by Joan Wolf
"Me hate the litter," Cerdic said. "Want to ride the horse."
"Would you like to ride my horse with me?" Ceawlin asked.
Cerdic stared with big eyes at the splendid bay stallion his father was riding. "That horse?" he asked.
"That horse."
"Me want to ride that horse."
"All right," Ceawlin replied. "Let me give your little brother back to your mother, and you can ride Bayvard with me."
And so they rode in through the gates of Winchester together, Niniane with the baby in her arms, Cerdic seated before his father on Bayvard's back, pretending to steer with the ends of the reins.
* * * *
Winchester looked just the same: the paved street, the great wooden halls. Niniane looked around, remembering, then turned to Ceawlin. "Where are you staying?" she asked.
He gave her a quick sidelong glance. "The king's hall," he replied.
Her breath caught and for the first time she took it in. The king's hall. It was really true. Ceawlin was really the king. A fear she had not yet thought of struck her heart. Did that mean she would have to live in the queen's hall?
"Ceawlin," she said in an urgent undertone, "I do not want to live in Guthfrid's hall."
They were alongside the temple now; the huge wooden pillar of Woden towered over the temple fence to their left. The great hall with its magnificent roof rose before them at the end of the road. "I am not going to put you in the queen's hall," he answered. "Guthfrid would be too ... present."
"Yes," she answered fervently. That was it exactly. She would feel the contaminating presence of Cynric's queen in every nook and corner of that building. She knew it.
The horses were continuing their stately advance up the road. There were thanes in the great courtyard, many of whom Niniane recognized from Bryn Atha. She felt the eyes of all Winchester upon her, saw the smiles of greeting on both familiar and unfamiliar faces.
He would put her in the women's hall, then, where Fara had reigned. The women's hall and the bower. All the exotic marital arrangements of Winchester that had been so distant from her own marriage when they lived at Bryn Atha came rushing back into her memory. She bent to hide her face in the baby-softness of her infant son. Her heart felt like a stone in her breast. Dear God. How could she bear to live like that with Ceawlin?
"Here we are, Cerdic," she heard him saying to the child before him on Bayvard. "This is where you are to live." She felt her horse come to a halt and reluctantly she raised her head. They were in front of the king's hall. She turned her eyes to her husband.
"I thought we would be more comfortable living together," he said.
She smiled. The blood rushing to her head made her feel suddenly dizzy. His eyes had that look in them again. "Yes," she said, and laughed. Her laugh sounded dizzy too. "Much more comfortable."
* * * *
There was a banquet in the great hall that night to celebrate Niniane's arrival in Winchester. Ceawlin sat in the king's high seat with his wife beside him, and for the first time Niniane bore the pledge cup around the hall, as Guthfrid used to do. Cutha had been given his old place at the king's side and Niniane proffered him the cup first. Sigurd, who had been placed next to Niniane, was the last guest she would come to, and he sat with his elbows propped upon the table and watched her as she circled the hall.
There was little outward change in her from the girl who had left Winchester three years before. She was as slender and fragile-looking as ever she had been; two children had not changed that. She wore her hair loose tonight, the fine, shimmering silk of it spilling all around her shoulders and down her back. She still held her small, lovely head like a flower on a stem. He watched her moving from thane to thane, greeting the men she knew with the gentle charm they all remembered so well from Bryn Atha. Then she was approaching him. She handed him the pledge horn and her fingers inadvertently touched his. She said something to him and he forced himself to smile and make a reply.
She took the horn back from him and looked at Ceawlin. Her eyes were like stars.
The harper sang. Ceawlin and Niniane listened gravely, but Sigurd noticed how they sat so that their shoulders touched. When the song was finished Ceawlin bent to say something into her ear, and when she replied, he covered her hand with his. Sigurd could see how her mouth had begun to tremble.
The wine cup went around and Sigurd drank deep. At last Niniane arose. "I won't be long," he heard Ceawlin murmur to her, and Sigurd watched dully as she left the hall. She walked beautifully. She had ever been the most graceful woman he knew.
