Born of the Sun (28 page)

Coinmail’s skin was very white against the red of his hair. “I will never accept what you say, Naille. Never. As long as breath is in me, I shall fight them. I am a Briton. Never will I bow my head to a Saxon king.”

“This Saxon king will have a British queen,” said Alanna suddenly. “And the king who follows Ceawlin will be your sister’s son, with royal Atrebates blood running through his veins.
That is
the way we will conquer the Saxons, Coinmail. Not by the sword.”

“The men who summoned me home do not agree with you,” Coinmail said.

“The men who summoned you home number but a handful.” It was Gereint coming in the door. He was very dirty from cleaning the mud off the horses. “The rest of us are for Ceawlin.”

Coinmail’s eyes went from Gereint’s defiant young face back to Niniane. “You were right about one thing, my sister,” he said at last. “I made a mistake when I left Bryn Atha.”

Niniane felt an unexpected stab of pity. He was, after all, her brother; and he looked so alone. “Come home with me, Coinmail,” she said impulsively, and ignored Naille’s look of horror. “Come home with me and meet Ceawlin. See my baby. We are one family, after all. Let us be friends.”

His eyes searched hers. “No,” he said after a long moment. “What you ask is impossible. The Saxons must be crushed; that belief is stronger in me than anything else in the world, stronger even than the ties of blood. You cannot have it both ways, Niniane. If you choose him, then you are my sister no longer.”

She was as pale as he, but her answer came without hesitation. “He is my husband, Coinmail. My husband and the father of my child. God’s law on the subject is quite clear: my duty lies with my marriage.”

“Then farewell,” he said. He might have been carved out of marble. “You had best return home before you are missed.”

“Come along, my dear,” said Alanna when Niniane neither moved nor spoke. “Gereint will see you safely back to Bryn Atha.” And Niniane allowed Naille’s wife and son to take her out of the room.

It was dark when Niniane returned to Bryn Atha; as she rode into the courtyard, she saw that the windows of the thanes’ quarters were yellow with candlelight. Niniane’s already heavy heart sank further. It was the hour for dinner, and the thanes were not at the villa. That meant they had not yet been fed.

There was one thane waiting at the villa, however, for a man came out of the front door to hold her horse while she dismounted. “The prince was growing worried about you, my lady,” he said.

Niniane recognized Wuffa’s voice before she could clearly see his face, and she asked him the question that was most concerning her at the moment. “Have the thanes eaten, Wuffa?”

The reply, as she had feared, was negative. “Oh, dear,” she said, “and it is so late. You must be hungry. I will see to dinner right away.”

“I’ll help Gereint with the horses,” Wuffa offered.

“Yes, Gereint”—she turned her head—“it is too late for you to go home now. Stay the night and return to your father’s farm tomorrow.” Niniane was certain Naille had sent the boy with her to keep him out of Coinmail’s way.

“Thank you, my lady,” the boy replied. “I will.” The two men began to walk the horses toward the stable, and Niniane went into the villa.

Amena was waiting for her in the atrium. “The prince took the baby to your bedroom, my lady. I was walking Cerdic myself in the sitting room, but there was nothing I could do to quiet him. I did my best, but he is hungry.”

Amena’s feelings had evidently been wounded by Ceawlin’s removal of the baby. “Thank you, Amena,” said Niniane. “I understand dinner has not yet been served?”

“No, my lady. The thanes returned from the hunt only a short time ago.”

Niniane frowned. “Well, then, go to the kitchen and make sure the food is being readied. I want it served as soon as possible. If the men have been hunting all afternoon, they will be hungry.” Then Niniane turned away to walk along the gallery, leaving Amena to follow.

She heard her son as soon as she passed the kitchen. The crying lessened instead of increasing, however, as she drew closer to the bedroom wing of the house. She reached the door to her room and pushed it open. The crying was intermittent now, not angry as it had sounded when she was farther down the gallery.

Ceawlin was walking up and down the room, his son in his arms. He looked at the door as Niniane came in, but did not pause in his pacing. “Where were you?” he demanded. His eyes sparkled with temper but he kept his voice quiet so as not to frighten the baby.

“Naille’s farm.”

