Born of the Sun (47 page)

Winter turned into spring and they learned that Cuthwulf was indeed in Wight. As the weather softened and became milder, the strain and bitterness between the king and his chief eorl became more and more noticeable. Finally, in May, Cutha announced that he would like to retire from Winchester. He would go to Banford, he told Ceawlin, who with undisguised relief granted him permission to withdraw to his manor.

In early June came news from Wight that Cuthwulf was dead.

“Killed in a brawl,” Ceawlin said to Niniane. “Very fitting.”

Niniane’s reply was noncommittal, but she was not happy to hear of Cuthwulf’s death. “Does Cutha know?” she asked.

“He probably knew before I did,” Ceawlin replied acidly. “He is in constant touch with Wight.”

“Ceawlin … do you think you ought to give him such a long rein?” Niniane asked. “I don’t trust him. He would do you a mischief if he could. I know he would.”

“You see trolls behind every tree, Nan,” he said impatiently. It was his standard answer to all of the dangers she feared threatened him. Part of her knew he was right, knew she was overprotective of Ceawlin and her children. And what could Cutha possibly do to hurt Ceawlin?

Nothing, came the instant answer. But still she was uneasy. “I think you ought to set someone to watch Cutha,” she said.

He kissed the top of her head. “I have,” he answered, and went off to the great hall to give justice.

It was late August and the bees were thick. Sigurd was returning to his manor, his small tear-streaked daughter on the saddle before him, when he saw a group of horsemen approaching the gates of Wokham from the opposite direction. It was a moment before he recognized his father.

Foreboding struck his heart. He had heard, of course, of Cuthwulf’s death. He could not feel personal grief; he and Cuthwulf had never been friends. But blood was blood and he regretted deeply that Cuthwulf had come to such an end.

“Look,” he said softly to Hilda, who was still weeping over the bee sting on her finger, “there is your grandfather.”

“Grandfather?” She looked up at him out of his own steady gray eyes. “Did you know Grandfather was coming, Papa?”

“No,” Sigurd answered somberly, “I did not.” Cutha had seen him and halted his party. With a reluctance he strove to conceal from his daughter, Sigurd spurred his horse forward to catch up with Cutha.

Once they were within the walls of Wokham, Sigurd consigned Hilda to the care of Edith and took his father to the manor’s impressive hall. This was the first time he and Cutha had met since the death of Cuthwulf, and Sigurd was appalled by how gray his father’s hair had grown, how much older he suddenly looked.

Cutha did not waste any time. “Sigurd,” he said as soon as he was alone with his son, “I cannot stomach Ceawlin any longer.”

The foreboding struck even deeper into Sigurd’s heart. “What happened to Cuthwulf was not Ceawlin’s fault, Father,” he said around the tightness in his throat. “Cuthwulf brought all his ill fortune on himself.”

“Ceawlin did not handle him properly,” Cutha said. “Ceawlin made no attempt to reward Cuthwulf, to befriend him. Cuthwulf fought for him, and what did Cuthwulf receive? Where was his manor, Sigurd? His honors?”

“It was always understood, Father, that Cuthwulf would have Banford after you,” Sigurd said. “Banford is one of the greatest manors in all of Wessex. I could not say that Cuthwulf was cheated.”

“He gave you Wokham; to Penda he gave the whole of the upper Thames valley; Bertred, Ine, even Cynigils, who fought for Edric—all of these were rewarded with manors. But not Cuthwulf.”

Sigurd rubbed his forehead. “Father, Cuthwulf was not the most … trustworthy of men.”

“He was trustworthy enough for Ceawlin to send him to deal with Cnebba and Oslaf. And he did deal with them, drove them back into Kent and reclaimed all the cattle they had stolen. He did that for Ceawlin, and what reward did he get? Insults. Insults because he had dared to be a true lord to his men and reward them for their bravery.” Cutha’s blue eyes were cold, his mouth thin with anger. “Cynric would never have dealt with him thus,” he said.

Sigurd forbore to point out that the spoils Cuthwulf had divided among his men had not been his to give. “Perhaps not,” he said instead. “But Cynric still thought like a warlord, Father. Ceawlin thinks like a king.”

“Ceawlin thinks to advance himself, himself and his family. He has no thought for his eorls and his thanes. Do you know, Sigurd,” and now Cutha’s eyes glittered, “he has betrothed Cerdic to the daughter of the King of Sussex?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Do you know that he did it without even consulting me? He just told me one day, as an afterthought, that he had arranged this marriage. He sent Bertred to Sussex to make the arrangements. Bertred!”

