Born of the Sun

by Joan Wolf

  The two boys' faces were blazing. "At last!" Cerdic said.

  "Can Sigurd be telling the truth, Mother? Will Cutha allow Father to gather a war band?"

  "I think so," Niniane replied slowly, thinking as she spoke. "Sigurd is right when he says it must come to a battle. Witgar cannot rule unless he proves himself on the battlefield. The eorls will not follow him."

  "Father has never been beaten in battle," Cerdic said proudly.

  But Crida knew the arithmetic. "Cutha has Father's men locked up here in Winchester. The eorls have only thirty or forty thanes each. That means Father will be able to command fewer than two hundred men. Cutha must have four hundred, at least." He looked at his mother, his silvery brows drawn together in worry.

  "Your father has won with the odds against him before, my son," Niniane said with more confidence than she felt. "There is no greater warrior in England than Ceawlin. We must trust him to know what to do."

  "Hammer of Thor!" said Cerdic, using Ceawlin's favorite oath. "If only I could be at his side. I am so useless sitting here in Winchester."

  "Waiting is ever the hardest part of any endeavor, Cerdic," Niniane said with a sigh. "Best to learn that now, while you are young."

  "Father needs all the men he can get," the prince said.

  Niniane closed her eyes. She had longed for so many months to hear news of him, but now that she had ... A strong young arm went around her shoulders. "It will be all right, Mother," Crida's voice said in her ear. She looked up into his eyes, so like Ceawlin's own. He had grown these last months, she thought. He was inches taller than she. "You look pale," he said to her now. "Come and sit down."

  "Yes," she said. "I think I will."

  She was sleepless in the night, tossing restlessly on the narrow bed that had belonged to Crida, and before him to Ceawlin. Crida had moved into Cerdic's room when Niniane came back to Winchester. She had not ever slept well in this windowless room, in this narrow lonely bed, but tonight she could not sleep at all. Consequently, when the door to her room opened softly, she sat up at once.

  "Who is it?" she asked.

  "Crida."

  Niniane reached for the tinder on the table beside her bed. "Come in, Crida," she said, and lit a candle.

  He closed the door behind him and came across the floor. "I can't find Cerdic," he said in a low voice. "I woke up a half-hour ago and he was gone."

  "Gone? How can he be gone?" Cutha posted a guard at the door of the princes' hall every night.

  "The guard is asleep," Crida said. "I think he is drunk."

  "Dear God." Niniane stared up at her second son. "Where can he gave gone, Crida?"

  "I think he may be trying to get out of Winchester, Mother. He has been fretting about his captivity, and now that he knows where to go to find Father ..."

  "He can't do that!" Niniane got out of bed and clutched Crida's arm. "He would not have gone without telling you!"

  "He knew I would try to dissuade him." Crida's face in the flickering candlelight did not look young at all. "We have talked of this before. Gods, Mother. What shall we do?"

  "We cannot do anything," Niniane said. She sat down again on the bed, heavily. "Where did you look?"

  "The stables. The gates. All is quiet. I saw no sign of Cerdic."

  "He cannot possibly get out of Winchester," Niniane said.

  "Not by horse. But suppose he tries to go over the wall?"

  "There are guards on the walls." She pushed her tangled hair off her face. '"If he tries it, the guards will simply catch him and return him to us. Or he will get away and go to your father. One or the other."

  "Yes," Crida said slowly. "I suppose you are right. One or the other." They did not look at each other.

  "No one saw him leave?" Niniane asked after a minute, referring to the servants who slept on benches in the main part of the hall.

  "Everyone is asleep."

  "Then we must just wait, Crida," Niniane said. "Perhaps he will see it is impossible and come back himself."

  "That is so." Crida sounded more hopeful. "I'm sorry, Mother, I should not have awakened you. But I did not know what I should do ..."

  "I was not asleep," she said. "Come. The two of us will wait together in your room. I'll wager Cerdic returns within the hour."

  It was but ten minutes after Crida awakened Niniane that a shadowy figure appeared from out of nowhere to take a flying leap at the stockade wall on the south side of the enclave, behind Bertred's hall. The guard on duty there was yawning and looking up at the three-quarter moon, trying to assess the time, when his attention was caught by the noise. He was usually posted farther down the wall but had moved his position this night simply for a change. He had had guard duty all week and was heartily bored with it.