“In the name of all the gods, what were you doing riding out to Naille’s farm so late in the day? You must have known it would be dark by the time you returned. There is no dinner ready here and the thanes are hungry. The baby is hungry. I am hungry.” He was really in a temper. “Those girls are worse than useless. I arrive home to find no dinner, no wife, and my son screaming because the stupid slut who is taking care of him is jiggling him up and down and making him sick!”

Niniane came to take the baby from his arms. “Did you get the wolf?” she asked. She sat in the old wicker chair they had brought into the room and began to unfasten her gown. Cerdic, sensing he was soon to be fed, began to scream with impatience.

“I know just how he feels,” Ceawlin muttered.

“You didn’t get the wolf.”

“No, we didn’t get the wolf. I will have to put a guard on the livestock until we do.”

Niniane put the baby to her breast, and silence fell on the room. She looked up from her son and found Ceawlin watching her. He sat on the edge of the bed directly across from her chair. “Why did you go to Naille’s farm?” he asked.

“Coinmail is there,” she answered.

His eyes opened wider. “Your brother?”

“Yes. He heard that we were here at Bryn Atha. He heard about Cob Ford. He came home to find out what was happening.” In his greediness, Cerdic lost the nipple and began to scream. Niniane gave it back to him and returned her eyes to her husband. He was looking thoughtful.

“What did he say?”

“He told Naille he did not want the Atrebates cooperating with you.”

Ceawlin quirked his eyebrows. “And Naille?”

“Naille said that in his judgment, cooperating with you was in the best interest of the tribe. That the tribe agreed with him. Coinmail is going to go back to Glevum, I think. He is to marry a princess of the Dobunni.”

“Hmm,” said Ceawlin. His eyes were on his son’s head but they wore an abstracted look. He was thinking about Coinmail. Niniane shifted the baby a little, also thought of Coinmail and their interview, and looked assessingly at Ceawlin.

He had turned nineteen last week and Niniane and the girls had cooked for days, preparing a great banquet to celebrate the occasion. The biggest sign of his advancing age, however, was the fact that he was finally beginning to grow a beard. Niniane could see it now, glistening like silver thread under his skin.

“Have you ever thought of shaving, Ceawlin?” she asked, following this train of thought. “My father’s razor is still here at Bryn Atha. Coinmail was nicely clean-shaven this afternoon. The old Roman razors still work well.”

A pair of blue-green eyes moved from the baby to meet her own. “Shave? Take off my beard?”

“Yes. Your skin is so nice …” Her voice trailed away. The astonishment in his eyes was almost funny. “I suppose that is not the Saxon way,” she ended.

“It certainly is not. If your people wish to take off their beards on purpose so they look like women, that is their business. But don’t expect me to do it!”

Cerdic’s sucking had slowed down considerably. She took him from the breast and put him on her shoulder to pat his back. “The next thing, you will be wanting me to cut off my hair,” Ceawlin said.

“I will never want you to cut off your hair. I love your hair.” She frowned. “Except, it needs to be washed.”

He got off the bed. “Niniane, there are more important things to talk about than my hair and my beard! Did Naille come back to Bryn Atha with you?”

“No. Gereint brought me home.”

“Ah. And how did Gereint deal with your brother?”

“Not well. Gereint has become your devoted admirer—as you well know, having gone out of your way to attach him.”

“I have done nothing in particular,” he replied blandly.

“Take him wolf-hunting and he will love you even more.”

Ceawlin gave her a long thoughtful look and left the room. Niniane put the baby in his basket to sleep and went to the kitchen to see about the dinner.

Sigurd met with his father in Helwig’s bakery the day after his arrival in Venta. Cutha was glad to see his son and anxious to learn how Ceawlin’s thanes had survived the winter.

“Very well,” Sigurd replied to Cutha’s question. “Bryn Atha has much fertile farmland and the harvest was a good one. There has been plenty of food for the winter.”

“I wondered how you would fare,” Cutha said slowly. “Ceawlin can lead a war band into battle, of that I have no doubt. But I was not sure how he would fare as a provider.”

“It was Niniane more than Ceawlin whom we have to thank for our well-being,” Sigurd replied evenly. “She is the one who insisted we grow our own food. She is a careful and a thrifty manager. Ceawlin is fortunate in his wife.”

“Grow your own food? You are not saying that you worked in the fields yourselves?”

