niniane asked about the raid, managing to get him to herself while Ceawlin was seeing to the disposition of his new men and beasts.

“The country up there is very rich,” Sigurd replied. “British and Anglo-Saxon farms stretch all over the valley. They had no idea that we were coming, of course, and no time to organize resistance. We marched from farm to farm, and the mere sight of an armed war band struck terror into their hearts. Ceawlin treated them very gently. He declared himself their king and exacted a tribute of cattle. He also wooed a group of the less prosperous farmers’ sons with promises of glory in Winchester. They are the ones we have brought back here with us.”

Niniane listened with concealed impatience. She was not interested in the men. “I thought he was going to bring women back also, Sigurd. He told me you were right, that it was unreasonable of him to expect his thanes to live like celibates.”

“Oh, the women. Yes, there are some women coming. One of the East Anglian settlers had several East Saxon women slaves. Ceawlin bought them. It was a better policy than taking freewomen, he said. Ceawlin has hopes of adding that country to Wessex permanently. The land is really very rich.”

“Where are these women now, Sigurd?”

“Not far behind us.” Sigurd grinned. “Ceawlin put Penda in charge of them. Penda was furious.”

“How many are there?”

“Five, I believe.”

“I don’t know where I am to put them,” she muttered, her brow dark with rebellion.

“Put them in the thanes’ quarters,” Sigurd answered cheerfully. “They can keep the place clean. They were kitchen sluts for the Anglian, so they will be able to help you with the cooking and the gardening as well.”

Niniane stared at his smiling face, her eyes gray and stormy. “I think you are disgusting,” she said. Slowly and clearly. And watched his smile dissolve to a look of surprised shock. “Disgusting,” she repeated emphatically. She left him standing in the middle of the sitting room with the silly look of surprise still on his face.

The women arrived several hours after the men, escorted by Penda and one of the younger thanes. Ceawlin had disappeared with the rest of the men and the cattle, so it was left to Niniane to greet the new arrivals. Penda turned them over to her care with almost comical relief.

There were five in all, two middle-aged women and three girls. They spoke East Saxon, which was a slightly different dialect from the one spoken in Winchester, but Niniane was able to understand most of what they said. She made out that two of the girls were sisters, daughters of the eldest of the women and the Anglian who had sold them. Slavery had not been practiced among the Atrebates for years, and Niniane was horrified by the way these women had been treated.

The women, however, did not seem unhappy with their fate. They were impressed by Bryn Atha. They were impressed by Penda. They were impressed by the silver-blond king who had bought them. None of them seemed perturbed by the suggestion that they live in the thanes’ quarters. Niniane escorted them there, her face stony, and found them a room by the simple expedient of tossing the belongings of the thanes who had formerly occupied the room onto the floor outside the door. “You can live here,” she said, looking around at the planked wooden walls Ceawlin had put up over the old crumbling plaster.

The women were impressed by the thanes’ quarters. Niniane sniffed and wrinkled her small upturned nose, noticing indoors what had gone unnoticed outside. They smelled. “I will fix a tub of hot water for you in the kitchen,” she said ominously to the greasy-haired women who looked at her with such pleasure. “You all need a bath. And clean clothes. Come with me.”

The Saxon women had never in their lives been submerged in water, and protested vigorously as Niniane relentlessly forced one after the other into the large wooden tub she had Amena set up in front of the kitchen stove. Amena also assisted with the scrubbing; indeed the British woman seemed to get an almost fiendish satisfaction out of the amount of dirt she scoured out of Saxon skin. By the time she finished, the women’s complexions were glowing bright red. Then Niniane gave them clean clothes to put on, and combs to pull through their hair. They were miserable, but they were clean. The two sisters were even pretty. Once their hair was combed, Niniane put them to work cooking the dinner and went to her own bedroom to feed her son.

Cerdic was there, lying unswaddled and kicking with delight on the bed, but it was Ceawlin who was playing with him, not Meghan. Niniane stared at her husband’s back, and bitter gall rose in her throat. “Those women were filthy,” she said in a cold, hard voice.

