by Joan Wolf
The stallion snorted and pawed the ground once more. "He's jealous," said Ceawlin, and pushed up to his knees. "There's a little patch of grass over there," he said. "I'll let him graze. That will take his mind off it."
Niniane straightened her clothes and her hair as Ceawlin went to take care of the horses. She was sitting with her back against a tree, looking dreamily at the swiftly moving stream, when he came back to her. "The grass will occupy them for a bit," he said, and lay down with his head in her lap.
Niniane looked down at him, at the tousled silver-blond hair, the long dark gold lashes and short silver beard; at the thin, mobile mouth; at the scar from the cut she had sewn for him, faint and white beside his left eye. Lying there, with his head resting so trustingly in her lap, he looked scarcely older than the boy she had first come to Bryn Atha with fifteen years before. Only the beard was different. She ran her fingers through his thick, silky hair. He looked up at her lazily and said, "That was what I brought you to Bryn Atha for. Last night I thought I was making love to a corpse."
"I was asleep," she said.
"I noticed."
She felt a flash of anger. "Then you should have let me be." She almost said it, but then held her tongue. She had long since learned that it was far easier for her to accommodate Ceawlin sexually than it was to put him off. His ill temper the following day was not worth the extra sleep she might have gained. But he would be furious if she told him that; she would wound his pride. She smoothed his hair from his temple and her brief anger died. She did not want to quarrel with him. She was too happy. She touched her lips to his forehead. "I have a feeling that within the year you will be getting your daughter," she said.
He captured her hand and held it to his lips. "That would be nice."
They stayed thus until the horses grazed down the patch of grass, and then they returned to the villa. Ten days later a thane came galloping in to tell them that Cutha, Witgar, and Aethelbert had taken Winchester.
* * *
Chapter 32
Sigurd had passed a miserable winter worrying over what his father would do and avoiding Ceawlin. He knew he could not look into Ceawlin's eyes while the knowledge of Cutha's planned treachery burned like acid in his heart, and so whenever it seemed that the king might come to Wokham, Sigurd had left. The only thought that gave him any consolation over the course of the winter was his belief that Cutha's plans would come to naught. Wight did not have the manpower to attack successfully the King of Wessex.
April came and Sigurd saw his fields planted, his fences mended, his roofs repaired. He conducted practice drills with his thanes in all the arts of weaponry. He began to teach his six-year-old son to ride.
Toward the end of the month several of his thanes returned to Wokham from Venta with the news that the king and queen had gone to Bryn Atha to visit the dying Naille. Sigurd had been at the stables when the men rode in and, after hearing their news, the eorl saddled a horse and rode out across the richly planted fields alone.
It was evening by now, and the ceorls were all at home eating their suppers. The fields were empty save for the birds. The air seemed strangely quiet and full of peace.
So Niniane and Ceawlin were at Bryn Atha. Sigurd's thoughts, like those of the two he was thinking of, flew back in years to that time fifteen years before when he had first come to join Ceawlin in the land of the Atrebates. He remembered vividly now his first sight of Niniane as he had ridden into the Roman courtyard of Bryn Atha. She had been drying her hair in the sun, he remembered, and in his mind's eye he saw once again its beautiful color, gold and bronze and warm brown, glistening in the bright June sun.
The picture of her was so clear in his mind that for a moment it seemed as if she were there before him in the field. He could feel her presence, smell the sweetness of her hair ... and all of a sudden it came on him that it was not so terrible a thing after all, this love of his for Niniane. It was as if all the evil, hateful dreams that had tortured his nights for years had finally been vanquished, leaving him only the pure sweet first love of his youth. It was as if bondage chains had broken, as if he had stepped out from the dank murk of shadow into the warmth and health of the sun.
He halted his horse and looked up. The evening sky was filled with the late sun's golden glow; he felt it in his heart. As he sat there wrapped in the peace and tranquility of the warm evening, a shout came from behind him. He wheeled his horse and saw a man galloping madly toward him across the fields, a man whom Sigurd recognized as belonging to his father. Sigurd felt the blood began to thump in his neck. The man pulled his horse up so abruptly that he was rocked forward onto its neck.
