Hild: A Novel

by Nicola Griffith

Every now and again Begu remembered what was in the basket and stopped swinging, stopped chattering, and looked solemn, but then she would notice something—“Look, the hedgepigs are awake already!”—and point and forget.

  After a while they left the main track for a rougher, more spidery path. A woodcutter’s trail. They jumped over a rivulet, running busy and brown.

  There were eleven ash boles in a circle, all cut early in the season. The woodcutters wouldn’t be back for years. In the centre, leaf mould had collected in a soft heap. Hild sat. Begu sat next to her. They spread their skirts to overlap and laid the queen’s gifts on the cloth one by one then held hands and gazed at their treasure.

  The breeze was now soft and light, the sun warm. The woods smelt of green living things. The rivulet bibble-babbled. A nearby wren tut-tutted. Greenfinches sang their creaky mating songs. Hild wanted to laugh and shout and be still all at the same time.

  “I feel like my insides just filled with sunshine.”

  Begu nodded. “I could burst.” She squeezed Hild’s hand.

  Hild squeezed back.

  They gazed some more at their treasure. “I like the thimbles best,” Begu said. She let go of Hild’s hand and slid a thimble onto her middle finger, then the other onto her pointing finger. “I expect they’re too small for you,” she said hopefully.

  Hild flopped down on her back and laughed. Begu, her jackdaw, her gemæcce.

  * * *

  The weather changed overnight. On Easter morning clouds smoked and twisted across a low sky and those who had to be away from a fire hurried between buildings pulling their clothes close against the cold, wilful wind.

  The queen did make it to the Mass, though the king did not. Hild noticed that no men attended but the queen’s Jutes, the priests and choristers, and a few housefolk in tunics painstakingly cleaned for the occasion and spattered about the shoulders with the first fat raindrops—no Anglisc men but Cian.

  Cian glared at Hild, but Paulinus, in his cope stiff with jewels and gold thread, had seen him and smiled, and now Cian was duty bound to stay.

  Hild ignored him. Her belly ached, strange and heavy, and she felt a little sick. Perhaps it was all the incense smoking in the brass censers two priests swung from chains.

  The music made Hild forget her belly. Voices soared overhead. Outside rain runnelled and gushed over the tile roof.

  Paulinus’s sonorous Latin brought her back to earth. The ache in her belly returned. She concentrated on shifting her weight unobtrusively from one foot to the other. She wished she could sit down, but only the queen, looking pale, had a three-legged stool.

  The Mass droned on. Rain beat on the roof. A wealh woman coughed carefully, persistently.

  Music soared again, Paulinus walked in state back up the aisle, preceded by the smoking censers. The wealh woman’s coughing rose to a crescendo. The queen stood, swayed, and Wilnoð and her other women hustled her away. Begu, with a glance back at Hild, who nodded, went with them.

  Outside, under the dripping eaves, Stephanus spoke to Cian: The bishop would have words with the young lord at the feast, if the young lord was willing. Cian bowed and suggested that not only was he more than willing, he was honoured. Hild breathed deeply of the damp but fresh air and wondered when he’d learnt to lie like a thegn. Stephanus hurried away, holding his skirts above the wet. Cian scowled after him and wiped his rain-wet forearms against his tunic.

  “Well,” said Fursey, and they turned. “Stephanus seems as pleased as a black cockerel. If I were an expert on the matter, which I am, I’d say the Roman bishop anticipates his first gesith baptism.”

  “I’m not a gesith—”

  “Yet,” said Hild.

  “—and I’ve no wish to be a priest!”

  “I imagine not,” Fursey said, smiling. “Luckily, baptism does not make you one. Though indeed”—his smile broadened—“it does make you exceedingly wet.”

  They followed him, mystified, to the hall for the feast.

  * * *

  Forthere stood watchful at the door while guests removed their weapons and leaned them against the east wall. Cian set his sword next to a sword-and-dirk pair with silver fine work: Pictish. Ciniod’s emissary come at last. Hild laid her seax near an old British blade with a magnificent yellow pommel stone, probably Dyfneint, which meant Geraint had sent yet another petitioner. At least he hadn’t made the mistake of sending a bishop again. She wondered what had happened to Anaoc. As she refastened her belt she scanned the row of weapons for evidence of Dyfneint’s enemy, the Gewisse, but Cian and Fursey were already moving towards a knot of drinking gesiths. She hurried to catch up.

