Hild: A Novel

by Nicola Griffith

  “And then there’s Cian.”

  Hild didn’t say anything.

  “We’re like the moths,” Begu said. “The priests and Uinniau and Cian are like bats. When we go back to York, we’ll have to stop, lie down, for a while.”

  * * *

  The barley was in the barn, the wheat cut, the sheep back on the wolds. Wagons creaked away, laden with sacks of fleece, to Sancton, to Derventio, to Flexburg, to Aberford.

  Begu came down from the fold. She slept in Hild’s bed again. She made sure she was not in the room in the afternoons. But she watched Gwladus carefully for a while. Gwladus behaved respectfully, and even Begu had to admit that Hild was better taken care of than ever.

  Oeric returned.

  When he reported to Hild and Begu on the mene wood, he stood stiff as a board and shot Hild wounded looks. Gwladus, who served them, was particularly careful to behave like a wealh slave in a room of wellborn Anglisc—Hild wondered how long that would last—but Oeric looked daggers until Hild nodded for her to leave.

  When he had finished his report—the mene thrived, Loid and Anglisc were in accord—and had, in his turn, left, Begu said, “Was I that bad?”

  “Not that bad.”

  “At least Gwladus is acting well.”

  And Gwladus was. In public, she never once overstepped her role. In private, the one time Hild had tried to give back, Gwladus had put her hand on Hild’s and stopped her. “No, lady.”

  “But you let Lintlaf.”

  Gwladus stilled, like a mouse under a cat’s paw. “Of course, lady. As it pleases you.” Her eyes stayed open, but she could have been dead. Even her skin felt different: lumpen as a flitch of bacon.

  Hild stopped. “Why?”

  Gwladus said nothing.

  Hild felt as though she’d bitten an apple and swallowed, then seen half a worm in the white fruit. She sat up. “Pass my dress.”

  While Gwladus dressed her, she stared at nothing, moving her arms when told, thinking. Gwladus had liked it, she was sure. She had felt Gwladus’s blood beating, heard her breath come faster, seen her nipples rise and pebble, smelt the sharp tang and glisten between her legs. So why?

  That night she lay awake next to Begu. Berenic cried sometimes, Begu had said, and his eyes went soft. But Berenic was not a slave, and Berenic would stay on the wold.

  The next afternoon, before she lay on the bed, Hild gave Gwladus a small purse of coins. She said, “I won’t do it again,” and later tried not to see Gwladus watching her when she came around her hand.

  After that, some afternoons Hild stayed away from her room. But she always ended up going back.

  * * *

  The days were rich and fine and sweet. Most mornings Hild spent with her mother and Begu, tallying, discussing weaving patterns, trying the hand and drape of different cloths, trying cloak sizes. Begu had many good ideas about what people might like for next year. Hild could see ways to set up the pattern on the loom.

  Hild walked the hills in the golden time before dusk, senses wide open but no longer restless. One evening she was moved to tears by the blaze of crimson, gold, and green of the wold, moving at the centre of a vast pattern that she knew she would never have the words to explain. The pattern watched over her from the face of every leaf and every tiny flower of furze. She felt sure and safe.

  Word came from Arbeia: Clotrude and Osfrith had a fine, strong son and named him Yffi.

  At the name, Hild, Breguswith, and Begu looked at one another. Yffi was a king’s name, an heir’s name. Æthelburh had better hurry.

  King’s messengers came from York, but never with anything they most wanted to know. Nothing about who the king would choose for Rheged. Nothing of the wīc. Nothing of Penda or Cwichelm or Cadwallon. Nothing from Cian. Breguswith’s own messengers brought her samples of the cloth that came off the looms, along with tallies of the quantity. The quality was good. She forwarded the news to the king and Coelfrith in York.

  Hild had a letter from James: Paulinus had converted Eorpwald king to the faith, Christ be praised, though it meant more work for James. The king had disbursed more monies for the church at York. They would all be stunned and amazed by its appointments, though he imagined she herself might not get to see it for some time: Paulinus, rather than consolidating his new flock, was now aiming to round up the people of Lindsey. But ealdorman Coelgar was a stubborner man than Eorpwald, and he knew the king’s aims, the king’s goals that lay behind the bishop’s actions. He would not be as easy to persuade. No doubt the king would require the lady Hild’s thoughts on the matter.

