Hild: A Novel

by Nicola Griffith

  “She’s well. She’s cross that she can’t come. She nagged and nagged and nagged Cian: Make that lass understand, mind, make her understand. Oh, she’s like a bee in a bottle, and big as a house. Fa is happy, though. He thinks it will be twins. Just like Winty. Though of course he doesn’t know Winty really. Did I tell you about Winty?”

  “Onnen is with child?”

  Begu looked surprised. “Well, of course. I just said so. She’s due any day.”

  Hild took another breath. This was just how Begu was. She would talk to Cian about Onnen and her message. “You liked the queen, you said.”

  “She seems nice. But what was she doing out and about with those gesiths? She could birth if a bird sang suddenly. Any time. Maybe even today. You can always tell when they waddle like that and go white about the lips. The baby’s dropped. And what’s that perfume you smell of?” She lifted Hild’s hand, sniffed her wrist. “You smell like her.”

  Hild was getting back the habit of plucking the meaning from the flying words. “Jessamine. It’s a flower oil. And she is nice. For a queen.” But Hild didn’t want to talk about the queen. “What colour’s my veil band?”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful. It’s like that colour between moss and the sea. To match your eyes. Onnen spent all winter on it. And your girdle! She nagged and nagged at Fa until he gave her the stones.” She frowned, which made her look just like a goat pondering whether to eat a thistle, and tilted her head, listening. The gesiths were singing more loudly. “Do you suppose Cian is getting drunk? I promised Onnen I’d look out for him. She said I was to remind him to keep his sword in his scabbard, that here he’s just a man with a blade, and a young one at that, not the lord’s son.”

  Hild had no idea how Begu could protect Cian from quarrelsome, bloody-handed gesiths. She stood. “We’ll go make sure he’s all right.”

  * * *

  When they left the chapel, they paused and blinked in the cold wind, then started across the rough grass—Hild could already see a path between the serving door of the hall and the chapel, where the grass had been flatted by housefolks’ feet—towards the singing.

  By the good-natured sound of it, they were not yet very drunk:

  Do your ears hang low,

  Can you swing them to and fro?

  Can you tie them in a knot

  Can you tie them in a bow?

  Can you throw them o’er your shoulder

  Like a limp and Lindsey soldier?

  Do your ears hang low?

  “It makes no sense,” Begu said. “No one’s ears are that long.”

  “They’re not singing about ears.”

  “Oh.”

  The gesiths, ten of them, had dragged two benches outside and leaned them against the south wall at the east end of the hall. It was a favourite spot for the younger men and their dogs to lounge: sheltered from the wind that had been blowing cold from the northwest these last few days and bright with midmorning sun. Also close enough to call out to the housefolk passing and repassing and demand food and ale. Two, the black-haired brothers Berhtred and Berhtnoth, were bare-chested and just sheathing swords after a demonstration bout.

  Berhtred wiped his chest with his jacket and straddled the bench facing Cian. “And that, young chestnut, is how we did it at Lindum.” Then he deliberately took the wooden bowl sitting before Cian and drank from it.

  Hild clamped her hand on Begu’s shoulder, and Begu turned to look at her. But Begu hadn’t seen these men killing Lindseymen and thinking it of no more account than the slaughter of geese.

  The men—her hounds; she saw Gwrast, the young Bryneich lord, and his cousin Cynan; Wilfram, son of Wilgar; Lintlaf; Eadric the Brown and his friend Grimhun; and Coelwyn, Coelfrith’s much younger brother; though not Eamer the Gewisse, who hadn’t exchanged so much as a word with her since Lindsey—sat back and waited to see how Cian would respond.

  Cian reached for the ale jar, refilled the bowl, and gestured for Berhtred to drink again. “I honour you for it.”

  Berhtred’s lip curled: The stripling was a coward.

  “Indeed,” Cian went on, “I heard the Lindseymen were so fearsome that even a maid killed half a dozen.”

  He knew what she’d done at Lindum.

  Berhtred flushed dull red. Lintlaf leapt to his feet. “You insult the lady Hild!”

  “No.” Cian deliberately took back the bowl of ale and sipped. “I believe I’m insulting the Lindseymen.”

