by Joan Wolf
"Perhaps we will have more success in the dark," Edric agreed, and Aethelbert summoned his eorls to give the order.
* * * *
They did not have more success in the dark. Penda's men, all specially picked by Ceawlin for their superiority with a bow, cut down the oncoming East Anglians once again, and the few who did reach the walls were dispatched even more easily because they were more easily seen. Once again Aethelbert recalled his thanes.
"We can mount a siege," Aethelbert said to his council of eorls. "The area around here is rich with food and fodder. We could stay here for months, starve them out." He cast a quick look at Edric. "That is what Ceawlin did to Winchester."
"Yes, but all of Ceawlin's enemies were safely within Winchester," said Edric sourly. "That is not the case with us. Ceawlin himself is at large somewhere. I should not like to find myself caught between him and Penda, my lord."
"No," said one of the eorls, nervously glancing over his shoulder as if Ceawlin might somehow appear out of the dark. Edric gave him a look of amused contempt.
"I think," said Aethelbert sternly, "that we ought to try to join up with our allies from Kent. Chances are, that is where Ceawlin is. This stronghold," and he waved his hand dismissingly at Wyckholm, "is not important. I have come into Wessex to defeat Ceawlin, not to waste my time besieging his eorls."
"Yes, my lord."
"That is right, my lord."
"It is the bastard that we want."
Edric listened to the eager agreement of Aethelbert's council and curled his lip in the dark. He said nothing, however, for it seemed as if Aethelbert was inclined to get them away from Wyckholm, and Edric had spoken true when he said he did not want to find himself caught with Ceawlin on one side of him and Sigurd and Penda on the other.
* * * *
"They are leaving!" The word ran around the walls of Wyckholm and then someone went running to bring the news to Penda. He and Sigurd came out to the gate and watched the retreating war band of East Anglia.
"They are marching south," said Sigurd.
"I had hoped to hold them longer." Penda's hazel eyes were narrowed in the morning sun.
"Ceawlin was counting on them wasting some time in a siege," Sigurd said in sober agreement. "He was hoping to give Cuthwulf time to deal with the Kentish invasion."
"Where is Ceawlin planning to meet up with Cuthwulf?"
"Silchester." Silchester was the Saxon name for Calleva.
Penda cursed, then turned to look at Sigurd. "It is a large war band, larger than I thought Aethelbert could muster." Penda looked worried. "How many men can Ceawlin muster? He has already sent me a hundred."
"And he gave Cuthwulf two hundred to deal with the raids from Kent."
Penda frowned. "Then he will have emptied Winchester. If the other eorls do not respond swiftly to his call, Winchester could be at risk."
"Bertred and Ine had come in with their men before I left," Sigurd said. "And Cynigils and Wuffa had sent word that they were coming."
Penda and Sigurd looked at each other. Then, "If you will remain here with your own men, the ceorls, and the women," Sigurd said, "I will take the men from Winchester and head for Silchester to join up with Ceawlin."
Penda nodded slowly. "Yes, I think you had better. I would come also, but someone must be here lest Aethelbert try to circle back."
Sigurd clapped his brother-by-marriage upon the shoulder. "We'll leave you most of the arrows. You can give your ceorls target practice until we return."
Penda grunted. "If it were not for the women, I would come with you."
"I know," said Sigurd sympathetically. "But there must be someone here to take charge."
"All right," said Penda. "Come along. You had better not delay in getting started."
* * *
Chapter 27
Niniane stood beside Sigurd in front of the women's hall of Wyckholm and watched the thanes line up in the courtyard. "I wish they had stayed at Wyckholm longer," she said for perhaps the fifth time in the last hour.
"I know. So do we all. I would guess that Aethelbert did not want to take the chance of getting caught between Ceawlin and Penda. A wise choice on his part, however inconvenient it may be for us."
Niniane smiled a little wryly. "We should have had someone stand on the walls and pretend to be Ceawlin."
"It would be difficult to find someone who looks like Ceawlin."
She bent her head a little. "That is true." Then, looking up again, her face strained and white, "Sigurd, that army is so big. Ceawlin will never be able to collect that many men."
