Born of the Sun (42 page)

It was considerably larger than Aethelbert had expected.

“This is the manor of an eorl?” he said to Edric. “Ceawlin must place great thrust in this man, to give him such a stronghold.”

Edric too was surprised. Wyckholm would give any man who held it command of the whole valley of the upper Thames. He saw immediately the necessity of taking it for East Anglia and said as much to his brother-in-law. Aethelbert agreed. By now the day was far advanced and the East Anglian army settled down at little distance from the walls of Wyckholm and prepared to storm the stockade on the morrow.

Inside the great stockade fence, in the crowded women’s hall of Wyckholm, Coenburg at last gave birth to a son. It was a long labor and Penda had broken away from his war preparations numerous times to come and inquire how things were progressing. As he told Sigurd, he had lost one wife in childbirth and did not wish to repeat the experience.

“Thank the gods,” Sigurd said when at last Niniane told him that the baby had been born. Then, because the waiting had been so hard, because he had been reminded of that dreadful night when Cerdic was born, of the night when Edith had almost died giving birth to his own children, he said, “I wonder anew each time a babe is born that a woman who has been through that would ever again let a man near her bed.”

He thought that Niniane was looking tired. Coenburg had been in labor for almost twenty hours and Niniane had been with her the whole while. She had tied her hair on top of her head to keep it out of her way, but several strands had slipped out of the knot and were wisping around her face and her neck. There were smudges of sleeplessness under her eyes and her gown was crumpled and flecked with stains of something he could not identify. But at his words she smiled and the dimple in the corner of her mouth flickered. “Oh,” she said, and placed her fingers lightly on his sleeve, “you are worth it.”

He did not return her smile, but regarded her somberly. “Are we?” he asked.

The dimple deepened. “Ceawlin is.” Then, as Penda came in the door, her own face sobered. “My lord,” she said with ceremonial formality, “you have a son.”

Penda grinned and thrust a hand through his already disordered hair.

“Thank you, my lady,” he said to Niniane. Then, as he noticed Sigurd, “Your sister is a good wife, Sigurd. A son!”

Niniane slipped her hand through Penda’s arm. “Coenburg is waiting for you, my lord.” Sigurd did not stay to see the two of them move off, but turned to go outside and see once again to his defenses.

The East Anglians charged Wyckholm at dawn and were met by a rain of arrows that felled dozens of them.

“In the name of Woden, how many men does he have on those walls?” Aethelbert yelled to Edric.

“Too many!” Edric yelled in return. “Pull back before you lose half your men!”

The East Anglians retreated out of arrow range and met to discuss this new development.

“He has at least two hundred men in there,” Edric said. “Look.” For now that the surprise was gone, Penda had allowed his men to show themselves on the walls.

“So that is where all the farmers have gone,” said Aethelbert bitterly.

“Not just the farmers. Look.” Edric pointed to a man on the wall. “Do you know who that is?”

“No.”

“That is Sigurd. Cutha’s son and Ceawlin’s greatest friend. There can be only one reason for Sigurd being here; Ceawlin knew we were coming and sent him.”

Aethelbert cursed. Then, “Who could have told him?”

“A pottery maker, a jeweler, a man who sells medicine; anyone who has been around Sutton Hoo long enough to realize that you were making preparations for war. It would not take much deduction to figure out whom you were planning to go against, or what route you would take.”

Aethelbert jutted his head forward. “If that is so, then why did not Ceawlin come north himself?”

“I don’t know.”

“He may have decided to go east, to deal with the invasion from Kent.”

“That may be so.”

Aethelbert got to his feet and stared at the stockade of Wyckholm. “We will try again once it is dark,” he said. “If we can get inside, we will have them. We outnumber them by nearly three to one.”

“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.”

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.