  Grimhun hooted and hurled a chunk of bread at Coelwyn.

  Cian grinned at Lintlaf. “Perhaps you will honour me with a bout.” He turned to Berhtred. “After I’ve crossed swords with Berhtred. Unless, sir”—another grin, this time exaggerated for effect—“you feel the need to rest here in the sun to warm your old bones.”

  More hooting, catcalling, and thrown objects. Now they understood the shape of things.

  Berhtred looked at Lintlaf. “What do you think? Me or you?”

  Lintlaf waved one dismissive hand, and sat. “I’ll take the winner.”

  “This ring on Lintlaf,” Berhtnoth said, slapping a chunk of gold and topaz on the bench, which earned him a reproachful look from his brother.

  “I’ll take that bet,” Cian said. “But only if I try your brother first. No shields.”

  No, Hild wanted to shout, you’re too young! But they were all young.

  Cian stood, unbuckled his belt—Hild recognised the gold tongue and garnet eyes—and saw the girls.

  “Come and watch!” he shouted. “I’m going to show them how we do it in Mulstanton!”

  He’s drunk, Hild thought. But, no: His eyes were brilliant, his cheeks hectic, but it was joy. This was what he’d been looking for all his life, to be a gesith and do as gesiths do, and here he was, at the hall of the overking of the Anglisc, about to test his mettle against the king’s own.

  “It’s for fun,” she said to Begu. “They won’t hurt him.”

  “Of course not,” Begu said. “He won’t let them. He’ll beat those silly boys.”

  Those silly boys had disembowelled men and played kickball with children’s heads.

  “Come on, let’s sit and watch!”

  The gesiths greeted them cheerfully and made room on the sunniest bench. Betting and drinking and rude comments resumed.

  Cian stripped off his jacket and threw it to Begu, who folded it lumpily. Hild took it, refolded it, set the package on her knee. It was a blue so dark it was almost black, embroidered in gold and green about the shoulder seams and hem by a hand Hild would recognise anywhere. She imagined Onnen working over it, dreading sending her son away. As it warmed in the sun, it released Cian’s familiar scent, overlain with the tang of iron and copper—a man’s smell.

  Cian drew his sword with that slithering ring that set her heart pounding. “Not for blood!” Cian shouted, and tossed the sheath aside.

  They circled in the sun. Hild recognised Cian’s familiar stance, left foot leading, at an angle to his opponent, right foot and arm back, sword held back and high. She imagined how hard it was to hold a sword like that. Several gesiths shook their heads: without a shield his left side was exposed. Hild’s heart squeezed. Was he trying to prove something to her, because Begu had teased him?

  It was a risky stance, one that relied entirely on timing and joint strength: shoulder, elbow, wrist. And reach. Like Hild, he had the reach. He had the muscle, too, whippy rather than plump, veins like worms coiled around his wrist.

  The scar she had noticed in the chapel showed ruched and red. About a year old. An ugly wound. A spear?

  Berhtred chose the usual stance: right foot and right arm forward, sword held low. He was a badger of a man, thick body, short arms and legs, built for wrestling, for pushing with a shield at close quarters.

  Perhaps Cian wasn’t being foolish after all.

  “Hai!” said Cian, and feinted, a fast jab with the point. Berhtred swung his blade up, like a horizontal bar, expecting a hard clash of iron, but Cian’s blade was alread
y back, waiting, and Berhtred met air, and teetered very slightly.

  The Cian Hild had known, the Cian with the wooden sword and wicker shield, dreaming of Owein, would have yelled and hurled himself into the attack. This Cian, the one with corded muscles and a half smile, simply kept circling. Then, when Berhtred had the slanting morning sun in his eyes, Cian thrust.

  Once for the feint with the tip, which Berhtred expected and so raised his sword only partway, then back and once more forward in a full stepping lunge, right foot leading now, and blade snaking over Berhtred’s in a wrapping leftwise twist that flung Berhtred’s sword up and away and into the grass. Cian stood with the tip of his sword against a curl of black chest hair while his opponent blinked, then he grinned and lifted the sword away in salute.

