Hild: A Novel (72 page)

She looked at the women and men and children one by one. Up one bench. Down the next.

“But our men, oh, our fine men, every breath they draw will increase their courage. Every swing of the sword will multiply their strength. Every river will make itself known to them and its waters will be sweet.”

The drumbeat quickened.

“No Anglisc spear will separate from its shaft, no sword break in battle. No spear will miss its cast, no shield fail. I say to you: Our men will reap the enemy like corn. I say to you: Our men will drive Gwynedd into the sea. It is their wyrd. I have seen it. Our gesiths, with their shining mail and inlaid helmets, with their swords and arm rings, with their bright cloaks and painted shields, our menfolk mounted on horses with glittering headstalls and chased-leather saddles, our husbands and sons and brothers will come home to us.”

She looked at Æthelburh.

“Edwin Yffing, overking of the Anglisc, will return dark with sun and unscratched by anything but brambles.”

She looked at Begu.

“Uinniau, prince of Rheged, will return wreathed in glory and glittering with spoil.”

She looked at her mother.

“Luftmaer the scop will come home. He will come soon, with news that will make our faces split with smiling and our throats ache with song.”

The housefolk began to move through the hall filling cups.

“So let us drink to our men, who will sit by us once again. To our men, who will be here for the corn harvest. To our men, oh, our shining men, who will sing with us at our next feast.” She lifted the great guest cup. It still took two hands. “To our men!”

To our men!
The hall bulged with their roar. They drank.

Hild smiled. Drank. Smiled again. Sat. The musicians played.

To Cian
, she said to herself.

*   *   *

After the feast, people smiled at Hild when they passed. Gwladus stopped rubbing at her neck, and Hild began to treat her as she always had. Better: She fed her and clothed her as before, only now she gave her more presents, and now Gwladus didn’t come to her room in the afternoon. It occurred to Hild that she would have to teach her to ride—only slaves were expected to run alongside the horses. She should probably teach Morud, as well. Morud, after all, had given his oath. Perhaps Gwladus would want to swear, too.

That first morning after the feast, Hild and the queen and the queen’s women gathered in the little wooden chapel, now overshadowed by the half-built walls of the new church, to pray. They knelt silently. Hild tried to talk to the Christ, imagined casting her mind-voice up and up to fall into the sky.
Breathe upon them. Give them strength. Give them courage.
Silence. No one was listening. She thought instead of the pattern, of birds and foxes, the ripple of wind in the grass, the spreading ring of a salmon breaching in an Elmet pool …

On the second morning, a dozen housefolk joined them, standing quietly in the back. On the third, the chapel was full, and Hild felt their eyes on the back of her neck.
Soon
, she had said.
Soon, with news that will make our faces split with smiling and our throats ache with song.

That night, lying naked next to Begu—it was too hot for a blanket—she half dreamt, half imagined a blue sky, bright with banners, and Cian looking at her, angry, rubbing his lip with a mailed fist.
You’ll be sorry. I’ll die wrapped in glory. The scops will sing of me for a thousand years, and boys with sticks will scream my name as they attack each other in the wood: Boldcloak!

Angry.
Keeping him ignorant keeps him safe.
But angry was better than dead. Better than lying with his back broken across a ruined wall, with another man’s ear between his teeth, mouth frozen in a snarl.

All the next day, and the next, the worry never left her. Cian shitting his bowels out in a ditch. Cian with a gaping head wound, not knowing his name. Cian with his eyes pecked out, buried with thirty others in a grave so shallow the dogs would dig him up as soon as the king rode on … On and on, like a cat licking her mind.

*   *   *

The flax was hacked and stacked and she was dressing a sickle cut when Morud ran into the yard shouting that two messengers had arrived: the scop and a priest, Hrothmar. The king had swept Gwynedd into the sea!

She stared at the split skin. Closed her eyes.
God, if you can hear me, let his skin be whole.

Then she opened her eyes and finished the dressing.

*   *   *

Hrothmar was happy to let Luftmaer get the glory and play scop to the queen in her chambers. He was exhausted and filthy, too tired to stand up and too sore to sit comfortably. He slumped on a stool in the deacon’s room, sipping beer, wishing the seer wasn’t there. She took up all the air, like a smouldering fire. He couldn’t breathe. And he didn’t like the way she kept gripping the hilt of her seax and the muscle that jumped in her neck. He’d spent enough time with gesiths in the last three weeks to guess at her mood. He’d heard the songs. He just hoped the deacon could control her.

