Nicola Griffith - Hild

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.

When Paulinus turned from the font to the crowd and raised both arms—his arms were very thin Hild saw, very dark against the cream and gold of his robes—time began to flow in its proper course. The Crow cried out in a great voice that they had put on Christ, they had risen with Christ, and they would share the glory of Christ. The air under the roof bulged with choir song and the crowd cheered. She was baptised to Christ—their name for the pattern, her path, her wyrd. She was still herself.

Uinniau smiled at her and winked.

The hall heaved. Every freeman and woman within miles, all wearing their best, squeezed behind long tables; Oeric sat in his white robe with two lesser priests of Woden—no, not priests, not anymore—and several gesiths. Every servingman and woman was pressed into service; even Gwladus, even Morud. The hall roared with conversation, and despite the raw weather, it was hot. The thick slippery scent of the oil on her hands, the chrism of olive and balsam, stuck in her throat. Hild wiped her hands surreptitiously on the board cloth, but it didn’t make much difference to the smell.

She ran her finger around the collar of her robe, as though it itched, but it was the gold chain around her neck she felt. It was thinner than she was used to, a woman’s chain but bearing a massive gold cross. The great garnets flanked by pearls running down the centre looked like the bloodied froth that flew back in ropes from the bit of a hard-driven horse and the chain cut into her neck. But she couldn’t take it off, and she couldn’t look uncomfortable in it; it was the Christ’s symbol and half the people were still wondering if she would vanish with a wail and a puff of smoke.

Begu reached over and lifted the cross as though admiring it. “Better?” She hefted it. “It must weigh half a pound. Not very practical though. That great big knuckle of a thing will catch on everything. Still.” She weighed it again admiringly. “You should hold it yourself every now and again. It looks pious, and it’ll save your neck until we can get you a thicker chain.” She let it go. “Go on.”

Hild cradled the cross in her right hand. Christian.

Begu lifted her own cross—silver gilt, from Breguswith—and leaned in to Hild. “What does the writing say?”

“‘In Christ’s hands.’”

“Sounds like the kind of thing you’d say before running into a burning byre. Not that I’d ever run into a burning byre. You’d have to be mad. But that’s what it sounds like. Are we really supposed to long for death and a seat at Christ’s right hand? Well, I’d be on the left. Maybe you’d be on the right. Christ might look at your seax and your bare arms and get confused.”

Hild smiled. Begu was still most definitely Begu. “I’m sure he’d sort it out. James says Christ is all-knowing and all-powerful. He could put me in both places at once if he wanted.”

“Or maybe all three, or, no, six! At the right and the left of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Though… a ghost…” She frowned. “What would a ghost look like in heaven?”

Hild tried to imagine a ghost sitting in the golden light of heaven. Ghosts grew from the thin grey mist of hollow hills, the damp and drizzle of dusk, the breath of the dead. They drifted and glimmered along boundary ditches on moonless nights…

“Are all the men of Rheged Christians?”

Hild blinked.

“Well?”

Hild followed her gaze to the other end of the king’s board, where Uinniau was seating himself after a toast to the king.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was so handsome?”

“I didn’t think of it. I didn’t notice.”