  “My fa taught him that,” Begu said. The gesiths hooted and slapped the bench. “He said it takes a strong, supple wrist. He says not one man in a hundred can do it leftwise like that. He says rightwise, sunwise, is easy but widdershins is special. Though most gesiths think it bad luck. And in a real battle it would get you killed.”

  Hild hardly heard her. Cian, her Cian, had disarmed a king’s gesith, blooded in the battle of Lindum, without a scratch or a bruise or even breaking a sweat.

  “I’ll take that ring,” Cian said to Lintlaf, voice vibrant with his own power. “Or we could go for double or nothing, you and me.”

  “I’ll take that bet. With shield and spear.”

  Hild stood. Most of the friendly blood she’d seen spilled had been in spear games. A sharp leaf of iron at the end of a long pole of ash was not easy to control. “Cian, come away with us. Your foster-sister is lonely.”

  * * *

  “You lied!” Begu said, when the three of them were out of earshot. The gesiths were singing again.

  “Yes. I want to talk to Cian. It’s easier if his guts are inside his skin.”

  Cian gave her a lazy smile. “He wouldn’t have touched me.”

  Hild ignored him. She didn’t know how to deal with this confident young lord. She focused on Begu.

  “I know, I know. You want me to go away so you can talk to Cian.”

  “Ask for Gwladus. My bodywoman. She’s probably in the kitchens.”

  When she was out of earshot, Hild turned to Cian. “You have a message.”

  “Mam said you were to take care. She said I was to watch you like a hawk. She said not to trust anyone, no one at all. She’s heard rumours.”

  “What rumours?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is she doesn’t trust you to anyone but me, and I’m to stick to you like honey on bread.”

  “Even here, in the vill?”

  “Especially. She said especially when you think you’re safe. She said your whole family should look behind them. But she reckons your mam can look after herself and your uncle has his gesiths.”

  “I have men, too.”

  “Truly yours?”

  She thought about that. “They saved my life, near Lindum. Or Eamer did. The red-haired man. But they’re the king’s gesiths.”

  Cian nodded. “Their will is not their own. They have given their oath.”

  He said oath with the same breathy reverence he had once used to speak of the hero Owein.

  Hild studied him. He blushed. He would have to lose that habit if he didn’t want to be teased, though the girls no doubt would like it. She wondered how long it would take Gwladus to snare him, and how she could persuade him and Lintlaf not to fight.

  “You want to swear to the king.” He tucked his head down like an ox trying to refuse the yoke and said nothing. “So what would you do if the king orders me dead?”

  “It’s not the king who wants you dead.”

  “Not today.”

  They were both quiet. The gesiths were singing again. “About the king. I could never— I wouldn’t—”

  She said to him in British, “An Anglisc oath is like water. It pours into every part of you, every crevice. You can’t hold any piece apart from it.”

  The sword was his path, and what better road to walk than the king’s?

  His eyes glistened. He rubbed his upper lip with his knuckle. Eventually he said in British, rusty from disuse, “I am not Anglisc.”

  She grinned fiercely. Cian. Hers. But he kept rubbing his lip. She said, still in British, “Cian, I will not ask an oath. The oath is yours, like your wooden sword of long ago. But perhaps, for now, you will loan it to me, unspoken, and you may ask its return at any time, because it is yours.”

  He smiled. The smile wobbled a little, but it was there. “Any time?”

  “Any time.” He remembered. She touched his arm, the scar, and said, now in Anglisc, “A spear, like Owein?”

  He shook his head. A tear flew loose, he brushed it away. “A boar.”

  “Fearsome, no doubt?”

  * * *

  The queen’s quarters in Derventio were large and bright. Like the chapel, the ceiling and walls were plastered and whitewashed. Like the chapel, the room was cool. The queen, as wide as an ox, found warmth unbearable. Hild didn’t mind, but Begu stood with her arms wrapped around herself, and Wilnoð, the queen’s gemæcce, sitting with Arddun by the empty brazier sorting embroidery threads, wore a heavy overdress. Unlike the chapel, though, the queen’s room had a bed draped with rich blankets—striped and with chevrons in yellow and a red so dark it was almost black—where Æthelburh rested, and a finely woven rug imported from the East via Frankia covered the wide elm floorboards.

  The queen looked up from the worked fabrics she had asked Begu to show her and nodded at Hild’s bare arms. “You’re the only woman who doesn’t huddle and shiver and give me reproachful looks.”

