Hild: A Novel (54 page)

The king and most of his retinue were already forming up on the muddy landing near the bridge. Horses milled. Hild stood by the fore gangplank, looked about for Gwladus, thought she saw the flash of her pale hair among the heave of men unstepping the mast. There, midships, pressed back against the larboard rail …

“No,” said Hild, and a man turned, thinking she was talking to him.

“Lady?”

She picked up a batten. “Out of my way.”

Then she stood before Lintlaf and Gwladus. Lintlaf, hand still white and tight around Gwladus’s arm, turned, face slack with drink.

Hild said, “Gwladus. You will take my bag to shore. Now.”

Lintlaf stood there, mazed as an ox just herded from the byre. Hild tapped his hand with the end of her batten.

He blinked, let go. Gwladus rubbed her arm, glared at him.

“Bitch,” Lintlaf said. His breath was sour with ale.

Gwladus spat at him. He raised his hand.

Hild drew his gaze with her batten. “Don’t touch her.”

He put his hand on his seax.

She hefted the batten: good, weathered oak. “I’ll break your arm.”

“She’s wealh.”

She set her feet. “She’s mine.”

His face puckered like a purse with a pulled string. “So. The freemartin has finally learnt what it’s all for.”

She hefted the batten again. “You will not touch her.”

He considered, spat, took his hand from his seax. “She’s soiled, spoiled, and sullen. You’re welcome to her.”

He pushed himself from the rail and walked with care to the gangplank.

Gwladus slid her hand around Hild’s waist and whispered in her ear, “Thank you, lady.” Then she stepped away. “Where’s your bag?”

“My bag?” For a moment, she had no idea what Gwladus was talking about. She still felt that warm whisper in her ear. She gripped the rail. Had someone untied the ship?

“There it is,” Gwladus said, and left Hild standing with batten in one hand, rail in the other.

*   *   *

It was strange to be back in York only a few weeks after Bebbanburg and Yeavering. The new women’s wing was ready, a row of rooms running at a right angle from the hall. The apartment Hild shared with Begu was three small rooms: a bedroom with a curtained doorway to the chamber where Gwladus and others slept, which had a stout door to the next, in which slept Morud and a guard, often Oeric. At the mouth of the corridor, the queen’s men stood guard over the whole wing: the queen’s suite, Clotrude’s, Breguswith’s.

Like Osric’s house at Arbeia, its bones were stone and brick, but it was rebuilt with elm and oak and pine and hung with tapestry and embroideries. Their bed was big, with a padded bench at the foot, and a little table against the northwest wall under the high window—shuttered now, but not proof against the smell of yeast and rising dough and, in the mornings, baking bread from the giant ovens to the east. There were specially built shelves, faced with polished slate, for lamps.

A taper burnt there now, lighting their supper.

Begu leaned forward for her ale, and a curl of hair dabbled in her lamb stew. Hild reached over and lifted it out without comment.

“How am I supposed to keep it out of things if we can’t bind it for the ritual? And what if it’s windy in the morning?”

It would be windy. It was Œstremonath. “The walls should shelter the church well enough.” The church was only a frame and roof in the principia courtyard.

Begu sucked the hair clean and tucked it back into its braid. “Here, eat some more. Who knows how long we’ll have to go hungry tomorrow.”

The baptism of a king would involve more ceremony than that of an infant. A king, two æthelings, Hild and Begu, Osric and Oswine and little Osthryth, Coelfrith, Coifi, and two dozen assorted thegns and gesiths, including Oeric.

Hild ate some of the stew.

“I hope I get all the words right,” Begu said.

“You’ll be fine.”

“He seems like such a solemn god. And fussy. Now, look, you’ve eaten the last of the stew.” She twisted on her stool. “Gwladus!” Gwladus put her head through the curtain. “Oh, for Eorðe’s sake. What do I keep telling you? Don’t pop your head in and out like a woodpecker from its hole. Someone will bite it off. Try to behave.” She lifted her bowl. Gwladus nodded and vanished. “Why can’t she learn? I should have her whipped.”

Gwladus did it because she got to lean forward and show her breasts. Showing off her best points was a habit that had saved her life more than once. And she did have good points.

