Hild: A Novel (36 page)

“The king will hunt Gewisse. There will be war with the West Saxons.” Enemies of the Dyfneint. But they knew that.

“Will Lintlaf fight the West Saxons alongside the king?”

“Yes,” Hild said, in British. He was a gesith. What else would he do? “He will kill many Saxons.”

“Will he come home to me safe?”

“Home…” If the war went well—and of course it would, Edwin’s war band was huge—perhaps he would choose to hold the land he took from the West Saxons, the land they had taken lately from the Dyfneint. And if Lintlaf did well … “The king will take the Dyfneint land. Lintlaf, if he chooses, could hold some of it in the king’s name.”

“Dyfneint land, Lintlaf? He could take me home?”

“What?” said Begu. “What? What are you saying?”

Hild looked up from the water. The wealh’s eyes glistened. It was so easy to change a life. “He could.”

Gwladus shrieked, hugged Begu. “I’m going home! I’m going home!”

“My turn, my turn,” Begu said. “See what’s for me.”

Hild smiled, looked in the water. That was even easier. Begu would marry and teach her children the name of every horse, cow, and goat on the land. But no, wait. Wait. Begu was now her gemæcce; she must follow Hild. But where would Hild go?

The foot of her hose, swollen with trapped air, rose from the depth of the pail, turned, and sank again, like a whale diving deep in the cold waters of the North Sea. Down and down and down into the dark …

She shivered. Begu’s fate was wedded to her own. She should have thought of that. Begu had no idea of Hild’s life; Hild should have explained. But it was too late. The queen herself had made them gemæcce; it couldn’t be undone. Begu’s life would never be simple again.

Why had the queen done it? The queen … The queen who had brought Paulinus, the Christ bishop … The Christ to whom the king was vowing to give the queen’s child for victory in battle. A Christian peaceweaver …

The wick floating in its fat flared yellow, and Hild remembered the road to Rendlesham, Fursey tapping the small fiery bead.
You have forgotten the most powerful of all.

The yellow bead, blazing with light, next to the other beads: the one for Cynegils of the West Saxons, a deep angry red, and the reddish-orange beads for his three sons. One with a chip. Chipped. Chafing at his father. Oh.

“Cwichelm!” she said. “It was Cwichelm, prince of the Gewisse. He sent Eamer.”

She couldn’t remember the name of the other Saxon at the feast. Ceadda? He had not looked at Eamer but he must have passed some signal. Why hadn’t she seen it? Why hadn’t she been looking? Because she’d had Fursey at her elbow and Cian in her thoughts. Her mother would be angry. Her mother … Did she have anything to do with this? No: The chaos after assassination was not something she could control, and Breguswith liked control. Osric? She thought about the way his body showed his thoughts: No, he’d been as surprised as anyone. And where was Fursey?

“Hild, what about me?” Begu said. “What about my future—our future? Will we be happy? Will I?”

The wick flared again and spat. The Christ. Cwichelm. Fursey. Everything was changing, and she couldn’t see the pattern. It wasn’t easy anymore. The ache in her belly was making her feel sick.

The silver rim of Gwladus’s cup pressed against her bottom lip. “Drink.”

She swallowed. She wanted to lie down. But now her head was full of pictures: Edwin, looking wildly about him, blood dripping from his arm: Whom to trust, whom to trust? And she was glad, then, oh so very glad, that Eamer was not one of her hounds. She saw Edwin sitting on his great chair, eyes darting, making and unmaking decisions all spring and into summer until his advisers despaired and began to listen to the promises of other kings and princes. So many other kings: Anglisc, British, and Saxon, Irish, Pictish, and Scots. So much fear and greed, so many whispers: a foster-brother in Gwynedd, hard-faced nephews in exile with Picts and Scots, and Osric his black-haired cousin plotting in Arbeia. The clash of swords.

“Black hair and chestnut,” she said, watching the pattern of light and shadow twine and shimmer on the surface of the water.

Her hose rose again, like a dead and bloated whale.

She leaned closer. “So much blood.”

“Don’t touch it!” Begu caught her with her face so close to the water she could have flicked out her tongue and touched it. “It will spill and break the spell.”

“It smells,” she whispered.

“Well, yes. It’s full of your dirty clothes.”

Hild blinked. Clothes. Dirty water. Just dirty water. She straightened, then reached out and flicked the surface with her fingertip. The trembling water spilled down the side of the bucket. Hild stood, said to Gwladus, “When you’ve cleaned that up, bring me raspberry tea.”

