Born of the Sun (66 page)

Coinmail, who was commanding the center, shouted to rally his men. The snow began to fall harder, limiting vision to a paltry few feet. It was then that the men who knew they were in the middle of Coinmail’s line saw the great banner of the white horse driving toward them. It was merely a wing of men, Ceawlin and his hall thanes who had thrust their way into the heart of Coinmail’s army, but the Brit-Welsh, who could not see, thought that their whole front line had been broken. They panicked and turned to run. The men behind them, who could not see either, followed suit.

Ceowulf also was blinded by the snow, but he heard the change in sound coming from the field. He did not see his father returning, and, desperate not to miss the battle, he finally commanded the remaining Atrebates to follow him and charged in to reinforce Bertred on the left.

Coinmail, seeing his men begin to drop their weapons and run from the field, worked desperately hard to shore up the front of his line. He was pushing his way toward the hated banner that waved over Ceawlin when a sword blow landed on his head. His helmet saved him. Stupid Saxons, he thought, they didn’t wear helmets. He had cleaved a respectable number of blond heads in this battle, but the one blond head he most desperately wanted had eluded him. He had not seen Ceawlin in the battle at first, but he was here now. Here, and deep inside Coinmail’s lines. If he did nothing else in his life, Coinmail was going to kill the West Saxon king.

His helmet had been loosened by the previous sword blow, and when the second blow landed on it, it slipped forward over his brow. Coinmail’s head came up as he tried to see from under the leather blinder, and for a moment his neck was cleanly exposed. The moment was brief but fatal. One of Ceawlin’s hall thanes cut his throat.

The Dobunni, who had been following Coinmail, halted when they saw their prince fall. Then a great victory shout came from the left; the voices were Saxon.

“We are beaten!” The cry went up and down the ranks of Brit-Welsh. More and more Celts, confused by loss of leadership, blinded by snow, followed their instincts and ran from the death they were sure was before them.

As the enemy began to disappear into the snow, Ceawlin sent orders to his commanders not to pursue. With ruthless efficiency the princes and eorls pulled back their rampaging men, who, hot with the blood lust of victory, were ready to hunt down and fell any Celt they could get within the reach of their swords.

“Their princes are all dead,” Ceawlin said to Penda later when the eorl demanded why the victory had not been followed up. “They are no danger without leadership: the Welsh will simply flee back to their valleys, and the Dobunni I wish to make my people. I have sworn to be as good a lord to them as ever I have been to the Atrebates.”

Ceawlin and his eorls and his sons were gathered together under the roof of a hastily rigged tent near the battlefield. On Deorham field itself the wounded were being separated from the dead, with the former being treated and the latter laid aside for burial. The question Ceawlin was answering belonged to Penda, but the king’s eyes were on Gereint.

“Do we march next for Glevum?” Crida spoke the question into the accepting silence that had fallen after Ceawlin’s last words.

“First we enter Aquae Sulis,” Ceawlin replied. “If the city is anything like Silchester was under the Britons, it will be half-empty and crumbling. I will formally claim it for Wessex and hold an assembly for the people to reassure them.” His eyes turned to Bertred. “Bertred, you I designate as my governor. Romsey is the manor closest to Aquae Sulis, and the city will need leadership if it is to become a useful part of the kingdom.”

Bertred looked pleased. “Thank you, my lord. I shall not fail you.”

“You never have,” said Ceawlin, his matter-of-fact voice robbing the moment of any uncomfortable emotion.

“Then shall we go to Glevum?” asked Crida.

“Then Corinium,” said Ceawlin.

“You are claiming all the lands of the Dobunni?” It was Gereint’s voice this time.

“Yes.” Ceawlin’s eyes were level. “All the lands from Kent to the Sabrina Sea,” he said. “The cities of Aquae Sulis, Corinium, and Glevum will become West Saxon chesters. And I promise you, Gereint, that under me they will prosper.”

Gereint sighed and with a flicker of humor in the corners of his mouth said, “I don’t doubt it.”

“Who will govern in Corinium?” asked Inc.

“Ceowulf, with you to advise him,” Ceawlin answered promptly. “I shall give you lands in the neighborhood of the city, Ine, to settle on whom in your family you will.”

Ine smiled. He had a large number of sons and wished to keep his own manor of Odinham intact for the eldest. “I shall be pleased to accept such a charge,” he said.

