Born of the Sun (46 page)

“Yes,” said Bertred. “It is.” Then, “Cutha and Cynigils have been very friendly of late.”

“That has not escaped me.” Ceawlin’s voice was very cold.

The door to the hall opened and a gust of frigid air blew across the room. Cerdic looked around to see his mother coming in. She had been to the princes’ hall seeing his two youngest brothers put to bed. She crossed the floor now, loosening her cloak and brushing back the hair that had been blown loose by the wind. Her cheeks were rosy with cold, and Cerdic, looking from Niniane to Bertred, was surprised to see a look of frank admiration on the eorl’s face. “How do you stay so young, Niniane?” he asked, and Cerdic’s mother laughed and took the third seat by the fire.

Cerdic had never thought of his mother in any light but as his mother. Ceawlin he saw as a man and a king, and it had been many years since first he thought that there was no one else in the world so splendid as his father. But Mother was Mother. Less important to him now than she had been when he was a child, but still a necessary and unquestioned part of his existence. Father belonged to his kingdom, his people. Mother belonged to them—to his father and him and his little brothers. Oh, she ordered the service, the women, the cooking, the weaving and such, but these things she did for them. Mother was … just Mother.

But he saw the admiration in Bertred’s eyes, and for the first time he looked at his mother and saw a woman. Saw that her hair was smooth and shining and of a color he had never seen on anyone else. Saw her large gray-blue eyes, so like his own, her tip-tilted nose and delicately curved mouth that had Ceowulf’s dimple in its corner. She
was
young, his mother. Young, and very pretty.

She was smiling at him. “How good of you, Cerdic, to let your brother play with Crida for a while.”

At that Crida’s silver-blond head turned. “He keeps forgetting the score,” he said disgustedly. “Can’t Ceowulf do
anything?”

“You were not so good at keeping score when you were eight, Crida,” Niniane said. Which was not true, Cerdic thought. Crida had always had a good brain for counting. He had, in fact, counted before Cerdic did. A fact which Cerdic would admit to himself if not to Crida.

“I will give you a game, Ceowulf,” he said now, and was rewarded by his mother’s grateful look. Crida threw down the dice and stood up, scowling.

“You may go to bed, Crida,” Ceawlin said.

Crida threw his father a furious look, met Ceawlin’s eyes, and muttered, “Yes, sir.” He picked up his cloak and went out the door to go to the princes’ hall.

Niniane sighed. “He has no patience with those who are less clever than himself.”

“He will have to learn,” said Ceawlin.

“I suppose.” She smiled at Bertred and said, “How are Meghan and the children?”

Cerdic watched Bertred’s face light with a returning smile before he turned to throw the dice with his brother.

The sleeping room was icy cold and Niniane pulled the rugs and furs up to her chin and said to Ceawlin, “What is Cuthwulf up to now? I imagine that was what brought Bertred to Winchester this time of year.”

“Yes.” Ceawlin finished undressing and got into the bed beside her. “He is gathering a war band.”

“What?”
She raised up on an elbow to stare into his face.

“There can be no other explanation. Bertred says he has at least eighty men in his hall.”

“But where did he get so many men?”

“He has taken a number of ceorls off the land and made them thanes. And, from what Bertred hears, he has sent for some kinsmen from Wight.”

“Dear God.”

“Yes.”

The candle still burned on the chest beside the bed, and Niniane looked down into her husband’s eyes. They were pure turquoise. He was furious at Cuthwulf. Niniane could not blame him. “What will you do?” she asked.

“Make him come to Winchester. Make him live under my eye.”

“But … Cutha.”

He said to her what he could not say to Bertred. “I will see Cutha in hell, Niniane, before I allow his son to challenge my authority.”

“Have you asked Cutha to speak to him?”

“Cutha has never made the slightest attempt to control Cuthwulf. I think he feels that Cuthwulf is in the right, feels that the split between us is my fault, not Cuthwulf’s. The fact of the matter is, Niniane, that I do not greatly care what Cutha thinks anymore. Cuthwulf has been asking to be dealt with for years, and now he has gone too far.”

Niniane chewed on her lip. He was right, she knew. Yet she had had an uneasy feeling of late about Cutha. There was an expression in Cutha’s eyes when he looked at Ceawlin that she did not like at all. She said nothing, however, knowing Ceawlin would not listen even if she did. “When will you send for him?” she asked instead.

