Hild: A Novel (38 page)

“It suits you,” Fursey said. While his voice was as light as ever it sounded a little scratched, a little hollow, and she had not missed the way the bones of his wrist stuck out, the hole in his boot, and the small tear in his skirts. He smelt of dust, not horse. He had walked.

“What happened to your mount? We’re leaving for Sancton tomorrow. You nearly missed us. Why did you run? Why were you away so long?”

“I shouldn’t have come back at all.”

Hild just waited.

Fursey laughed. “Oh, you’ve learnt a vast great deal since Tinamutha. I’ll miss you.”

I’ll miss you.
Sometimes if you ignored things they went away. “Eanflæd is to be baptised.”

He raised his eyebrows, which only emphasised how drawn his face seemed. “You’ve heard already? I thought I’d outpaced that news.”

“News?”

“Your king is proceeding in triumph to Sancton with most of the war band, claiming the death of five Saxon kings—if a kingdom is a stony field and a muddy stream. Though sadly Cwichelm and Cynegils are not among the dead. They’re still running, pursued by threescore of the war band under Eadfrith. And, no, I’ve no news of Cian.”

He’d be fine. He would. “How soon will they be in Sancton?”

“Six days from now perhaps. They have wounded.”

Not Cian. Cian would be fine. “The queen said a strange thing.”

“Yes?” He sounded so very tired.

“She said my mother, and Cian, should take baptism.”

“Did she now?”

“She said it would give them power and influence.” Fursey nodded. “But why would she want my mother to have that? I don’t think she likes her.”

“She does like you.” He smiled, but tiredly. “And you’re both blood. She’s trying to protect you.”

From the king. From Paulinus. From Cadwallon and all the conspirators who wanted her dead for no other reason than she was an Yffing.

“Child, I’m weary to the bone and I must leave again soon enough, so—”

“You can ride with me to Sancton. As we travel you can tell me about baptism.”

“I’ll tell you everything you could possibly wish to know about the holy rite of baptism, but I won’t be going to Sancton.”

Silence.

He said, more gently, “I must leave. For good. Your king can’t trust me.”

“I don’t understand. You didn’t do anything wrong. I can explain—”

“My king is dead. Fiachnae mac Báetáin, king of the Dál nAriadne, was slain by Fiachnae mac Demmáin of the Dál Fiatach. At Lethet Midind. Three of the Idings fought at my king’s side.”

Idings. The friend of my enemy is my enemy.

Hild stood. “I’ll find you a horse.”

“Oh, sit, for pity’s sake. I’ve a night’s grace. As long as I’m not seen.”

One night. “I’ll send at least for food.”

“I would like that. Have your three-scilling wealh bring it for me. She knows how to keep her mouth shut. And I’d like to see her wicked face one more time before I trudge my weary way into the unknown.”

“I won’t be long.”

When she got back, Fursey was curled on the straw, asleep. His face twitched as he dreamt; a gold fleck of straw glinted by his nostril. Priest, prince of Munster. A shabby man without a king. Without a home. Fursey. Who had taught her her letters.

He stirred when she sat on the bale next to his.

“Gwladus is bringing cold mutton, bread, and cheese.”

He scratched his stubbled tonsure.

“You need a shave.”

“What I really need is a drink.”

“Gwladus is bringing heather beer—everything else is packed.”

His lip curled, but his scorn was halfhearted.

“Fursey?” He looked at her. “What will you do?”

“Drink the jar dry.”

“No, I mean—”

“I know what you mean, child.” He rubbed his chin. It made a dry scritching. “I’ll leave tomorrow. I’ve a fancy to see your sister again. She’d welcome me, do you think?”

“My sister? Hereswith?”

“You have another?”

“No. I mean, yes. Oh, yes.” Of course she’d welcome him. He was
Fursey
.

“And she needs to learn to read. Once the overking’s daughter is named for Christ, it won’t be long before Paulinus is forcing the whole island to dip their heads and kiss his ring. Hereswith will need advice.”

Fursey and Hereswith. Hereswith and Fursey. If she knew where he was, if she could write to him, he wouldn’t be gone. And she could write to her sister. They wouldn’t be lost to her.

