Hild: A Novel

by Nicola Griffith

  Hild came to the farm most years but this year she was greeted not by the old man but a child, sitting on a greasy fur in the sun by the hut’s low door, half naked, hair matted, jamming a pebble in its tiny-toothed mouth.

  “Aurgh!” it said.

  A man burst through the door brandishing a hatchet.

  “Peace,” Hild said, empty hands out. “Ulf, he’s fine.”

  “I’m not Ulf,” said the man, lowering the axe. Indeed, he wasn’t. He was too young. “I’m Rath. Rathlaf. My father has gone on.”

  “I’ll miss him,” she said. “And my friend, Cian Boldcloak, will miss him, too. He has heard how strong and clever he was, how canny a husbandman. We’ll drink to his memory.”

  Cian—who had never heard of Ulf or his son, Rath—nodded agreement and swept back his cloak to show the two bottles hanging by straps from his shoulder.

  * * *

  The hut stank of people and goat and leaf litter crushed and soiled all winter, and something else, something rank that Hild couldn’t place. Rath’s wife, Cille, produced a round of stale gritty bread, a pinch of precious salt, and two elm bowls.

  Hild shook her head and took the beautifully carved travel cups from her belt. She unstoppered the white mead, filled the smallest cup for Cille, the medium cup for Rath, and the largest for her to share with Cian. Cille looked terrified of such beauty.

  “To Ulf, the finest farmer on the coast, father of Rath, who lives on in…” She looked at the child.

  “Hathlaf. Hath.”

  “Hath, a fine and sturdy farmer-to-be.”

  They drank.

  “Good luck on this house,” Cian said, and they drank again.

  “To spring,” said Rath.

  The fire burnt high and clean. They ate the bread with salt, and drank, and studied one another.

  Rath was about Cian’s age but already with an eyetooth missing and the knuckles of his right hand beginning to thicken. In eight years he would be stooped, in twelve bent, and in fifteen dead—and Hath’s knuckles beginning to swell and his back to bend.

  When the bread was gone they talked: of the lung crackle that had taken Ulf, the hornbeam crop and how it made their pork taste like earth, of the colewort poking up on the ridge of the field. Hild and Rath agreed that they would have to trust to luck that no new frost killed its tender leaves. Cille—her voice was reedy as a pipe—said they might swap some colewort for a milch cow next month. “The lordling looks surprised,” she said, “and I would be, too, but it’s not just for colewort. Though people are famished for greens before the hedgerows sprout, I can tell you. Famished. No, they owe us for the seal meat, and the doctoring.”

  So then there was nothing for it but to hear about the terrible winter storm that had brought the seals out of their way when Rath was gathering wood from the beach, and how he’d killed a bull seal, killed it dead, if you please, with his knife, and then dragged it up onto the dune grass out of the reach of the tide and walked all the way down to Heah and Din’s croft—did they know Din and his wife? No? Well they had a lovely daughter, Gode, just lovely, she was surprised the tale of her beauty hadn’t spread far and wide, yes, even as far as Din Guaïroï itself, even to the king! What did young men think about these days …

  At which point Rath took over and talked in his slow—and ever slower—voice: of the king, and the harvest, and the milch cow, and his son, and the weather. Hild saw it slowly dawn on Cian that they would be spending the night in this seal-stinking hut, and she was amused. But she wanted to hear everything they had to say. This was why she’d told Cian to bring two bottles of mead.

  The boy fell asleep in a heap and Cille tucked him in a wrap in a nest by the fire where she could see him. The fire burnt down and Rath added wood—driftwood: the flames spat blue and green—and the fire burnt down again. High then low, high then low.

  Soon they were telling stories. A selkie tale first, from Cille, one they’d all heard before, but told as though true, as though it had happened to her and just yesterday. Then Cian told the story he’d told to Loid and Angle. “… keep the fucking egg!” And they all laughed until they wept. And in the moment of silence when they were done they heard, from far away, in the cold dark hills, an unearthly caterwauling.

