by Joan Wolf
"He is Alric, the most famous scop in England," Fara returned. "He was telling of the fall of Venta." And she translated some of the words.
Niniane stared at her in astonishment. Never had she expected to hear such elegiac poetry on the lips of a Saxon. "Hush now," Fara said. "He will play again."
After the scop had finished, the drinking cups began to pass more swiftly around the hall. Men's voices and men's laughter grew louder and louder. Finally the queen rose.
Guthfrid made her departure in the same way she had made her entrance, on the arm of her son. Then Cutha's wife and the wives of the other eorls rose, and Fara turned to her own women and said, "Come."
In the anteroom of the hall they met Edwin returning to the feast. He halted directly before Niniane and stared down at her. He was not above average height, but Niniane was not tall and had to look up to see beyond his nose.
"Welcome to Winchester, Princess," he said in decent British. The eyes in his fair-skinned face were an unexpected brown. His eyelashes never once flickered as he stared unwaveringly into her face.
"Thank you, my lord," Niniane murmured in reply.
"Your father is prince of the Atrebates." It was a statement that he managed to make sound like an insult.
Niniane raised her chin. She stared back into those strange brown eyes and answered, "Yes, my lord."
He was smiling. Evidently she amused him. "At least they tried to fight, those Atrebates. But it was careless of them, wasn't it, to leave you behind?"
Niniane had learned from years of living with Coinmail how not to answer back. Her spine stiffened but she made no reply.
"We must be going, Niniane," Fara said. For the first time the boy looked at Cynric's secondary wife, and the expression on his face made Niniane recoil. Then the prince turned away.
As they crossed the now-darkened enclave toward the women's bower, Niniane asked Nola, "Who was the boy who came into the hall with the king?"
"Ceawlin. Fara's son," came the reply. Then, in a worried voice, "It was not wise of him to do that. There is little point in provoking Guthfrid's jealousy."
"How many sons does Cynric have?"
"Just two, Ceawlin and Edwin. Ceawlin is the elder by a year, but Edwin is Guthfrid's son and the heir to the kingship."
"If that is so, then why should the queen be jealous?"
"She is jealous of anyone who breathes the same air as Edwin," Nola said bitterly. "For fifteen years she has been like a bear with one cub. Let the king show Ceawlin the slightest notice, and she is livid with fury."
They had reached the women's bower and Niniane parted from Nola and went down the corridor to her own room. Someone had replaced the candle on the table with an oil lamp in her absence, and she lit the lamp with the flame from the candle she had picked up at the door. Then she looked at it with frowning concentration. It was a lamp from Bryn Atha. She sat on the side of the bed and stared at its warm glow.
Bryn Atha seemed very far away tonight. In just two days she had left one world and entered another. Winchester! And not one of her people had even known it existed.
Pictures from the banquet flashed through her mind. Edwin's mocking face. The silver-blond boy who was Fara's son. The beautiful, cold, arrogant-looking queen. The king, who had a reverence for harpers.
What a story she would have to tell to Coinmail and her father!
She undressed, blew out the lamp, and got into bed. She was tired but she did not fall immediately to sleep. This room was as large as her bedchamber at home, but the lack of a window made her feel closed in, suffocated almost. Without the lamp she was in blackness so absolute that she could not even see the outline of the table next to the bed.
Finally, however, fatigue overtook her. Her last thought before she drifted off to sleep was: I wonder what kind of a ransom Cynric will ask.
* * *
Chapter 4
“Here, Bayla!" Sigurd called to the hound who had started to wander back toward the stable. The hound continued to sniff along the ground, ignoring the command. "Ceawlin ..." Sigurd said, and turned to his friend.
The prince finished pulling up his girth and looked for the dog. "Bayla," he said softly, and snapped his fingers. The hound raised his head, then came obediently to his master's side. Ceawlin slung a bow over his shoulder and picked up his reins. Sigurd did the same and the two boys led their horses out of the stableyard. Three hounds followed, trotting at the horses' heels.
