by Joan Wolf
Ceawlin, Cutha thought as he caught a glimpse of the dominant figure on the field. Then the king's army surged forward irresistibly, the sheer weight of numbers pressing Cutha's men back and back and back again. Cutha too was in the front line. He deflected one sword blow, then another. Then he was surrounded. A sword was raised, came down on his head, and Cutha fell to the ground. The oncoming mass of men trampled over his body as they overwhelmed the traitor's troops.
Sigurd did not see Ceawlin. He was a warrior himself and knew his task was to break the king's charge before it could gather momentum and feed upon itself. He had to get through to the ceorls, shake them, make them run.
It was surprisingly easy for Sigurd to get through the line of thanes. It was not until he was deep in the middle of Ceawlin's army that he realized his men were not behind him. Ceawlin's thanes had let him through, but not his men. Sigurd's brain, always cool even under the press of battle, understood immediately what had happened. Ceawlin had given orders that he was not to be harmed.
He couldn't bear it. Couldn't face Ceawlin after all that had happened. He looked around him at Ceawlin's ceorls. They did not know who he was, assumed at the moment that he was one of the king's thanes. Sigurd raised his sword.
"May Woden take you and all of Ceawlin's men!" he snarled to the startled man beside him. The ceorl shouted a warning as he raised his own sword. The ceorl behind Sigurd saw what was happening and slammed the eorl on his leather-protected shoulder with his spear. The farmer was an ox of a man and the blow drove Sigurd to his knees. The eorl was still for a moment, seemingly dazed, making no attempt to protect himself. While he knelt there, vulnerable, the first ceorl slashed open the artery in his unprotected neck.
With Cutha down and Sigurd lost, Aethelbert was the only opposing leader still on the field. They were losing, he could see that. But his hungry heart could not accept the thought of another defeat. Better to die on the field, he thought despairingly, than go home vanquished to East Anglia once again. Valiantly he raised his sword and pressed on, even as his men melted away and Ceawlin's men closed in around him.
In less than half an hour the Battle of Torfield was over. The once-peaceful field, where sheep had grazed all summer, was littered with the bodies of the slain. Cutha's slain. Ceawlin had lost but twenty men.
The rebels had not lost as many men as they might have had Ceawlin allowed his thanes to pursue their fleeing opponents. But the king had held his eager men back. Ceawlin never allowed blood lust to cloud his judgment, and he knew that, with Cutha and Aethelbert dead, the leaderless men were harmless. Further, they would be looking for a new lord. Far better to give mercy and add to his own following.
It was Penda who came to him as he stood surveying the blood-soaked field and taking a drink from the horn a thane had given to him. "Ceawlin ..." Penda's face was grim. "Ceawlin, they have found Sigurd."
He knew. Just looking at Penda's face, he knew. Fury shook him. "I gave orders he was not to be harmed!"
"It was the ceorls, Ceawlin. They did not know who he was. They had never had any occasion to see him."
The fury left him as quickly as it had come. He dropped the drinking horn to the ground and rubbed a hand across his mouth. A muscle twitched uncontrollably in his cheek. "Take me to him," he said.
* * * *
It was Bertred who brought the news of Ceawlin's victory to Winchester. "Cutha is dead," he told Niniane and her sons as he met with them in the princes' hall. "Aethelbert too."
"And Sigurd?" Crida asked when his mother said nothing.
"Sigurd was killed as well," Bertred replied. "Ceawlin had given orders that he was not to be hurt, but he got in among the ceorls and they did not know who he was."
"But where is my father?" Ceowulf asked in bewilderment. "Why has he not come with you?"
"Ceawlin sent me on ahead to secure things in Winchester." Bertred spoke to Niniane, not to the children. "Word is to be sent to Venta of his victory as well. Tomorrow morning Ceawlin and his war band will ride through Venta and into Winchester."
"A victory procession," said Crida with satisfaction.
"Yes." Bertred looked at Ceawlin's silver-haired son. "Your father thinks it important to make a show, emphasize his victory, and allay any fears and insecurities that may be left in people's hearts."