*   *   *

Her belly did not ache the next day but her head did, and her skin smelt different, like a stranger’s.

Gwladus brought food and news that, according to Lintlaf, Cian was still whole, and according to Arddun, the queen and the baby were doing well. Hild sent her to make sure Cian had been fed, and she and Begu were sipping small beer and munching stickily on warm bread and honey when the curtain parted and Breguswith swept in.

“There you are. The king wants—” She stopped. “Well.” There was more in that one word than in the whole of a scop’s song. “What a lovely veil band.” For a moment—so briefly Hild wondered if she’d imagined it—her mother’s face seemed to thicken and pucker, like the skin on warmed milk, but then it smoothed to its usual unreadable expression. “A very fine purse, too. Kentish work, if I don’t mistake.” She stared deliberately at the spindle in Hild’s girdle, then at its match in Begu’s.

Hild brushed crumbs carefully from her skirts.
Your mother will never tell you what to do again.
She stood. She was taller than Breguswith. “What does my uncle want?” My uncle, not yours.

“Your meddling priest has found the West Saxon, Ceadda, the Gewisse who ran.”

“And the king wants me to question him?”

Breguswith smiled, a bright spark of eyes and teeth, like a flint striking steel. “Sadly, the king killed him before he could speak. He would have killed your priest, too, if he hadn’t run like a hare. If he’s any sense, he’ll keep running. However, word of your vision, black hair fighting chestnut hair, and your naming of Cwichelm, has run wild through the kitchen and reached Edwin. He is … anxious.”

Breguswith turned to Begu. “You must be the girl from Mulstanton. I thought you’d be better dressed.”

Begu tilted her head and studied Hild’s mother with one eye, then the other. “You must be Hild’s mother. I thought you’d be taller.”

Hild had a horrible urge to giggle. Instead, she took her gemæcce’s hand. “Perhaps the queen would like to see you.”

Begu turned that bird gaze on Hild, considering. Eventually she nodded. Hild and her mother were silent as Begu collected her things and left.

“You stupid girl!” Breguswith said. She sounded like a hissing swan. “Cwichelm! What if you’re wrong?”

Hild sat down. “I’m not.” She ate a piece of cheese.

Her mother sat, too. “How do you know?”

Hild stopped chewing, surprised. She swallowed. “I’m the light of the world.”

“Yes, yes. Light of the world, the king’s seer. But he’s going to ask you what you saw, and how. So what will you tell him?”

“I looked in the water.”

“A sacred pool, I hope?” Hild shook her head. “A silver bowl under the full moon? A pool you found while following an eagle? No. No, you stupid child. A tub full of dirty clothes! I heard as much from the kitchen. Does a wash bucket fill the listener with awe? Do filthy garments inspire fear of the otherworldly message and she who bears it? No. It inspires only thoughts of dirt, of human stink. Human. Human lies and trickery, the treachery of plots and assassins with poisoned knives.”

“It was only a game.”

“At the king’s vill, the king’s seer’s words are weighed like poison, or like pearls. Nothing you say is a game.”

Hild glared at her shoes. It wasn’t her fault that the housefolk were spreading rumours. It was just a game.

“No, little prickle. Now is not the time to curl up and wait for the hunter to go away. The king will kill you or Cian if you so much as look at him sideways. Look at me.” She tipped Hild’s chin up until she lifted her gaze. “Think.”

Hild wanted to snatch at her mother’s hand and bite it. But her mother was right. Edwin was mad with pain, mad with fear. She pushed her mother’s hand aside, but gently. “What was the poison on Eamer’s blade?”

“Something akin to wolfsbane. Brewed by an incompetent.” That sparking smile again: If she’d made it, the king would be dead. “I gave the king a cold tea of foxglove. He’s well. In his body at least.” She dismissed his health, much as Begu had, with a wave. “Tell me about your vision. Leave nothing out.”

Hild listened to her heartbeat: steady. Her breathing: smooth. She didn’t need foxglove tea. “It wasn’t a vision.” Breguswith quelled her with a look. “Vision. Yes.” She told her mother of the clothes, the blood, the water.

“Ah.” Breguswith leaned back, thinking. “The blood of a king and the first blood of a virgin seer mixed with water drawn cold from the well under moonlight. Yes. Very good. Your wealh and that— Your gemæcce. They will both swear to it?”

“Her name is Begu.”

