Born of the Sun (67 page)

“Ceawlin,” said Niniane in Saxon from the far side of the room, “you took your time getting here.”

“I stopped first in Corinium,” he replied. “To give you time to organize them.” And he held out his arms.

She ran forward, light as a girl, to throw herself against her husband.

She was so small that when his arms closed tightly around her she was lifted right off the ground. Ceawlin’s head was bent close to hers. Crida could not hear what his father was saying. He moved forward to claim his mother’s attention next.

She saw him as soon as Ceawlin put her back on her feet. “Crida!” Her smile was luminous. “Oh, my son, how glad I am to see you.” His own rare smile lighted his face and then he too scooped her into his arms.

The Britons stood in attentive silence. The men had all been at Deorham, had all seen the efficient killing machine that was Ceawlin loose on the field. Now he stood, surrounded by an obviously well-loved and loving wife and son, and gave them all an irresistibly beguiling smile.

“From henceforth I proclaim that the Dobunni are under my protection,” Ceawlin said. “Your hunger is my hunger, your enemies are my enemies. Together we will forge such a kingdom as this island has never yet seen. Saxon and Briton, together.” He was sober now, and utterly compelling. “Tonight we will feast together in token of our joining. Tonight you will swear allegiance, not to a Saxon king but to a King of Wessex. And to his son and heir, born of Saxon king and British princess.” Crida felt a thrill run through his blood and raised his head with pride. “Tonight,” his father concluded, “will see the birth of a new kingdom, and we will make it together. This I promise on my honor as a king.”

There was a moment’s intense silence and then a cheer went up from the Britons in the hall. Full-throated, relieved, excited, spontaneous. The only one who did not roar his approval was Coinmail’s son, who stood beside his mother with a tense and frigid face. Only Crida appeared to notice him, however. All the rest were uproarious in their pleasure and approval.

“I always liked him,” Owain said to Ferris.

Ferris gave his cousin a lopsided grin. “There is no gainsaying him, Owain. This is Arthur’s heir. Not Coinmail, not any Briton, but this Saxon who will give us a kingdom and a prosperity and a peace such as we have not seen in Britain since Badon.”

“And he will give us a half-British heir,” Owain added quickly.

“Yes.” Both men looked at the beautiful, slim silver-haired boy who stood beside his mother and father, looked at each other again, and smiled.

Niniane was so glad to see him. She had rallied all her physical and mental forces while she had to, had driven the Dobunni to see and to accept the inevitable. It had all gone better than she had ever dared to hope. Of course, it had helped immeasurably to discover Owain and the men who had known Ceawlin as Rhys. It had made him seem human to them, not just a petrifying Saxon giant ruthlessly felling all in his path.

She had prepared the way and Ceawlin had done the rest. He knew very well the strength of his own charm, and over the years he had learned to wield it as effectively as any other of his weapons. By the end of the banquet the Dobunni had been eating out of his hand.

She could let down. She could remember how grieved she was, how weary. She could creep, bloodless and cold, into his warmth and his strength. She did not even have the vigor to protest about his allowing Ceowulf to join the fight at Deorham. Ceowulf was not a child any longer. Her children were all growing up, growing away from her. And there would be no more babies to replace them.

She held off telling Ceawlin what the midwife had said. Deep down, she was afraid to tell him. She knew, had always known, that much of his love for her was bound up with her ability to give him children. He had never said such a thing to her, but her woman’s heart knew it was so. Ceawlin’s feelings for his children went deeper than most men’s. His feelings for her were in good part gratitude for those children. If she could give him no more … She did not know what it would mean to him. She was afraid to find out.

In February they went back to Winchester. She had been gone for five months and Fara did not know her. The little girl clung to Auda when Niniane tried to pick her up, and said, “No!”

Auda made light of it, said, “She is only angry because you left her, Mother. She will come around.”

But Niniane was devastated. Her last baby. She left Fara with Auda in Crida’s hall and went back to her own house and her own room and wept bitterly. She was still there, her face visibly tearstained and swollen, when Ceawlin came in to change for the evening’s feast in the great hall. He frowned when he saw her. “What is wrong?”