  19

  HILD RODE WITH HER MOTHER and Begu, accompanied by Gwladus and Oeric and Morud, to York.

  In the glow of the setting sun, Cian seemed brighter, denser, his eyes more blue. He laughed when he saw them, swung Begu off her horse and kissed her cheek, bowed to Breguswith, and grinned at Hild. “I’ve learnt a new song of Branwen!” He slapped Oeric on the shoulder, and told him four months among the women had put fat on him and that they’d need to work it off.

  Gwladus bobbed her head to Hild and said that, if the lady pleased, she’d take Morud and go straight to their apartment, make sure all was in order. Hild nodded.

  Cian watched her go. “Is she quite well?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If the lady pleases? And not a bit of cheek. Did you give her a whipping?”

  Begu poked him in the ribs. “Four months among women has made us all shy. Now tell me how you’ve been without us.”

  * * *

  There was no formal feast, just friends sitting in small groups at the board, but after a quiet summer the flash of gold and snap of dogs, the laughter and shouts were sharp and loud. The meat was good, though, and the mead, and Cian entertained them with stories of horse races and hunting parties and the king rubbing his hands over the new wīc.

  “You won’t see much of it tomorrow. We’re riding out early.”

  After a while he cleared his throat. “Now I’ll sing of Branwen. Not the warrior maid. The other one.” He launched into a song of Branwen, daughter of Lyr, who died of grief. His voice throbbed with emotion, the kind he usually saved for glorious death in battle. Hild wondered if he’d fallen in love with one of his red-handed dairymaids. She closed her eyes, belly full of meat and mead, content between her mother and Begu, and drifted.

  Later, in their apartments, Gwladus told them the queen had been unwell; Arddun thought she might be with child.

  * * *

  The queen and her women, including Begu, removed to Derventio. The king and a small group of advisers—including Hild and her mother—rode to Lindsey to talk to Coelgar about Christ and wool.

  Miles from the city of Lindum, on the edge of the thick stink of its tanning and fulling, Paulinus asked the king for a word.

  Hild watched the conversation from her horse. Her mother reined in next to her. “You’ve been out of his eye too long.”

  Hild nodded without taking her gaze from them. She knew what Paulinus was saying: Beginnings were delicate times, and the king’s seer, despite her prominent gold cross, made Christ-fearing men nervous.

  “You’ll have to wait for your moment.”

  Hild rested her hand on her seax and wondered what kind of moment. Meanwhile she would wait.

  So as the king and his archbishop spoke to the great men of Lindum, while her mother negotiated with Coelgar and his reeve Blæcca by the fire in Coelgar’s hall east and south of the city, Hild walked Coelgar’s fields. The vill was safe enough to wander without Oeric, and Cian was dallying with some girl, the daughter of Coelgar’s bread maker. Not that Cian would have offered to accompany her. He had been acting strangely since the morning they left York: ignoring her, avoiding even Gwladus. Hild did not understand it, but she had done without him for four months over the summer, and he would recover himself at some point. She just hoped it would be soon. She was tired of waiting, always waiting. And she missed fighting.

  After n
ine days she knew the fields so well she could name every clod and stone along their edges. Today, drifting rain blurred the air over the low, tidy furrows and the air smelt dark and rich. She left her hood down, letting the rain cling to her hair, wanting to hear while her body walked and her mind wandered. On rainy afternoons, did the bread maker’s daughter let Cian pleasure her, let Cian see her vulnerable and soft and hold her afterwards while she cried? Or was it only men who cried? Begu hadn’t said. She couldn’t imagine Gwladus crying, even if—

  That lump of dirty flint by the hedge, it hadn’t been there yesterday. She slowed. It was a partridge, hunched against discovery.

  Rooks and jackdaws croaked and squabbled beyond the brow of the hill, fieldfares and finches hopped back and forth on the worm-rich soil: there were no hawks about. It was hiding from her.

  “Don’t be frightened,” she said. It made no sign it had heard. Stupid bird. She glared at it. “What have I ever done to you?”

  The bird’s fear made her angry. She picked up a stone. She could kill it. Kill them all: Paulinus, Coelgar, Cian’s woman.