Cutha offered Ceawlin more wine and Ceawlin laughed. "Not tonight," Sigurd heard him say. At that he turned and looked at his friend, at the king.
Ceawlin was not laughing any longer. He was looking at the door, looking at it as a hawk must look as it swoops down from the sky, ready to fall upon its prey. The look was there in his fiercely glittering eyes, the hard, severe line of his mouth. Sigurd drew a painful breath and said what he would never have said had he not been drunk. "If you go to her looking like that, you will frighten her half to death."
The glittering eyes turned toward him. "Looking like what?" Ceawlin asked.
"As if you were going to devour her."
"I am," Ceawlin answered, and his eyes did not change. Then, "Would you not feel the same if you were in my place?"
Sigurd felt the blood-red color rushing into his face. Ceawlin stared at him, eyes widening with sudden understanding. Sigurd stood up, backed away from that appalling recognition. Penda, on Sigurd's other side, said, "What is the matter?"
"I ... I must relieve myself," Sigurd said wildly and, turning, weaved unevenly toward the rear door of the hall.
Penda looked across his empty place to Ceawlin. "What is wrong with him?" he asked.
"He's drunk too much, I think," Ceawlin replied somberly. Then, after a pause, "It is, after all, an occasion for celebration."
* * * *
There was but one bedroom in the king's hall, and so Cerdic had been put to sleep on a bench near the hearth. The baby was asleep in his basket and Niniane was in the bed when Ceawlin came into the room.
"Ceawlin," she said as the door opened. "Ah, Ceawlin." Her voice trembled. An oil lamp was burning next to the bed and the room was soft with light. He saw that she had the blanket drawn over her breasts, but her shoulders were bare. The unease that his brief conversation with Sigurd had engendered disappeared in the flood of pure, uncluttered lust that swept through him at the sight of the pearl-like sheen of those naked shoulders. He had waited for her for so long ... for more than a year he had waited ... too long. He walked to the bed and with a ruthless hand stripped the blanket away. She reached her arms up, her bright hair spilling over the white satin skin of her full breasts. He groaned deep in his throat and flung himself down onto the bed beside her.
They did not sleep that night, but made love, then talked, then made love, again and again. "The bed smells like sex," Niniane said as the lamp finally began to flicker and go out. "What will the handmaids think in the morning?"
Ceawlin yawned and stretched luxuriously. "They will think I was starved for it." He grinned at her through the tousled hair that had fallen across his face. "And they will be right."
Niniane leaned over and rained a shower of soft kisses along the line of his cheek. Then she sighed voluptuously and nestled her head into the hollow of his shoulder.
"Wait," he said. "I forgot. I've something for you." Reluctantly she moved so he could get out of the bed. He went to the chest in the corner and lifted something out. Her eyes widened when she saw what it was. A delicate circle of gold, beautifully engraved and set with precious jewels. It was the sort of rich adornment only a queen would wear, but Niniane had never seen it on Guthfrid. "I had it made in Venta," he said. "For you." His eyes were brilliant as he leaned over to place it on her long tangled copper-brown hair. "It is your morgengabe."
* * *
PART II
The King
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(567-575)
* * *
Chapter 24
The scop was singing of the coming of spring:
The new year has come to the dwellings of men
Earth's lap is fair, the sky roof shines bright
The ring-prowed ship drives over the water ...
Sigurd listened to Alric's song, made in honor of Coenburg's wedding day, and let his eyes run idly around the great hall of Winchester. The benches were filled this bright May afternoon; eorls and thanes who had taken to living for at least part of the year on the lands given to them by the king had poured into Winchester this last week for the wedding of Cutha's daughter and Ceawlin's eorl, Penda. Even his brother Cuthwulf, who had been at odds with Ceawlin these last two years, had come into Winchester for Coenburg's day.
Sigurd looked at his sister's pretty flushed face and suddenly his mind flashed back eight years, to another day, another place, another marriage ceremony. It had been a Christian marriage ceremony, Penda's first one, performed by Father Mai at Bryn Atha. Sigurd remembered that day only too well. It had been the day before Ceawlin sent Niniane away to Glastonbury for safety, the day Ceawlin had first learned of his son's baptism, the day that Sigurd, for the first time in his life, had felt frightening rage burn in his heart against his friend.