"He will know what to do, Niniane. Don't worry about Ceawlin."
Her voice was faintly bitter. "I spend my life worrying about Ceawlin. He has put all his trust in the eorls, has given them more power than any king has ever given out of his own keeping before. What if they fail him, Sigurd? What if they don't come to his call?"
"They will." Sigurd's voice was confident. "Ceawlin knows what he is about, Niniane. He has given the eorls such power because he knows that that is the best way to keep his borders safe, to protect his capital and his country. It is not possible for the king to maintain in Winchester the large numbers necessary for such constant readiness. The task of feeding and paying such a war band would be beyond any king's capacity. But if the responsibility is spread among the eorls as well, then it becomes possible to keep large numbers of men in arms. Look how the system has worked thus far. Penda was here in the north with his men to help counter Aethelbert's invasion while Oswald and Cuthwulf and their men are ready to fight in the east. This readiness gives Ceawlin time to gather his own war band together. If he had not had men on the borders—"
"I know, I know," Niniane interrupted. "Ceawlin tells me that all the time. But I worry ..."
"I agree that in other hands such a sharing of power could be dangerous. But not in Ceawlin's hands, Niniane. Nor is it just that the eorls know they owe their lands and their power to him. They will be loyal to him because they love him. It is a knack Ceawlin has, the ability to win the hearts of his men."
Niniane smiled up at him with unshadowed affection. "You love him, Sigurd. I know that well. Your loyalty I have never doubted."
He looked down into her upturned face, and bitterness rose in his heart. Did she never once think that his love was not all for Ceawlin? Did she never remember ... ? "Do you remember those days in Winchester before you and Ceawlin wed?" he heard himself saying. "How you and I would play with Coenburg and the other children?"
Her eyes reflected the blue of the sky. "Yes," she said softly. Then, "How long ago that seems, Sigurd. It is hard to believe that I am the same person as that girl."
"You always put me in mind of a dainty little woodland deer," he said. "So graceful, so shy ..."
She laughed. "Well, I have learned to be a lion, not a deer. I have had to, living with Ceawlin."
He stared at her, an arrested look in his eyes. It was true, he thought, looking at her with suddenly enlightened eyes. She was small and delicate and lovely as ever, but she no longer put him in mind of a dainty woodland deer. The gentle girl who had so stirred his heart in Winchester would never have raised a knife to her child's wet nurse, would never have been able to force Ceawlin into letting her go to Glastonbury against his better judgment.
She wore her hair dressed high this morning, braided and clasped with golden pins on the top of her elegant little head. That head was held proudly on its long slim neck; there was nothing shy or timid about Niniane any longer.
Yet it was the Niniane of today who haunted his dreams. This was the face he hungered for as he lay in bed at night beside the sweet and gentle wife he had taken; not the maiden face of ten years since. It was the woman she had become whom he now loved, the woman who was Ceawlin's wife.
"Sigurd." He stared at her, his heart hammering. "Don't let anything happen to him," she said. "I will feel better if I know you are at his side. He thinks he can do anything."
No, she
never thought of him. She never thought of any man save Ceawlin. The rest of them were merely shadows to her, not flesh and blood at all. "There is little that Ceawlin cannot do, Niniane," he said, and strove to keep his voice free of bitterness. "But I will look out for him, never fear."
She raised up on her toes and softly kissed his cheek. "God go with you, Sigurd," she said.
"Thank you," he answered, and strode off to join his men.
* * * *
It was raining on the day that Ceawlin marched out of Winchester. Besides Cutha, he had with him two other of his father's old eorls, Oswald and Cynigils, and three of the eorls of his own creation, Bertred, Ine, and Wuffa. In his war band marched just over two hundred thanes. He had also sent word to Gereint and was hoping for a British contingent of at least another fifty to meet him at Silchester, which was also the rendezvous he had given to Cuthwulf. His whole plan hinged on Penda being able to hold Aethelbert long enough to give Cuthwulf time to crush the invasion from Kent and march to reinforce Ceawlin with his two hundred men.