Crida nodded solemnly.
"He wishes you to ride beside him, Prince Crida," Bertred said then.
Crida's eyebrows rose in a familiar gesture. "Me?"
"Yes." There was no smile on Bertred's face. "You are his heir."
Color stained Crida's fair skin and he looked to his mother. Niniane put a hand upon her son's arm and said quietly to Bertred, "Crida will accompany you whenever you are ready to leave, Bertred."
Bertred nodded. Then, his voice helpless and aching, "Niniane, I am so sorry about Cerdic."
"I know." Her voice was kind and very composed. "Thank you." She looked at Crida. "Come along with me," she said. "Before you leave, I am going to wash your hair."
* * * *
Bertred spent an hour speaking to Ceawlin's thanes who had been held prisoner by Cutha, then went into Venta. He returned from the city in midafternoon, collected Crida, and went back to Torfield to rejoin Ceawlin. After Bertred and Crida had gone, Niniane walked slowly across the courtyard, and for the first time since she had left it to go with Ceawlin to Bryn Atha, she entered the king's hall. She stayed but a few minutes before she left and walked to the women's hall to seek out Nola.
Within half an hour the king's hall was being torn apart to be cleaned. The wooden floors were scrubbed, as were the benches, the table, and the chairs. The bed was stripped, the old straw burned, and the bed remade with sweet fresh straw covered by clean linens. The rugs and furs, Niniane had taken outside to be beaten and aired. She even had the hearthplace stones scrubbed. Niniane and Nola supervised the handmaids, and it was dark before the job was finished. Niniane's back ached with tiredness and her legs could scarcely hold her up, but as she sat her sons down at their father's table to eat a late supper, the satisfaction she felt was worth the fatigue. Her house was her own again.
* * * *
The dead had been taken off the field by the time Crida arrived at Torfield, and the cookfires were burning cheerfully. Ceawlin was talking to a group of Sigurd's thanes who had come in to surrender to him, when someone came to tell him that his son was in camp.
Crida was standing by Bertred's side, his slim, boyish frame looking very vulnerable next to the bigger man. Ceawlin called his son's name and the boy turned, his face suddenly lighting. "Father!" He took a step forward, then stopped himself. If he had been a few years younger, Ceawlin thought, he would have run to throw himself into his father's arms.
"It is good to see you, my son," Ceawlin said and, putting an arm around Crida's shoulders, gave him a quick, rough hug. "How is your mother?"
"Brave," said Niniane's son.
Ceawlin looked at him for a moment in silence, then nodded. He turned to Bertred. "Is all arranged for tomorrow?"
"Yes," said Bertred. The two men discussed plans for a few minutes while Crida stood in silence, listening. Then Ceawlin turned to his son.
"Come," he said. "You and I will go for a walk."
The field was surrounded by a thicket of woods, all red and gold with autumn, and it was into the privacy of these that Ceawlin led his son. After they had walked a little way in silence, he said to Crida, his voice very steady, "Who conducted the funeral rite for Cerdic?"
"I did." Crida's voice was as carefully controlled as Ceawlin's. "And Ceowulf helped me watch through the night." He did not tell his father that Ceowulf had fallen asleep.
"I am glad," Ceawlin said. Then, with obvious difficulty, "Crida, I know how close you and Cerdic were. I know how hard this must be for you."
"Father." Crida stopped and drew a long breath. His voice sounded constricted. "I feel I must tell you this. I have to tell you this. I loved Cerdic; you know I loved him.
But ... but ..." Then the words came out in a guilty rush: "I am glad that I am going to be king."
They had stopped walking and were standing under the flaming canopy of trees. The fire above them was only visual, however. It was cold in the woods, and damp. Ceawlin looked into his son's face. Crida would not look back at him, was staring desperately at the ground. Ceawlin let out his own breath in what sounded very much like a sigh and said, "When I was seventeen years old I killed my brother so I could be king. At least you do not have that kind of blood guilt to live with."
Crida's eyes flew to his father's face. There was a moment's silence; then Crida said, "You killed your brother in a duel. He had poisoned his sword. You acted in self-defense. Mother told us all about it."
