Hild: A Novel (68 page)

“He’s not ordinary. He’s the chief of the king’s gesiths.”

“You know what I mean. People listen to him.”

“I don’t want to talk to Lintlaf.” She would rather kill him.

“You should try.” She turned over and tugged at the blankets. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“But what should I talk about?”

“Anything! Just open your mouth and let words fall out. But not tonight. Go to sleep.”

And so Hild spent more time with people. She helped the kitchenfolk seek out fresh shoots for soups and stews. She consulted with the drovers on the state of the countryside they’d travelled, the turns of the weather. She let Wilnoð clutch her hand as she wept, and gave Bassus the Elder a small keg of white mead to share with the queen’s other men, enough to drink until he sang through his tears and swore vengeance on the men of the north for bringing ill luck upon his house. Mead produced greater miracles than all the prayers in the world. Mead was the key to good fellowship. A better gift, sometimes, than gold. Her Menewood was good country for bees: She must remember to send word to Rhin for more mead as and when he could manage it. Or she could talk to the king about trading with the Franks for more. But then it would be the king’s gift, the king’s favour, not hers.

She attended Mass twice a week, bringing different of her gesiths each time, and eating with them afterwards, and dicing, or telling them to find a woman to patch their jackets, as suited each. She smiled at their jokes and offered opinions on their swordplay, which they accepted as they would advice from the king.

She consulted with the queen on an embroidery for Dagobert, newly king of Frankia, to remind him of their trade agreements. She sketched out a weave pattern she had thought of while watching wind in the grass at the edge of the ash coppice: a subtle ripple like ripe grain waving in the sun, like water as fish rose to feed, the flick and turn of bird flocks across a dawn sky. A spin-pattern weave that suggested ripe land and riches. On top would be an embroidery of royal blue, gold, and silver: wealth on wealth. She mentioned that, if it were possible, it might be good to make something, too, for Æthelric, prince of the Anglisc North Folk. He and the folk of the Gyrwe, south and north, were all that stood between an alliance of the middle and East Anglisc against their northern kin.

There was something about alliances she could not quite see, but the more she thought about it the less clear it became, so she set it aside for later.

She approached Cian just once. He was with Lintlaf and Oswine. They were cleaning their weapons by the fire: young lords, brothers of the shield wall, discussing the ætheling Eadfrith. They didn’t see her in the shadow.

“… heard he was talking to the East Angles and the Kentishmen.”

“Talking,” Cian said. He dipped his twig carefully in his bowl of oil. “He’s good at talking.”

Oswine slapped his sword. “This does my talking!”

Lintlaf and Cian exchanged glances, and Hild didn’t like the amused contempt they shared for the hostage who thought he was a gesith.

She withdrew unseen.

Cian was better around Uinniau, but Uinniau spent as much time as he could with Begu. Hild didn’t know who Cian’s latest bed partner was. Perhaps he hadn’t had a chance to find one while being princely with the two guests of the king and riding around as a shining example of wealh and Anglisc friendship. She didn’t like princely Boldcloak much. She missed her Cian. Missed the Cian she might have told of misjudging bandits and what eagles saw.

She couldn’t talk to Cian, she didn’t want to talk to Lintlaf, and Uinniau’s was busy with Begu. So when the young lords weren’t riding around, she walked with Oswine and his dogs and listened to his worries over whether he was a hostage or a guest. He assured her his father was loyal to the overking. She mentioned the delights of Rheged. He agreed that, yes, no doubt it was lovely country, and he’d heard the stag hunting was good—but he seemed puzzled. Hild wondered if anyone could really be so dull. She tried not to feel the same contempt she’d seen from Lintlaf: Contempt for others, like a dog driven from the hall, always found its way back.

After Hild had spent four days talking to people, Breguswith drew her aside. “Stop it. You’re making people anxious. The only person whose opinion counts is the king. Keep him happy, and you’re safe.”

Edwin was not happy. “It’s slipping like yolk between my fingers!” he shouted at Coelfrith, whose latest tallies were not cheering: The northern cattle tithe was down, fewer men had come to bend the knee, and more of them brought complaints. More lords told of families selling themselves into their thegn’s keeping because they could no longer feed themselves. Robbery and banditry were on the rise. There were rumours of murrain in the highlands and ague in the lowlands. Folk murmured about ill luck.