The dawn was just beginning to come up. Sigurd looked toward the queen's hall and said, "I keep hoping we will surprise Edric creeping out of there one morning."
Ceawlin showed his white teeth in a sardonic smile. "They are not stupid enough for that. Unfortunately."
The sky was still gray, with only a few pink streaks in the east to signal that the day would be fine. Ceawlin and Sigurd had been rising this early to go out hunting ever since they were first allowed to venture forth by themselves. The two had been virtually inseparable for almost all their boyhood.
"Who is that?" Sigurd said suddenly in a startled voice. Both boys stopped and stared at the small figure sitting on the step of the women's bower.
"It is the little British princess," Ceawlin said slowly.
"We'd better see what she is doing," Sigurd said, and they both changed direction and began to walk across the courtyard toward the bower.
She did not move as they approached. Sigurd saw that she was huddled into her cloak as if she were cold. Her unbound hair streamed all around her. Sigurd had noticed her hair before and he thought it beautiful. The coppery color made a nice change from all the blond he was so accustomed to seeing in Winchester.
"Why are you sitting here like this so early in the morning?" Ceawlin asked. His British was perfectly unaccented.
The girl's eyes widened with surprise. "But you speak British!"
Ceawlin raised his silver-blond eyebrows. "Most of my generation speak your tongue. But you have not answered me. What are you doing here?"
The girl's widely spaced eyes moved from Ceawlin's face to Sigurd. She was really very pretty, Sigurd thought. So small and delicate-looking. Like a little deer. He smiled at her engagingly. Ceawlin had been too abrupt. "The prince had a British nurse when he was small— that is why he speaks your tongue so well." His own British was perfectly adequate, but he knew he had an accent. "It is too cold out here for you, Princess," he went on kindly. "You should go back indoors."
Her eyes were a dark blue-gray and very steady and grave. "I wanted some air," she said. "I am not accustomed to sleeping in a room without a window."
"Afraid of the dark?" Sigurd asked with sympathy. "You could leave your candle on."
"Not if she's going to sleep in a wooden building," Ceawlin said. His eyes, such an arresting shade of blue-green, were not sympathetic at all.
A little color flushed into the girl's pale cheeks. Ceawlin had sounded distinctly nasty. Sigurd knew what was wrong with him. Cynric was intending to give this girl to Edwin. "I am not disturbing anyone by sitting here," she said a little defiantly. Ceawlin's horse stamped its near front foot with impatience at being kept standing. "You had better go," the girl added, "before you wake everyone up."
Sigurd grinned. "She's right," he said to Ceawlin. Then, in Saxon, "She's not likely to go anywhere."
Ceawlin looked from the girl to Sigurd, then to the girl again. "I suppose that's true." He turned without further comment and began to walk toward the main gate. Sigurd smiled once more at the girl sitting on the step and turned to follow his friend.
* * * *
"Cynric is really going to wed her to Edwin?" Sigurd asked as the two boys vaulted into their saddles and rode through the main gate of Winchester.
Ceawlin acknowledged the salute of the watchman. "So it seems. Guthfrid is urging it. And I can see that it would be a good match for Wessex. It would be well for us to get on terms with the Britons in this new area. Look how useful the Britons in Venta have been to us."
"My father said Cynric originally thought to wed her to you."
Ceawlin said nothing.
"She's such a pretty little thing," Sigurd went on. "It seems a shame to wed her to Edwin."
"It would be a shame to wed any woman to Edwin," came the bitter reply.
"True."
"I think my father meant to wed her to Edwin all along," said Ceawlin finally. "He only told Guthfrid he was thinking of me in order to force her to take the girl for Edwin."
Sigurd stared at him. "What makes you think that?"
"I know him too well. He does not want a match with any other of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Not yet, not while Wessex is still so small."
The sky had become much lighter while they were talking. The hounds ran back and forth across the fields in front of them, eager to reach the woods. There were a number of Saxon vils—peasant farming communities—in the area of Winchester, and Ceawlin and Sigurd had taken it upon themselves to keep the predator population away from the crops and livestock of the local ceorls.
