Born of the Sun (35 page)

They had been so kind to her. And all she wanted to do was to leave. To go home. Home to Bryn Atha and to Ceawlin.

The baby was restless today. He must sense his mother’s mood, she thought, and sighed.

Niniane had not been surprised to learn for certain that she was again with child. She had known it since the very hour of the babe’s conception: the night before she had left Bryn Atha for Glastonbury; the night of the weddings; the night she and Ceawlin had made up their quarrel over Cerdic’s baptism. It had been a night of furious passion and she could swear she had felt it then, in her womb, the beginning of the new life they had made out of their love.

During the months of her stay at Glastonbury, Niniane had come to be deeply grateful for her children, both the one born and the one yet unborn. Cerdic filled her days with his needs. If she had not had him, she thought she would have gone mad. It was not the spareness of her accommodations that she found so difficult, although the good women lived a life that was Spartan indeed. It was the lack of something to do. She had grown accustomed to days that did not seem to have enough hours in them; in Glastonbury the days seemed to go on forever.

She prayed, of course, with the sisters and by herself. She tried very hard to fix her mind on God, particularly since she had such need of his blessing. But one thing her time in Glastonbury had shown her was how woefully worldly a person she truly was. She missed the busy life of Bryn Atha. She missed the striving for the future, missed the plotting and the planning she had thought she so disliked. She even missed the thanes, missed the constant effort to feed them and clothe them, missed the sound of male voices and male laughter. The monks within the abbey observed a vow of silence.

Most of all, she missed Ceawlin. She missed him and she fretted about her lack of information as to what was happening in Wessex. Glastonbury was in Dumnonia, and Dumnonia was still British, had always been British. The only communication Dumnonia had with the Saxon kingdoms was through the monks who went out from the Christian center of Glastonbury to minister to the Christian Britons in the Saxon-occupied lands to the east. And these monks were interested in bringing the sacraments to souls in need; they were not interested in the political squabbles of the Saxon overlords.

So Niniane was grateful for Cerdic, and grateful as well to be having another baby. As her body became heavier, slower, her bed did not seem so terribly empty. Her body did not seem so terribly empty. Even her mind seemed to become slower, more attuned to the rhythms of her body than to the world outside. Pregnancy cocooned her, cushioned her, and she welcomed this dullness. She took care of one child and nurtured the other within her body and tried very hard not to think beyond the moment.

Guthfrid sat close to the hearth in the queen’s hall and stared broodingly into the flames. By common consent her women kept to the corner of the room even though it was cold away from the fire. When the queen looked like this, it was better to be cold than to risk the heat of her wrath.

Guthfrid’s thoughts were running along a too-familiar path. It was now more than two years since Ceawlin had fled from Winchester, and still he went free. Still he lived. It ate away at her, that knowledge. Guthfrid was Saxon to her very marrow, and would never lay Edwin to rest until she had had vengeance on his murderer.

The men were at the temple celebrating the Saxon spring festival, making offerings to the gods for the peace and the victory of the king. The war band was to leave Winchester within the next few days, to go north once again to try to capture Ceawlin. The eorls had been reluctant at first, but Guthfrid had been the one to point out that they would never be able safely to claim the rich lands of the Atrebates unless they had first got rid of the bastard. This had made sense to the land-greedy eorls and they were preparing to march yet again to Calleva.

The messenger came into Winchester while the men were still at the sacrificial banquet in the temple, so he delivered his unwelcome news to the queen. After all these months, Cutha had been seen, and seen leading a war band of some fifty or so men.

“Seen where?” Guthfrid demanded as the man paused to catch his breath.

“On the road south of Venta, my lady. Riding north. He is coming from Wight.”

The news took longer to reach Ceawlin. It was the end of March before he learned that Cutha had reappeared in the south. “He must join with me,” Ceawlin said to Sigurd, his eyes the intense blue-green they always turned with strong emotion. “By the hammer of Thor, if I can put my hand on fifty more men, I can face Edric. At last!”

“Why did we not think of Wight?” Sigurd asked. “My father has kin still in Wight. Witgar, the king, is his cousin. Witgar is
your
cousin, Ceawlin. Your father and his father were brothers.” Sigurd ran his hand through his light brown hair. “Why did we not think of Wight?” he asked again.