“Fara did not know me,” she said.

“Nonsense. Of course she knew you.” His voice was rough; impatient, she thought.

“She clung to Auda and stared at me as if I was going to kidnap her.”

“She is punishing you for leaving her,” Ceawlin said. “She will get over it. You must just give her time.”

“That is what Auda said.”

“Auda is right.” Then, “Aren’t you coming to the banquet this night?” She did not see the worried frown that furrowed his brow. She was looking out into the growing darkness, her back turned to him.

“I suppose I must,” she replied listlessly.

“Nan.” He had come up behind her noiselessly. She started a little to hear his voice so close to her ear. “What is wrong? It is not just Fara.

Are you well? You haven’t been yourself at all, not even at Glevum. Are you still grieving because you lost the baby?”

She tried not to sob, failed, sobbed again, and then gave up trying to quell it. She was in his arms, her face pressed into his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he was saying. His hand gently stroked the smooth copper-brown hair on the top of her head. She waited for him to say that she would have another child. He did not.

She clutched the front of his tunic and clenched her hands into fists. “Ceawlin, I have something to tell you.”

“Yes?” This as she paused and drew a deep uneven breath.

It came out in a rush. “When I miscarried of the child, I almost died and the midwife told me that I would never bear another.”

He said nothing, but she was so close that he could not hide the shudder that ran all through him at her words. She shut her eyes tightly. She did not want to see his face.

He did not speak for a long minute. She thought in growing desolation that he was searching for something to say to her. “Nan,” he said at last and, astonishingly, his voice held a note she had never expected to hear. “I am sorry if you are grieved, but I would not be honest if I did not confess myself relieved.”

He meant it. Relief was the note that had sounded, unmistakable, in that well-known, well-loved voice. He was not dismayed at all.

She looked up at him, so accustomed to his height that she knew automatically how far back she would have to tilt her head. “I don’t understand you,” she said.

“That is because you are braver than I,” he replied. There were faint shadows below his deep-colored eyes. “I was so worried for you this last time, so fearful.” He put his hands over her clenched fists and she released the death-hold she had on the fabric of his tunic and turned her fingers to rest within his clasp. “I even tried to get Gereint to trade his two hundred Atrebates for you,” he said.

Her eyes widened, began to go from gray to blue. “Did you really?”

“Yes. But he said that if Coinmail ever came to know how important you were to me, he would never give you back.”

“Gereint was right,” Niniane said.

“He convinced me that he was, and so I did not try it. But I feared for you. Childbirth has been kind to you thus far, Nan, but one cannot outrun fate forever.” His fingers tightened about hers. “I am sorry if you are grieved,” he said again, “but I cannot find it in me but to be glad.”

“I thought… I thought you would be sorry … you have ever been so glad to learn you were to have a new child.”

“I have enough children,” he said with unmistakable sincerity. “It is you I cannot afford to lose.” He gave her the crooked, self-deprecating smile that was one of her favorite of all his expressions. “I am too old a stallion to have to search out a new mare.”

She laughed, sniffled, then laughed again. “Is that all that is amiss with you?” he asked.

“Well … yes.”

“You might have told me sooner.”

“I … My heart was too sore.”

He sighed and drew her close once more. “Mother Crida’s babies if you must,” he said. “From the looks of it, he and Auda should have more than enough to keep you busy.”

Niniane gave a watery chuckle.

“And to think how I have been restraining myself.” He was beginning to sound indignant. “Between thinking you were not feeling well, and fearing that I would get you with child again … and all for naught!” Now he did sound indignant.

He had been remarkably content since their reunion in Glevum, Niniane thought. She had been too unhappy to mark it much, but now that she thought back on things … She bit her lip. The poor love.

He put his hands on her shoulders and held her away so he could look down into her face. She smiled up at him, radiant. “I’ll make it up to you,” she promised.

His eyes took on a glint that made her blood begin to race as it had not done in nigh on a year. “Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

He grinned. “If it were not for this banquet, I would hold you to your word right now. But …”

“But Alric has a new song he has been waiting to sing, and your eorls and thanes are probably already in the hall waiting for us. It is time to get dressed, my lord, not undressed.” And, suiting action to words, she poured some water into the pottery bowl on the bedside table and bent to splash it on her face and eyes.