"My lord!" Cutha's thane said breathlessly when he had righted himself and got the stallion under control. "I bear an urgent message to you from your father!"
"Yes," said Sigurd, and his heart beat strangely and unsteadily. "What have you to tell me?"
"My lord ..." Even though they were alone, the man lowered his voice. "Your father the eorl, the King of Wight, and the King of East Anglia have taken the royal enclave of Winchester."
Sigurd closed his eyes. This time, he knew, the sword had truly fallen.
* * * *
"The children." It was all Niniane could say, could think. Ceawlin looked at her ashen face and reached out to grip her arm.
"The children will be all right, Nan. So long as I am free, Cutha will have naught to gain by harming my heirs."
The pain of his grip helped her to collect herself. She nodded to show him she was all right, then went to sit on one of the old wicker chairs, as her legs were trembling so much she did not think they would hold her. She sat there shivering, trying desperately to get her panic under control while on the other side of the room Ceawlin issued orders to his men. Within fifteen minutes the thanes were galloping out of Bryn Atha, bearing messages from the king to his eorls.
The news had been brought by two of Ceawlin's hall thanes who had been in Venta when the stockade of Winchester was taken. "There were at least three hundred men, my lord," one of them told Ceawlin. "We had no word of their coming until they were upon us. Our men closed the gate, but there was no time to man the walls properly."
The men had no idea what had happened to Ceawlin's hall thanes or to the princes who were caught within the royal enclave. They had ridden out of Venta almost immediately to bring word to the king of the invasion.
"What will you do?" Niniane asked her husband when the two messengers had gone to the kitchen for food and she and Ceawlin were alone.
"Gather my own men," Ceawlin replied. "Cutha and Aethelbert will not be content merely to hold Winchester. They will want to defeat me on the battlefield; they will have to defeat me on the battlefield. So long as I am alive, they will never have peace in Wessex."
So long as 1 am alive. Dear God, dear God, dear God. Niniane bit her lip so hard she drew blood. "Ceawlin ... Ceawlin, whom can you count on for men?"
He looked at her as she sat huddled on her chair, white and desperate. "It is not so bad as it might have been, Nan," he said. "The gods know, I had not expected this." His voice was bitter. "Cutha and Witgar, yes. But Cutha and Guthfrid!" His laugh was as bitter as his voice. "They might have caught me had I been in Winchester. It was the sheerest good fortune that I was not."
He had not answered her question. "Ceawlin," she said, "whom have you sent to?"
"I have sent to Sigurd," he answered. Her heart jumped with fright at his words, but Ceawlin looked perfectly confident, perfectly normal. "And to Penda and Bertred and Ine and Wuffa," he continued. "They are to meet me in Silchester in two days' time." He bent down to kiss her mouth, and tasted blood from her bitten lip. "It will be all right," he said to her, and she knew from his brilliant eyes that he was looking forward to the challenge. "I have naught to fear from Cutha on the battlefield. He thinks he is a great war leader but I know differently. Sigurd has ever been the only true warrior in Cutha's family, Nan."
She said none of the things she was
thinking, but instead forced herself to smile. "You have never lost a battle," she said.
"And I certainly do not intend to start losing battles now." He ran a hand through his hair and looked around the room. "Hammer of Thor," he said. "Little did I think, when I sat here the other night planning activities to bring some excitement into the lives of my thanes, that fate would take such a hand as this!"
* * * *
Gereint and a contingent of armed Britons rode into Bryn Atha the following afternoon. The next day they would all march to Silchester to join up with the forces of Sigurd, Penda, Bertred, Ine, and Wuffa. Niniane was to stay at Bryn Atha until Ceawlin sent her word.
They were having dinner, the king, queen, Gereint, Ferris, and others of Ceawlin's original British followers in the dining room, the rest in the thanes' quarters, when a horseman came galloping in through the gates of Bryn Atha. Ceawlin and the others were already standing when the man was escorted into the dining room by a white-faced Budd.
The dirt- and sweat-covered horseman threw himself on his knees before Ceawlin. "My lord! My lord! There is a war band coming against you! By now they are but six miles away!"