Gwladus brought the food. Fursey was too tired to do more than smile, and Gwladus seemed to catch his mood. She put the tray on the ground, nodded, and left.

Hild sat down next to him. “Tell me about baptism.”

He talked as he ate. Hild was content to watch, to try to carve the picture of him on her mind.

Baptism, he said, a lamb bone in his hand, was getting your sins washed away.

“What’s a sin?”

“It’s … well now, it’s a kind of stepping from the path. A wrongdoing.” At Hild’s blank look he said, “An oath-breaking against God.”

“A sinner is a nithing?” Cian wouldn’t want to be thought of as a nithing.

Fursey drank more deeply of his beer, clearly wishing he had not embarked on an explanation.

Another thought occurred to Hild. “But if you haven’t taken an oath to the Christ, how can you break it? How can you have sins?”

“We’re all born sinners. All born with a stain on our soul.”

“A stain?” Like a birthmark?

“Some more than others. Perhaps that’s why the queen suggests—” He shook his head. “Ah, but don’t worry about it. Paulinus will explain everything to you long before your own baptism.”

“I don’t like Paulinus.”

“No one does but Paulinus.”

“If I get baptised, I want you to do it.”

Fursey paused, cup halfway to his mouth. “You don’t want me to baptise you, child—hush, now. You had best get used to being called child. It’s what priests do with their flock because we represent God on earth, and you are God’s children.”

“So are you.”

“Don’t interrupt. Paulinus won’t take kindly to being interrupted. Listen to me now. When the time comes to be baptised, let Paulinus do it. He’s a bishop, perhaps to be an overbishop. And baptism is like…” He drank his beer, wiped his mouth, refilled his cup, considered. He switched to Irish. “Baptism is very much like a sword in this way: that the man whose hands the sword or the soul passes through adds his lustre. Just as an overking’s sword is more noble than a thegn’s, a bishop’s blessing is more holy than a priest’s, which in turn is better than a deacon’s. It’s the way of the world, which is to say, the way of men—who, being created in God’s image, reflect His intentions for the world.”

“You were baptised by Brendan himself, so why aren’t you a bishop?”

“Well, now, perhaps I will be. Just not today, and not here.”

*   *   *

A little after dawn the next day, she walked with him as he led his mare down the path to the daymark elms. They stopped.

“Well,” he said, and hitched at his belt.

Hild didn’t know what to say.

“This time it will be long and long before we meet again.”

Her throat closed.

“Well,” he said once more, and he looked small and tired and she couldn’t bear it. She opened her arms and hugged him, hard. He patted her back. Patted her again. “Child, I can’t breathe.”

She let go. It was like letting go of the world.

His eyes glistened. “Help me up now.”

She made a stirrup for him. His shin was dirty. It would be dirtier before the end of his travel. Such a long way to go. All alone.

She heaved.

He looked down at her. “Goodbye, now, Hild, daughter of Yffings. Fare well.”

Yffings didn’t weep. But she watched him, watched the path until even the dust of his passing had fallen.

*   *   *

In the predawn light, thin and grey as skimmed milk, mist rose from the river, cool and smelling of secrets. A bittern boomed from the marshy plash downriver but fell silent at the approach of thirty people, eleven in white wool robes—twelve if you counted little Eanflæd, fast asleep in her swaddling and snug in the queen’s arms. Ducks rose in a flurry of wings and honked into the distance. Something splashed hurriedly into the water, out of sight.

Stephanus led the procession, swinging a brass censer. It kept going out. It was out now, but no one mentioned it. Getting to the baptism place on the river was the important thing, not stopping to fuss with burning Frankish resins. Few of them knew what to expect, but they all knew rivers flow with sidsa, especially near dawn. The air trembled with it, like the skin of a colt standing still but longing to run, run, run over the rich new grass.

James the Deacon led his six-man choir in a low spoken chant. One of them, the straw-haired youth with the freckles, kept stumbling over the words. Everyone ignored that, too.

Someone’s belly rumbled. Berhtnoth nudged Berhtred and whispered. Berhtred hitched at a sword belt that wasn’t there, then wrapped his arms tightly around his wool-draped middle. Their hair, like Cian’s, glistened. Everyone was hungry. Paulinus had insisted that those to be baptised not eat in order that their bodies be empty and pure enough to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the queen had suggested that the whole party forgo food.

