Who’s to stop me?
She ran her hand up Gwladus’s belly, touched her bare shoulder, pushed the dress down, cupped her breast—so pale against her dark hand, so plump, so soft. How would it be to lay her naked length against Gwladus, feel her tremble with need, not fear? Did it matter if it wasn’t real? She swallowed. Rose to her knees, ran her hands down the pale ribs, bumping over them, one by one—so small—to her waist, her thighs, her hem. She lifted the hem, lifted the dress, pulled it with both hands, pulled it up, pulled it off. Left it draped over the pillow, over the spread hair. The vein at Gwladus’s neck beat and fluttered like a trapped bird. Hers.
Gwladus closed her eyes.
Hild straddled naked cream and gold and ivory and breathed her flowery hair, her own sharp woman scent. She lifted the dress from the pillow, crushed it in her hands: so fine, so soft, nothing like the wobbly tabby of the farmwife.
Who in all the world?
On the shelf, her beads glittered.
Then I tell you truly, you must learn to stop yourself.
She hurled the dress at the floor. Gwladus flinched but did not move. Hild climbed off, muscles clenching, hands in fists. “Look at me!”
Gwladus opened her eyes.
“You’re mine. You’ll grow old in my household, die warm and well fed. You’re my bodywoman. Some services I’ll require, from time to time. But I won’t … I won’t.”
Silence.
“Do you understand?”
Gwladus nodded.
Hild got off the bed, brought back the dress. “Then I will eat some cheese. And you may … comb my hair. And afterwards dress me in my lightest weave. The sun is here for a while.”
* * *
With the sun came heat like a fist. The sky turned into a bronze-and-enamel bowl on which the sun beat until their world swelled and rang. The earth steamed. The people sweltered. The barley grew fast, green as grass, greener than the king’s eyes.
The king toasted Hild in hall and tossed the empty cup at her to keep. The Crow looked as though he would prefer to throw a dagger. His priests crossed themselves if her shadow touched theirs. They had heard her gesiths’ songs: wyrd dealer, miracle healer, butcher-bird. They all watched everything she did, watched everything she watched—and everyone. So she refused to see the men’s strong jaws and women’s soft skin, refused to notice the bright eyes, the clean limbs, and the swelling curves all around her. She would make do with Gwladus, for a while.
She made sure her cross hung on the outside of her dress, kept the impatience from her stride and command from her voice, and settled in to understand Oswine.
He spent his time with Lintlaf. She didn’t approach them. She and Lintlaf might come to blows. The butcher-bird wanted that; Gwladus lay between them. And she might win. But then he’d be shamed, broken as chief gesith, and her uncle hated people to break his tools. Besides, she might lose. Lintlaf might kill her. Then her gesiths would try to kill him. Whoever won, men would die. She had sworn to be totem and token to her people, to light their path, not darken it. And she had the queen’s impending birth to think about.
She sent for Morud—who seemed to sense that here she was Hild, his lady of the mene, the king’s niece, not the awful butcher-bird—and set him to get close to Oswine’s bodyman, find out what Oswine and his father knew about bandits.
“Dull as hammers,” Morud said two days later. “Both him and his da. If either of them knows anything I’ll eat that blanket.”
“Does he think Osric plans to retake Deira one day?”
“Think?” Morud squinted, as he did when he was trying not to laugh. “He wants and he whines and he worries, but he doesn’t think.”
“What does he worry about?”
Morud shrugged. “That no one really likes him. That he’s wearing the wrong brooch or fastens his jacket the wrong way. That the first time he’s in a shield wall he’ll get himself killed or, worse, make himself a laughingstock.”
With the heat came the mosquitoes and flies. Cows lowed piteously and flicked their tails, men in the fields cursed and swatted, housefolk woke with swollen faces, and the cook swore she would kill anyone who left the door open again and let the flies in, she didn’t care if the kitchens were hotter than the Satan’s hell.
Begu worried about the queen. “She’s due and past due. But at least she doesn’t fret all the time now about the crops and omens. She was wearing her knees away, and it’s not good for a woman that big to kneel so long. You came back just in time.” Gwladus poured her beer. “And I must say, service has improved lately, too. How do you keep the beer cool in this heat, Gwladus?”