Ceawlin's face was hard as flint. "Who are you?" he asked.
"I know him, my lord," Gereint answered. "He is the blacksmith from Silchester."
"How do you know they are not coming to join me?" Ceawlin demanded of the man.
"My lord, they carry the standard of the red boar."
Of late years it had become a fashion for each West Saxon eorl to choose an insignia to distinguish his thanes from the thanes of the other eorls and the king. Ceawlin's insignia was the white horse, Cutha's the red boar. "Is it Cutha?" Ceawlin demanded. "Did they come by the road from Winchester?"
"No, my lord. They did not come from Winchester. They came from the east."
I cannot believe it, Ceawlin thought. I will not believe it. He turned to Gereint. "Send a horseman out to verify this story."
"I'll go myself," said Gereint, and ran from the room.
"My lord ..."It was Ferris, white-faced with fear.
Ceawlin gestured impatiently. "We can do nothing until we discover who it is," he said. Then, "Go and tell the rest of your men what is happening."
The room cleared, leaving Ceawlin alone with his wife. He did not look at her, but went to the window and stared out into the courtyard, watching as Gereint galloped out through the gates.
There was only one eorl whose manor was directly to the east of Silchester. Flying the banner of the red boar. He could not believe it.
"It is Sigurd," said Niniane behind him.
He drew a ragged, shallow breath. "Yes. It can be no one else."
"Ceawlin ... what shall we do?"
He closed his eyes. Never in all his life had he been so frightened. My sons, he thought. My boys. Once I am dead, Cutha will kill them. He will have to kill them. They are my heirs. He was frozen, paralyzed with fear. He couldn't think.
"Can we close the gates of Bryn Atha?" Niniane was asking. "Can we withstand a siege?"
"No." He rocked his head from side to side, feeling the cool glass of the windowpane under his forehead. The doors of the thanes' quarters opened and the courtyard was suddenly filled with men, bows and swords in hand.
My loyal Britons, Ceawlin thought. Cutha will deal hardly with them too.
"A siege would mean either capture or death," Ceawlin said. "That is the last thing we should do."
"Then you must get away." Her voice was at his side now, and finally he turned his head to look at her. "You must save yourself, Ceawlin. Cutha has ... he has our children."
The face at his shoulder was white and pinched-looking; there was a fine beading of sweat on her upper lip. But her large blue-gray eyes were full of trust that he would know what to do. "They have blocked the east and the south," she said. "Can you go north, to Penda?"
"Have you forgotten, Nan? Penda is Cutha's son-by-marriage."
Now fear crept into her eyes. "Dear God. I had forgotten. Ceawlin ... do you think perhaps Sigurd is coming to join you after all?"
"No. He would not be flying the banner of the red boar if he were." It was like a blow at the heart even to think of what Sigurd was doing, what Sigurd must be feeling. "He did it to warn me, Nan. He came at his father's behest, but he is flying that miserable banner to give me a chance."
"What chance?" cried Niniane. "He has got you trapped, Ceawlin. Oh, my God ..." and she pressed her knuckles to her mouth to force herself to stop talking.
He drew another breath, this one deep and steady. "You are right when you say I must get away. Too many lives would be forfeit should Cutha once get his hands on me. And there is only one way to go, Nan. Into British territory. To Corinium."
Niniane thought instantly of Coinmail. "No. You would not be safe, Ceawlin. Not in Corinium. It is under the control of the Dobunni."
"I will not be safe if I go as a Saxon. But what if I go as a Briton?"
Her eyes widened as she took this thought in.
"I can pass as British with my speech," he said.
"Yes. Yes, you can."
"Well, then," and he gave her a crooked grin. "Perhaps you had better find your father's old razor. And a scissors to cut my hair."
By the time Gereint galloped back to Bryn Atha with confirmation of what they already knew, Ceawlin had sent most of the British back to their farms.
"I am riding for Corinium," Ceawlin said to Gereint. "Sigurd will not harm the Atrebates, I am certain of that. Nor is Cutha likely to attempt any forays until he knows I am safely dead."