Sigurd raised his wine cup and resolutely steered his mind away from such dangerous waters. Instead he remembered Penda's first wife, Wynne. How lovely she had been, he thought, and how brief her life ... lost, as so many women's lives were lost, in childbirth. As he had almost lost his own wife two years before. They had told him after the birth of his twins that Edith would have no more children, and he had thought of Wynne and been glad. He bore enough guilt in his heart when it came to Edith; he did not want to bear the guilt of her death.
Alric's harp fell silent, and after a brief moment the hall rang with calls for yet another song. Sigurd watched as Penda bent his dark blond head to say something to Coenburg, saw his sister's swift shy smile in reply. This marriage had been Cutha's doing, Sigurd knew. It was a measure of how important Cutha thought Penda was, how important he thought Penda might become, that he had offered the young eorl his only daughter. Sigurd hoped Coenburg would be happy. Penda was not the most domestic of men. But then, one did not marry for happiness. One married for power. It was only the lucky ones who found something more.
Alric was gesturing toward the queen, and the noise in the hall rose even higher. Sigurd kept his eyes on the scop and saw the man holding out his harp. Then she was crossing the polished floor, her delicate cheeks flushed with color. Alric made her a bow and presented her with the harp. Sigurd looked quickly toward Ceawlin and saw him gesturing to the harper to join him on the high seat. Niniane touched the strings and the hall fell silent. After a moment her rich husky voice filled the room.
It was not often that Sigurd had such an excuse to look at her, and he stopped struggling, gave in to his need, and drank her in with his eyes.
She wore the gold circlet Ceawlin had given her when first she returned to Winchester, and her hair was loose, the way Sigurd liked it best. These days she usually wore it looped up and fastened on top of her head, but today it flowed around her shoulders and down her back, a shimmering mantle of autumnal silk. She wore a richly woven overgown of deep blue and there were jewels at her shoulders, throat, waist, and wrists. The garnets on her hands flashed in the torchlight as she moved her fingers on the harp strings.
Her figure was still slim and delicate-looking; as yet childbirth had not marked her. Yet she was not a girl any longer. Her face was thinner, her cheekbones more pronounced than they had been seven years before; her breasts were fuller, the breasts of a mother, not of a girl. The slightly wistful air that had so stirred his heart when first he met her was gone as well. There was a calm dignity about Niniane these days, the air of a woman who is accustomed to having her wishes obeyed. And there were four sons to sit around her hearth in the king's hall, four healthy sturdy heirs for Ceawlin.
The last note died away and she looked up from the harp, caught Sigurd's eye, and smiled. He moved his mouth in some kind of a response and watched as Alric came forward to claim his harp again.
"They say she can enchant people with her music," his wife said into his ear. "That it is witchcraft."
Sigurd swung around to stare into Edith's pale blue eyes. "Who says that?" he demanded.
She looked surprised by his vehemence. "The girls in the bower." Then, as he merely looked disgusted, "It is well known, Sigurd, that she has enchanted the king. And when our little Cutha was sick, Niniane played the harp and he grew better. And, too, her own sons are always so healthy. Surely it is enchantment."
"That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard." Sigurd was usually very kind to his young wife, but his eyes now were colder than she ever remembered seeing them. "I do not want to hear you say such a thing again, Edith. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Sigurd." And her eyes filled with tears at his unusual abruptness.
The familiar guilt wrenched at his heart. It was not Edith's fault that he did not love her. It was not her fault that the very gentleness and sweetness that had attracted him to her in the first place had long since begun to cloy. As had her adoration. It had been so comforting at first, to find a woman who had eyes only for him; her love had soothed his ego as well as his heart. It was why he had married her, only to find out too quickly that it was not Edith's love he wanted. And now all he could feel for her was this miserable guilt. "Don't cry," he said more gently.
"I won't," she said, and her eyes brimmed over.
"What is the matter?" It was Cutha, who had noticed Edith's tears.