“My lord,” Paulinus said, “if we have a good harvest this summer, all will be well.”

Edwin looked at him. “And will Christ give us a good harvest, Bishop? Oh, I forgot, he doesn’t speak to you of prophecy.” He looked at Hild.

“Sick and hungry farmers don’t harvest as much as those who are well and safe,” she said.

“They will work for God,” Paulinus said. “I will baptise them, and Christ will wash their hearts clean.” Sometimes he sounded as though he believed what he said.

“And then they will gratefully pay a further portion in tithe,” Stephanus said.

“With which we will beautify the church,” Paulinus said. “And so fill their souls with awe.”

“Awe will not give them back the seed you demand in tithe,” Hild said. “Awe will not heal them of ague.”

The gesiths around the room nodded: Nothing healed the ague, which came from the uncanny air stirred by the wings of mosquitoes.

“If they believe, Christ will heal them.”

Edwin waved his hand: A few folk with ague were neither here nor there. “You promised Christ would bring luck and full coffers,” he said. “But all he’s brought is bad weather. He sent his luck to the Idings. They grow strong to the north, and Penda to the south. Pray harder, Bishop.”

“With more souls to pray, Christ will listen.”

“Then, by all means, go baptise. And you”—he turned to Lintlaf—“put a stop to the murmurings.”

Hild knew how Lintlaf would go about that. To be token and totem, the light of the world, meant protecting people from more than blades and hunger. It meant shielding them from fear. One people at peace, content from sea to shining sea …

She slipped out and found Morud. “Delay Lord Lintlaf. I need to speak to Boldcloak.”

She found Cian with Uinniau and Oswine. Cian would have seen that she wanted to talk alone and found a charming dismissal for his friends. Boldcloak saw it and didn’t care. He gave her a flat look and didn’t even stand.

She planted her staff before her. She had learnt to talk to others; she could learn to talk to this stranger. “Lintlaf is to be sent out to stop the murmurs,” she said. “No doubt you’ll ride with him.”

“Sending me on another errand?” His tone was as flat as his expression.

Uinniau stood. “Come on, Os.”

“But—”

“Come
on
.”

When they’d gone, she said, “I’m not sending you. The king is. But I’d like to find you men. To ride under your orders.”

“My orders?”

“Yours. Lintlaf … You know how Lintlaf is.”

He neither agreed nor disagreed.

“The more men go, the faster the murmurs stop. It will make the king happy. If the king’s happy, we’re all safer.” The Cian who had rubbed his lip might never have existed. “Say something.”

He gave her that look and said, “You’re a woman.”

Her heart dropped into her belly.

“You could ask the queen for men.”

She blinked. The queen. She should have thought of that. She turned her staff in her hands. “You’d lead them?”

After a long moment, he nodded once.

The queen smiled when she made her request. “Of course. Bassus would be glad to have something to do. I’m glad you came to me. I was beginning to wonder if I’d offended you in some way. We’ve missed you.”

Hild wanted to believe her, but she had been different since Wuscfrea was so ill. At the best of times queens hid their true feelings; it was the way of the world. And Begu had spoken of her being on her knees to Christ all the time, terrified of the omens. Hild wondered how it must feel to have someone you didn’t quite trust make prophecies about what mattered most to you in the world.

The brothers Berht were happy to go, along with Eadric and Grimhun. Oswine and Uinniau, of course, went wherever Boldcloak went.

“Listen,” Hild said to the assembled gesiths. Half of them had a shine in their eyes she remembered from the field at Lindum, and the firelight as they painted their shields. For them, she didn’t need a ring. “Heed me: honey, not vinegar. Nothing but good words about the generosity and strength of our king.”

“For the bandits, steel, not words,” Cian said.

She couldn’t tell how he meant that. “Yes. For the bandits. For ordinary folk, food and kind words.” She gave them sacks of bread and a small keg of mead each. “For the folk, not for you.”

“Though we’ll have to drink with them,” Cian said to his men with a smile, and Uinniau hooted. They rode out, still hooting, horses high-stepping, glittering with gold and jewels.

Hild and Begu waved until they were lost to sight.