  Hild nodded, wondering why they were there. Begu watched the queen anxiously.

  “My husband”—she never called him the king—“tells me these rooms are as welcoming as an empty barn, though a barn is warmer. I told him I’ll paint and hang as soon as the walls are properly dry.”

  Still sorting thread, Wilnoð said, “Not if the chapel dries first. Paulinus Crow will hog the painters and gilders for himself.”

  “For the greater glory of God,” Æthelburh said, but Hild could read neither her tone nor her expression. “And speaking of God,” she said to Hild and Begu, “I hope you will both attend chapel with us in the morning. James has been working on a special Mass for Easter. The music, he assures me, would make an angel weep and hens fly. The feast will begin in hall immediately afterwards.”

  Hild nodded again. She was curious about the Christ ritual.

  “Good.” The queen smiled and stroked the veil band and girdle Begu had brought to show her. “This is fine work. Yours?”

  “Oh, no,” said Begu. “That is, yes. Onnen—my father’s new, that is, my— Anyway, Onnen helped.”

  Hild opened her mouth to say Onnen is my mother’s— But her mother’s what?

  “And the embroidery on your veil band?” the queen asked.

  “All mine. Mostly.”

  “Come here, let me look.” Begu knelt by the bed. Æthelburh examined the band closely, then ran her fingertips over the violet-and-blue stitching. “Nicely done.”

  She sat up straight, arranged her blankets to her satisfaction, and stroked the raised nap while she studied both girls, back and forth. Her attention settled on Begu.

  “You are of good family.” Her voice now was strong and formal, and Hild’s blood began to beat hard in her chest and stomach. “Tell me, your father and—Onnen?—would want you to stay?”

  “I think so. Onnen sent me. She told me to stay close.”

  “And you would like that, to stay close to the lady Hild?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  Æthelburh turned to Hild, who understood now some of what Cian must have felt that night on the beach when Mulstan unwrapped the sword. “And your mother, the lady Breguswith?”

  Hild tried to swallow and speak at the same time. “Yes.” She sounded like a strangling toad. Begu giggle
d nervously. Hild swallowed again, took a slow breath. “My mother and Onnen know each other well.”

  “And this would please you?”

  “Yes!”

  Æthelburh winced, and Hild thought for one horrible moment that she had bellowed, but then the queen put a hand on her belly and took two deep breaths. After a moment her pinched look faded. She smiled. “Then it shall be so.”

  She smiled at Wilnoð, who smiled back fondly, and stood, holding a basket.

  “Begu, you are welcome in my house in your own right and as the gemæcce of Hild, niece of the king. And the queen.”

  Hild didn’t dare look at her gemæcce—gemæcce!—but Begu’s hand stole into hers. Hild squeezed it.

  “To seal the bargain I have a gift.” The queen motioned for Begu to stand and for Hild to come forward.

  She lifted items from Wilnoð’s basket one by one and held them up to the light. An ivory spindle each, and distaffs in two lengths. Shears, made of iron and inlaid with fantastical beasts in silver. “The smith swears they are harts, though they look very like foxes to me.” One gold thimble each. Two packets of the finest needles Hild had ever seen, and astonishingly bright. “And for you, Hild, when it’s time to wear your girdle, this.” A deep-dyed blue leather purse, its ivory lid held by three yellow-gold hinges, each inlaid with garnet. Hild longed to hold it to her face and smell the new-leather scent, test its suppleness. “To put inside it—” The queen’s hand, feeling about in the basket, clenched in a fist and her face tightened. Wilnoð laid a professional hand on her belly.

  “You may not make tomorrow’s Mass, my lady.” She handed the basket to Begu. “Off you go. My lady needs rest. No, hush now. Tomorrow will be soon enough for thanks.”

  Outside, they turned to each other but the courtyard was too busy. Hild looked at the sky. The clouds were little and white; it was unlikely to rain.

  “I’ll show you a secret place,” Hild said.

  She led Begu to the track worn long, long ago between the Roman villa and the ford. Part of it was overgrown, green and mysterious, a tube through woods coppiced generations ago, then run wild, and now gradually being reclaimed.