  "Who is there?" he called sharply, and began to run toward the figure lurking on the sentry walk in the shadow of the wall. There was no answer, and the figure began to climb over the wall. The sentry saw fingers holding on to the top of the stockade, then heard the thud as the escapee landed on the hard ground below. The sentry fitted a bow into his arrow with steady fingers and shouted again. The figure, whose hair shone blond in the moonlight, never turned, but began to run toward the fields. He looked to be limping; it was a long drop from the wall to the ground. The sentry raised his bow, aimed, and shot. The figure fell forward onto his face and lay still, arms spread-eagled at its sides.

  A few other thanes came running up. "What is it?" they asked.

  "I don't know. Someone tried to get over the wall. I shot him."

  A thane shouted for help and then they set a ladder over the wall and climbed down. They broke off the arrow embedded in the center of the back, turned the figure over, and for the first time saw the face of Ceawlin's eldest son. The sentry had shot true. Cerdic was dead.

  It was Cutha who brought the news to Niniane. Sigurd refused to do it. Cutha woke the guard at the door of the princes' hall by the simple expedient of kicking him in the stomach. After a brief interchange with the retching guard, he entered the hall, to find Niniane and Crida waiting for him. Niniane had pulled a cloak over her sleeping gown and her hair hung in a tangle of brown and bronze to her waist. She was barefoot. In the dim light of the candle perched on the edge of the hearthplace, Cutha thought that she looked scarcely older than the boy who was standing beside her. Crida's hair too was tousled and he was wearing only a pair of linen trousers. His young chest and shoulders were more muscled than Cutha would have thought.

  These impressions flitted through the eorl's mind in the brief moment's silence before Niniane said, "What is it?"

  "Do you know where Cerdic is, Niniane?" he asked, not knowing how to begin.

  "No. Crida came to tell me just a short while ago that Cerdic was not in his bed. Where is he, Cutha? What has happened?"

  "He gave wine to the guard," Cutha said, trying to delay the moment when he would have to tell her. "That is how he got out of the princes' hall."

  "Where is he?"

  "Niniane ..." He looked away from Cerdic's mother to Crida. In this light the boy looked uncannily like his father. Cutha found himself remembering suddenly, vividly, the seventeen-year-old who had come to him for help when Cynric died. And now Ceawlin's son was dead. Ceawlin's son for his son. But he had not wanted this. Standing here in the hall, watching the dawning understanding on Crida's young face, Cutha knew he had not wanted this.

  "Cerdic is dead," he said, his voice harsh with suppressed feeling.

  The two in front of him did not move. Did not speak.

  "He tried to climb over the wall," Cutha went on, the words coming with more and more difficulty. "It was dark and the sentry did not know who it was. He shot. Cerdic was dead when they got to him."

  "I don't believe it," Niniane said. "It can't be true."

  "Niniane, the gods know I wish it were not true," said Cutha. "But it is."

  In the background there was the noise of children, and female voices hushing them. "Can I see him?" Crida ask
ed.

  "I had them bring the body to the women's hall. I did not think you would want it here ... with the children ..."

  Niniane moved forward, like a sleepwalker who sees but does not see. "I will come," she said. Crida hastened to her side and together the two of them left the princes' hall and crossed the courtyard in the light of the moon that Cerdic would see no more.

  * * *

  Chapter 35

  It was Crida who conducted the funeral rite for Cerdic. At first Niniane had refused, thinking he was too young, that it would be too much for him, but then she saw that it would comfort the boy to be the one to do this for his brother, and so she relented. It would mean something to Ceawlin also, she thought, that it was Crida who officiated at Cerdic's burial.

  So Crida said the prayer of dedication and killed the ox that Cutha had provided to honor Cerdic's rank. There was a small gathering in the temple: Crida, Ceowulf, who had begged and begged his mother to allow him to attend, Alric, and a handful of the younger thanes with whom Cerdic had been friends. Sigurd did not show his face.

  Crida went faultlessly through the ceremonies, and he and Ceowulf kept watch by Cerdic's body through the night. Ceowulf fell asleep but Crida did not. He sat motionless on the king's bench, his eyes on the still face of his dead brother, his composed face giving no hint of the confusion within.