Ceawlin was pacing up and down the room. “Cutha may not be a great battle leader, but he is cunning when it comes to intrigue,” he said over his shoulder, and did not notice Sigurd’s frown. “I might have known he would not give up so easily!” Ceawlin stopped his pacing long enough to give Sigurd a crooked grin.

Sigurd did not answer the smile but said, his face still stern, “How do you mean to reach him?”

“I will ride south to meet him,” came the instant reply. “No more waiting around for Cutha to come to me. This time
I
will go to him.”

The following day, Ceawlin, with a war band that now numbered more than sixty men, left Bryn Atha and headed south toward Winchester.

The larks were trilling overhead in a clear blue sky on the day the war bands of Ceawlin and Cutha finally joined together. Cutha had avoided Venta and Winchester on his march north from Wight, gone west toward the Salisbury plain and then turned toward the northeast to pick up the Corinium road. After more than a week Ceawlin’s scouts had located him, and the prince, who had come farther south, turned his own war band north and west to catch up with Cutha near to Anbyrg.

Ceawlin’s thanes made camp in the same meadow as Cutha’s, and Ceawlin, Sigurd, Cutha, and Cuthwulf sat down to talk. There was a strong breeze blowing and the wind whipped Ceawlin’s thick, fine hair about like flax as he sat with his back against his saddle and talked to Cutha. The hair was as Cutha remembered it, but the face had changed. When last he had seen Ceawlin the prince had been a pink-cheeked beardless boy. Ceawlin’s face was thinner these days, thinner and harder, and his cheeks were no longer pink. The close-clipped beard he now wore was the same impossibly fair color as his hair. The eyes had not changed; they were still the deep blue-green that was his legacy from his father.

“I have fifty-three men with me,” Cutha said in response to Ceawlin’s question. “After the … affair at Banford, I knew I would need more men if I was to be of any use to you. I was no older than you when I left Wight with your father, Ceawlin, but I have kin still on the island. They gave me a fair greeting.”

“We could not imagine where you had gone,” Ceawlin answered. “I tried for months to get word of you, but you seemed to have fallen off the map.” He showed his teeth in a very white smile. “Nevertheless, I had a feeling you would reappear again someday, Cutha.”

“Of course,” said Cutha with cool composure.

“I
hear you have been playing fox and hounds with Edric all this last year,” boomed Cuthwulf.

Ceawlin’s eyes moved from Cutha to his son. “I had little choice, cousin. I did not have enough men to face him in open battle.”

“Well, now you do,” said Cuthwulf, and showed his teeth.

“And now I do.” Ceawlin finished with Cuthwulf and looked back to Cutha. “How many of your band are from Wight?”

“Thirty-seven.”

The blue-green gaze was uncomfortably hard. “And what have you promised them?”

Cutha’s highly arched eyebrows rose even higher. “Land. There is little land left on Wight or on the southern coast that belongs to Wight. Most of these men are young, Ceawlin, young and land-hungry.”

“Thanes?”

“Ceorls, mostly,” came the somewhat reluctant reply.

“So they know nothing of fighting.”

“They know enough.” Cutha’s voice was sharp. “Enough to wield a sword and throw a spear.”

“Ine made it to Bryn Atha after Banford, Father,” Sigurd put in. “He and some fourteen others.”

“I am glad to hear that,” said Cutha. “I had hoped that that was what they would do. I myself deemed it best to go south, to recruit another war band to bring to Ceawlin’s assistance.” Sigurd understood that his father’s pride had not allowed him to come to Ceawlin with fewer than the men he had originally raised. He hoped fervently that Ceawlin understood that too and would deal with Cutha carefully.

It seemed as if Ceawlin had read his thought, for now he grinned at Cutha and said, “My father always said you had the sharpest brain in Winchester, cousin. It was an inspired thought, to go to Wight. Your men are most welcome.”

Cutha’s eyebrows returned to their usual level and his thin, dark face relaxed as he returned Ceawlin’s smile. “It is time for the true King of the West Saxons to claim his right,” he said.

“We will all agree to that,” said Sigurd fervently, and Ceawlin laughed and got to his feet. “Come,” he said to the others, “I am starving. Let us go and get some food.”