“After Yule. He is not likely to do much during the winter. I have time.”

She shivered and he reached an arm over to draw her close. She nestled against him gratefully. “Why are you never cold? No matter how freezing it is, you are never cold.”

“I have hot blood,” he said, and growled and bit her ear.

She laughed, then said warningly, “Ceawlin, don’t you dare push these blankets off me.”

“I’ll maneuver under them,” he promised, and she put her arms around his neck and let him draw her under his warm and urgent weight.

Cerdic would turn thirteen on January 6, and on the day before his birthday it stormed and rained in torrents. He stood in the door of the princes’ hall and looked gloomily outside at the weather. It was cold and dark and heavy with rain. And his father had promised to take him hunting tomorrow! There was to be a huge banquet for him in the great hall in honor of his turning thirteen, and the banquet would still go forward. But he had been looking forward to the hunt. It was to be just him and his father. Not even Crida was coming. And it had to rain! His mother would never let him go in the rain. He had been sick last week, sneezing and coughing; he knew she would not let him go.

Cerdic cursed under his breath, using words he had heard his father use when he was particularly angry. Then he saw the horse galloping up the slippery paved street.

“Cerdic, close the door. It is freezing in here!” It was Crida, and he said, without turning his head, “Something has happened, Crida. Look.”

Crida’s fair head appeared at his shoulder and the two of them watched together. “It’s one of Bertred’s thanes,” Crida said. “I remember he came to Winchester with Bertred before Yule.” Crida had an uncanny memory for men’s faces.

The man was heading directly for the king’s hall. As the two boys watched, he disappeared inside the door. “What can it be?” Cerdic asked.

“Whatever it is, it can’t be good,” said Crida.

“Close that door.” It was Alric, one of the few voices in Winchester to exact obedience from the two eldest princes these days. Reluctantly Cerdic obliged, then turned to go back to his lessons with the scop.

The news brought by Bertred’s thane was not good. The previous week Cuthwulf had taken his men and ridden north, into the land of the Dobunni. He had been met at Bedcanford by a hastily gathered troop of British and he had defeated them. The Saxons had then looted several of the towns in the area and returned in triumph to Banford.

“They say that the Dobunni chief was slain in the battle, my lord,” Bertred’s thane told Ceawlin. “We learned all this because my lady just happened to send a man to Banford on an errand to Cuthwulf’s wife, and he arrived during the victory banquet. As soon as he discovered the story, he raced back to Romsey to tell the eorl.”

“What chief was killed?” Ceawlin asked.

“I do not know, my lord. Lord Bertred is sending scouts north to try to discover more. He will report to you as soon as he receives further information.”

“Very well.” Ceawlin’s eyes flicked over the man standing before him. “Go to the great hall and have them find you some dry clothes and get you something to eat and to drink.”

“Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord.” The man backed away a few-steps, then turned and rushed out the door. He had seen the king often during the past years, but never had he seen him look like this. The thane counted himself lucky that he had not been made the object of Ceawlin’s all-too-obvious fury.

As the door swung closed, Ceawlin looked around the room. He had been talking to three of his most senior thanes when Bertred’s man had been announced, and the thanes were still sitting on the wall bench to which he had dismissed them. They were staring assiduously at their feet. They had heard.

“Get me Cutha,” Ceawlin said.

The men looked up, then looked away. “Yes, my lord,” they said in unison, and exited almost as hastily as the previous thane had done.

The door opened, rain gusted once more into the hall, and Niniane came in. “What weather!” she said when she saw her husband sitting alone by the fire. Then, when he did not answer, she looked at him more closely. Her hands, which had been busy unpinning the brooch that held her cloak, stilled. “What has happened?” she asked, her voice suddenly sharp.

He did not look back at her. “Cuthwulf has invaded the land of the Dobunni,” he said. “There was a battle. Cuthwulf won.”

A sharp intake of breath was her only reply. Then she came slowly across the room to stand before him. His face was set and still. The Dobunni! she thought. What of Coinmail? Ceawlin seemed to read her thoughts, for he looked at her at last and said, “I do not know if Coinmail was involved. Bertred has sent scouts to try to learn exactly what happened.”

There was a footstool near his chair and she sat down suddenly, as if her legs would not hold her. There was rain on her hair and on the shoulders of her blue wool cloak. “He is mad,” she said. “Did he think you would allow this?”