  Where was Cerdic now? he wondered. His mother had told him Cerdic was in heaven, with her God, who was a Father to all. He would like to believe that. He could not bear to think of Cerdic anywhere cold or bleak or dim. Not Cerdic, who had been so full of joy, so full of life. His father did not believe as his mother did, but Crida was not so sure. There must be something good after this life for those who were pure of heart, he thought almost desperately, his eyes on the unrevealing face of his brother. It only made sense to believe that there was something for them after this life. He was still sitting in the same position hours later when Ceowulf awakened.

  "Crida?" The younger boy's voice was thick with sleep.

  "Yes."

  "I ... I fell asleep. I'm sorry."

  "That is all right." Crida's voice sounded distant, impersonal.

  The two boys were alone in the temple; the priests had gone to prepare for the trek to the burial site. The candles had all burned down. The smell of the cooked oxen from the funeral banquet lingered in the air. Ceowulf walked hesitatingly to stand beside his brother's dead body. He looked at Crida, however, not at Cerdic, as he asked, "What do we do now?"

  "The priests and Alric should be coming soon," Crida answered. "We will take Cerdic to the burial grounds and put him in the earth."

  "Oh." At last Ceowulf looked at Cerdic's quiet face. "Crida ..."he said, his eyes on Cerdic, his voice choked with emotion, "Crida, I cannot believe that we will never see him again."

  Crida's face clenched. "Ceowulf, don't..." But the younger boy had begun to cry, great sobbing gulps that racked his whole body.

  Crida got to his feet. He wanted to run, to get away from the tearing sorrow he heard in his brother's voice. He couldn't let Ceowulf break him down, he had to get through the funeral. Ceowulf lifted his grief-stricken face. "Crida ..." Crida hesitated. Ceowulf was only ten. He could not leave him like this. He held out his arms and the younger boy, as tall as he but not as strong, came stumbling to him. Holding Ceowulf, Crida too began to cry. Ceowulf's arms came around his shoulders and the two brothers, who in the happy days of the past had so often been at odds, stood together in their sorrow and comforted each other.

  The funeral procession was small. Nola walked with Niniane, while Alric accompanied Crida and Ceowulf. There were the marks of tears on the boys' faces and on Alric's as well. Nola sobbed uncontrollably as the grave goods were dedicated and Cerdic's body lowered into the grave.

  I cannot believe this is happening ... I cannot believe this is happening ... It was the one thought that kept running over and over again in Niniane's brain. Yesterday at this time, Cerdic had been alive. Today he was dead. They were burying him.

  Crida's voice was steady as he made the dedications, but Niniane could see the effort it was taking him to keep it thus. I cannot cry, she thought. It will upset the boys if I cry; they will not be able to get through this. I cannot cry.

  She did not even feel like crying. She was numb. I cannot believe this is happening, she thought. I cannot believe this is happening.

  * * * *

  Cutha had actually been relieved to hear news of Ceawlin. It was necessary to put the sovereignty of Wessex to the test of the battlefield; that lesson had become crystal clear to him during the course of the last few months. And while he was surprised, and disappointed, to learn that Penda had declared for Ceawlin, still Cutha thought he had reason to be sanguine. He had his own men and Aethelbert's men here with him in Winchester. Cynigils had forty men of his own at his manor of Alford, some fifteen miles to Winchester's east. Sigurd had thirty thanes at Wokham. Witgar was in the south with a strong following of thanes from Wight. And Cutha was holding the core of Ceawlin's men captive right here in Winchester. The numbers were most definitely on Cutha's side.

  Cutha asked Sigurd to send for his men and Sigurd did so, seizing the excuse to leave Winchester with a look upon his face that suggested he was riding out of hell. Sigurd had taken the death of Cerdic very hard. Cutha had once tried to say that Fate had taken Cerdic in vengeance for Cuthwulf, but Sigurd had given him such a look that Cutha had dropped the subject and never brought it up again.

