Born of the Sun by Joan Wolf

particular plans, but he did not dare say so to Cutha. He went.
    He waited on the porch of the women’s hall with ill-concealed impatience. Ceawlin was being spared this scene; Sigurd did not see why he had to be part of it. His father knew well his feelings about Edwin.
    Cynric had sent Ceawlin into Venta that morning to interview the participants in a dispute over a trading license. Cutha had told Sigurd that the king did not want Ceawlin present at this business of Edwin’s marriage, but he did not want it to look as if Ceawlin were being deliberately excluded either. By making the arrangements today, the king had an excuse for his elder son’s absence.
    The women’s-hall door opened and Niniane came out onto the porch. Her smoke-blue eyes looked up at him with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation. “Has my ransom come?” she asked.
    He could not meet those eyes. “The king wishes to discuss your future,” he temporized uneasily. Then, “If you will come with me, Princess?” He opened the porch door for her.
    “Are you still afraid of the dark?” he asked as they crossed the courtyard side by side.
    “It is not the dark,” she returned in her surprisingly husky voice. “It is being shut in. I am used to rooms with windows, you see.”
    “Windows are nice,” he agreed. “We do not have the Roman skill of making glass.”
    She gave him a quick upturned look. “Neither do we, anymore.”
    “It is not so bad here in Winchester,” he said a little awkwardly. “We may not have windows, but life is comfortable.”
    “Life is very comfortable, my lord,” she replied quickly. He could see she was afraid she had offended him. “It is just different from what I am used to.” And she gave him a tentative shy smile.
    He felt anger swell in his heart. It was an outrage to think of this girl in Edwin’s bed.
    They had reached the king’s private hall. Sigurd set his teeth and motioned for her to go in before him.
    Cynric’s hall differed from most of the other halls in Winchester in that the hearthplace was not in the center of the room but in a corner.
    The center was reserved for a great carved wood table with eight high-backed chairs arranged behind it. Seated in the chairs today were Cynric, Guthfrid, Edwin, Cutha, and Cuthwulf, Sigurd’s brother.
    “My lord king,” said Sigurd in Saxon, “I bring you the Princess Niniane.” Then, in a lower voice to Niniane, “Go and stand before the king.”
    He watched her walk across the floor and come to a halt before the table. She looked very small. Sigurd then went himself and took the chair next to his brother.
    It was Cutha, his father, who spoke. “The king has made a decision about your future, Princess. You will be pleased to learn that you are to marry his son, Prince Edwin.”
    Every drop of blood seemed to drain from her face. “Marry!” she said. Her eyes went from Cutha to the king.
    “Yes, marry,” Cutha replied. “The king has deemed it will be wise for Winchester to make a match with the Atrebates.”
    “But I thought I was to be ransomed …”
    “You yourself are more valuable to us than any ransom your father might pay,” said Cutha smoothly. “You are a princess of your line. A match between you and Edwin will bring the lands of the Atrebates more easily under our control.”
    The color had not yet returned to her face, but Sigurd could see how her chin rose. “I cannot marry a Saxon,” she said. “I am a Christian.”
    “That matters little. We will not interfere with your beliefs.”
    “Enough of these questions!” It was Guthfrid, speaking in broken British for Niniane’s sake. “You are to marry my son, and that is an end to it. Marriage is not a matter girls are allowed to settle for themselves.”
    “No, their fathers settle it for them,” Niniane shot back. “And I’m quite sure mine will not approve of this. Such a match, my lord”—and here she looked once again at Cynric, knowing that he was the one to