  She felt queasy again, and the strange ache low in her belly was back.

  The feast proper had not yet begun. The king’s scop—a new one, the East Anglian who had sung the lament for Rædwald—supervised musicians with pipes and lyres; housefolk were still laying out bread trenchers and bowls and cups. Women moved from torch to torch with burning tapers. In the centre, all along the fire pits, men clasped forearms, or bowed, or punched shoulders in greeting. The largest knot stood around the king. The thin Dyfneint emissary in a scarlet cloak—the Dyfneint loved their Roman ways—stood by Paulinus, who had removed the jewelled cope but whose black was relieved by an emperor-purple silk sash wound about his middle. Stephanus hovered respectfully; even James the Deacon was there. The Dyfneint glared at the yellow-haired man with luxuriant moustaches talking in confidential tones to the king; Gewisse, the most powerful of the West Saxons, loved their whiskers.

  The king’s group made a good show of being absorbed in one another’s conversation, but every time the king laughed, or sighed, or turned slightly to hold out his cup to a houseman for a refill, they noticed, and their stance or expression or volume subtly matched his.

  None wore a blade, not so much as an eating knife, but Lilla stood always by the king’s elbow, and Eamer and even Lintlaf were nearby and drinking sparingly. Eamer and the other Gewisse appeared not to notice one another. Perhaps it was that Eamer no longer considered himself Gewisse: A gesith’s oath took precedence over all else. There again, Eamer didn’t acknowledge her, either. She wondered why. He had seemed to like her well enough in Lindsey, though perhaps she had misread him.

  At one end of the fire pit, Osric stood with Breguswith and the brothers Berhtnoth and Berhtred. Osric didn’t lean in to Breguswith the way Mulstan had Onnen but slung his arm around her mother’s waist. Her mother smiled and laughed and gave Osric smouldering eyes but, like a cat with a stranger, faced more away than towards him. They drank freely, as did Eadfrith and Osfrith, looking very much the young princes. Oswine stood nearby, clearly wishing to stand with his cousins the æthelings rather than with his father but uncertain of his welcome.

  Cian was tense. A feast day was a time for great boasts, heroic deeds, offers, and oath-taking, and Edwin was overking, the best lord a gesith could hope for. Cian, a thegn’s foster-son, wanted to make an impression.

  Hild said to Fursey, “Give Cian your drink. He needs courage. He’s going to talk to the Crow.”

  “I am?” Cian said.

  “You said you would. Forget the king for now. Drink that. Good. Now another.” She caught Stephanus’s eye, as warning, then took Cian by the elbow and steered him towards Paulinus. Stephanus leaned and murmured something in his bishop’s ear. Paulinus turned, smiling.

  “Call him lord bishop,” Hild whispered, and pushed him very slightly.

  “Ah. Our Mass-going warrior,” Paulinus said, and held out his hand.

  Cian inclined his head but perhaps didn’t know the amethyst ring was to be kissed. “My lord Bishop.”

  The muscles around Paulinus’s eyes tightened briefly. “Yes. Well.” He ran the tip of his ringed finger around the rim of his blue glass wine cup. “Stephanus tells me of your interest in the faith, young … Cian of Mulstanton, by the Bay of the Beacon.”

  “My lord Bishop. Yes. That is, the music was, the music is very fine.�
�

  “Yes. I brought Deacon James here especially to uplift souls to the greater glory of God.”

  “Most foresighted of you, Bishop,” Hild said.

  Paulinus focused on her, then looked back at Cian, and again at Hild. “You are cousins perhaps?”

  Hild stilled. For a moment she had forgotten how dangerous it was to stand side by side with Cian, how a stranger would see their height, their hair, their solemn faces.

  Cian laughed and shook his head. “Though we played together like fox kits for the years of our childhood.”

  Paulinus’s hooded eyes gave away nothing, but Hild worried. The Crow was not stupid.

  Her belly ached.

  The crowd rippled. “No,” the king said loudly—for the second time, Hild realised. “No, my lord Ceadda. I won’t be badgered in my own hall.” He turned deliberately from the West Saxon, looked over to Hild’s group, waved at the Dyfneint. “Lord Dywel, come speak to me of Geraint king’s proposal. In fact, all of you there, my lord Bishop, yes, and your priests, and Niece, come here and speak to me of things suitable for a feast day.”