Behind her he began to strip off his tunic. “Unfortunately, you are right.” His ruffled head emerged and he dropped the tunic on the floor. “What new song?” he asked.

“His best yet. The song of Ceawlin, Bretwalda of England,” she answered. She dried her face and turned to find him staring at her, his face very still. She smiled and added, her husky voice soft with love, “Get dressed if you want to hear it.”

He reached out, tugged a strand of coiled hair that had slipped down onto her shoulder, then reached into the clothes chest for a fresh linen tunic.

Afterword

Britain in the sixth century was truly the Dark Ages. This was the century in which the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms spread across the landscape of Britain; this was the century that saw the transformation of Romano-Celtic Britain into Anglo-Saxon England. Yet we know scarcely anything of how that transformation was accomplished.

Early Anglo-Saxon England was a pagan, preliterate society, and no written records from the time exist. The main source of information we have derives from the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
which does give a list of names and dates detailing the establishment and expansion of the kingdom of Wessex. However, the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
was most probably compiled in the reign of Alfred the Great, some centuries later than the history it purports to report, and so it cannot be considered reliable.

The other source we have for sixth-century Britain is Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation.
The
Ecclesiastical History
also makes mention of the conquest of Wessex; however, Bede lived a century later than the period of Ceawlin and so his facts must necessarily be somewhat suspect.

This lack of definite information is both a problem and a liberation for the author. What I have done is take the names and dates given in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
and from them I have constructed a story of the way it might have been. It does seem certain that there did exist a man named Ceawlin of Wessex. He is named most definitely by the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
and by Bede as one of the few kings on whom the title of Bretwalda, or “ruler of Britain,” was bestowed. Aside from his name, however, and a few untrustworthy dates, nothing is known of this early King of Wessex. I must confess, it was a great deal of fun to invent him.

The social background of the time is almost as obscure as the historical. I have used the descriptions of feasts and halls from
Beowulf
as background for life in the mythical capital of Winchester. And the description of the funeral of Redwold of East Anglia is based on the findings of the Sutton Hoo burials. The rest is imagination.

For anyone interested, the following is the excerpt from the
West Saxon
Annals
of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
on which I have based my story:

530 Cerdic and Cynric took the Isle of Wight and slew a few men at Wihtgaraesbyrg.

534 Cerdic died: and his son Cynric reigned on for twenty-six winters, and they gave the Isle of Wight to their kinsfolk Stuf and Wihtgar.

552 Cynric fought with Britons at the place called Searo byrg and put the Brit-Welsh to flight.

556 Cynric and Ceawlin fought with Britons at Beran byrg.

560 Ceawlin began to reign in Wessex.

568 Ceawlin and Cutha fought with Aethelbert and drove him into Kent, and they slew two chieftains Oslaf and Cneba at Wibbandun.

571 Cuthwulf fought with Brit-Welsh at Bedcanford and took four townships, Lygeanburg and Aegelesburg, Benesington and Egonesham, and the same year he died.

577 Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought with Britons and slew three kings, Coinmail and Condidan and Farinmail, at the place called Deorham, and they took three “chesters,” Gleawanceaster and Cirenceaster and Bathanceaster.

The only change I have made from the
Chronicle
is in the substitution of Crida for Cuthwine as Ceawlin’s companion at the Battle of Deorham. The name of Crida appears linked with Ceawlin’s at a later date and it seemed less complicated not to have to introduce another “Cuth” character into the action.

The battle of Deorham appears to have been historical and it was indeed a watershed in the transformation of Britain into England. Deorham is one of the place names that can be traced to an actual geographical site, and the site is the modern-date Dyrham, six miles north of Bath. For Ceawlin to have taken Bath and Cirencester and Gloucester would mean that for the first time English rule would extend to the western sea. For the first time in Saxon history, land communications between Wales and Dumnonia would be cut off. Apparently, however, Ceawlin did not actually invade Dumnonia. It was not until the next century that the West Saxons began to expand in that direction.