Ceowulf was scarlet but his face was perfectly serious as he answered formally, “I thank you, my father, for such a trust.”

“You are a son to be proud of, Ceowulf,” Ceawlin said with equal formality. “A fine and a brave warrior. In Corinium, which I shall rename Cirencester, you will learn how to be a lord.”

Then he turned to his eldest. His heart swelled with pride as he regarded the boy. It was Crida who had given him the opening he had needed to win, and both of them knew it. “To you, Crida, my son, I give the thanks of my heart,” he said. “To you I shall leave a kingdom unequaled in England for size and for power.”

“My father,” said Crida, and though his face was almost stern, his eyes glowed. “Your thanks and your love are all that I desire.”

For a brief moment Ceawlin closed his hand on Crida’s forearm; then he threw his head up and said briskly, “Once we are finished here, the ceorls are to be sent home. Each eorl may take twenty thanes for his following. Then we march for Aquae Sulis, the new West Saxon chester of Bath.”

Niniane knew what had happened as soon as the British survivors of Deorham began to stream into Glevum. As ever, Ceawlin had triumphed. He always did. She wondered why she lived in such fear and trembling every time he went to war.

With Coinmail, Farinmail, and Condidan dead, the threat of panic hung in the air of Glevum. Frightened men told terrible tales of Saxon ferocity in battle. The Welsh did not tarry in Glevum but streamed west with all haste, crossing into the relative safety of Wales. Coinmail’s men, who had fled instinctively to the place of their starting out, did not know what to do.

It was Niniane who took charge. Eithne was too frightened at the magnitude of the defeat to know what to do. Coinmail’s ten-year-old son, who had inherited his father’s spirit, was fierce in wanting to make a stand against the Saxons, but he was too young to get a hearing from the rest of the Dobunni chiefs.

“The king is a man of mercy,” Niniane told Eithne and the tribe’s leading men who had survived the Battle of Deorham. “He is like a lion in battle, but after, he is a man of mercy. You have naught to fear from him.”

They said nothing, but looked distinctly dubious.

“Did he hunt you down as you left the field?” Niniane asked.

“No,” came the reluctant reply. Then, “It was snowing so hard, it was difficult to see.”

Niniane shrugged. “He could have sent his men after you like hounds after a fox, but he did not. He let you go. He does not wish to destroy the Dobunni; he wishes to be your lord and your king.”

“Never will I bow my head to a Saxon!” It was Coinmail’s son, Col. Niniane turned to the boy. He was all his mother to look at, golden curls, clear blue eyes. Niniane’s son Sigurd looked more like her brother than this boy did. But that relentless voice—that was unmistakably Coinmail.

“You will bow your head to this Saxon,” she said, unaware that her own voice held exactly the same note as her nephew’s. “Your father began this conflict. It was he who challenged Bevan’s right to marry his daughter where he would. Ceawlin had no choice but to act as he did.”

“Ceawlin should never have allowed his eorl to marry his son into Dumnonia.” It was one of the chief men of the Dobunni speaking now, a man of perhaps forty-five, who stood high in the councils of the tribe.

“It was Bevan who proposed the marriage.” Niniane’s small, delicate face was almost forbiddingly stern. “What would any of you have done should Bertred have offered Romsey to one of your sons?” There was silence. “Exactly,” she said after a minute. “And would you not have expected your prince to uphold your rights as well?”

“There is some truth in what you say, my lady,” another man reluctantly agreed. “The fault was Bevan’s in that he made the offer in the first place.”

“The fault was Coinmail’s for demanding that he forswear the betrothal,” Niniane snapped. Her small, tip-tilted nose was looking alarmingly imperious. “Coinmail has schemed for years to raise an army to fight Ceawlin,” she told the circle of somber-faced men. “If you are not blind or deaf, you know that. Well, he got his wish and he died for it. Thanks to his plots, the Dobunni are about to become West Saxons. Which, let me tell you, my lords, is your good fortune. The Atrebates did not fight for you, they fought for Ceawlin. Not because they fear him, but because they love him.”

“The Atrebates are slaves and cowards,” said Col.

He was his father all over again. She would not have it, would not let it all begin again. “If you want to live, Col,” his aunt said to him, her voice very, very quiet, “never let me hear you say such words again.” The boy, who was not a coward, went suddenly pale. There was no doubt in any man’s mind who heard her that Niniane meant every word she spoke.