She loomed over him. “Tell me.”

Just like the king in a bad mood. Oh, if only he’d never heard of the Christ. If only he’d fallen off his horse and died.

“Lady,” said the deacon, “I think you’re frightening the good father.”

She turned on the deacon. She actually bared her teeth at him, like a hound lifting its lip. The world turned grey around the edges.

The deacon was saying something. “Don’t faint, Hrothmar. Breathe. Heaven preserve us. Lady, please sit down. Over there, as far away as possible. Please don’t make any sudden moves or he’ll fall off his stool. Now, Hrothmar. Take a deep breath. Look at me. Tell us what happened, in your own words. The lady will sit quietly until you’re finished.”

Hrothmar doubted the lady would do any such thing.

The deacon sighed and stepped between them, blocking his view of her. “I’ll ask questions, then. Answer them as you can.”

He found that if he kept his eyes fixed on the deacon he could manage.

Yes, he said, they’d swept through Gwynedd, taken Deganwy. The king had driven the enemy into the sea. Right into the waves. Then they’d besieged Cadwallon on Glannauc, Puffin Island. But when they’d taken the fort on Glannauc—hard fighting, horrible, such noise, so many men wailing and weeping and bleeding on both sides, why did men do such things? Yes, yes. Thank you, just one more sip …

On Glannauc? Well, they’d found Cadwallon gone. Where, they weren’t sure. The king was very angry. He’d ordered Luftmaer and him, miserable sinner that he was, to report the news to York without delay. Why him, he didn’t know, perhaps … Why, yes, the bishop had given him a letter. Addressed to the deacon. A list of the dead.

“Give me the letter,” the demon said in a voice as harsh as two boulders grinding together.

He shivered. He took the letter from his pouch and, trembling, held it out in the general direction of the deacon. If he met the demon’s eyes he was lost.

The door slammed open.

*   *   *

“What’s wrong with him?” Begu asked Hild while James fussed over the fainted priest. “He looks even whiter than usual. Did you hurt him? Well, never mind. I have a message! I have two. Luftmaer brought them. What’s that?”

“A letter,” Hild said, and broke the seal.

“Never mind that. I had a message from Cian.”

The world sharpened. The weave on Begu’s dress stood out as clear as knife cuts. The priest on the floor suddenly stank of horse.

“A message from Cian.” Not dead. “To you?”

Begu nodded. “To ‘Begu, my foster-sister.’”

“Give it to me, word for word.”

“‘To Begu, my foster-sister, Mulstan’s daughter, from Cian Boldcloak. Greetings. I am well. Uinniau is well.’ That’s it.”

Hild stared at her.
I am well. Uinniau is well.

“Uinniau sent a message, too. He said, well he said all sorts of things.” Begu blushed. “But mainly he said he has a slash on his forearm, nothing really, and that he’s bringing me a blue enamel bracelet. Just as you said! Decked with spoil! Oh, and he said Cian had a twisted knee. He’s limping but fine.”

Limping.

“So what’s in it?”

Hild looked at the paper in her hand. “A list of the dead.” She unrolled it. Tiny words. Long and dense and black. Many dead. But not Cian. Not Cian. “Lintlaf is dead.” She sighed. She had liked the Lintlaf who made the ride to Tinamutha.

The priest moaned. James helped him back onto his stool. While Hild read the list, Begu found Hrothmar’s beer cup and refilled it.

Gwrast, too, was dead. Brave Bryneich.

When Hild crossed the room the priest moved his head back, like a cat trying to avoid a hit in a fight. She pulled a ring off her finger and held it out. “Say a Mass for Gwrast. Say a Mass for every man. Say two Masses. One for those who are coming back, and one for those who are waiting for us beyond this life.”

*   *   *

Hild kicked the stool by the window so hard it hit the other wall and fell on its side. “Don’t even think about nagging me about giving away good rings,” she snarled at Gwladus. “Limping. Limping! Poor thing. A message for Begu, ‘his foster-sister.’ I hope his bowels turn to water.”

Gwladus righted the stool, tipped the jewels in the box onto the bed, started sorting through them. “Ah, the moss agate. Well, it’ll be hard to replace that exact shade to match your earrings. But it could have been worse.”

“I should never have freed you,” Hild said.