He was bent over the delighted baby, tickling him. He did not turn around when she came in, but continued to play with his son. “I know.” His voice sounded unconcerned. He knew, of course, how she felt on this subject. “I thought they would clean up decent, though. Did they? I heard the screams and splashes from the kitchen and thought you must be working on them.”

“They had bugs.”

“I imagine they did.” He was still bent over the baby, not looking at her.

She could withhold it no longer. Her voice, now low and trembling, came from somewhere behind her clenched teeth. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides. “Ceawlin, if you so much as lay one finger on any of them, I will murder you.”

At that he straightened up from the bed. The blue-green eyes opened wide as he took her in. A slow smile spread over his face. “Nan. You’re jealous.”

“I am not a Saxon wife,” she answered fiercely.

He picked her up and sat down on the bed next to the baby, holding her in his lap. “No, you’re not, are you?” He began to nuzzle her throat. “I have no interest in those women,” he said. “They are for the thanes. I have enough to keep me busy right here.”

She slid her arms around his neck and twined her fingers into his hair. His lips moved lower. The baby felt a pang of hunger and screamed. Ceawlin cursed and looked up. She smiled at him.

“Tonight,” he said, and she kissed his mouth before picking up Cerdic to be fed.

Ceawlin and his men were home two days when the thanes from Banford arrived at Bryn Atha. Wuffa, the sentry on duty for the Corinium road, was the first to see them. When first he spied the obviously Saxon group he thought it was Edric again, and then he recognized the men as belonging to Cutha. He rode down the hill on which he was hidden and walked his horse onto the road. The little group raised their spears when they saw the mounted figure, then someone shouted, “It’s Wuffa!” and all the spears dropped.

“Ine,” Wuffa said, his eyes falling on the man who stood at the head of the weary group. “What happened?”

“Edric surprised us,” came the grim reply. “Cutha was not expecting him so soon. He came at dawn and we were not ready.”

“What of Cutha?”

“He got away. But we left a good twenty men dead in the farmyard before we ran for it. We were but fifty and they numbered at least two hundred. We hadn’t a chance.”

“You are heading for Bryn Atha?”

“Yes. We lost contact with Cutha and the others and so I thought our best chance was to come north and hope to find Ceawlin. I was at Bryn Atha with Cynric and thought I would remember the road.”

“You did. Follow me and I will take you there.”

Ine looked up at Wuffa’s mounted figure. “Would you mind if Erick rode your horse?” he asked. “He was wounded at Banford and has been finding the going hard.”

“Of course not.” Wuffa dismounted immediately and Ine boosted his comrade into the saddle.

“How many miles to Bryn Atha?” Ine asked as he walked along beside Ceawlin’s thane.

“Eight.”

“And someone is always on watch here?”

“Yes. Here and on the road to Calleva. That is how we spied Edric coming last year.” Wuffa forbore to point out that Ceawlin had not allowed himself to be taken by surprise. He did not think he needed to. The point was clear enough to anyone with eyes.

“You look well,” came Ine’s next comment.

“We have been very comfortable,” Wuffa said. “In fact, we have just returned from a raid to the north. The prince wanted to claim the valley land there for Wessex. We brought a herd of cattle and some women back to Bryn Atha.”

“I see,” said Ine.

“We shall have you all comfortable in no time,” Wuffa promised cheerfully.

Ine looked back at the fourteen tired men he was leading. “That will be nice,” he answered, and sounded as if he meant it.

There was not enough room in the thanes’ quarters for fifteen more men, so Ceawlin put the new arrivals in one of the storage barns he had cleaned out over the winter for just such a purpose. Niniane washed and bandaged Erick’s wounded shoulder and served up a hot meal for all the thanes in the main reception room of the villa. There was not space enough in the dining room to accommodate them all now.

After dinner Ceawlin took Sigurd and Penda and retired to his bedroom to talk. Niniane and the women cleared the tables and one by one the thanes began to head toward their sleeping places. Dinner had been later than usual and the sky was dark. Cerdic was in the kitchen with the women, kicking and babbling in his basket. When he began to cry, Niniane fed him and then it was time to put him down for the night.