"Edith was just telling me some mad story that is going around the women's quarters," Sigurd said. "Something about Niniane having enchanted the king with her music."
Cutha's eyebrows drew together, making the ends seem to fly even higher. "Nonsense," he said.
"I know. But it could be dangerous nonsense, Father. I shouldn't like such a tale to reach unfriendly ears."
"Hmm." After a minute Cutha nodded. "I'll speak to Ceawlin." He gave his daughter-in-law an irritated look. "Do not cry, Edith. You were right to tell Sigurd of such a charge. Now, be a good girl and drink your wine."
Edith hastened to obey.
* * * *
The priest put Coenburg's fingers into Penda's and tapped upon their joined hands with the sacred hammer of Thor. Then, with much laughter and encouragement to Penda, the eorls and thanes of Winchester escorted the bride and the groom from the great hall to the hall that Ceawlin had built for Penda when he had first named him an eorl five years before. Sigurd felt a brief flicker of sympathy for his sister as he saw her frightened eyes, but it had to be. And Penda would make it easy for her. One thing you could count on with Penda was his knowledge of women.
Sigurd found himself walking next to Ceawlin as the crowd of well-wishers returned to the great hall. The women had retired with the departure of the bride, but the men would continue to drink well on into the night. Behind him he heard Cuthwulf's drunken roar of laughter and suddenly Sigurd had no heart for it. "Edith said something to me today that I think you should know of," he found himself saying to Ceawlin.
"Oh?" Ceawlin cocked his silver-blond eyebrows in a familiar look of inquiry.
"It has to do with Niniane."
They walked in silence for a moment; then Ceawlin called to Ine, "I will be back later, Ine. The rest of you enjoy yourselves."
"We will, my lord!" came the boisterous reply.
"Come along with me to the king's hall," Ceawlin said to his friend. "Niniane will be putting the children to bed and we can be private."
The king's hall was indeed empty except for some servants and Ceawlin's old hound. Only their youngest child slept in the hall with Ceawlin and Niniane these days. At Ceawlin's insistence the older children and their nurses had been moved last year into the princes' hall.
"Get us som
e beer and then you can leave," Ceawlin said to the servants, and gestured Sigurd to a chair at Cynric's old table, which still stood in the middle of the room. When the cups of beer were before them and they were alone, Ceawlin turned to his friend and said, "What is this about Niniane?"
"It is some nonsense that Edith told me, but I thought you should hear it. They are saying in the women's hall that Niniane has enchanted you with her music."
Ceawlin's reaction was not at all what Sigurd had expected. The king threw back his head and roared with laughter.
"It may not be so funny if such a tale reaches unfriendly ears," Sigurd said when Ceawlin finally grew quiet.
"Do you mean Guthfrid?" Ceawlin took a long drink of beer. "Guthfrid has been saying far worse things about Niniane for years." The humor completely left his face. "It is not what Guthfrid says but what she does that concerns me."
"I know." Sigurd felt again the horror he had known last winter when they had apprehended a henchman of Guthfrid's right within the walls of Winchester. The man had been carrying poison, poison which he confessed was meant for the queen. Ceawlin had wanted to execute the man on the spot, but Niniane, with a scorn she was sure would infuriate Guthfrid even more, had sent the man back to East Anglia for Redwold, the East Anglian king, to deal with.
"You should have killed Guthfrid when you had the chance," Sigurd said.
Ceawlin shrugged. "I could not have won a war with East Anglia seven years ago, Sigurd. I had won Winchester, but any war band I put together at that point would have had divided loyalties. And if I killed Guthfrid, I would have had a war with East Anglia. Redwold accepted wergild from me for the death of Edwin, but he could not in honor have done anything but go to war if Guthfrid died. You know that."
Sigurd did know, and made no reply. Ceawlin suddenly pushed the cup away from him, stood up, and paced over to the hearth. The white boarhound raised its head from its paws at his master's approach. Ceawlin stooped to caress its long ears, then rose to his feet and began to poke at the fire. Sigurd watched him, comparing him in his mind with the Ceawlin of seven years ago, just as he had done with Niniane earlier in the great hall.