  But it was just a bird. It hadn’t done anything to her. She let the stone fall and turned back the way she’d come, towards the river.

  A hare, sitting in a furrow, almond eyes shining black in the rain light, regarded her. She regarded it. The pale fluff at the tips of its long ears stirred in a breeze Hild couldn’t feel. Then it bolted. Bold hare! Brave hare! Hild gave a great shout and ran after it, knowing she wouldn’t catch it, just wanting to run as it ran, muscles bunching, feet kicking against the loamy dirt, not hiding. It lolloped under the roots of the hedge and she heard a sifting splash, like a sack of grain going into the river. She ran around to a gap in the hedge and got to the bank in time to see the hare swimming like a furious small dog to the other side, where it leapt up the bank and ran, tail flashing this way and that. Then gone.

  Her heart beat high. The hedge seemed outlined in crystal. The air was like beer. She held her arms out and turned, taking in sky, water, fields, hedges, the low, tidy, orderly land. She laughed. It was good to be in a field in the rain. Then she sat on a stone and fished a piece of cheese from the purse at her belt.

  She was struck by it. A product of a well-run world in the palm of her hand. Deep yellow. Aged from summer milk squeezed from cows fed on rich green grass. She bit into it: fatty and sharp.

  The stone she sat on had probably been hauled from the field generations ago and moved, season by season, in frost heaves and spring washes, closer to the river. This was Lindsey, never left to run wild for a generation. Not like Elmet. She imagined sitting in her mene wood with her children, her children’s children. Perhaps it would look as tidy and prosperous.

  The sheep here weren’t all that they’d hoped for, though, according to her mother. Too small. They could breed some of the larger ewes with some Deira rams. Coelgar would be only too happy to oblige her mother; he’d always felt kindly towards her.

  Hild thought back. Perhaps it had been more than kindly—before Osric.

  She popped the last of the cheese into her mouth and savoured it. If only Coelgar liked her as much as he liked her mother. He treated her with extreme courtesy, yes, but that was a mask for his discomfort. He wouldn’t be alone with her, not since the tent in the field at Lindum.

  She would have to think of a way to befriend ealdorman Coelgar. She would have to remember that those who weren’t used to her, or who hadn’t been around her for a while, saw the legend first: twice royal, twice uncanny. Wielder of wyrd, dealer of death, the king’s seer.

  She stood, checked the far bank just in case the hare had returned, then headed back for the vill.

  A column of rooks and jackdaws rose, cawing, from the field over the rise. A hawk. She hoped the partridge was hiding.

  But when she reached the brow of the hill, she saw it wasn’t a hawk. It was a column of men riding furiously for the vill, the king’s tufa gleaming at its head.

  Hild got to the vill just as the king leapt from his horse. He saw her and strode over. His muscles were tight with more than the ride.

  He yanked a sheet of parchment from his saddlebag, waved it in her face. He was holding it upside down.

  “Who the fuck is Ricberht?”

  “Uncle?”

  “Some nithing called Ricberht has killed Eorpwald and set himself up as king of the East Angles! All those messages, all those gifts, for nothing. And no warning, not one single word, from my seer. Well?”

  Ricberht. A lesser Wuffing. Surrounded by his men at Hereswith’s betrothal feast, laughing with Eorpwald while Æthelric preened—

  Hild was saved from having to answer by the arrival of more riders: Paulinus and his priests.

  Edwin whirled. “And you’re no better! Some god, who can’t even protect a king I need.” He threw the letter in the mud and stalked into the hall.

  Hild bent to the parchment. The words were dissolving in the rain. Stephanus darted through the riders, mud spattering his sandalled feet. She let him have it.

  * * *

  The next day rain fell unceasingly. Endless, wind-whipped rain. The men crowded into the hall smelt like a pack of wet dogs. Better than the smell outside, where the wind was bringing the stink of tanneries from Lindum. The hall was thick with damp and smoke and the king’s rage.

  Hild, who had been up half the night with her mother, met the men’s regard steadily. Cian was the only one not looking at her.