Eithne, who had been silent for the whole time, put a hand on her son’s arm. “Col is upset,” she said. “He did not mean it.”

Niniane ignored them. “This is what we will do,” she said to the rest of the men. They all took a step closer, the better to hear.

The countryside of the Dobunni was bleak white with winter, but Crida thought that the rolling hills would be glorious in the spring and summer. Good land. Rich land. A great deal of empty land. A fine acquisition for Wessex.

Glevum itself was distinctly unimpressive. Bath had been magnificent even in decay, and Cirencester had also once been a fine city, the tribal capital of the Dobunni. But Glevum was very small, with few Roman buildings of any distinction. It had come into significance only in the last hundred years, mainly because it was the farthest west of all the Dobunni towns and thus the safest from Saxon invasion.

The Roman houses were interspersed with wooden structures, none of which approached the sophisticated architecture of Winchester. There was not a soul in sight under the broad gray sky. Crida glanced out the side of his eyes to his father, who was riding beside him at the head of their men. They were moving up the main street of the deserted town, and as his son watched, Ceawlin’s eyes suddenly narrowed. Crida instantly looked back to the road and saw that a line of men had appeared on the front step of the large wooden building some three hundred feet before them. They were Britons. Ceawlin continued to walk his horse forward, his eyes on the men. When they had advanced another hundred feet, one of the Britons came forward to stand in the road. Ceawlin raised a hand to halt his thanes, then went forward himself, alone.

“Owain,” Crida heard his father say with what sounded like real pleasure in his easy yet unmistakably authoritative voice. “Greetings.” Ceawlin spoke in British.

“My lord king,” the man replied. His face was reserved. “We bid you welcome to Glevum and we cry your mercy.”

Ceawlin swung off his horse. “Of course you have my mercy. I will speak with your chiefs about it.” Then he grinned, approached the smaller man, and lightly put a hand on his shoulder. “It is good to see you, old friend,” the king said. “Gereint and Ferris are with me too.”

The man’s rigid face wavered, then cracked into a tentative return smile. Crida, watching, thought dispassionately that no small part of his father’s success came from knowing how to woo a man with smile and touch. The stiff Dobunni leader was actually laughing as he led Ceawlin forward to meet the men who were assembled to submit to their new lord. Ceawlin accepted the bows with smiling ease, talked for perhaps three minutes, then turned to signal Crida forward.

“This man will show us where to quarter the thanes,” Ceawlin said as a Briton stepped forward into the road before Crida’s horse. “Tell Penda he is in charge and then come back here. Bring Gereint and Ferris with you.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Crida, and trotted his chestnut back to the waiting men to convey his father’s orders. Penda dismounted to walk beside the British guide, and Gereint and Ferris came eagerly forward to join Crida. They all three gave their horses into the care of Ceawlin’s hall thanes and walked back to the hall where Ceawlin had been greeted. The men on the front steps had already gone inside. Crida pushed open the door and he and the two Britons followed.

The small hall was filled with lamplight and men. Arranged in the middle of the room were a golden-haired woman and a boy who was obviously her son. As Crida watched, the woman bent her head to Ceawlin in the age-old gesture of submission. The boy hesitated, then, as his mother’s hand touched his arm, he too bowed his head. Coinmail’s wife, Crida thought. And his son. He looked around the room, searching for someone else. Where was his mother?

Ceawlin’s thoughts were evidently running along the same path as his son’s. He made a gracious, generous reply to the Dobunni princess’s obviously rehearsed speech and then said, “But where is my wife?”

The princess replied, “She said to send for her when the formal greeting was accomplished, my lord.” Eithne gestured to a handmaid and the girl turned and hurried out a side door.

Ceawlin looked around the neat rows of solemn-faced men who flanked Eithne and her son and quirked an eyebrow. “You have received me most royally, Princess,” he said. And Crida knew, suddenly, that his mother had probably arranged the whole thing. His father thought so, certainly. He could tell from the lift of Ceawlin’s eyebrow.

The door in the side of the hall reopened and suddenly Niniane was there. A rush of relief and happiness swept through Crida at the sight of her small, graceful figure. She looked the same as always, he thought thankfully. Her God had looked after her well.