Nicola Griffith - Hild

The whole world seemed to be busy. Far away, Hereswith with child—or already a mother—and Fursey teaching her her letters. Also far away now, Osfrith and Clotrude—swollen with her own child—up in Arbeia rebuilding webs of trade and influence, knitting the Franks and Frisians into the Northumbrian web. Here, Breguswith and Æthelburh planning a new wool trade, something akin to Eorpwald’s goldsmithing trade: shearing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, sewing. Sheep to cloak, Breguswith liked to say. Osric, shorn of influence, in Craven. And Eadfrith, the elder ætheling, all over the isle, talking to the Britons of Rheged and Gododdin, the Mercians, and all manner of Saxon.

So many people doing so many things, except Hild.

Even James was busy, taking up some of the administrative burden of Elmet. Though, as he pointed out, that province was running smoothly now, thanks to Hild’s idea that the king shouldn’t demand tithes from new farmers. Really nothing Coelfrith’s man, Pyr, couldn’t run. All he had to do for now was keep track of who was clearing forest and breaking ground where, and keep the bigger landowners assured of the king’s benevolence. “Which mostly involves feeding them slabs of beef once a month. And mead. The number of mead barrels he’s getting through is iniquitous!”

Paulinus Crow was busy: He could practically taste the white pallium of overbishop, James said, and was building a web of his own priests to shuttle information back and forth. Lindsey was coming along very satisfactorily, so much so that James thought the bishop would soon be pushing for the king to lean on the apostatised Eorpwald in East Anglia. Paulinus would love to baptise him and appoint an underbishop of the East Angles—make himself the overbishop of all the Angles. Let Justus keep the Kentishmen, and welcome. All in the interests of the king, of course.

The king himself spent his days with Coelfrith and bundles of tally sticks, pondering his wīc, what he could funnel through it, what he could charge. Counting, counting, counting, rearranging possibilities, shouting at Coelfrith when he didn’t like the answers. They should have moved to Derventio a fortnight ago, but the king, obsessed with his wīc, would have none of it.

Hild wanted to talk to the king about Rheged: Rhianmelldt might not be capable of weaving peace, now or later, but Rheged didn’t need that, it needed protection. And though Rhianmelldt wasn’t old enough to marry she could be spoken for. If Northumbria didn’t pluck her, someone else would. Mercia or Gwynedd could give Rhoedd what he craved: a strong enough alliance to leave Rheged safe from violent annexation and obliteration when he died.

In the kitchen garth claimed from the rubble at the north corner of the great hall buildings, Hild flicked a caterpillar off a colewort leaf. Caterpillars. Soon there would be butterflies and moths. She’d never seen such things in York. For her York meant stone, brick, winter skies. This greening felt all wrong. They should be at Derventio by now—she missed her secret spinney; she missed the rooks—and then Goodmanham. It would be summer before they knew it, yet here they were, still in the city of stone.

She straightened, twirled her staff slowly, thinking.

“Morud.” He levered himself to his feet. “Run to the kitchen. Find Gwladus and tell her to meet me in my rooms. I want to dress for the king. Oh, and tell the kitchen the colewort is ripe, though they’ll have to hurry to beat the caterpillars to it.”

Gwladus came to Hild’s apartment in time to help with her hair. She told Hild the king was in a bad temper. “Flung the tally sticks at Coelfrith’s head and told him to get out, get out. Then he flung his trencher at the wall hanging and swore he’d have the cook’s breasts for a coin purse if she couldn’t stop burning the lamb, and he was sick to death of lamb, anyway, fed up to the back teeth. Well, lucky him, I say. Today might not be a good day for whatever you had in mind. Even the Crow thought better of going in.”

Hild turned. Gwladus adjusted her brushstrokes deftly. “The Crow? What did he want?”

“Arddun says he’s been pestering the queen to pester the king to send Coifi to Woden’s enclosure at Goodmanham to tear it down.”

Hild closed her eyes and leaned back. She loved the firm pressure of Gwladus’s hand on her crown, the steady strokes of the brush, and the scent of dried lavender and spicy tansy rising from her skirts. She pondered the enclosure. It had to happen. It should happen soon. “Where’s Coifi now?”

“They say he spends time in the church. I don’t know why: howling empty space.”

The church, still only uprights and a roof, was empty but for Coifi. The ex-priest of Woden, wearing a brown tunic and hose—he had thin legs, she realised—stood with his hand on the great stone basin mortared over the well, staring at the painted stone. Hild stood by what would become the main doorway and watched him. He seemed unaware of her—of anything. She doubted he even saw the bright colours under his hand.

She had never liked him much, but she felt for him. The king no longer had use for him. That would be her lot, one day.

She bumped her staff on the doorpost, as though by accident, and stepped under the roof.

He said, without turning, “Do you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“Nothing.” He turned. “I feel nothing. Is there a god here?”

“The priests say he’s omnipresent.” She joined him by the font.

“Then why build him a house?”

She didn’t have an answer. James hadn’t had one, either.

“They haven’t even carved the doorposts,” he said. “What kind of god is expected to visit a house no better than a wealh’s hut? Even the king’s horses have better posts to look at.”

“Paulinus will tear it down. He’ll persuade the king to build a hall-size church of stone.”

He stroked the limestone font. “Cold stone. What kind of god is this Christ?”

“Ours, now.”

Silence. “The king refused to see me today.”

“He is… busy.”

“He’ll always be busy for me now, won’t he?”

“Yes.” She heard the faint clash and stamp of gesiths in the yard. He heard it, too. His face twisted: He had exchanged sword for skirt long ago; it was too late. And he had no land, no wife. “Where will you go?”

“Who would have me? The Crow took everything. For his church, he said.” He looked about the rough empty space. “The king smiled and watched.”

That was how kings were. If you were of no use, you didn’t exist. “If you could go anywhere, if I got you something to go with, where would you go?”

He thought about it. “Craven.”

Two displaced men under one roof. Hild turned it over in her mind, looked at its underside, its corners. She imagined the bitterness, the endless stories told over mead and smoking fires, the constant gnawing on the bones of what if . It wouldn’t be a happy hall, but she couldn’t see anything coming of it. Osric was much reduced and a priest without a god was nothing. “I know how you could please the king and win the goodwill of the Crow, and you’ll leave riding a king’s stallion, wearing the rich clothes of a gesith and bearing arms. And your name will last forever.”

It was delicate work, like guiding a team of nervous cart horses along an overgrown track, but not difficult. It was a matter of holding the right tension on the reins and nudging each in turn to take a step, to make promises that would be to their advantage, and then hold them abreast so that each thought the other was taking most of the strain.

Coifi would formally desecrate Woden’s temple, and leave—if he left equipped like a thegn, including a little silver in his purse and a wealh to tend him all the way to Craven. Paulinus would make no argument—if the king agreed to be present and witness the final humiliation and repudiation of the old gods, then acknowledge Paulinus chief priest and bishop of all the Angles. The king in turn would agree to witness and proclaim and provide the gear for Coifi—if it would get both priests off his back and give him the time and space to think about his new wīc.