They were ten miles south of Silchester when his scouts brought him a report that Aethelbert was no longer in the north, was in fact to the east of them and marching toward Kent. Ceawlin cursed long and fluently. "He is going to try to join up with the war band from Kent. Just what I did not want him to do."
"There are many of them, my lord," the scout, one of Bertred's thanes, reported. "They are heading in the direction of Odinham." Odinham was the name of Ine's stronghold, some ten miles east of the Winchester-Silchester road.
Ceawlin stood in the rain, his hair plastered to his head, water dripping off his eyelashes, and said grimly, "I cannot allow him to come up on Cuthwulf. Cuthwulf does not have the numbers to stand against Aethelbert's full army."
"What shall we do then?" asked Cutha.
"Go after him and stop him," said Ceawlin.
"We have no more men than Cuthwulf does," Cutha reminded him.
"But my men are experienced," Ceawlin replied. "Bertred, give the order to march."
Ceawlin's men all knew how to move quickly. They crossed the sodden countryside, marching along miry lanes with a speed that took Aethelbert, whose men, hunched against the weather, had slogged along at a snail's pace, by surprise in the fields just outside of Odinham. Aethelbert, who had given the order for his men to camp for the night, thinking that Ceawlin was still within the confines of Winchester, was stunned when he realized that the king was upon him. It was growing dark by now and the two armies, camped on opposite sides of a dreary mud-filled beanfield, settled in for the night and made preparations to fight on the morrow.
The West Saxons were outnumbered by almost three to one. "We have experience on our side," Ceawlin said to his eorls as they took shelter from the rain under a hastily rigged tent. "The East Anglians are not tried in the kind of battle we will see tomorrow. We must carry the day early. The longer it goes on, the more will their numbers tell against us."
The following day was the feast of Eostre and the dawn rose gray and bitter. The rain had not ceased to fall all through the night, and the wind was blowing it into the faces of the men of Wessex as they formed up in battle order. Ceawlin had given the right wing to Bertred, the left to Ine, and the center to Cutha. He himself was commanding a flying wing of twenty men, ready to reinforce whatever line should need him most. The rain poured down and the men waited for the enemy on the other side of the field to make the first move.
"My lord!" The shout came from one of the men in Ceawlin's wing. "Listen!" Then they all heard it, the sound of horses' hooves coming fast. Out of the murk they swirled, a troop of horses mired in mud from the furious ride. It was Gereint, and with him were thirty men.
"There are more coming," Gereint said to Ceawlin breathlessly. "But they are on foot."
Ceawlin grinned and threw an arm across Gereint's shoulders. "By all the gods, but it is good to see you!" He looked around him, to Bertred and Ine. "Now that the old fellowship is together again, how can we lose?"
Just then the wind began to shift, driving the rain full into the faces of the men from East Anglia. "Use your arrows first!" Ceawlin shouted, then hastily sent the horses to the rear and deployed Gereint and his men in the center with Cutha.
There was a shout from the far side of the field and then the East Anglians were coming on. Ceawlin's archers delivered a volley into the oncoming enemy mass. Aethelbert's archers replied, but they were half-blinded by the heavy rain and most of their arrows fell short. Once again Ceawlin's archers shot into the close-packed mass of oncoming thanes. The East Anglians, infuriated by their vulnerability, flung themselves upon the enemy host.
Ceawlin's line gave way a little under the weight of the numbers. Up and down the field men hacked and thrust at each other with sword, spear, and battleax. Cutha bore the brunt of it in the center, slashing at the masses of the enemy like a madman until he saw that his line had steadied.
Ine's line on the left was the first to waver and Ceawlin took his detachment of men and plowed into the battle line, laying about him furiously, a silver-haired instrument of destruction and death. When the line stiffened, he withdrew to lead his detachment to another weak spot.
Slowly, as the deadly minutes passed, the numbers of the East Anglians began to tell. Foot by foot, the West Saxons yielded ground. Tirelessly Ceawlin, the most awesome warrior on all the field, hurled himself into gaps in the line to beat down the enemy advance and cheer the hearts of his men. But still his line was being forced back.