  Rath put more wood on the fire and told the tale of Cait Sith, the uncanny black wildcat killed, so they say, in times past in the byre of this very farm but still walking the night—aye, and the day, too, when ill luck was abroad—for the cat had been no cat but a hægtes trying her luck with stealing a milch cow for her very own. As she lay gushing out her blood on the straw, she had turned back and sworn with her dying breath that she would return, one bright noon when the tragedy was to befall the farm, and she would have her revenge. And sometimes you could hear her in the night, yowling for the blood of the farmers who had taken her land, yowling …

  * * *

  The wind turned raw and wet. “Just like it is before spring at Mulstanton,” Begu shouted happily, hair blowing every which way, as they roamed the beach. To the south, past the rocks, in the dunes, stood the carved posts of the graveyard. Bebba lay there, it was said, and other queens, Anglisc and British, including Cwenburh. It was ill luck to linger by the dead, so they walked—they ran, they skipped, they laughed, their dresses kilted up like they were children, bags of bread and beer bouncing, noses streaming—north, to the islands.

  In summer it would be a short row from one sandy beach to another, but the water was still too rough. They did, however, find a rocky causeway to scramble over to one of the bigger islands. It was deserted but for a little heap of ruined huts.

  On the east beach, they couldn’t hear themselves think: It was seal season, and seals of all colours, white, grey, brindled, black, brown, lay hauled up on the sand barking and moaning. They smelt bigger, like cattle long in the rain.

  “They look like shaggy horses,” Begu said. “The same colours, same whorling of hair. Fur. But their eyes are not the same.”

  They were not. Hild stared into the eyes of one seal, which stared back: black pools, otherworldly eyes.

  Begu sat down on the rough grass of the dune. “Tell me that selkie tale again.”

  So Hild did, and then they ate their bread and drank their beer and watched the guillemots and puffins, counted the water rail, dropped their jaws at a sea eagle falling between sky and water like a bolt of lightning.

  “Will we have a home one day by the sea?”

  Hild took her hand. “Yes.” They would have many homes. But that was for later. For now, her face ached with the cold and the wind and happiness.

  * * *

  The wind died down, and Hild and Cian took to riding out along the beach with the hounds and Oeric. Cian would give Oeric an exercise, and Grimhun—or the brothers Berht, or Gwrast and his cousin Cynan, or Eadric the Brown, or Coelwyn—would hoot and laugh and fall to arguing, with demonstrations, that it wouldn’t work, couldn’t possibly be of any use, but here’s a better way, and Hild and Cian would edge away unobtrusively to find a spot where they could talk and practice alone. The gesiths were used to this. They would nod and wink but say nothing. Hild ignored them and thought Cian didn’t notice. She doubted it would occur to him what the gesiths might be thinking—at least not in terms of her. She’d seen him eyeing the lasses of Bebbanburg, and she knew he slipped away now and again to the crofter to the southwest with large breasts and big feet.

  Once they rode out to the cot of Heah and Din and their daughter, Gode—Cian noticed her, Hild saw, and indeed she was supple-handed and fresh as the morning, with a neck pale as milk and a mouth like the promise of summer plums, and young, only a year or two older than Hild, a leaf newly unfurled—and on the way back Hild, unaccountably cross, finally found a way to beat a gesith with a shield.

  They had stopped by a stream guarded by a wind-thrawn oak, and Hild attacked Cian furiously, thinking of neck and mouth and supple, supple hands. Cian, with shield and sword, fought back with equal fury, d
riving her back and back until her back foot was against a root of the tree. No, she thought, this time I will not flinch, I will not lose, and she punched at his face with the end of her staff, threw it up into the tangled branches, and pulled herself up after it. The stream roared, in full spate. The tree creaked a little under her shoes.

  Cian shouted, “Come down!”

  “Come make me!”

  He sheathed his sword, threw his shield aside, and jumped for the branch Hild was standing on. She moved to the other side of the trunk.

  He scrambled up, clumsy in his war boots, panting, cursing, then stopped. The heel of Hild’s staff was a foot from his nose. He was defenceless.

  “I worked out how to beat you.”

  “But I don’t have my shield!”

  “That’s right. How to win against a gesith with a shield: Make him drop his shield.”

  “No, no, no. What if there isn’t a tree?”

  “Let’s see,” she said, and dropped lightly to the ground.

  She walked with her staff away from the tree and waited near the stream. Cian dropped more heavily, picked up his shield, and they did it all again: him driving, driving, driving her back to the stream.