“They don’t seem to like jokes,” Begu said. “Now what’s that look for? The Christians. They don’t like jokes. I don’t think their god does, either. I asked the queen for a funny story about the Christ, like the one about Ing tricking Herthe with the acorns, and she had to think for a while, and then told me about two villages called Sodom and Gomorrah and God-the-Father turning someone’s wife into salt, which wasn’t funny, and a horrible story about a man called Abram who was supposed to kill his son just because this God-the-Father said so. Not even any bargaining. Just obedience, like a wealh. Imagine! Imagine what Edwin king would say to Thunor if he suggested he kill Eadfrith or Osfrith just because. Which reminds me, Clotrude is very near, your ma thinks so, too. And she thinks it’s a son.”

Hild nodded, wondering about Hereswith.
I am with child.
The letter had only come two months ago but who knew when it was sent?

“What will I do if I get the words wrong tomorrow?”

“You won’t,” Hild said. “All you have to do is say your name. You know your name. And then swear against their demon Satan and for the Christ.”

“And his father, and the holy breath—or is it flame? That bit never makes sense.”

“No.” She didn’t like to think about it. James talked about a Holy Fire, a cleansing fire. Perhaps it meant being cleansed of the memory of the grit and slide of blade into spine. One quick sear, he’d said, and done, like a cauterising iron. But he had never tended a cauterised wound. Most swelled, turned angry, and leaked stinking pus. But her mother would have mentioned pain. But perhaps her mother hadn’t killed as many people as she had. She put it from her mind, scraped the bowl clean, and licked her fingers. The lamb tasted good this year.

“And I don’t understand why the Christ, or whichever one it is, is so squeamish. No blood in the church. No woman with her monthly bleeding. It makes no sense.”

James hadn’t thought to mention that to Hild. Perhaps they didn’t think a hægtes bled.

“And wearing white. What god likes plain old white and no jewels?”

“It’s so those priests can see if you’re bleeding,” Gwladus said, putting the bowl of stew on the table, along with a wedge of crumbly new white cheese and fresh watercress.

“What would they do if you are?” Begu said.

“No doubt nail you to the door, like the Christ,” Gwladus said. “And jam a hat of thorns on your head.” She laid her hand, brief and light as a drift of hawthorn blossom, on Hild’s head.

Begu didn’t notice. “You’d think their god was a slave, the way he let himself be treated.” She ladled herself some stew. The curtain swished behind Gwladus. “Your bleeding’s due soon, isn’t it?”

“Not tomorrow.”

“Better wear a rag just in case, or it’s a hat of thorns for you.” She paused, spoon over her bowl. “Do you suppose we’ll feel any different? I asked Cian if he felt different, afterwards. He said he felt … better. But he wouldn’t tell me how.”

No, thought Hild, because then he’d have to explain what he’d felt bad about, and neither of them wanted Begu to know what they did in war.

“Then I asked your mam, and she put on her meek-as-milk face and said it made her a better person, but the queen was listening, so you know how much that means.”

Hild nodded. Saying what made the people in power think well of her was as much a habit for Breguswith as showing her curves was for Gwladus.

“Do you think it odd that we’ll be swearing fealty to a god, like a gesith to his king?” When Hild didn’t say anything, Begu sighed. “Now what are you thinking about?”

“Um? Oh. My mother. And Gwladus. How they’re not so different.”

To Hild’s astonishment, Begu just nodded. She picked up her knife. “Let’s eat some of this lovely cheese. Let’s eat a lot of it. It’ll be a long morning.” She paused, cheese in hand. “What do you suppose the body of a god tastes like?”

“It’s bread. Like the bread Coifi buried at the root of the hedge.”

“But bread dipped in god juice. I expect it tastes like the air from a forge, buttered.”

Buttered?

“… cheese, then you can tell me about this Uinniau who’s coming from Rheged to witness for the king.”

*   *   *

Uinniau, prince of Rheged, sister-son of Rhoedd king, stood by the font. He was older than Cian, and though he had done some growing, he still was not tall. He still was freckled. His eyes still were the clear hazel Hild remembered. But he was no longer the boy who had bounced like an apple on the back of his too-large mare on the way from Caer Luel to Broac. He was there to stand in for his uncle as British witness to the baptism of Edwin, overking of the Anglisc. He wore the air of power the role lent him.