Sigurd grinned. “Yes, Father. We worked in the fields ourselves. It was not so bad.”

“None of the thanes revolted at being put to work like common ceorls?”

“How could we object, when our prince was out there working with us?”

Cutha’s clear blue eyes searched his son’s face, but, “I am surprised,” was all he said.

“Well, we are in good heart and good health, Father. Ceawlin has sent me to you to find out if there is any hope of further recruits for his war band. The good weather is coming and he is getting ready to move.”

“What is he planning?” Cutha’s voice was as expressionless as his face.

“I don’t know, precisely. He just said he has no intention of sitting at Bryn Atha to wait for Edric. He will go on the offensive, somehow. I know Ceawlin. It is not in his nature to do otherwise.”

“I have been thinking I would move to Banford myself,” Cutha said carefully. Banford was the property east of Venta that Cynric had given his cousin soon after the king had begun to build Winchester. It had at one time belonged to a prince of the Belgae tribe and consisted of a large farmhouse with surrounding fields.

Sigurd’s gray eyes were puzzled. “But why, Father? If you are going to leave Winchester, wouldn’t it be wisest to go to Ceawlin at Bryn Atha?”

“I might be of more use to Ceawlin by leading a war band of my own. That would give Edric two fronts on which to fight. He would have to split his forces.”

Sigurd frowned. “I do not think Ceawlin would want you to do that.” His voice was positive. “If there are thanes in Winchester who wish to fight for Ceawlin, send them to Bryn Atha.”

Cutha was annoyed. “I was fighting with Cynric before Ceawlin was born. Allow me the wisdom of experience. I do not doubt Ceawlin’s courage, but he has had limited experience of battle and even less experience of the strategy that makes for success in battle. You may tell him that I will be taking the field myself this spring, on his behalf of course. Let him keep to the north. I will see what I can do about driving Edric, the queen, and her bastard out of Winchester.”

Nothing Sigurd could say would change his father’s mind. It was a matter of pride; the son finally saw that. His father, Cynric’s kinsman and eorl of Winchester, did not want to put himself under the command of a young and untried prince. He would fight for Ceawlin, but he would do it his way.

It was a distinctly troubled Sigurd who rode north to Bryn Atha the following day. Ceawlin was not going to like his news. Of that he was quite certain.

Ceawlin was indeed angry when Sigurd brought him the news of Cutha’s plan. “He is tying my hands behind my back by doing this,” he said to his friend as he paced up and down the floor of the family chamber in Bryn Atha. “Surely you could have made him see that? My forces must be concentrated. It will do no good at all to have two war bands in the field.”

“I told him you would not like it, Ceawlin,” said Sigurd. His troubled eyes were on the hard, angry line of the prince’s mouth. “It is a matter of pride with him, you see. He is so much older than you, so much more experienced. He does not wish to put himself under your command.”

Ceawlin stopped in his pacing and looked directly at Sigurd. The rest of his face was as hard as his mouth. “Does he wish to be king also?”

Sigurd’s eyes widened with surprise. “Of course not! That is not what is in his mind. He is fighting for you, Ceawlin. He does not seek the kingship for himself.”

Ceawlin’s mouth did not relax. “So he told you.”

“So he told me. And I believe him.” Gray eyes held blue with unflinching honesty.

Ceawlin’s mouth looked fractionally less grim. “All right. But it is still a mistake not to join our forces. Divided we are less strong, less effective than we would be united. Cutha is playing into Edric’s hands by doing this.”

“Perhaps. But that is the way it is to be. He will go to Banford and bring with him the thanes that are loyal to him and to you. Edric will have to move against him. With any luck, my father will make away with Edric’s forces before ever we have to lift our spears.”

Ceawlin did not look as if he placed much hope in that happening. But all he said was, “Who is likely to go with Cutha?”

“Oswald is the only eorl. The others do not care for Edric, but my father says they are likely to wait and see who will emerge the victor before they declare themselves.”

“A fine council of eorls my father created,” Ceawlin said with scorn.

“They were loyal to Cynric, but now the power is there for the taking and things are different.”

Ceawlin rubbed the palm of his hand against the silvery down on his cheek. “So there will be Cutha and his thanes, and Oswald and his thanes, against the rest of Winchester.”

“My father says he can count on others from the king’s hall to join with him.”