“By the power of her tongue,” Morud said from the corner, then blushed strayberry red. “Her words, lady. Her words. She bullies people. It’s for the lady Hild, she says. It’s for the king’s seer. Where do you think your bread is coming from this year? From the lady’s word and wyrd, from her goodwill, so if there’s only room in the cellar for one cask of beer, then that’s the lady Hild’s cask.”
“What is wrong with him?” Begu said to Hild. “And what’s wrong with you? Is it the heat?” But Hild saw the knowing glint in her eye.
Gwladus stepped back to the curtain, lifted it, and jerked her head at Morud.
When they’d gone, Begu stretched. “Well, I’m glad things are back to normal. Eat some more strayberries. You’re still too thin.”
Hild obeyed. “Gwladus tells me we have a new houseman.”
Begu didn’t even blush. “Swidhelm. Swid. He’s a byre man, really. Good with colts. Strong.”
“Cian will be back with Uinniau in autumn.”
Begu smiled and bit a berry in half. “If it’s a son, we’ll need a scop to sing his praises, to bring his wyrd.” For one heart-stopping moment, Hild thought Begu was with child. “Your mother will find one, she says, but I think she already has. I think she found him the day after the king banished the other one—the one who told the good story about the Geats and the dragon. You never know about babies, when they’ll come. Even royal ones. Especially royal ones. You have to be ready anytime. I think the queen’s dropped. She’ll have her son soon. He’ll be an Yffing…”
Begu believed in her powers completely; if Hild had said it would be a son, then it would be. When Begu was talking, Hild didn’t worry that she might be wrong.
“… the Crow will throw holy water on his head and burn incense and sing hymns, but an Yffing needs a song about his father and his father’s father, and on and back, so everyone, not just Christ on his cloud, knows who the little ætheling is.”
Christ on his cloud … A thought streaked across her mind but was gone so fast she couldn’t catch it. Begu chattered on. If she used weapons the way she used words, no one would stand against her; they’d have no idea where the stroke would fall next.
But she trusted Begu on the matter of birth as completely as her gemæcce trusted her prophesying, so when the queen went into labour late that night, Hild was ready for the king’s summons.
In the audience hall by the feast hall, with one silent attendant standing by the south wall, the king paced. “Tell me again how it will be.”
This was a duel already begun. No backing away now. “The queen will have a son. Big and healthy. An Yffing with the strong hand and hard mind of his kin.”
“And?”
“And autumn will be late coming. The barley will be brought in safely. We’ll have barley bread this winter.”
“And the men of the north?”
“The men of the north will truckle to the Anglisc.”
“You don’t say when.” He scratched the welt on the back of his left hand, peered at it, rubbed it instead on his thigh and looked at her. “And you don’t say to which Anglisc.”
Hild wished there was a fire to crackle, even a fly to drone, something to fill the quiet, to stop her listening for a cry from Æthelburh. “What does Bishop Paulinus say?”
Edwin cracked his knuckles. “He can’t see beyond that
white shawl that he expects from the bishop of Rome with every ship.” He paced again, back and forth. “Well, fuck the men of the north. Fuck Penda, bugger the West Saxons, and piss on Cadwallon.”
Someone would, one day.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Scratch scratch scratch. “Your mother tells me you have a niece.”
“Æthelwyn—”
A knock at the door. The king yanked it open before his attendant could get there. Wilnoð. A smear of blood on her sleeve. The king’s gaze fixed upon it. Wilnoð bowed. Straightened. “May it please my lord King, you have a son.”
Edwin swelled. Hild breathed out, but quietly.
“The queen is well. Your son is well. He’s heavy. Big and strong.”
Edwin clapped Hild on the shoulder. “You’ll have his weight in silver! And a gift for your niece.” Down the corridor, past Wilnoð, the air stirred then filled with striding priests: Paulinus and two attendants. “I have a son,” Edwin said. “His name is Wuscfrea!”
Wuscfrea, the father of Yffi of long ago. A name announcing a claim and precedence.