"Well, if the king wanted to trick Guthfrid, he could not have chosen a cleverer way of going about it," said Sigurd. "She can't bear to see you put food in your mouth."
Ceawlin's clear-cut profile was stern. "I know."
"And she is dangerous as a mother wolf. The look on her face when you came into the banquet with the king the other night! You must be more careful, Ceawlin."
"I told you. It was Cynric's doing. He wanted to force Guthfrid to take this girl for Edwin. She has had great plans of wedding him into Mercia."
"Mercia is looking to expand to the south."
"I know." A bird swooped low overhead and Ceawlin's horse gave a little buck. He patted its glossy bay neck. "My mother tells me the girl thinks she is going to be ransomed back to her father," he added.
Sigurd's gray eyes were startled. "Ransomed!"
"Yes. Apparently she is singularly innocent, this little princess."
"Gods," said Sigurd. Then, "It makes me sick to think of giving her to Edwin."
Ceawlin shrugged, and just then they reached the woods. Two minutes later the hounds caught a scent and the two boys tore off in pursuit, all thought of Niniane banished from their minds.
"I am going into Venta today," Fara said to Niniane as they ate their porridge in the women's hall later that morning. "Should you care to come with me?"
"Oh, yes!" Niniane's small face lighted. She had not left Winchester since her arrival, even though there seemed to be a regular flow of traffic between the Saxon enclave and the old Roman city. Winchester was primarily a royal residence. It was Venta that housed the blacksmiths, the armorers, the carpenters, turners, coopers, cobblers, silversmiths, jewel-makers, soap-makers, and beer-makers who supplied their wares for Winchester's consumption. The staff at Winchester itself consisted mainly of house and kitchen slaves, grooms for the horses, kennelmen for the dogs, gardeners, and fishermen.
"I am going to the jewel-maker's," Fara said. "The garnets in one of my necklaces have loosened."
Venta, thought Niniane with excited anticipation as she spread butter thickly on her bread. But it was not Saxon Venta that she burned to see. It was the Venta that had been a Roman capital, the Venta from which Ambrosius and Uther had reigned as high kings of Britain, the Venta where Arthur had been crowned and where he had lived until he built Camelot.
How she longed for Kerwyn still to be alive so she could tell him all about it.
They rode to Venta in a covered wagon, which had cushions on the seats and was drawn by a matched pair of gray horses. The road between Winchester and Venta was in very good condition; the Saxons evidently kept this part of the old Roman road in repair.
"I don't ride anymore," Fara said to Niniane as the two women stepped into the wagon. "My joints are too stiff for horseback and so my lord king had this conveyance built for me. It serves very well."
It was also a mark of Cynric's regard for his friedlehe, Niniane thought as she took her place on the cushioned seat. She had learned Fara's story from Nola, who was an insatiable gossip and so a wonderful source of information. Fara was the daughter of one of Cynric's father's thanes and Cynric had known her when the West Saxons' only foothold in southern Britain had been the Isle of Wight, taken by Cerdic at the beginning of the century. Then Cerdic had died, leaving Wight to his eldest son, and Cynric had gone to the mainland to win his own kingdom. As soon as he had taken Venta, he sent for Fara. According to Nola, he had held to her alone for six years before agreeing to a marriage with Guthfrid to heal an old feud of his father's with East Anglia.
"She was barren for all those years," Nola said, "and then, almost as soon as Cynric's marriage was set, she conceived. She was old then, in her middle thirties, but she finally bore Cynric a son. Then when Guthfrid had a child almost immediately, everyone thought there would soon be a houseful of princes and princesses of the blood. But there have been only these two: Ceawlin and Edwin. The fault must lie with Cynric. None of the other household women have conceived by him either."
Niniane had been horrified to learn that the women's bower was no more than a harem for the king. And for the royal princes too. In this way the Saxons had fully lived up to her image of them: barbarian, pagan, horrible. The fact that the women seemed to be perfectly content with this arrangement made it even more revolting.