Ceawlin led his combined war band back to Calleva and spent a few weeks drilling the new recruits from Wight. Then the word he had been waiting for finally came: Edric had left Winchester and was marching north. His war band totaled, according to Bertred’s report, some two hundred and fifty men.

Ceawlin had just over a hundred, but still the ratio was the best he had had in two years, and he was determined to confront Edric in open battle this time. He had, during the course of his travels around Wessex the previous spring, spied out a few likely battlegrounds, and now he decided he would go south toward Searo byrg. This was the scene of Cynric’s first victory in his conquest of Wessex, and Ceawlin, always superstitious when it came to his luck, decided it should be the place where Cynric’s son would make the throw for his father’s crown.

Edric, learning that Ceawlin had left Calleva for the west, thought that the prince was once more on the run. This time, however, Ceawlin would be slowed by the new recruits from Wight, who did not have horses. This time Edric thought he could catch the prize that had eluded him for so long. Accordingly, he pushed his men onward relentlessly, west of the Corinium road, along the ancient track that led toward the Salisbury plain and the already historic village of Searo byrg.

It was early in the afternoon of May 18 when Ceawlin’s war band reached Searo byrg. According to the scout reports, Edric was a day’s march behind them, time enough to give Ceawlin the chance to reconnoiter the land and make his battle dispositions.

It was not for superstitious reasons alone that Ceawlin had chosen Searo byrg as the scene for this battle. The site had distinct advantages for an army that was outnumbered by its enemy. Searo byrg was less well known for its village, which consisted merely of an old Christian church, a smithy, and an inn, than it was for being one of the chief fords over the river Avon in the area. The ford was located just northwest of the village, and the ancient road which Ceawlin and his men had followed lay directly on either side of the Searo ford.

Just south of the ford was a hill, called by the local people Rom Hill. Rom Hill was steepest on the north side, which faced the ford, and fell off to a gentler slope on the east. It was on this hill that Ceawlin stationed his men, drawing them up into three commands and posting them in lines on the steep north slope so they would immediately be seen by anyone crossing the Searo ford. Edric would have to cross at the Searo ford. The spring had been a wet one and the banks of the river were boggy and marshy for miles at a stretch, making it impossible for Edric to cross the Avon upriver and steal in on Ceawlin’s flank. The only way across the river this time of year was at Searo byrg.

Ceawlin’s men remained on the hill for the rest of the day, ready but relaxed, as no one expected to see Edric before the morrow. Dusk fell and scouts came in to report that Edric’s war band was but six miles away. Ceawlin posted sentries to keep watch during the night, taking no chances on a surprise night attack.

Sigurd slept but fitfully and was awake before almost everyone else. The sky was growing lighter but there was no sign of the sun. The visibility would be poor, Sigurd thought with dismay, and it was so essential that Edric see the men on the hill.

The hour advanced but the light remained poor. Sigurd watched Ceawlin as he walked up and down the lines of men, speaking to individual thanes as he went. He left a trail of laughter in his wake, but when he came up to Sigurd his face was sober.

“At last,” said Sigurd, trying to keep his voice light. “Did you think this day would never come?”

His answer was a brief wry smile.

“I wish it were lighter!” Sigurd said, staring toward the mist that covered the river.

“If the mist does not clear, I will change our plans. The mist will favor us too, Sigurd. Do not worry.” Ceawlin touched his shoulder, a reassuring pat, and turned away to walk over to Penda.

The mist began to lift, and within half an hour Sigurd was able to see the river. He was talking to the ceorls from Wight, joking and telling stories to hearten them, when there came a cry from the front: “My lord!” Sigurd turned instantly to look toward the river. The first line of Edric’s men had appeared on the opposite shore.

Sigurd knew what the battle plan was, had approved it heartily when Ceawlin outlined it yesterday upon their arrival in Searo byrg. They all realized, of course, that Edric was sure to know that he outnumbered the prince by more than two to one. “He will not charge the hill,” Ceawlin had said to Sigurd and Cutha and Cuthwulf as they stood together on the hill yesterday watching the ford. “He is not fool enough to give me that advantage. I wager he will try to bypass the north slope of Rom Hill and come at it from the east, where the ground is less steep,” and Ceawlin pointed out the way he meant. “What Edric will not know,” Ceawlin continued, “is that in marching east he will be marching into a bog.”