* * *
When Breguswith brought the scop, Luftmaer, to the king’s audience hall after breakfast, Hild saw immediately how it was. He was tall, young, wide-mouthed, and clean. He already wore an arm ring Hild had last seen in her mother’s chest. The hands resting on his lyre case were long-fingered, his shoulders well-balanced.
The king told Coelfrith and Stephanus to come back with the accounts later, called for ale, and told the scop to sing the praise song he’d prepared for the feast.
Luftmaer unshipped his lyre with practiced hands, tuned the strings—though more out of habit, she thought, than need—and began. His peat-brown eyes filled with tears every other line, but none of them fell. His deep-grained voice drew and released verses, perfectly flighted. Along the side of the hall, gesiths began to beat out the rhythm with the flat of their hands. It was the kind of song they loved: blood and gold, never grow old, never feel cold, honey in the comb, hearth and home, glory and story, all topped, like foam on just-pulled milk, by the rousing, rhythmic chant of the forebears:
“Wuscfrea the son of Edwin king of the Anglisc, the son of Ælla, the son of Yffi, the son of Wuscfrea, the son of Wilgisl, the son of Westerfalca, the son of Sæfugl, the son of Sæbald, the son of Segegeat, the son of Swebdæg, the son of Sigegar, the son of Wædæg, the son of Woden, god of gods.”
“King of the Anglisc, god of gods!” Edwin bellowed. “Again!”
Luftmaer obliged, eyes filling, fingers picking, voice drawing and releasing, exactly as before.
“Wuscfrea … king of the Anglisc … god of gods!” the gesiths sang.
“Wuscfrea!” the king shouted, and raised his cup. “My son!”
Everyone drank, and then the gesiths made boasts about how each would outdo the other to serve the young ætheling, the wounds they would endure, the fights they would relish, the gold they would win.
* * *
The gesiths had taken their singing outside, her mother had taken the scop away, and Hild half drowsed in the sunlight by the door while Edwin listened to Coelfrith give his accounting. With the better weather, trade had picked up. Two extra shipments of wheat had arrived from Eadbald …
She had a headache: partly the air, which was tightening and brooding though the sky was clear, partly too much beer that morning. It was good to not be worrying. Her neck itched. She scratched it. A mosquito bite. She wondered if there were mosquitoes in Rheged. She didn’t remember any during the season she spent north of the wall, but it hadn’t been hot like this. Which way would Cian bring Uinniau back? Ride the wall road, then Dere Street to York, or sail down the west coast, then ride east then south through Craven? But then he’d be bringing him through the Gap.
The staked bandits would be nothing but bones now, fallen and long picked over. She shook her mind free of that. Here she wasn’t the butcher-bird. Here she was the well-dressed seer wearing her cross. Tidy and clean. Tidy and listening. Tidy and restless.
The king was restless, too, twisting this way and that in his chair, tapping his ring on its gilded arm. She remembered the weight of it.
She turned her beads. They were tight around her hard muscle and big bones. Muscle, bone, skin sliding on skin … She shook her mind free of that, too, and thought instead of when she’d first got the beads from mad little Rhianmelldt. Back then, she could wrap the strand around her wrist four times. Now only three. Everything changes.
Christ, the most important of all … Again the glimpse of an idea was gone before she could grasp it, drowned in others’ talk. This time Coelfrith saying two more stonemasons had come for the church, which now stood higher than a man’s shoulder. And tithes from Craven were a little low. She would suggest to the king that they visit Osric in Craven, take the gesiths, claim the tithe in the form of hospitality. Maybe she should go. With the king’s token.
Butcher-bird. Was that her wyrd?
She didn’t want to think about it today. She closed her eyes. What did Æthelwyn look like? Like Hereswith or like Æthelric? Begu said sometimes children looked more like other kin than their parents: Perhaps little Æthelwyn would look like Hild. But even if she saw her niece, how would she know if Æthelwyn looked anything like she had when she was little? Perhaps when Cian got back they could visit the East Angles, and she could see for herself. If he got back before the autumn gales made it too risky to sail down the east coast.
Her mother could come, too—now Wuscfrea was born, cloth-making could be left to the queen. She didn’t much like the idea of spending time with that scop on a boat, though. Then, too, maybe Cian wouldn’t like being cooped up with her and Gwl—
The Crow was talking. She opened her eyes.