The font was the beautifully carved stone Paulinus had taken from Elmet, now mortared over the old well in the principia courtyard and bright with gilding and fresh red and blue paint. The font took up the north corner of what would become the church but was now merely a freshly sawn timber frame and a roof, open to the air. Beyond the brick of the principia, wind twisted the clouds this way and that, sometimes tearing them open and loosing flurries of cold rain, sometimes driving the sky clean for a moment and making way for a brief flood of daffodil-yellow sun. When the sun shone for more than a few heartbeats, it raised a strong smell of the dung with which the gardens north and west of the principia had been manured that morning.

Uinniau—and the priests, and the baptismal candidates and their sponsors—stayed dry and relatively sheltered. The crowd spilling into the courtyard was not so lucky. They didn’t seem to mind. They’d all enjoyed the big Easter breakfast the queen had ordered for anyone within the walls who asked. Anyone who wasn’t about to be baptised.

Hild tried not to think about her empty belly or how tired she was of standing. The morning had started with singing in hall, then a procession—led by Stephanus with the great cross, James with the choir, priests with censers, Paulinus with his crook, then the white-robed candidates, then their sponsors—cutting smoothly through the crowd to the church. Then the great Easter Mass began, complete with special blessings of a giant candle—thick around as a gesith’s thigh and nearly as tall as Hild, carved and gilded—and the water in the well, or font.

At the very dawn of creation your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them wellsprings of all holiness …

Two priests swung censers over the font. Wind whipped the heavy smoke into the women’s side of the royal party. Wilnoð coughed. She tried to stifle it, but that just made her eyes water. At least it covered the smell of dung.

Paulinus began the proclamation of the word of God. Begu, in the second rank of white-clad candidates and short enough to be half hidden, frankly leaned on Hild and shut her eyes. Hild, always visible, always watched, settled an attentive look on her face and drifted away into the music still cycling through her head. Cool, clear, endless as sky. Perhaps it would help with any cleansing burn to come.

Begu stirred and Hild came back to the moment. Stephanus was passing along the rows of candidates, touching a glistening thumb to each forehead.

… oil of catechumens … liberation from sin and its instigator, the devil …

She had to bend slightly for Stephanus to reach her forehead. His touch was light and quick. The oil didn’t seem to smell of anything.

… profession of faith …

And the world slowed, for this was the oath.

All around her, she felt chests rise and lungs fill, ready to give voice to the words they had learnt. Then she would be baptised and god’s flame would burn her, or not.

Paulinus’s gaze fastened on her.

He, at least, hoped for her to burn. She breathed deep. She was Anglisc. She would not burn. She would endure and hold true to her oath. An oath, a bond, a boast. A truth, a guide, a promise. To three gods in one. To the pattern. For even gods were part of the pattern, even three-part gods. The pattern was in everything. Of everything. Over everything.

“God the Father,” she said. God the pattern. “God the Son, God the Holy Spirit…”

All around her, words took shape and rolled from their mouths, high-pitched and low, harsh and smooth, loud and soft. They spoke together, oathed together, breathed together. Her kith, her kin, her king. Her people.

Her heart beat with it, her tears fell with it, her spirit soared with it. Here, now, they were building a great pattern, she could feel it, and she would trace its shape one day: that was her wyrd, and
fate goes ever as it must
. Today she was swearing to it, swearing here, with her people.

She watched the king bend to the font and the water poured three times on his head in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He flinched but didn’t burn. Paulinus welcomed him to God with a kiss on the cheek and a great gold-and-garnet cross to hang about his neck, then turned to her.

She met his gaze, agate to jet. She would not flinch, not even if the water turned to a river of fire. She stepped forward, bent her head, and set her will.

The water was cold, like ice, like flame, and she clamped her muscle to her bone so hard that she felt turned to stone. The world faltered then resumed and the queen was kissing her cheek, welcoming her to God, and she wasn’t burnt.

She hardly felt the queen fastening a cross around her neck or leading her from the font. Watched through a daze as Paulinus poured the water three times over Begu’s head, anointed her on forehead, breast, and both palms, and Breguswith came forward to kiss her cheek.

White-clad back after white-clad back bent over the font. After the king and his family came his counsellors. Coifi and his priests. Rank after rank of gesiths joining Christ, now their god, god of Yffings.