“I know her name. It was a foolish—” She mastered herself. “Done is done. For now we must be quick. We can recast your seeing so it reeks of sidsa: king, virgin, blood, well water under the moon. And it was witnessed. Well and good. But how will you answer to the charge that Eamer, the assassin, was your man?”

“What? No! Near Lindsey he was set to guard me—”

“Who gave that order?”

“Forthere. Who had his orders from Lilla. Who had them from the king.”

“He was not one of your hounds?”

“No. Never. I’d wondered why. I thought he liked me—”

“Perhaps he did. If he knew his fate it was an act of kindness to ignore you. Now tell me the story of your vision again, as you will tell the king.”

Her mother took her through her story, step by step, shaping it, sharpening it.

“It will do. But be careful, child. Above all, you must soothe his vanity. You must make him feel strong and in control. Make him feel like a king.”

*   *   *

In hall, Hild wished she had her mother with her. The king seemed barely to be listening to her story. He could not keep still. A muscle by his eye and one at the corner of his mouth fluttered and twitched. He sat in his great chair on the dais with a bloody sword across his knee and a seax in his left hand. Every now and again he lifted the seax hand and blotted his forehead with his forearm. His great garnet shone hot red, the bandage on his upper arm was bulky and clumsily tied. Not Breguswith’s work. His gaze flicked this way and that, probing the shadows. Paulinus stood at his left hand, his bony forehead like old wax and his eyes glittering. Stephanus sat at the foot of the dais at a tilted wooden contraption: some kind of writing table piled with wax tablets. Everyone was there—every man: Osric the badger, the æthelings, Coelfrith, the brothers Berht—unwashed, unshaven, unrested, muscles coiled, ready to leap on any moving shadow and crush it. Cian, swordless and beltless, knelt in one corner, wrists tied back to his ankles. The right side of his face was dark and swollen. Blood, his own by the looks of it, matted his hair. He looked bewildered and very young. Being a hero wasn’t like in the songs.

Tondhelm held Hild’s wrists behind her and shook her slightly to encourage her to continue. “Eamer was set by Forthere to guard me, at Lindsey.”

“Forthere who is dead,” the king said. He twisted in his chair to peer behind him, then back at Hild. “And Eamer saved you at Lindsey yet tried to kill me, his king. Why?”

There were none of the usual murmurs of a hall audience. No one wanted to be heard; no one wanted to be noticed. Fear lay over them all: fear of the king, fear of the young hægtes, fear of Saxons in the shadows and the fates of men being spun by otherworldly hands. Nothing like the songs. Songs …

“Because Cwichelm, his lord, told him nothing of me. Because I am not important. Whereas you, lord, are overking. King of all the Angles.”

“Soon to be king of the Saxons.” He spoke flatly, for his gesiths and counsellors and all those who, having seen his blood, smelt it, might plot against him. He leaned forward. “So tell me how it is that this stranger”—he pointed his smeared sword at Cian—“came to be in my hall with a serpent-tooth knife?”

She drew herself up.
Like a hoofbeat, like a song.

“Say a wolf cub’s tooth, my king. It is a small blade, but honest. Like the man who bears it.” She was glad that Cian was not whole and uninjured and standing beside her with the height and hair of their father. “His mother, one Onnen, was bodywoman to my own mother. We played together as children. But children grow. Onnen knew my time as a woman approached. She sent Cian with gifts.” She touched her veil band and earrings. Her mother had made her wear every piece of good jewellery she possessed, and hang every mark of womanly rank from the girdle given by the queen—she had even lent her own seeing crystal. “The buckle blade was a gift from me. From my hand to his. Into his hand to protect your life.”

“Indeed.” He rested his chin on his fist. “And how did you know he would need it?”

She touched the crystal hanging at her left hip. “I am your seer.”

“Cwichelm, you say.” He gestured for Tondhelm to let her go. He stared at his seax then sheathed it. He scratched his beard, thinking. “He tried to kill me.”

“Yes, lord King.” She wanted to rub her wrists but didn’t dare. Anything could irritate Edwin, anything bring the swing of the sword.

“And you claim you stopped him.”

“Lord—”

He lifted his hand. “Yet Paulinus here says it was the Christ’s will that I be saved.”

“Perhaps it was Christ’s will that I be born to see your path and guide others to keep you safe.”

Paulinus Crow stared at her. Hild stared back.

“The bishop of Christ and the handmaid of wyrd,” Edwin said. “Which should I believe?”