Free Born of the Sun by Joan Wolf

Ceawlin and Edwin were to fight under the king’s command, and Sigurd was to fight with Cutha. Ceawlin gave one quick look to Sigurd as these arrangements were discussed, then looked away.
    Cynric finished speaking, threw away the rest of his meat, and looked into his empty cup. Edwin jumped to his feet and took the cup from his father, saying quickly, “Let me serve you, my lord.” Cynric looked at his son’s eager face, smiled, and nodded. Edwin went over to the barrel that held the beer, filled the king’s cup, and brought it to him. Then he said to Cutha, courteously, “May I fill yours also, kinsman?”
    Ceawlin watched his brother’s stocky figure go from one man to the next around the fire. Behind him he heard someone near the barrel offering to fill the cups for Edwin, and his brother’s curt rejection. Then Edwin was standing in front of him.
    “May I fill yours, brother?” he asked in the same pleasant voice he had used to the others.
    Slowly Ceawlin extended his cup. Edwin took it and went to the barrel for the last time. Ceawlin turned his head a little to watch, but saw only his brother’s back as he bent over the beer. Then Edwin was before him once more, the cup extended in his hand.
    Ceawlin looked up into his younger brother’s face. The dark eyes looking back at him were unreadable. Edwin’s eyes had always reminded him of an animal’s: opaque, unblinking, feral. He took the cup.
    The king looked around the circle of his family. “May Woden take them all,” he said in the usual Saxon dedication to the enemy host. Woden, god of battles, selected from the men fighting in a battle those who were to be victorious and those who were to be slain.
    Cynric drank and the others raised their cups as well. Just as the rim touched his lips, Ceawlin glanced toward Edwin. The dark, unwinking gaze was fixed on his mouth. With sudden decision Ceawlin moved his mouth and swallowed but did not allow the liquid to touch his lips. The failure to drink to the dedication of the enemy host was less dangerous, he thought, than what was likely awaiting him in that cup.
    The fire died down and the voices around the fire began to run out as well. Even Cuthwulf seemed to weary of predicting his own great exploits upon the morrow. Cynric began to get to his feet and Edwin jumped up to assist him. Ceawlin made a move as if he too would help his father, but Edwin shook him off. As everyone else was watching the old king rise painfully from his seat on the ground, Ceawlin stooped and poured the contents of his cup into Edwin’s.
    Finally the king was on his feet. As Cynric walked toward the sleeping place that had been made for him, Cutha at his side, Ceawlin raised his cup. “To Cynric, the king!” he said. “And to victory!”
    His cousins and his brother picked up their cups and drank the pledge. Ceawlin went off to his own bedplace with a satisfied smile on his long, beautifully chiseled mouth.

    In the middle of the night, Edwin became violently sick to his stomach. By the time the war band had broken camp it was clear that the prince was too ill to go with them. Cynric left his son with a small bodyguard and the rest of the Saxons began the march toward Beranbyrg in the dark.
    “The gods were with you,” Sigurd murmured to Ceawlin as the two young men rode out of camp side by side.
    “He put something in my drink last night,” Ceawlin answered. “When he wasn’t looking, I poured it back into his.”
    There was a startled silence. Then, “Gods! What if it had been meant to kill?”
    “I was rather hoping it was,” Ceawlin said.
    Sigurd’s silence was even longer this time. Finally, “Someday, Ceawlin, it will be.”
    “I don’t think so. He must depend on Guthfrid to get the poison, and she will not go that far. My father has a fondness for me, and she is afraid of him.”
    “I cannot understand her! Why does she hate you so? You have never tried to take aught of hers.”
    “Do you know, Sigurd,”