“Oh, well,” Gwladus said. She pondered the jewellery. “I’ll have a word with the white priest. That ring’s worth more than a pair of Masses.”

“Why didn’t he send me a message?” Hild said.

“His pride’s hurt.” Gwladus poured the rings back in the box. “And now your pride’s hurt, I expect.”

“I’m the king’s seer. A gesith can’t hurt my pride.”

“No? Well, that’s good then. Because men can be cruel when their pride hurts. Like Lintlaf. He was a fine boy, but then he was a man.”

Cian was a boy; now he was a man. “Are you sorry he’s dead?”

“The boy died long ago. We all die. Here.” She held out a big ring of flawed jet. “Give this away next time.”

Hild slid it onto her finger, felt its weight. It would leave a good bruise on Cian’s cheek when he came back.

*   *   *

But Cian didn’t come back. The king left Eadfrith at Deganwy to watch for Cadwallon and settle the countryside, and Cian stayed with him. Oswine came back, and Uinniau—bringing a bracelet fit for a princess for Begu, which she immediately slid onto her wrist, and a blue glass cup for Hild.

“There was a plate, too,” he said, as he and Oswine ate with them in the sunny courtyard outside the women’s wing. “But it broke.”

Begu swatted him on the back of the head. “Glass does that, fool.” He beamed at her. She poked him in the arm. Hild didn’t know why they didn’t just get down in the grass and go at it like dogs.

She looked from one to the other. “No message from Cian?”

Uinniau assumed the earnest face all men used when lying for their friends. “He said to say he was well. That he’d be back as soon as Gwynedd is settled.”

We’ll speak the truth, you and I.
Boy, then man.

“That won’t be long, surely,” Begu said, stroking her bracelet, turning it this way and that in the sunlight. “Cadwallon’s run away and his army’s broken.”

“It might be months,” Oswine said. “Clemen in Dyfneint has heard rumours of Penda preparing to march. Eadfrith has taken half the remaining war band south to Caer Uisc to stiffen his resolve. Cian doesn’t have as many men as he should. Gwynedd’s army might be broken, but they’re not dead.” He realised Uinniau and Begu were both giving him looks. “What? It’s true.”

“Months,” Hild said. “And he volunteered for this?”

“It’s a great honour.”

“You smell of horse,” she said, and walked away.

*   *   *

The court moved to Derventio. Breguswith, who had been giving Hild speculative looks in York, was now busy once more with wool. The king, unhappy about Cadwallon still being alive somewhere, consoled himself with the thought of controlling all Gwynedd’s trade with Ireland and Less Britain. He spent his time with the queen and her trade master, or plotting with Paulinus about how to extend their reach into Rheged. He didn’t ask for Hild. Paulinus had been with him in Gwynedd; the campaign had gone well. Paulinus was now his sun and moon.

Hild knew Edwin would change his mind soon enough; it was his nature. She would be ready. Meanwhile, she spent her days with Begu. Begu was the only person who didn’t make her angry. With Begu she didn’t have to think.

They were making a new baldric for Uinniau, as they had long ago for Cian. This would be in a green-and-brown dart pattern. They were good at it now, after years of practice, and it was pleasant work: sitting in the sun, cooled by a light breeze, listening to the sound of housefolk not worried about war and fieldfolk pleased with the ripening corn, to birds singing and children who spent more time playing than chasing them off or pulling weeds. She could pretend it was enough to sit with a tablet weave between them, as women had for generations, and sometimes talk, sometimes fall into a half trance, mind floating free.

Begu hummed the gemæcce song to keep the rhythm of the back-and-forth:
One to hold and one to wind, one to talk and one to mind, one to beat and one to load, one to soothe and one to goad …

A team, taking it in turns. Like her and Paulinus, though he didn’t know it.

She followed the shuttle, back and forth, pondering her worth if Edwin didn’t change his mind. Her worth as not-seer, as the king’s niece. For Cadwallon or Penda, Eanflæd would be the great prize, but Eanflæd was too young. Lady Hild, the king’s niece and seer, had kin ties almost as good. And her advice was gold.

But Edwin would rather die with his guts spread over three fields than see Cadwallon himself wed to an Yffing. Cadwallon’s children, perhaps. Children were much more biddable. Cadwallon had two daughters by his first wife. She couldn’t remember if they were marriageable but thought the eldest—Angharad? Antreth?—probably was. If Cadwallon had any wit, he’d be trying to marry the daughter to Penda.