“If he had any doubts, they will soon be set to rest.” His voice was hard and cold.

She ran her tongue around suddenly dry lips. “What will you do?” she asked.

“I will kill him,” Ceawlin said. She stared at him and saw that he meant it. She had seen him angry before, seen him furious, but never had she seen this merciless hardness. He meant it.

“Ceawlin … what of Sigurd?”

“What of Sigurd?”

This coldness was far more frightening than any of his hot-burning furies. Niniane wet her lips again. “Cuthwulf is his brother. I grant you there is little love lost between them, but still there is shared blood.”

“There was shared blood between me and Edwin. Blood is not everything, Niniane. If Sigurd must choose between me and Cuthwulf, I have little doubt where his choice will fall.” He looked over her head toward the door. “Ah, Cutha.” A shiver ran up and down Niniane’s back at the note in his voice. “Your son has taken a war band into the land of the Dobunni, given battle, and looted their towns.”

Cutha’s back was very straight as he approached Ceawlin’s chair. “My son is a Saxon,” he said.

“Your son has challenged my authority. I have been lenient with him before because he is Sigurd’s brother and your son. But he has overreached himself this time. I am King of Wessex, and no one leads a war band in this country save at my leave.”

“You are King of Wessex because I made you such,” said Cutha.

Ceawlin laughed. “How many battles did you win for me, cousin?”

Cutha had flushed when Ceawlin laughed, and
now
he went deadly pale. “You are not the only warrior in Wessex, Ceawlin. Whatever his failings, Cuthwulf is a war leader. He has always won.”

“No.” Ceawlin leaned slightly forward in his chair and stared at Cutha out of narrowed eyes. “No, cousin. This time Cuthwulf has lost.”

There was no banquet for Cerdic’s birthday. Instead, Ceawlin marched one hundred hall thanes out of Winchester in the predawn dark and fell upon Banford. Cuthwulf’s men had not been expecting such swift retribution and were completely surprised. In the haphazard resistance that followed, Cuthwulf was able to flee. Ceawlin sent out a pursuit, but Cuthwulf and a small number of his men eluded it and fled south, toward Wight.

Niniane was relieved to hear that Cuthwulf still lived. She feared that the death of Cutha’s son was the one thing that would drive his dissatisfaction with Ceawlin out into the open. For Niniane’s ever-watchful eyes had not missed Cutha’s growing alienation from Ceawlin, and she feared that her husband took Cutha too lightly. The eorl might be growing old, but he was not toothless yet.

Niniane thought that Cutha must in some way blame Ceawlin for Sigurd’s exile from Winchester. Certainly the rift between the king and his chief eorl had first become noticeable to her after Sigurd’s departure. Niniane had seen Ceawlin’s own distress at Sigurd’s leaving and she had been angry with Sigurd; this further development with Cuthwulf made her angrier still.

Sigurd was the only one with a chance of mending the breech between Ceawlin and his father and his brother, and still he stayed at Wokham, playing farmer. Niniane could not understand him. She said nothing of this to Ceawlin, however. Whenever she mentioned Sigurd, his face sealed absolutely shut. Something had happened between the two of them that he would not tell her about, and although Ceawlin went occasionally to Wokham to see Sigurd, Sigurd never once had returned to Winchester.

But Niniane was beginning to think that it was not just Sigurd’s exile that had alienated Cutha. His words to Ceawlin upon hearing of Cuthwulf’s battle were significant. Cutha thought he had made Ceawlin king, and he obviously did not think he was reaping a great enough reward.

There was a germ of truth in Cutha’s belief. It was true that Ceawlin had needed the men Cutha had brought with him. But Cutha had been acting in his own interest as well as Ceawlin’s. His position under Ceawlin was far greater than ever it had been under Edric. No, Niniane thought, Cutha had no cause for complaint.

But that obviously was not what Cutha thought.

After he returned from his raid upon Banford, Ceawlin rode north to Wokham to talk with Sigurd. Next he went to Bryn Atha to talk with Naille. Gereint offered to act as messenger between Wessex and the Dobunni and went to Glevum to offer restitution from Ceawlin for the damage done by his rebellious eorl. He was received with icy disdain by Coinmail, who had not been at the Battle of Bedcanford. Restitution was refused, and Gereint returned to Wessex furious at the scornful way he had been treated by his former prince.