The three men were still in her bedroom, Ceawlin pacing up and down the floor, with Sigurd and Penda sitting on the bed watching him. The three of them glanced her way, then ignored her as she brought the baby to his basket and knelt to change his cloths.

“We cannot meet him in a pitched battle,” Ceawlin was saying. “Not yet. The numbers are too much in his favor. And he has veteran warriors, too, not untried boys. The thing to do is harry him, madden him, and pray that Woden will send us more men.”

Niniane pinned Cerdic’s new cloths and swaddled him in his blanket for the night. The men were silent and she turned to look at them. “Where is he?” she asked Ceawlin.

He flicked a glance her way. “I don’t know. I have sent Bertred and Octa out to scout.”

She forced her voice to remain calm. “Are they likely to come here, do you think?”

“I do not want them to come here. The walls of Bryn Atha are strong and perhaps we could withstand a siege, but I do not want that. There is too much to lose.”

“They would lay waste all the area farms,” Niniane said.

“I know that. I told you I do not want them to come here.” Her remark had irritated him, and he frowned. “What are you doing here, anyway? This is warrior business, not yours.”

“It is time to put Cerdic to bed,” she answered. The baby, as if to second his mother’s statement, began to cry. Niniane put her hand on the basket to rock it, and said to the men, “If you must talk, please keep your voices down.”

The three men stared at her. She smiled at them sweetly and began to sing to the baby. “Come into my room,” Sigurd said to Ceawlin. “We won’t disturb the baby there.”

“Yes. It seems you are the only one with the luxury of privacy in this woman-infested place,” Ceawlin replied. The three men tramped to the door and went out, but Niniane noticed Ceawlin took care to close it gently so as not to disturb his son.

Cerdic was asleep and Niniane was in bed herself when Ceawlin finally came back into the room. “Are you awake?” he asked softly.

“Yes.” She pushed herself up on her pillow a little so she could see him.

He sat down on her side of the bed. “I knew it was a mistake for Cutha to go to Banford. And then the fool lets himself be surprised. That pride of his Sigurd talks about cost me twenty men. I cannot afford to lose twenty men!”

Niniane wrapped her arms around her knees. “Naille may see things differently now, Ceawlin. When you went on that raid to the north, it had nothing to do with the Atrebates. This does. Edric knows that you had Britons with you at Cob Ford. If he comes into this country he will be out to teach us a lesson. I think Naille will let Gereint and his friends fight with you now.”

They had not lit the candle and the only light in the room came from the moonlight streaming in through the unshuttered window. Ceawlin looked down at the hands he had clasped on his knee. His hair was like a spill of moonlight inside the room. “As soon as the scouts return with news of Edric’s whereabouts, I will march after him.”

Her knuckles whitened as her fingers dug into the blue blanket around her knees. “I thought you did not want a battle.”

“I don’t. I want a chase. I want to lead him away from Bryn Atha.”

“Yes.” Her voice surprised her by being perfectly steady. “I see.”

“You will have to manage here on your own for a while, Nan.”

“I can do that. Do not worry about me. I can take care of
myself
and Cerdic.”

He raised his head at last and looked at her. “I will leave you three men. Keep the guards posted on both the Roman roads at all times. If you see Edric coming, get away from Bryn Atha.”

She stared into his face. His words were an eerie echo of another time, another man’s warning. “Do not fall into Guthfrid’s hands,” Ceawlin said somberly. “You are the one who said she hates me. And you are my wife, Cerdic my son.”

Niniane ran her tongue around suddenly dry lips. “Yes,” she said at last. “I understand.”

His face looked grim. “I do not mind risking my own life,” he said. “I am a warrior and that is my fate. But you … my son … that is another story.”

“I can hide in Geara’s cellar if I have to,” she said. “No one even knows it is there.”

He put his hands on either side of her face. “Do not let any dying harpers keep you here this time.”

“No, I won’t. I promise.” He bent his face down to hers and she flung her arms around his neck.