“Three princes,” Begu said. “Like a hero song.”

It was true. Cian carried himself like a prince, and Prince Uinniau looked up to him, as did Oswine, who would one day—if Edwin’s plans worked—be ealdorman of Rheged. Everyone knew the tale of Ceredig king and the boy with the wooden sword. Cian Boldcloak: a far cry from the boy who almost wept at the thought of being in the same hall as the son of the son of the son of Owein, his sword blue and gleaming, his spurs of gold.

Paulinus rode out in even greater state with Stephanus and the new priest, Hrothmar, an oddly pale man with eyes the colour of water and white hair. It wasn’t long before news trickled in to Hild of feverish mass baptisms on the River Glen, of men and women dragged from their homes and forcibly submerged in the fast, cold waters.
To save their souls. To save the Anglisc.

She shared the news with the queen one afternoon as they compared the blue of their most recent dye batch to their standard, a loose skein and a swatch of fullered cloth kept in a tightly woven bag against the light.

“He’ll turn the whole north against us,” Æthelburh said. “How can we stop him?”

Hild rewound the new skein. She could never be certain of the queen’s feelings, but perhaps on this they were of the same mind. “James the Deacon could help.”

*   *   *

James arrived from York in a hurry of mud. Morud led him to the queen’s chambers, where Hild waited.

“Your bishop has gone mad,” Hild said, in Latin and quietly. Gwladus was at the door, but there was no point in taking chances. “He’s baptising anything on two legs, willing or not. The whole north is murmuring. We have to stop him.”

James stood there. Eventually he said, “It wasn’t the queen who sent for me, was it?”

She poured wine. Rhenish, his favourite. “She’s at meat with the king. She knows I’m here.”

“You speak for her?”

“We share the same worry.” She handed him a cup. After a moment he took it. They both sat. “The north is balanced on a sword edge. Your bishop could tip it the wrong way.”

“What is it you want from me?”

“First, tell me exactly, tell me clearly, why he’s forcing baptism.”

“Boniface won’t give him the pallium, won’t make him archbishop of the north, until all the north is converted.”

“But how will Boniface know? Does God keep count and drop tally sticks from heaven on the bishop of Rome’s head?”

“Stephanus keeps the tally. He sends it to me. I compile the report that goes out under the bishop’s name.”

“If you wrote that we were all baptised, would Paulinus get his white wool shawl and leave us alone?”

“I can’t lie to the pope!”

“Why?”

“Because.” But she fixed him with her steady gaze. He sighed. “The pope is God’s representative on earth. Lying to His Holiness would be like lying to God Himself. I’d go to Gehenna.” The hot hell where you burnt like a pig on the spit, forever. “It would be a sin.”

Sin: an oath-breaking, a straying from the path. She sipped her wine. “The Crow has to stop. The north will turn if he doesn’t. The king could make him stop. But the king hears only what he wants to hear. Someone must persuade him the Crow is mistaken.”

“Child—”

“Do you want the church in York to rise and your choir’s voice to rise with it? Then the king must stay on his throne and ensure the church’s tithe. He won’t stay on the throne if the north turns. The north will turn unless your bishop is muzzled.”

“How is that something the king will want to hear?”

“He’ll hear if there’s more than one voice. I’ll speak. The queen will speak.”

“The queen?” He looked into the distance, calculating the benefit. After a long moment he said, “It can’t get back to the bishop.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“Thank me by pouring me another cup. In York they’re very near with the wine when the king’s away.”

She wondered why he didn’t ask his Christ to make wine out of water, but no doubt he’d have an answer for that, too. She poured, then excused herself to check with Gwladus, who told her that in hall the king had called for the scop; there was no hurry.

She went back to James. They drank steadily. He told her of the church in York: The Frankish stonemasons were skittish about every omen, fractious about the weather, finicky about the food. The choir, on the other hand, was beautiful, just wondrous, like heavenly angels.

His eyes glistened, his chin lifted. He stroked his carved cup. The wine made him happy. When you understood what made people happy, you understood them.

“Deacon,” she said, “have you ever seen Paulinus happy?”

He ran a finger round the rim of his cup. “I have seen him uplifted in the service of God.”

“Especially when it is in service to himself?”