“I agree that it was not … thoughtful of him to do that, Father—”

“Not thoughtful?”

Sigurd rubbed his forehead again. In this he did agree with Cutha. Ceawlin had been careless of Cutha’s feelings in this matter, should have at least made some show of consulting the eorl on a matter of such importance to Wessex.

“The only person Ceawlin listens to these days is his wife,” said Cutha bitterly.

“Niniane is wiser than the ordinary woman. I would not scorn her advice myself.” Sigurd was pleased his voice sounded so normal. “She has been with Ceawlin since first he fled from Winchester,” he added. “He has ever been closer to her than most men are to their wives.”

Cutha stared at him and Sigurd stared back. It was Cutha’s eyes that fell first. “I am going to go to Wight,” he said.

Ever since this conversation had begun, Sigurd had had a feeling that he was sitting with a sword suspended over his head. “Why?” he asked after a moment’s tense silence.

“The King of Wight, Witgar, is the son of Cynric’s elder brother,” Cutha replied. “He has a better claim to the kingship of Wessex than does Cynric’s bastard.” And Sigurd saw that the sword was ready to fall.

“You cannot do this, Father,” he said heavily. “You cannot so turn your back upon Ceawlin. Don’t you remember? You were the one who befriended him when all else chose Edgar. You were the one who made him king.”

Cutha’s eyebrows rose high, and for a moment he looked young again. “I remember, Sigurd. It is your friend who has forgotten.”

Sigurd slumped in his chair like an old man. “You cannot put Witgar on the throne of Wessex. Wight is a small kingdom, much smaller than Wessex. Ceawlin would destroy any war band Wight could collect to come against him.”

“We shall see,” said Cutha. “I still count for something in this kingdom, my son. Nor am I the only eorl to be dissatisfied with Ceawlin.”

Sigurd masked the lower part of his face with his hand. “To whom have you been talking?”

Cutha shrugged and did not reply. Sigurd drew a deep, uneven breath. “Have you spoken with Witgar about this?”

This question Cutha deigned to answer. “Cuthwulf mentioned it. Witgar is a man in his fifties, Sigurd. It is an age when death begins to loom, and one sees that there is little time left to accomplish deeds of glory. Cynric was older than that when he decided to invade the land of the Atrebates.”

Sigurd looked at his father and thought that perhaps Cutha was talking of himself. Then, “Ceawlin is still young,” Cutha said, and Sigurd’s suspicion was confirmed. “I am not. If I am to leave a name that the harpers will remember, I must act soon.”

“Father … do not ask me to join with you in this. Ceawlin is my friend, my sworn lord. I cannot betray him. I cannot!”

Cutha rose and stared somberly down at his son’s anguished face. “Think you, Sigurd. What has Ceawlin ever done for you? This manor,” and he waved his hand to encompass the hall, “was no more than your just due, no more than he has given to the other men who aided him in winning the kingship. But you, you who are supposedly his greatest friend, what else has he given you?”

“There is naught else that I want,” Sigurd answered steadily. “And if there were, I should only have to ask for it.”

Cutha’s blue eyes were narrow and hard. “You will not tell him of this conversation?”

“Of course not!” Sigurd was very white. “You are my father. How could you think such of me?”

“I do not know what to think of you, Sigurd,” came the measured reply. “Blood seems to weigh less with you than this one-sided friendship.” Cutha suddenly put a hand on Sigurd’s shoulder. “I will tell you this, my son. There is only one rule in life and that is: when you want something, go and get it. It is the rule that Ceawlin lives by and it is my rule as well. It would be well for you to think of it. Think also that if Ceawlin should die, then would Niniane be a widow.”

Every last ounce of color drained from Sigurd’s face.

“Edith is no king’s daughter,” Cutha went on. “It would be easy to put her aside.” Then, as Sigurd still did not reply, “You owe him nothing, Sigurd. Nothing! The past is the past. That is how Ceawlin sees it, else he would never have acted as he has toward Cuthwulf and toward me. Your duty lies with your kin, your own blood, not with this ungrateful king. Remember that when I do send to you.” And Cutha, after a shrewd and satisfied look at his son’s ashen face, left the hall, gathered his men, and rode south to Wight.