  She wore royal blue, her arms bare and her hair tucked behind her ears, gesith-style. In the firelight gold glinted from her ears and throat, arms and fingers. Her cross gleamed on her breast and carnelians winked at her wrist. The silver of her belt ends shimmered. She rested her hand on her seax and stood tall. Unlike Paulinus, she was both skirt and sword. The saviour of Lindum and, before that, Bebbanburg. Let them not forget it.

  “My king, Eorpwald Sulkmouth was used to the summer mead of Woden. His thegns were used to it. Christ belief, though, is a foreign wine, a heady wine, and Eorpwald Sulkmouth was foolish. He drank too fast. He lost his senses.”

  Here and there, a gesith nodded. They all knew the perils of heady foreign wines. Paulinus, standing on the king’s right, leaned on his jewelled shepherd’s crook and watched her carefully.

  “My king, you’re wise. You understood the value of persuading your thegns first, letting them taste, letting them judge the strength of your pour. And, my king, you are rich. You are known as generous. You felt no need to pour all at once to win approval. You could advise men to begin slowly, and it was like a father speaking to his son: kindly and wise, not rushed, not hasty in the hope of avoiding the name of niggard.”

  Now Edwin was nodding: He was a wise king, and generous, and rich. Paulinus stared at her, unwinking. In this hall, with his black hair and eyes, he looked like a foreign shadow. His skin drank in the Anglisc light.

  “A drunken man, my king, gives away too much too fast to the wrong people. And so it was with Eorpwald. He gave too much too fast to his new priests. The king had no wise adviser to temper his generosity.” No one like her, skirt and sword. Book and blade. “The king’s thegns were bewildered.”

  Coelgar was now looking speculatively at Paulinus.

  “The thegns rose up. They swore to Ricberht, who swore to shun the Christ.” She looked around the room and smiled. “Who here hasn’t sworn to never drink again?”

  Laughter.

  “But, my lord King, like all of us, Ricberht will one day no doubt be persuaded to sip of this foreign wine anew. And, failing that, his thegns might listen to suggestions for another king. Sigebert, they say, is safe in Frankia. Where we have many friends.” And her mother’s relatives, her sister’s, her own. “And much new trade.”

  “Meanwhile,” Edwin said, “the East Angles are not bending the knee, and this Ricberht, they say”—ironic smile—“has friends in Mercia.”

  “Yes, my king.” She had no idea if that was true, but it was best not to contradi
ct one’s king in public. “However, my sister’s husband, Æthelric, is still prince of the North Folk.” They would have heard otherwise. “He will hold the fens against the men of Mercia and the West Saxons. We will regain Rendlesham and, meanwhile, my sister’s husband will guard the border. Lindsey is safe.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I am.” Hereswith would persuade Æthelric. Hereswith and Fursey. Between them they would remind him of Hild’s prophecy: He would be king. “Meanwhile, my king, we must in future make sure that any kings whom we seek to turn to Christ are supported with wise advisers.”

  Coelgar nodded, and Hild turned deliberately to him. As ealdorman in his own hall, he did not need the king’s permission to speak.

  “She’s right, my lord. I don’t hold with this hurry.” He looked over at Paulinus. “I hear they killed your underbishop. Put his head on the altar.”

  “Bishop Thrythnoth is in heaven. He was much loved by God and has been gathered to His bosom.”

  “Well,” said Coelgar, “I’m not in a hurry to be loved that way by any god.”

  Gesiths laughed, black-clad priests crossed themselves, and Paulinus said nothing.

  “My dear Coelgar,” Edwin said, “I’ll make sure that with you, Paulinus takes all the time you need. I’ll make sure he stays here all winter if necessary. Is that all right with you, Paulinus?”

  Paulinus had no choice but to bow.

  Coelgar said, “Let’s eat,” and housefolk poured into the hall to move benches.

  The king crooked his finger to Hild and waved Paulinus away. While everything rearranged itself around them, turning them momentarily into a private island, he tapped his ring on the arm of his chair. Hild wondered how that ring might feel. All that power. No more waiting.

  He leaned forward. “I don’t like surprises. I don’t want any more. Do whatever you have to.” They both glanced at Paulinus, who clearly wished he could hear what they were saying. “What he doesn’t know, he won’t hector me for. If the wyrd needs a little help”—he tapped the thick gold band around his left arm—“let me know.”