Gereint stared at his king. Ceawlin's fair hair was now as short as his own, and he was as cleanly shaven. "I see," he said slowly. "You will pretend to be British?"
"Yes."
"I am coming with you."
Ceawlin clapped him on the shoulder. "I won't deny I'd find your company helpful."
"If Coinmail ever discovers you are in his territory," Gereint said grimly, "he will be as merciless as Cutha."
Ceawlin shrugged. "One danger at a time, please. Let us get away from Bryn Atha before I begin to worry about Coinmail."
"Yes," said Niniane urgently. "Do not delay any longer!"
"I'll get the horses," said Gereint.
"Ferris is insisting he come also," said Ceawlin, and Gereint, on his way to the door, looked over his shoulder and grinned.
Ceawlin and Niniane were alone. He put his hands on her shoulders. "I hate to leave you like this, Nan, but you cannot come with me."
"I know." She looked up at him bravely. "It will be better for the boys if I am with them. They must be so frightened ..." She rubbed her palm along his newly shaven jaw. "Sigurd will not harm me," she said.
"I know." The look he gave her was strange. "Sigurd would never harm you," he said.
"Once you get away ... then what?"
He put his hand over hers and moved it to his mouth. "I don't know, shall have to see. Be patient, Nan. Be patient and wait. I shall come for you. Be sure of that."
"I know." She raised up to cling around his neck. He held her against him, feeling the slenderness of her, and hoped suddenly, desperately, that she was not in fact carrying his daughter. It was going to be hard enough for her without having to face childbirth as well.
"I must go," he said, and she released him. Gereint and Ferris were in the courtyard with the horses.
"God keep you, my love," she said. He nodded and was gone.
* * * *
When Sigurd's war band marched into Bryn Atha an hour later, the only people they found were the queen and the villa servants. Niniane was standing in the courtyard directly before the house, and when Sigurd's horse stopped in front of her, she said clearly, "The king is not here." Sigurd's back was to his men and so Niniane was the only one to see the flare of wild relief in the eorl's gray eyes.
"Where has he gone?" It was a man Niniane recognized as Cutha's chief thane who now pushed his horse forward to stand beside Sigurd.
>
Niniane smiled with genuine amusement. "Do you expect me to tell you?"
The man's hard face tightened and he turned to Sigurd. "I told you, my lord, not to fly the red boar. Had we come under your own banner, we would have caught him."
Sigurd's gray eyes were cold. "If I am fighting for my father, then it is right that I fly my father's banner. Ceawlin has probably gone north, to Penda. There is nothing more for us to do here."
"Sigurd," said Niniane urgently, "what of my sons?"
His eyes turned toward her, though he looked not at her face but at a point somewhere to the left of it. "Your sons are safe, Niniane. I go now to Winchester myself. No harm will come to them, I promise you that."
"Take me with you," she said.
At that he did not look at her. "I don't think—" he was beginning, when Cutha's thane, whose name was Harold, cut in.
"Of course we will take you. Ceawlin's wife! Did you think we would leave you free, my lady?" His laugh was harsh and brutal.
Niniane ignored him, kept her eyes on Sigurd. "I want to be with my children," she said.
He hesitated, then nodded, turned, and said to one of his foot thanes abruptly, "Go saddle a horse for the queen. We leave Bryn Atha immediately for Winchester."
* * * *
Riding south with the war band reminded Niniane of the first time she had come to Winchester as Cynric's prize of war. But the fear she had felt then seemed to her as nothing compared with the fear she felt now. Then she had been afraid for herself. Now her fear was for those she loved more than her own life.
Ceawlin had been certain that the boys would be safe so long as he lived. Niniane, thinking things out for herself, thought he was right so far as Cutha was concerned. It would gain Cutha nothing to kill Ceawlin's sons so long as the king was alive to get more. But would Guthfrid be so rational? Would not Guthfrid demand her vengeance? Ceawlin's sons for Edwin?
Guthfrid was not yet in Winchester; that she had learned from Sigurd. And Sigurd would never permit harm to befall Ceawlin's sons. He had promised her.... Desperately Niniane clung to that hope as the walls of Winchester rose before her.