  The scop stroked his lyre. Coelfrith looked up, caught the signal from the kitchen master by the hanging, and nodded to the king. Edwin smiled. “Saved by the food. Come. We’ll feast.”

  He gestured at the table behind Hild’s party and took a step towards them.

  The world went mad.

  Hild caught a wink of light. Lilla, two paces behind the king, bellowed and threw himself at Edwin and Eamer, and blood spurted in a short red arc.

  Everything slowed down, sound stretched.

  Torchlight glittered on rings, jewelled collars, a dripping blade. Flash. Flash.

  Hild couldn’t take it in, could only watch while a rivulet of blood wormed over the floor rushes and soaked into her shoe. Blood, in the king’s hall.

  Then the smell hit her and the world snapped back to the right speed. She crouched and her hand dropped to a seax that wasn’t there.

  Then Forthere knocked her aside, and Cian, and around her men reached for swords that weren’t there and froze for a moment. Shouting, bellowing, a howling shriek, another knife flash, another.

  Edwin rolled up from the floor, blood dripping from his upper arm, white-faced with pain, with Cian shielding him, wild-eyed, a tiny blade sprouting between his knuckles, gleaming garnet red. And blood, so much blood, spreading in a thick pool from Forthere, whose throat gaped. Lilla, cradling his own guts as though they were a small glistening dog. And Eamer, still holding the long thin knife. An assassin’s knife. Eamer didn’t move.

  Cian reached behind him to make sure the king was safe. “To me!” he shouted. “To the king!”

  And then the hubbub broke against them: shouting, men running for their swords, the king with blood running down his arm, swaying.

  Cian, and men armed with swords now, were backing slowly from the room, blades pointing everyway, like the spines of a hedgepig. Cian’s belt-buckle blade looked tiny and vicious, like a red viper’s tooth.

  The Gewisse was gone. Fursey was gone.

  * * *

  Flames flickered quietly in Hild and Begu’s chamber, glinting on the silver thread of the single hanging. Begu wrung out the cloth over the slop bowl and dipped it again in the copper bowl of warm water. She wiped Hild’s neck carefully. Hild sat like a statue.

  “How did you get it on your neck?”

  “I don’t know.” Her tongue felt heavy.

  “There’s some on your shoe, too. Ooof, it’s soaked through to your hose. Your best blue hose, too. And splashed on your skirt.” She rinsed and wrung and wiped again.

  Begu beckoned Gwladus from the shadow by the alcove. “We need cold water—something to soak these clothes. And more rags. And food.” She looked at Hild. “You look peaky. I expect it’s the shock. Though perhaps you’re hungry. I know I didn’t get fed while the queen birthed.” Hild said nothing. She felt nothing. “Bring a lot,” Begu said to Gwladus, “a lot of everything.”

  Gwladus left.

  “Take it all off,” Begu said to Hild. “Every scrap.”

  Hild stood and stripped, hands cold and clumsy, and Begu washed her head to toe, firm, soothing strokes. “Oh. You have a little cut here, on your shin.”

  Hild looked at it. It seemed very far away. Not her leg.

  “Does it hurt? Well, it’s nothing much.” Begu mopped at it. Hild felt a distant tingle. Begu seemed to mop at it for a long time, then she wrapped a rag around it and tied it. “There, now.”

  Now Hild felt cold, cold to her marrow, cold as marble. Everything smelt of blood, as though she was drowning in it.

  Begu murmured on and dried Hild as she would a newborn calf, then helped her into a clean, long-sleeved bedshift. “Let’s get you warm.” She helped Hild into bed, then covered her and stroked the hair from her face. “Stay there while I tidy this away.”

  Begu began to examine each piece of clothing for blood, folding and smoothing the unmarked things.

  “I’ll tell you about the baby, shall I?”

  “Cian…”

  “I’m sure Cian’s fine. He’s a hero. Lie quietly now.”

  The king would be half mad with fear. She should be there. But she couldn’t seem to move.

  Begu talked about the way the queen’s women had fussed. “Anyone would think they’d never seen a baby born before. And the queen. She looks so quiet, but she swore like a gesith! Mind, they always do…”

  Cian. She should be there.