  She jumped in, half waded, half swam to the other side, climbed out. Cian stayed where he was.

  “What if there’s no stream?”

  “Come over and we’ll find out.”

  “My armour!”

  “Yes. A pity. It’ll take a lot of work to polish it.”

  “As a favour to me. How can I persuade you?”

  Hild wrung out her hair, thinking. “When the harp comes around tonight, sing for me. Sing the song of Branwen.”

  “Done.”

  She waded back across, shivering, walked past him, then turned, so that he was between her and the stream. “Now come at me fast, for I’m freezing.”

  And, again, he drove her back and back and back, and she waited until he smiled in anticipation, and then she turned and ran.

  He ran after her, but he was wearing armour, and war boots, and his shield was heavy. He fell farther behind. She turned and waggled her hand at him.

  “You’re cheating!”

  “Indeed I am.”

  “I’ll never catch you, unless…” And he dropped his shield and burst out laughing, and they were still laughing, off and on, when they got back to Bebbanburg, and if anyone thought it strange that the seer should find being cold and wet funny, no one mentioned it.

  * * *

  As the weather improved, messages began to come in from all over the isle. Two, from Rheged and from Alt Clut, said the same thing: Eochaid Buide of the Dál Riata was sending an army to aid the Cenél Cruithen against Fiachnae mac Demmáin of the Dál Fiatach, and chief among the Dál Riatan war band were Idings—though the man from Rheged thought two, Oswald and Osric, called the Burnt, while the messenger from Alt Clut thought three, Oswald, Osric the Burnt, and the young Osbald.

  In hall the men argued: Wilgar pointed out that everyone knew Oswald didn’t like any of his brothers, except his little half brother, Oswiu; the messages were clearly false. No, said Coifi, it was clear Eochaid was aiming this spear at the heart of the northern Anglisc, that he couldn’t lose: If the Idings fought well, they would attract followers to lead in a swoop upon the Anglisc throne; if they fought badly, they would die. Perhaps, said Paulinus, but the real message was that the men of the north were feeling their strength, and they had on their side Christ, the one true God—even if served by wrongheaded wealh priests. At which point all eyes turned to the king.

  Hild, watching silently, as befitted a seer, saw that this speech was prepared, for Edwin nodded at his scop, who struck a chord, and the men quieted.

  “The bishop Paulinus is right. He has counselled me well on Elmet and other matters. He brings the promise of the friendship of the greatest priest in middle-earth, the bishop of Rome. It seems to me good that we consider what he says. For that reason I will send messages to Sancton and Derwent, to Goodmanham and Brough, to Lindum and Elmet, and ask my thegns to meet at Yeavering. There we will have it out about this Christ god and we will see if it is good, and if it is, I will accept baptism from the hands of Paulinus in York on Easter Day. Paulinus, who through his foresight has driven out the priestly spies of the men of the north.”

  Uproar.

  Hild, though, listening past the noise, found no surprise. Edwin had been laying the groundwork since his marriage to the queen. His daughter had been baptised, and a dozen gesiths, and no harm had come of it. Indeed, Elmet was now theirs and with no wealh priests sending their uncanny messages north or west. The word would go out. Men would show up with their kine and their arguments next month as the grass greened and the milk began to flow. They thought this god of no more account than the others.

  Morud came to find her. “Lady, the queen wants you.”

  Oeric escorted her back to the women’s quarters, where she found the queen and Wilnoð, and her mother and Begu and Gwladus waiting.

  The queen handed her a package. It was small and lumpy. “A man came. He said he’d had it from a man wearing East Anglisc buckles. He said it was for the lady Hild, sister to Hereswith.”

  Hild’s heart squeezed. She found Begu holding one arm and Gwladus the other, and was glad of it. Gwladus smells different, she thought vaguely. Her mother gave her a stern look: You are Yffing!

  The queen was still talking, but Hild concentrated on taking a breath, then another, while Wilnoð, herself as big as a hut now, brought her a stool.

  She sat, turned the package over. Waxed linen, sealed. She didn’t recognise the seal, which looked like some kind of duck. She broke it.