  Sigurd returned to Winchester with the further news that Ine had joined Ceawlin at Wyckholm. Cutha contemplated sending a war band to Romsey to keep Bertred out of the fray, but in the end did not. Let the eorls make their own decisions, he thought. Even if they all went with Ceawlin, their numbers would not be able to make up the half of his. Sigurd had left horsemen stationed at Wokham and Silchester to keep watch on the roads south from Wyckholm. Cutha sat with his men in Winchester and waited; he had decided to let Ceawlin make the first move.

  * * * *

  In October Ceawlin moved to Silchester. He had almost a hundred and fifty men with him, the thanes and ceorls of Penda and Ine and a contingent of Atrebates. Bertred and Wuffa had sent word that they would join the king in Silchester within the week. They too would be bringing their ceorls.

  Wokham was fifteen miles to the east of Silchester, but Ceawlin's scouts had informed him that Sigurd had moved his thanes to Winchester, and so the king's forces took possession of the city with confidence. The scouts that Sigurd had left posted in Silchester counted the number of Ceawlin's men and rode south to tell their eorl.

  "Bertred and Wuffa must be there," Cutha said when he heard the news from Sigurd. "There is no way Ceawlin could have collected that number of men without them."

  Sigurd shrugged. "Speak to the scouts yourself if you like. They are trustworthy men, Father. They know Bertred and Wuffa. They know their thanes. If my men say they are not in Silchester, you may be sure that they are not."

  "But where did Ceawlin get that many men?"

  "I don't know," Sigurd said. "But he has them. And if I know Bertred and Wuffa, he will shortly have more."

  Sure enough, the following week brought the unwelcome news that the eorls Bertred and Wuffa had joined Ceawlin at Silchester with some hundred and twenty more men. Finally the truth dawned on Cutha. "He has armed the coerls," he said to Aethelbert and Sigurd as they sat around Ceawlin's table in the king's hall. "That is how he has gotten the men. Sword of Woden, he has armed the ceorls!"

  "Such a simple solution," Sigurd said with a laugh. "So simple that it would only occur to Ceawlin to do it."

  "This is not a laughing matter," Cutha said angrily. "He has a war band of close on three hundred men!"

  "We have more," Aethelbert said. "And if we want to be safe, then we can arm our ceorls too."

  "The Winchester ceorls owe allegiance to Ceawlin," Sigurd pointed out.

  "They owe allegiance to whatever king holds Winchester,"
Aethelbert answered, fire in his eyes. "If we command them to fight for us, then they will fight."

  "We can give them arms," Cutha said grimly. "But once the battle begins, can we count on for whom they would fight?" There was a devastating silence. "Ceawlin is well-liked," Cutha added at last. "I would not trust my back to his ceorls."

  "We are still a hundred men stronger than he," said Aethelbert.

  "That is so." Cutha squared his shoulders. He had aged these last months, Sigurd thought. He was beginning to look like an old man. "And ceorls do not know how to fight. We have the advantage yet." He turned to look at Aethelbert, "We must not let Ceawlin frighten us into doing anything foolish."

  Aethelbert jutted his jaw forward. "Ceawlin does not frighten me!"

  "Then he should," Sigurd said. "I have fought beside him often enough. Ceawlin has never been defeated. You have seen him in battle, both of you. He is matchless."

  Cutha was quick to point out to his son, "You have never been defeated either."

  Sigurd smiled crookedly. "But you see, I have always had Ceawlin to tell me what to do."

  Aethelbert slammed his hand upon the table. "I will hear no talk of defeat!" he shouted. He got to his feet. "Let him come, this warrior-hero, and I shall show him what defeat means!" He strode out of the room, shoulders hunched forward, eyes on the ground. Cutha and Sigurd watched him go; then Sigurd put a hand upon the table and pushed himself to his feet. "You had better send immediately to Cynigils and Witgar," he advised his father. "It would be wise to gather our forces without delay."

  Cutha nodded. "I will be in the great hall if you want me," Sigurd added before he too left the room.

  He went not to the great hall, however, but sought out Niniane. He had not had private speech with her since the death of Cerdic, but now he forced his unwilling feet to take the path to the princes' hall.

  Silence fell when Sigurd came in the door. He had the distinct impression that everyone in the room had taken a step backward and the iron bands that seemed to be constricting his chest squeezed tighter. Then Crida was coming forward to meet him.