Sigurd heard the fight before he actually saw it. The West Saxon line had been forced back almost to the edge of the field when out of the rain the forces from Wyckholm appeared. With a shout they fell upon the right flank of the East Anglians. Ceawlin, seeing the shock of Sigurd's assault, stormed to the front of his own center and rallied his men. The West Saxons, given new heart by the impact of fresh troops, drove forward again. Fighting like maddened dogs, the men of Wessex thrust at the East Anglian line, and it gave. Back and back it went, and then it broke. All of a sudden the East Anglians were in retreat, fleeing toward their horses on the far side of the field.
Ceawlin called his men back, refusing to allow a pursuit that might cost him lives he could ill afford to lose. Then he set about burying his dead. A mile away, on a soaked and muddy cornfield, Aethelbert gathered his men together to lick their wounds. Ceawlin waited until darkness had fallen, then circled around Aethelbert's army and went east, to cut off the East Anglians' access to Kent.
* * * *
"Hammer of Thor, but I was glad to see you!" Ceawlin draped his arm across Sigurd's shoulder as the two of them walked from the cook fire to their sleeping places. It had been full light for some hours; Ceawlin had gotten his army to the ford near Oswald's manor of Gildham, the place where he had decided to make his next stand against Aethelbert. He had not allowed his tired men to stop for even a few hours to rest, so insistent was he on reaching his destination.
"I went first to Silchester," Sigurd said. "It was a good thing you thought to send a man to the city with messages."
"I sent him for Gereint. I did not know you would be coming." Ceawlin's hand tightened momentarily. "I might have known you would not fail me."
"We repulsed Aethelbert from Wyckholm too easily. He saw he could not take it and so he went on." Ceawlin could feel Sigurd's shoulders move in a shrug. "We should have dissembled our strength."
"What you did was better." Ceawlin grinned, his teeth showing very white in his dirty face. "Now we are between Aethelbert and Kent and I anticipate reinforcements from Cuthwulf momentarily. Things could not be better, Sigurd. And it is thanks to your timely rescue, my friend."
Ceawlin was always generous in sharing credit. It was one of the things that made him so popular with his men. "What would you have done had I not arrived?" Sigurd asked curiously.
"I told the eorls beforehand that if I called a retreat they were to take their men and run like hounds out of hell for the gates of O
dinham manor. Ine had sent earlier to make sure they would be opened for us. But if we had to do that, we would leave free passage for Aethelbert to head for Kent." Ceawlin ran a hand through his filthy hair. "This is much better," he said with satisfaction. "Now the command of the war has passed to me."
The men of Ceawlin's war band slept soundly on the cold and muddy ground near Gild Ford and waited for news from Kent. It came the following afternoon, with the arrival of Cuthwulf and his war band of nearly two hundred: his own thanes and the thanes Ceawlin had given him from Winchester. Sigurd took one look at his brother's exuberant face and knew that Cuthwulf had been successful.
"It was a war band, all right," Cuthwulf told Ceawlin and the rest of the eorls as they sat around a fire trying to keep warm. "The leaders were Aethelbert's kinsmen, Oslaf and Cnebba. They had rounded up a huge herd of cattle by the time I came up with them at Wibbandun." Cuthwulf's teeth flashed in the darkness of his beard. "We beat them into the ground," he boasted. "The two eorls are dead along with half of their men. The rest of them went running back to Kent."
"A good job, Cuthwulf," said Ceawlin. "Well done." Then, "What have you done with the cattle?"
A furtive look passed over Cuthwulf's face. "Oh," he said, and waved his hand, "we disposed of them."
"How?" said the king.
Cuthwulf's jaw jutted forward. "I left them under the guard of some of my men."
"They must be returned to their original owners."
"Those cattle are mine!" said Cuthwulf. "My booty. I promised them to my men."
"They are not yours, either to keep or to promise. Those cattle belong to the vils and farms from which they were stolen by the Kentmen. And you will return them."
Cuthwulf glared at Ceawlin. The king's eyes were as brilliant a turquoise as Sigurd had ever seen them. "Cuthwulf," said Sigurd quietly, "Ceawlin is right. If the cattle had come from Kent, then they would be booty. But they belong to West Saxons, to our own people."