"I did not have to kill him," Ceawlin said. "But I hated him. And I wanted to be king."
Crida searched his face with worried eyes. Ceawlin reached out and pushed the flyaway, newly washed hair off his son's cheek with a gentle hand. "I am glad that you want to be king," he said. "To be a good king, you must want it very much."
"But ..." Crida's voice was anguished. "If I were given a choice to bring Cerdic back ... Father! I don't know what I would do!"
Ceawlin was tempted to speak words of comfort, to assure the boy that of course he would choose to bring his brother back. As Crida undoubtedly would. But it was the very possibility that he might consider choosing the other, the very real reluctance to give up what now he had won—that was what was causing Crida such agonizing guilt. Ceawlin would not help the boy by making light of this. "That is something you are going to have to live with, Crida," he said. "It is part of the burden of being a man."
There was a long silence. Ceawlin could hear the voices of his men in the camp. There was a rustling in the woods as a small animal scurried by. Overhead, a bird began to trill. Finally Crida spoke. "Yes," he said. His eyes met his father's and held them. "I understand."
* * * *
Ceawlin's return to his capital the following day was a triumph. He and Crida rode at the head of his war band, followed by his eorls, also on horseback. The thanes and the ceorls marched behind. For many of the ceorls, that day of adulation and rejoicing was the high point of their lives.
The main street of Venta was lined with people. The road from Venta to Winchester was similarly packed with ceorls from the Winchester vils. Ceawlin's name rang out in the cool, crisp autumn air, again and again and again as the war band progressed along its triumphant way.
Crida was flushed with excitement. A few times the path in front of them became clogged with people, but the eorls rode forward and cleared the way with their horses. Saxon and Briton together greeted Ceawlin as if he had been a god.
Crida's eyes shone like stars. As they left the road to turn toward the open gates of Winchester, he said to his father, "You are the greatest warrior in the world, Father. That is why they cheer you so."
Ceawlin's returning smile was crooked. "I am not a god, Crida. Fate will turn against me someday. In the end, we all must die. It is well to remember that, my son, and not to let yourself be too swayed by the adoration of others."
Then they were inside the gates, back in Winchester, back home. The steps of the great hall held a welcoming party. Niniane and all his sons. No ... not all. One he would never see again.
He pushed that thought aside, pushed it down and away as he had done since first he heard the news of Cerdic's death. The horses came closer and closer to the hall. Niniane had Sigurd and Eirik standing before her, so he could not see her below breast level. Her hair was dressed high with jewels; jewels glittered at her throat and shoulders and on the arms that encircled the boys. She had decked herself for victory.
"Mother looks splendid," Crida said proudly.
"Yes," said Ceawlin. "She does."
They had reached the steps of the great hall and all the horsemen dismounted. Sigurd pulled away from Niniane and rushed to meet his father. Eirik came after, then Ceowulf, more aware of his dignity than the younger boys. Ceawlin looked from the children who surrounded him to his wife.
She wore a full blue cloak pinned with a great golden brooch. He would not have known she was pregnant if he had not been told. He left the boys and came forward to take her into his arms. Then he felt the baby. "I am very glad to see you," she said, her voice shaking.
"And I you." He released her, backed away from the emotion in her voice, and said to his eorls, "Let us go inside."
There was a great banquet that evening. Alric, prepared by Bertred the previous day, was ready with a song of the Battle of Torfield. Crida sat in Cerdic's old place, and for the first time Ceowulf attended a thanes' banquet. Crida had asked that he be allowed to come.
Niniane retired immediately after Alric's first series of songs. It was almost two more hours before Ceawlin left the banquet and walked with slow, almost reluctant steps toward the king's hall.
The servants were asleep along the wall benches. The door to their bedroom was closed, but he could see a light shining in the crack between door and floor. Niniane was still awake.
She was sitting on the cushioned bench that ran under the window. Her hair was loose and she wore a cloak over her sleeping gown. She was looking out the window and did not turn her head when he came in. "Is the banquet over?" she asked.