  Inside was another wrapped lump, the size of a plover’s egg, and a letter. She unrolled it. The letters were clumsily formed and the words badly spelt:

  Dearest sister. Æthelric my husband has not put aside his woman. Fursey is here and sends greetings. He says my letters will improve with practice. I am to take baptism. Here, too, is Æthelric’s half brother Sigebert, visiting from Frankia. He already is baptised. I send you a lump of Frank’s incense. I am with child. H.

  There was no date. She read it again.

  “What does it say?” Begu said.

  Hild gave her the letter.

  Begu frowned. “Yes, but what does it say?”

  Æthelburh gave Eanflæd to Arddun, plucked the letter from Begu’s hand, and read it aloud.

  Fursey. Sigebert. Frankincense. With child.

  Someone put a hand on her shoulder. Hild looked up: Gwladus, with a cup of mulled ale. Hild sipped gratefully while Æthelburh read the letter again.

  “Is that the incense?” Begu said. “I want to see.”

  Obediently, Hild unwrapped it. The astonishing smell filled the room. Hereswith, she thought. Hereswith forming her letters under the eye of Fursey. Both safe. And making friends with the Franks, making sure of a refuge.

  “Worth more than gold I should think,” Wilnoð said, then clutched at her belly and gasped: The baby was kicking.

  The women fussed.

  Hild sipped again at her ale. Hereswith. Perhaps as big as Wilnoð. Sitting in a swamp. Perhaps she’d already had the child. Perhaps Hild was an aunt.

  Wilnoð gasped again.

  Perhaps Hereswith had died in childbirth, as Cwenburh had in these very chambers, in a great sigh of blood.

  * * *

  Hild woke from a dream of Gwladus standing in a pool of blood, an Gwladus the wrong size, the wrong smell.

  “Shhh,” said Begu, “it’s just a dream.” She stroked Hild’s head. “Just a dream.”

  Hild clung to her.

  “What’s wrong? What is it?”

  “Hereswith’s having a child.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Begu said. “But people have babies all the time.”

  “They die all the time, too.”

  Begu kissed her forehead. “You dreamt that?”

  Hild shook her head. “Talk to me,”
Hild said. “Anything. Please.”

  Begu sat up, reached over Hild, and pulled open the curtain. The banked light of the fire was enough to show Gwladus already sitting up on her pallet and yawning.

  “Light a rush,” Begu whispered. “Bring some milk. No, not milk, I forgot, some small beer and come talk to us. The lady Hild has had a bad dream. No no, not a dream dream, just a dream.”

  They set the rush in its bowl on the shelf at the foot of the bed, and Begu lifted the cover and told Gwladus to get in.

  “My feet are cold,” Gwladus said.

  “Hild won’t mind. She burns like a forge. It’ll take her mind off things, anyway.”

  So Hild found herself warming her bodywoman’s cold feet with her warm hands while Begu talked about this and that.

  “… why’s she still breast-feeding Princess Eanflæd? She’s ten months old.”

  Hild massaged Gwladus’s ankles, stroking the strong bone on the inside, thinking of the place to press to bring a birth more quickly.

  “Maybe she doesn’t want another just yet,” Gwladus said. “Maybe she doesn’t want pawing at, and swelling, and nothing to look forward to but a growing ache in her back and the thing in her belly eating her from the inside.”

  And then Hild understood. Gwladus was with child.

  * * *

  Hild leaned into the buffeting wind on the top of Ad Gefrin. She opened her mouth and let the wind whip her breath away. She loved it up here with the goats, loved the scudding clouds, the sun and shadow chasing each other over bent and silvered grass. From here she couldn’t hear the lowing of the little cattle the British lords drove in as tribute; she couldn’t hear the constant shuffle of hooves in the enclosure where ponies, smelling spring and the promise of green grass, pushed for room at the fence. Up here there was just the whistle of the wind, the occasional dull clank of a goat bell, the cry of a hawk circling, tilting, sliding down the air.

  She liked Bebbanburg, but here she could see for miles. Here she could think.

  Change was coming, and it wasn’t just spring, wasn’t just the first milk of the year, or stallions flaring their nostrils when the mares walked by, or little throstles pecking at the backs of the goats to carry away the soft hair for their nests. It wasn’t just the hammer and shout of the king’s new talking stage rising west of the great hall.