The Romans had come to the Isle of Wight many centuries before and built large villas and planted vineyards and done the best that they could to create a corner of the civilized Middle Sea amidst the barbarian British. When Rome fell and the legions left Britain, the remaining Romano-Celtic population of Wight had lived on in peace, cultivating their farms in the mild island climate. Then, at the very end of the fifth century, the Saxons had come.

They came from the land of the East Saxons and their leader’s name was Cerdic. He was a younger son of the East Saxon royal house, banished from his homeland because in a fit of rage he had killed a son of the neighboring East Anglian royal house, an action that had threatened to bring down a blood feud upon his own smaller, more vulnerable kingdom. Cerdic’s brother the king had given him a ship and sent him forth to win his fortune. With him had gone his own loyal thanes and his two sons, Stuf and Cynric.

They had sailed out into the Narrow Sea and landed on the sands of the small island the Romans called Vectis. The resident Romano-Celtic population, safe since the days of Arthur, had not been able to put up an effective resistance, and soon Cerdic had made himself lord of Wight. The following years had seen the expansion of his kingdom to several miles of shorefront land on the opposite side of Solent bay, but when Cerdic died and left his lordship to his son Stuf, Wight was largely an island kingdom.

Nor had it expanded its territory in the years that Witgar, son of Stuf, had ruled. Wessex, the kingdom founded by Cerdic’s younger son, Cynric, was far larger and potentially far more powerful than the little island kingdom left by Cerdic. Cutha had long sensed that there was jealousy in Wight over the preeminence of the secondary kingdom. And Winchester was little more than twenty miles from the coast. It would make sense if the two kingdoms, smallest of all the English lands, should combine under one king.

Who that king should be was the as-yet-unanswered question.

Witgar received Cutha with flattering attention. They were not strangers; Cutha had stayed in Wight after his defeat by Edric at Banford, before he had gone north to bring a war band to assist Ceawlin in his fight for Wessex’s kingship.

The King of Wight was pleased by the turn of events that had brought the premier eorl of Wessex to his shores. Cutha had judged nicely when he had explained Witgar’s character to Sigurd. Of late years, Wight, so rich, so settled, so confined, had been growing dull to Witgar. The king had been stirred by Cutha’s first visit to take greater notice of his cousin’s kingdom of Wessex, and the contrast between the burgeoning Wessex and his own small island had been more and more apparent as the years went by. The catalyst that had pushed Witgar from the role of envious onlooker to active conspirator was the proposed betrothal of Cerdic to the princess of Sussex. Sussex encompassed all the land along the southeastern shore of England and, along with Wessex, was the Saxon kingdom closest to Wight. Witgar had himself tried to arrange a dynastic marriage with Sussex for his own granddaughter and had been turned down. Ceawlin’s success in the light of his failure was bitter indeed.

Witgar was fifty-three years of age. His two sons by his queen were dead. The heirs to Wight were either his two male grandchildren by his bastard son or his six legitimate granddaughters. In Witgar’s view, the days of Wight as a separate kingdom were numbered. It was too small and he had no strong successor for his people to unite around. Ever since the death of his last son he had resigned himself to the fact that the only hope for Wight was to marry his eldest granddaughter, Auda, to the heir of either Wessex or Sussex. Thus would Wight be incorporated into one of the two larger kingdoms, and his blood would flow in the veins of its future rulers.

But Sussex had rejected a princess of Wight for its heir and had betrothed its prince into Northumbria. And Wessex had betrothed its heir to Sussex. It seemed no one wanted a princess from Wight; and Witgar’s pride was severely wounded. Once more it was brought home to him how small and how unimportant a kingdom it was that he ruled.

Then Cuthwulf had come to Wight, hinting about dissatisfaction among the eorls with Ceawlin, hinting that the kingship of Wessex might not be as secure as it had hitherto seemed. Witgar had been interested and had let Cuthwulf see that he was interested. The arrival of Cutha was not a great surprise.

“Welcome once again to Wight, cousin,” he said to Cutha as the eorl came into his hall on a warm and balmy August afternoon. “I trust you had an easy crossing.”

“Nothing could have been easier,” replied Cutha genially. “Your island is so fair, my lord. It is a joy to be here again.”

Witgar offered Cutha beer and Cutha accepted. It was when the two men were seated, Witgar in his high seat and Cutha beside him, that they got down to the business of Cutha’s visit.