"No. It is still roaring on."
"I hope you sent Crida and Ceowulf to bed?"
"Yes. Shortly after you left."
Finally she turned to face him. They had not been alone together for more than five minutes all day. He looked at her, at the small, delicate face, the great haunted eyes, the mouth curved with sorrow. The only person in the world, he thought, who understood what he had lost. For these last weeks he had been like a man standing with his back against a dam, utterly concentrated on nothing but holding back the flood that threatened to overwhelm him. He looked now at his wife, and the dam began to give way. He crossed the room, no longer trying to guard his face, and knelt in front of her. He put his hand on her swollen stomach. "I remember the night you bore him," he said. "I remember how grievously you cried."
She looked down at his hand and then covered it with both of her own, pressing its strong sinewy hardness against her. "Do you remember the day I told you I was expecting him?" she asked, her voice very low.
"Yes." He turned his hand, easily grasping both her small hands within his own large clasp. "It was the day I learned of my mother's death." He closed his eyes, and the dam within him shattered. "Oh, Nan." It was a cry of anguish. "Our beautiful boy!" And burying his face in her lap, he began to cry. Awkwardly at first, wrenchingly, in the way of one unused to tears, but finally with a flooding release of grief that eased at last to exhausted quiet.
Niniane held him, tears pouring down her own face, but the tears were more for Ceawlin than they were for Cerdic. Finally she got him into bed and he fell asleep still cradled in her arms.
* * *
Chapter 37
The March day was unusually warm, and after Niniane had nursed her daughter, she took a horse and rode out of Winchester toward the woods. It was muddy underfoot but there was a woodland clearing she had been going to for the last month and it was usually drier there. That was her destination on this warm March day, the six-month anniversary of the death of Cerdic.
The sky was pale blue and cloudless. Niniane dismounted, tied her horse, and went to sit on the decaying trunk of an oak tree that had come down in some storm years before. The sun was warm on her head and back but she scarcely noticed. She sat and stared sightlessly at the small pool in the middle of the clearing. She sat so quietly and for so long that two deer, feeling themselves safe, appeared from the woods to drink from the pond's clear fresh water.
The anniversaries were the worst, Niniane thought as she sat there motionless in the early-spring sun. Anniversaries, marking the inexorable flow of time, taking you further and further from the one you loved.
Today she could say: Six months ago he lived. Tom
orrow she would not be able to say that anymore. Soon it would be seven months, eight months, a year. It was a fine day; she noticed it for almost the first time. A fine day for hunting. Cerdic had loved to hunt. And so, finally, she began to cry.
The deer fled as soon as she moved. After a while she struggled to gain control of herself and went to the pond to splash cold water on her eyes. She wet a corner of her cloak and laid it against them. She did not want to return to Winchester with swollen eyes, did not want Ceawlin to know she had been crying again.
He grieved too. She knew that. But after that one outburst on the night of his return to Winchester, he grieved in silence. He did not want to talk about Cerdic, not to her, not to anyone.
"Nan, I can't," he had said desperately once when she had tried to share her feelings with him. "I can't keep going through it again and again. Don't ask it of me. I just can't."
That was the difference between them, she thought now as she tightened her girth and prepared to mount from the log. He had accepted Cerdic's death when it happened, had experienced it, had gone through it. She had not. She had been so strong, so brave, simply for that very reason: she had not accepted it.
And now she could not get over it. Ceawlin was coping, was going on with his life, but she could not. She was stuck in it, reliving it over and over and over in her mind.
The nights were the worst. She could not sleep, would lie there going over the possibilities of its not happening. Two scenes played themselves again and again in her mind.
In the first scene, she heard Cerdic getting up, heard him moving stealthily out of his sleeping-room door. In this scene she would get up herself and follow him, follow him and catch up to him just as he was going to try to climb over the wall. His blond hair was bright in the moonlight and he would smile at her and say, "What are you doing here, Mother?" And she would touch his arm and say, "Do not do this, Cerdic. Come back to the princes' hall with me." And he would come, so tall, so healthy, so full of life, back to the princes' hall and safety.