She looked now at Fara, who was sitting beside her. She liked the friedlehe very much. It was hard to understand how she could accept her position with such equanimity. It was even harder to accept that Cynric cared for her, but apparently he did. He had built her this comfortable cushioned wagon, for one thing. He came to the women's hall regularly to visit her, and they would sit talking quietly together, both of them seated in large wooden chairs that were covered with thick rugs to make them comfortable for aging bones. At such times the rest of the women would disperse to the far corner of the hall, or outside if the weather was clement.
Niniane thanked God on her knees every night that she had been born a Christian woman and not a Saxon.
The sides of Fara's wagon were open, and so Niniane was able to see the walls of Venta come into view. They looked very like the walls of Calleva, she thought, but any other resemblance to Calleva died as soon as they were inside the town. This was a city that was alive. The old Roman grid of streets was lined with obviously inhabited buildings.
"We'll show you the city before we do our errands," Fara said. The wagon horses were proceeding at a brisk walk up the main street of the city. "There are the old baths," and Fara pointed to a graceful stone building that resembled the baths Niniane had seen at Calleva. The Saxon woman smiled. "Our scops sing that all these stone structures were the work of giants. My son says the Romans knew how to build. In fact, he says, the buildings will likely long outlast their empire."
"Yes," said Niniane sadly. "Their whole civilization is slipping away from us, all their knowledge ..." Her voice trailed away and Fara looked at her shrewdly.
"The Romans could build with stone, true, and that is a skill we do not have. But these buildings are the only trace of occupation they will leave on this island, Niniane. You see, they came as conquerors, not as settlers. They came, they built roads and buildings, and then when their emperor called them, they left, like dust blowing away in the wind." Fara shrugged. "So you see, my dear, they were not so successful after all."
And are you not conquerors as well? Niniane thought. She looked at the friedlehe's beautiful profile and prudently held her tongue. But she did not see how the Saxons differed from the Romans in that way.
"There is the forum," Fara said, and Niniane looked in the direction the friedlehe was indicating. The Venta forum was larger than the one at Calleva and there were shops set up under the colonnade arches and a bustle of people going in and out. The tall blond Saxons mingled with the smaller, darker people who were Venta's older inhabitants.
"We'll have a look around the shops, but first I'll show you the building the Britons c
all the praetorium. And perhaps you would like to visit the Christian church?"
"Yes," said Niniane quietly. "I would."
The praetorium was empty. The centerpiece of Roman rule in this part of Britain, the building which had housed three British high kings after the departure of the legions, was as deserted and bare as most of the buildings in Calleva. Niniane felt tears sting behind her eyes.
"What were the words the scop sang at the banquet the other night?" she asked Fara.
The answer came in a soft voice: " 'The battlements crumble, the wine-halls decay ...' That is the true Saxon spirit, my dear. Lif is laene ... life is fleeting."
"My father's harper would have understood that," Niniane said. Kerwyn's face came vividly to her mind. "Arthur is gone ..." she murmured with infinite sadness, her eyes on the empty shell of the praetorium.
"Life is indeed short," Fara said, and now her voice was brisk. "But that does not stop us from enjoying the time and the wealth that we have. Come. Let us do our shopping, and then you shall see your church."
Niniane thought the shops were sumptuous. To a visitor from Paris or Rome or Constantinople, they would have been meager, but to a British girl who had never seen a truly functioning city, Venta was a marvel. The jeweler, a blue-eyed German of some sort, even had a necklace that had been imported from Soissons to show to Fara.
The language generally spoken, even by those who were obviously Britons, was Saxon. The means of exchange was mainly barter, although Fara had some gold imperial coins from the Continent with which she paid the jewel-maker. Niniane's eyes were bright with pleasure as she followed Fara around the marketplace. She had quite forgot the melancholy she felt when she saw the praetorium.
They went to the Christian church before they left to return to Winchester. It was a small building, with plastered walls that had been painted in imitation of marble. The nave had a mosaic floor of red tiles and the floor under the altar was a panel of checkered tile in black, red, and white. The church was perfectly intact, although clearly unused.