Paulinus stood with Stephanus before the king. “The ætheling Wuscfrea is to be baptised at the end of the week. Yet Father Stephanus tells me his praise song claims he’s descended from Woden. It is blasphemy.”
Edwin massaged the back of his neck. “Woden is my forefather.”
“He’s a false god. You may not name him.”
Edwin gave Paulinus a long look. “May not?”
Hild would have liked nothing better than to see the Crow whipped around a tree, but That man and his god are useful to me. Paulinus was part of the plan to keep the kingdom safe, keep the Yffings safe. Keep her safe. Until she saw her wyrd more clearly.
She checked her cross, stood. “My king?”
Edwin nodded. She stepped forward.
“My lord Bishop. We Christians say that there is no god but Christ.”
Paulinus looked at her down his nose, though he had to tip his head back to do so. She watched him test the assertion, looking for the trap. But he couldn’t disagree. “There is no God but God, and Christ is His son.”
“Then how can Woden be a god, false or otherwise? Woden is a man. A great man, a mighty man, the overking’s forefather, but a man. It won’t be blasphemy to name him so: honoured forefather of Wuscfrea. King of kings in his time. A man such as our new ætheling may hope one day to be.”
“Ha!” said Edwin, with a beat of both palms on the arms of his chair. “Woden, king of kings! I’ll hear no more of it.”
* * *
The barley had grown heavy and golden. Wuscfrea thrived. Cian would be back soon with Uinniau.
Hild lay on her back in the hummocky grass, arms behind her head, alone on the moor. She had made it clear to her hounds that she liked to go away by herself. They had seen her kill. They knew she was a creature of the uncanny, so let her protect herself with wyrd and stave while she went to other worlds and communed with gods.
She smiled to herself and watched the sky, hearing nothing but wind feathered by the heather, seeing nothing, not a bird nor a bee nor a cloud, just endless sky. The empty blue worked itself between her and the world at her back, lifted, levered, pried her free, and then she was falling, up, up into the bottomless well …
An eagle sliced across a corn
er of the blue, and once again there was an up and a down, and she slid back into her body, right-way up, once more sheathed in muscle and skin.
The hummock under her back felt different, as though she’d been away a long time. She stretched and laughed to herself. It would make a good story: stolen by hobs and hidden in a fold of the world while the rest turned to dust. She would tell Cian.
She stood and dusted off her dress. The eagle began to rise. Round and round, higher and higher on its pillar of air, pinions flaring gold in the sun. What she must see …
As she walked her mind was with the eagle, soaring over the whole isle. North and east over the high moor to Onnen at the Bay of the Beacon where Mulstan tithed to Edwin and the ruined church crumbled into the cliff. Tilting north over hilly woodland to the wall, where Bryneich still talked of her prophecy of friendship forever. Still farther north to Yeavering and the strange talking stage, the totem now carved with a cross. Then arcing west over Rheged where mad little Rhianmelldt balanced at the crux of its future. Out over the heaving waters of the North Channel that divided the two lands of the Dál Riata. Back towards the mainland, the isle of Manau at her left wing tip. The northern mountains of Gwynedd, and Deganwy, the fort on the river that led to the sea, where Cadwallon held the warp of the Irish Sea trade and the web of shaved-forehead priests. Then south and east over the midland valleys and woodland of Penda’s Mercia; Penda, unbaptised, who was pursuing unbaptised West Saxons south and west to Dyfneint towards an end no one knew. Turning again, rising east, Kent and the pope’s overbishop out of sight, beyond her right wing. Over the fenland where Hereswith suckled her baby and listened to Fursey’s advice. North again, over Lindsey where Coelgar oversaw the rich, tidy, newly Christian farmland …
Back at the vill the first person she saw was Swid, the byre man, leading two horses round the yard. Cian, she thought, and Uinniau. But they didn’t look good enough for something a prince of Rheged might ride. “Been rode hard all day,” Swid said. “From parts south.”
The horses’ withers were curded with sweat but there was no blood at the bit. Important, but not urgent. She would have time to change before the king called her.
Hild: A Novel Page 52
