Born of the Sun by Joan Wolf Page A

whom she had to make her appeal—“such a match is more likely to enrage my people than to placate them. Unlike the Christians in Venta, we take our religion seriously.”
    Cynric turned to Cutha, who translated for him. Then Cynric looked back at the girl who was standing before him. “Come here,” he said in Saxon, and gestured to the place beside him. Niniane began to walk around the table. She did not look at Sigurd as she passed in front of him. Finally she was standing next to the king. He reached out and took her chin into his hand. She looked back into his eyes, her own not flinching.
    After a long minute he dropped his hand. He turned to Guthfrid and said in Saxon, “Let us wait. She may be right.”
    “My lord!”
    He held up a hand and looked across her at his son. “We will inform her people of our intentions,” he said to Edwin’s unblinking brown eyes. “It might be necessary to marry her in a Christian rite. Let us wait and see.”
    The butter-yellow head nodded. “Yes, my lord,” said Guthfrid’s son.
    Niniane, who had understood nothing of what was being said, stood white-faced between Cutha and the king. “Tell her,” Cynric said.
    “The marriage will be postponed until we have communicated with your people,” Cutha said to her. “Princess, you are dismissed.”
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Chapter 5
    “Sit still, Ceawlin! His mother gave an impatient tug on the hair she was trimming for him. “I will cut it too short if you keep wiggling about.”
    Ceawlin let out his breath in an impatient sigh. “It is a good thing you were not born a Frank, Mother,” he said, as he had said every time she cut his hair since he was five years old. “Then you would never have an opportunity to exercise your talents with the scissors. The Franks have a law against cutting the hair of their princes.”
    “Well, you are not a Frank, you are a Saxon, and your hair should not be hanging below your shoulders.” Fara made the same response she had been making for the last twelve years also.
    “It’s going down my back and it itches.”
    “You can change your clothes later. Now sit still!”
    Ceawlin caught the eye of one of the younger bower girls who was working at the loom and winked. The girl giggled, then, as Fara looked up, turned back to her work. Ceawlin crossed his arms and tried to get comfortable.
    He did not really mind having his hair cut, but he had played this game with Fara since he was a baby and he knew it gave her pleasure. She did not have much opportunity to scold him these days, not since he had moved to the princes’ hall and out from under her jurisdiction.
    “I want it short over my forehead,” he murmured.
    “I know.” She picked up a comb from the table and smoothed the hair over his brow. “Close your eyes.”
    He closed them and then blew upward as the hair fell down and tickled his nose.
    “There,” his mother said with satisfaction, and he opened his eyes and saw Niniane coming in the door. She stopped a moment in surprise as she saw the unusual scene before her: Ceawlin seated in a chair with a cloth spread under it and Fara hovering over him with scissors.
    Ceawlin grinned. “It’s a strange Saxon rite, Princess. Called a haircut.”
    She came toward him with quiet dignity. “We have that ritual also, Prince. I used to cut my brother’s hair. He wears it like the Romans, much shorter than yours.” She stopped a few feet from him. “You will see for yourself soon enough.”
    Their eyes met. Hers were dark and smoky and carefully expressionless.
    Niniane’s position in Winchester had changed considerably during the course of the last year. Instead of approving a marriage between her and Edwin, the Atrebates had rallied and reoccupied one of the old hill forts in the mountains northwest of Calleva. The leader of the newly warlike Britons was Niniane’s brother, Coinmail. Her father had died three months after Sarc Water.
    Since word had come to Winchester of Coinmail’s action,