  “… Eanflæd, she’s called.”

  Eanflæd. The new peaceweaver, born in blood. They were all born in blood.

  “I worried for a bit that she’d reject the little thing. But then she— Well, what’s this?”

  Hild opened her eyes. Begu was frowning over Hild’s drawers. She touched a fingertip to the red stain. “It’s still wet.” She looked up. “It’s yours.”

  Hild didn’t understand.

  “Does your belly ache?”

  Hild put a hand on her belly.

  Begu beamed. “You’re a woman! Though you’ve picked a fine night for it: the king half dead, the queen with a new daughter, everything in uproar.”

  Hild rested her hand on her belly. A woman. Then she realised what Begu had said. “The king’s half dead?”

  Begu waved aside the king’s health. She shook Hild’s drawers. “You’re a woman!”

  Gwladus came in, followed by two kitchenfolk carrying a massive tray and two buckets of water. Begu waved the drawers again and said, “We’ll need more rags, and raspberry-leaf tea!”

  Gwladus sighed, told the kitchenfolk where to put their burdens, and turned to leave with them.

  “Wait.” Hild sat up. “Find out how the king is, and Cian.”

  “And bring mead. We’ll have a feast! Up, up, you,” she said to Hild. “You’re looking a lot better. It takes people that way sometimes I suppose. That and the shock. Nothing a bit of food won’t cure. Come on. Get dressed.”

  “Cian—”

  “Stop fussing about Cian. He can take care of himself. He saved the king’s life. They’ll make him a hero. Besides, you can’t help him from that bed, can you?”

  Hild couldn’t argue with that.

  “That’s right. No, no. Proper clothes. You’re a woman now. Your finest gown, with the underdress and shoes Onnen sent that will match your veil band. Make sure you line your drawers.” She handed Hild a clean rag, showed her how to fold it. “I’ll just do this.”

  So Hild dressed for the first time as a woman to the sound of Begu dipping and wringing, and visions of Cian dead at a half-mad king’s hand.

  “Don’t forget your necklace, that thick gold one.” Hild found the heavy necklace, put it on, moving like someone under water. Was this what it meant to be a woman? No one had ever told her about the thick tongue and the strange distance. She lifted the girdle Begu had brought from Onnen, let it dangle from one hand.

  “It’s like a toothache in your belly, isn�
�t it?” Begu nodded at Hild’s other hand curled protectively over her stomach. “The tea will help with that. And mead. Besides, the ache’ll be gone tomorrow. Here, give me that.” She took the girdle from Hild. “I can’t put it on until you stop clutching yourself. There. Too tight?”

  Hild shook her head.

  “It’s a pity your good hose are in the bucket. Still, no one will see. Besides, if that cut reopens you’d only bleed on them again. Keep still.” She rummaged in the sueded leather purse hanging from her own girdle and took out the comb Hild had given her. “We’ll comb you out nicely before we try the veil band. No, no, you’ll have to sit on the bed. It’s like trying to comb the top of a tree!”

  Hild sat blankly while Begu combed, working methodically from the ends to the crown. When the tangles were dealt with, Begu lifted Hild’s hair, bunching it close to the scalp, then stroked the comb through it vigorously, as though brushing out a horse’s tail.

  “I swear, your hair’s the exact same colour as Cian’s. You could be twins.”

  Begu let go of the hair and let it fall over her forearm, then carefully slid her arm away so it fell thick and straight between Hild’s shoulder blades.

  “There. No, keep still.” She pushed the veil band carefully over Hild’s forehead.

  Modresniht, Edwin putting the heavy arm ring on her head like a crown. Her path.

  “—ever is the matter? Oh, shush, shush, it’s all right.” Begu wrapped her arms around Hild. “It’s all right. It happens to everyone. You’ll like it soon, I promise.”

  Hild shook her head. Her ears fluttered as though filled with butterflies.

  “Put your head down. Down. There now.” Begu stroked her back. “There now.”

  “Take it off.”

  “Your band? But—”

  “Take it off!”

  Begu lifted it off carefully. Hild breathed. Begu nodded to herself. “That’s better. You went as white as milk.” She felt carefully around the embroidered, jewelled band. “I can’t feel anything sticking out.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “What is, then?”

  “It’s all different. Everything.”

  “Well of course it is.”