Hild: A Novel (50 page)

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.

The thegns thought they understood. Oh, they would talk for two days, yes, the tide of conversation ebbing and flowing, but they knew the story of Edwin’s dream at the court of King Æthelberht long ago, and why should they deny him? What was one more god? Gods were like the flotsam that washed up with the waves, always coming and going, and those big enough to remain gradually were worn away by wind and water and time. But the thing must be talked about, beards tugged, and the last of the year’s mead drunk.

The thegns were wrong. The Christ and his priests were different. They were a storm that would change everything.
They read.
They would sweep the beach clean. But not of her. That was not her wyrd.

*   *   *

When the thegns understood their Witganmot wasn’t to be at the big oak, or even in hall over mead, but at the new talking stage, they muttered. It was Romish, not Anglisc. It wasn’t right. But then Coifi announced he had blessed a new totem to stand witness to their pledges. And wasn’t a totem better even than an oak?

Hild listened to the newly arrived thegns as they inspected the talking stage. It looked like a wedge of cheese, Tondhelm said, though higher at the edge than the point. He stood with two others on the stage at the wedge’s tip, careful not to brush against the still-drying paint on Coifi’s Woden totem. Tomorrow they’d sit with other listeners in rows rising to the back. The thing reeked of new wood. Hunric, a thegn from near Goodmanham who had ridden in with many men, said that there would be splinters in all their arses by moonrise the next night.

That night, after the main feasting, the queen withdrew from the great hall with her women and those who had ridden with their men to the Witganmot. Breguswith and Begu went with them to the women’s hall, but Hild stayed awhile with Oeric at her elbow. The men got down to the serious business of drinking. Cian and her hounds drank as mightily as the rest, or seemed to, though she suspected several were pacing themselves for the wrestling and boasting to come.

There was much gossip among the thegns, who had less to prove than the young gesiths: who had brought the most cattle for the king, who wore the most gold, who had a new wife, a new son. The scop sang songs of their ancestry, flattering them outrageously, his boy scooping up armlets and finger rings and sparkling daggers as the progressively drunk thegns sought to outdo each other in generosity.

Hild noticed that Hunric threw his smallest ring, and boasted merely that he had brought the most cattle, which was true, and that his son would beat anyone else’s son at anything—once he was grown. Given that his son still ran bare-legged with a wooden knife, this was a safe boast, one no one would remember in a dozen years. A canny man. Edwin, she saw, had raised his cup to Hunric and Hunric toasted him in return. Hild knew what Hunric didn’t: that the king was only amused by those he thought little of.

Faces grew redder and drinking competitions sprang up at every bench. Bets were laid. Soon they would start boasting about their horses, and the scop’s man—traditionally the keeper of the boasts—would set up the racing for the morning. Meanwhile, the scop’s praise grew more extravagant. The thegns roared: The scop was teasing Tondhelm about a brain as small as his ear finger and a prick bigger than his arm.

She picked her way through the raucous men—who were too worried about what other men might be thinking of them to bother with a woman—to Cian, who was telling some involved story about the little sheep of Gwynedd and why the men of that land were also small.

He grinned at her when he was finished. “I’m leaving now for the women’s hall,” she said. “I’ll send Oeric back. Take him under your wing. Don’t let him make any boasts he can’t keep. And if you’re planning to ride Acærn to riches tomorrow, don’t drink too much more of that.”

To which he just grinned again and offered her his cup, and she grinned back and sipped.

*   *   *

The women’s hall, if anything, was even bawdier than the men’s. Veils were askew and sleeves tucked in belts. Arddun and Gwladus could barely keep up with filling the cups, and Hunric’s wife, inarticulate with mead, was shaking a broken-stringed lyre as though it were a choking baby.

Breguswith was deep in conversation with two women Hild didn’t know, and Begu was whistling like a cowherd. Hild sat next to her on one of the queen’s prettily embroidered cushions and took off her shoes.

“Stop thinking,” Gwladus said. “You’ll frighten everyone and spoil the party. Drink this.” Hild sipped: stinging white mead, made from … She sipped again … heather honey. Part of some thegn’s tribute or a gift? She looked up, saw Breguswith looking at her, then back at the women she was in conversation with. Hild made a note to herself to make friends with whoever that was.

“Stop it,” Gwladus said, but then had to fill another cup.

Hild sipped absently, then heard her name. “Hild knows that song. We sang it together at Mulstanton. Don’t you?”

Hild nodded.

“How does the tune go? The one Cædmon sings to Winty.”

So Hild sang the jaunty tune about running free in green, green grass, and Begu joined her, and someone restrung the lyre and plinked the tune.

Gwladus refilled her cup. “Better,” she said. “But the queen says you must drink this down in one, then smile, then drink another.”

Hild doubted Æthelburh had said any such thing. She looked up, but couldn’t even see the queen.

“Oh, for earth’s sake,” Gwladus said, and took Hild’s face between her hands. “Look at me.” Hild found herself looking straight down Gwladus’s bodice. Gwladus tilted her chin until their eyes met. “Listen to me. Truly: Arddun told me that the queen has ordered that anyone sober enough to walk a straight line tonight will be put in the corner and covered with honey. So drink, look stupid. Better still, be stupid. Look at your mother.” Breguswith’s cheeks were now cherry red, her sleeves undone. “She knows when to let go. You should, too.”