Cian, like Breguswith, like the four members of James’s choir, like Burgmod and Eadric the Brown, Grimhun and the brothers Berht, had been persuaded of the political advantages of baptism. Hild and Edwin’s other kin—the æthelings, Osric, and Oswine and Osthryth—must follow Edwin’s example, and Edwin, before making a decision, wanted to see with his own eyes what happened when some finger of Christ’s spirit took up residence in a body.

Hild walked with Begu behind the candidates in white: all treading carefully, unwilling in the strange mist-wrapped half-light to break a twig in passing; they didn’t want to attract the attention of any ghosts, holy or otherwise. Fursey had been a little vague about the Holy Ghost; Hild thought perhaps it was some kind of godly cousin, an otherworldly ealdorman of the Christ. She wondered if she would see it. The morning was certainly uncanny enough.

Begu leaned in to whisper, “Eanflæd wouldn’t be sleeping like that if she was hungry.”

Hild said nothing. She didn’t want to talk. Fursey had told her that today would be the feast of Pentecost, which commemorated tiny tongues of flame dancing on saints’ heads. She wanted to see that. No wonder they did this by a river. She hoped Cian wouldn’t get burnt.

She had warned him about the flames. He had wetted his head as a precaution. The brothers Berht had followed his lead.

She hadn’t cried when Fursey left. Yet now, as they trod solemnly towards Sancton’s river for this Christ mystery, she found she had to swallow and blink fiercely and try not to listen for his mocking Irish voice that made everything seem less important, less frightening.

At the great curve in the river where the north bank was low and the current slow, a swath of reeds, recently cut, was laid in a green path over the mud to the water. Paulinus, resplendent in his jewelled cope and carrying his gilded shepherd’s crook in his left hand, stopped and raised both hands. Stephanus stopped swinging and clanking. James quieted his chant.

Hild and her mother raised their heads, alert to the pattern. They were about to meet their new god.

There was no sound now but the river.

Paulinus cried out, a great shout in Latin. Another great shout, something about eternal life and the seal of God, and Stephanus, James, and the choir all shouted in unison.

The river poured.

“Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee,” he shouted in Anglisc, “into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

“Amen,” said the priest and the choir and Æthelburh.

Paulinus shouted some more, and his normally waxy face began to flush as he warmed to his theme. He spoke too fast, and his accent was too strange for Hild to follow every word, but he seemed to be talking to someone called Satan. He sounded like a herald provoking an opposing army, taunting them with their imminent defeat, boasting of his champion’s skills and the worthlessness of his enemy.

Paulinus’s cheeks grew mottled. He waved his crook. Hild wondered if it was a good idea to provoke an uncanny enemy when the sun was not quite risen. She glanced to her left, to the north and east—she wasn’t the only one—but there was no sign of Satan and his army in the shadowed woods.

The sky began to pale in earnest; a blackbird sang, then stopped abruptly.

Paulinus stopped, too. He smiled and gestured to Æthelburh—who glanced at Edwin and took his left arm with her right—and then to Stephanus, who came forward with a white-and-gold stole and laid it around his neck. Hild found herself, along with everyone else, leaning forward.

Paulinus and Stephanus waded thigh deep into the river and turned. The king and queen followed.

The spot was carefully chosen. The water was not still—for that would be dangerous; sprites liked quiet water—nor was it swift enough to sweep a mother off her feet. Even so, and even with her husband to steady her, Æthelburh stopped when the river lapped at her knees.

For a moment, Hild thought Paulinus would refuse to step closer, but Stephanus stepped first and the Crow had no choice but to follow. Stephanus uncapped one of the tiny silver pots at his waist and held it out.

If Satan were to come, it would be soon. Hild longed for her seax, or even Cian’s hidden buckle knife.

“Face west,” Paulinus said. The king and queen turned cautiously to face upstream. Paulinus dipped his thumb in the pot. It glistened a little. He traced a cross on baby Eanflæd’s forehead. She opened her eyes and made a questioning sound. Stephanus stowed the pot in his belt and brought out a different one.