Nicola Griffith - Hild

She began to anticipate what might provoke Begu’s flush and swallow: the roll of long muscle under sheened skin, the tightening and hardening of a tendon at the back of a man’s knee as he strained against a hold, the glisten of a red mouth at the lip of a drinking horn, the interesting roll and jostle in a man’s hose when he scratched at himself.

And now, at night, after Begu jerked and shivered and fell asleep, it was Hild’s turn. Her restlessness receded.

Begu’s did not.

Hild told Oeric to watch for likely men for their household. “Strong men,” she said. “And young.”

“Strong, lady?”

“Strong. And clean. With sweet breath. Men who laugh.”

“Gwladus will know,” he said.

The old bird cherry was still alive, though one limb was bare and dead. Cian leaned against the mossy boulder by the little pool and Hild, barefoot and with her underdress still kilted up after fighting, lay on her stomach stroking the still water, sending rolls of ripples this way and that. A water spider slipped and slid then climbed a leaf and waved its front legs in her direction. Hild rested her hand on the surface, pressing slightly as it rocked. It was like resting her hand on Begu’s stomach: soft, elastic, delicate, fascinating. She slid her hand in to the wrist. In. Out. Her arm broke and magically healed, broke and healed. Cian smiled, and she knew he was remembering the magic stick, the tooth.

Butterflies flitted around the bird cherry, white among the almond-scented white blossom.

“I think there are more flowers than last year,” he said. “Perhaps it will bloom forever.”

“It belongs here. Like us.”

It felt like a moment out of time, endless. The grass was pleasantly prickly against her thighs and arms. She stretched, wriggled, laughed: happy.

He shifted slightly and turned away, and Hild became aware that she wore only an underdress, kilted tight between her legs. She sat up.

He picked up a fallen twig, studied the dark oval leaves.

“Cian.” He stilled but didn’t look at her. “Would you go to Rheged? If the queen wanted you to?”

“Rheged? Why? I’m sworn to the king.”

“If he asked you.”

“He’s my lord. But by choice… There’s no glory in Rheged.” Now he looked at her.

“No, I’ve seen no visions of glory, no songs of war and blood and gold. But if the queen mentions Rheged or the princess Rhianmelldt, who is quite mad, tell me.”

“Why would she?”

She shook her head.

He threw the twig at her. She batted it out of the air. “Why would she?”

She scooped water at him. He jerked back, banged his elbow on the boulder, swore. She jumped up, legs flexed.

He stared. “Your legs are strong,” he said eventually. “You should learn to wrestle.”

She looked down at her thighs, paler than her arms, paler than his.

He swallowed. “I could teach you,” he said, and his voice was tighter than it had been, rougher. Her skin tightened and shivered, like a horse when a fly lands on its withers.

“Let’s run,” she said, and did, not caring what branches tore at her, just running, running, running.

Cian and the other gesiths left for York two days later with the king. Edwin was eager to oversee the first season’s trading at his wīc. He wanted Hild and her mother to stay at Goodmanham to oversee the making of cloth for that trade. Paulinus and Stephanus were with the East Angles at Rendlesham: Paulinus to baptise young Eorpwald and appoint an underbishop before Justus could, and Stephanus to negotiate with Eorpwald’s steward over the Frankish trade. Hild considered suggesting to Stephanus that he invite Hereswith to add her voice. She might have if it had been Osfrith, but Osfrith was in Arbeia, consolidating the north trade, pulling it east along the river valley to starve the route down the west sea coast through Gwynedd. Tightening the great weave. Besides, he didn’t want to leave Clotrude, who, by all accounts, was as big as a hut.

The queen spent half a week in Goodmanham talking to Breguswith and then took her nurse and little Eanflæd and followed the king to York. The cloth trade was important but getting a son by the king mattered more.

With none to gainsay her, Breguswith ran Goodmanham with a rod of iron: Her weaving sword was always in her hand, and she was free with the flat of it if any man or woman didn’t hurry to obey. Without anyone to please, she no longer bent and swayed. No longer willow but oak.

Hild had helped work out how the new wool trade would run, but even she was astonished at its efficiency. Sheep sheared in every royal vill, from the Tine valley to Pickering to the wolds to Elmet. Fleece sorted and sent by grade to rows of huts in Aberford, or Flexburg by the Humber, or Derventio. Armies of women to separate out the staples, to mix soapwort, urine, and pennyroyal to wash out the grease. Children to lay the washed wool in the sun to dry, to watch and turn it and to drive off the birds who liked to steal it. Men to barrel and cart oil and grease to the vills to make the fibre more manageable for the first finger-combing and sorting. Smiths hammering out double-rowed combs and woodworkers shaping wooden handles, for women to comb out wool in the new way, the better way, a comb in each hand. Carpenters to build the stools and tables. Bakers to bake the bread so the wool workers could work. Lathe workers to turn the spindles and distaffs—the long and the short—and, everywhere, women and men making spindle whorls and loom weights of clay and lead and stone, of every shape and size and heft.

It was a constant, endless river of work just to make the clothes for a household—cloaks and tunics, shirts and hose, veils and dresses and underdresses and hoods and caps—in addition to blankets, wall hangings, bandages, sacks, saddle cloths, wipes, shrouds, breech cloths. And now Breguswith wanted enough fine wool—the very best, silky, long-fibred wool—to weave cloaks of the size, quality, and quantity to trade for precious goods from the Franks: jessamine, myrrh, poppy paste, garnets, gold, walnut and olive oil, silk. Coelfrith’s men were even now talking to the Franks and Frisians at York, agreeing on colours, sizes, seasons; spitting and shaking hands.

More sheep sheared. More wool spun. More yarn dyed. More cloth woven. More cloth cut and sewn and embroidered. More weld cultivated and vats built. More wood cut and burnt. More, more, more.

The days grew longer, the nights warmer. The barley began to turn gold.

Breguswith was everywhere, touching everything, assessing, organising, nudging, anticipating. She had noted with Hild that this year at Goodmanham the fleece was thick, and so she sent the undersmith to the fold where he set up a portable forge to heat and hammer and sharpen the shears every night. Yet the shearing rate was still too slow.

She took Hild with her, and they sat on the sunny hillside and watched the shearers sweat and struggle with the heavy fleeces, and the waiting sheep, penned too long, grow restless and kick, and refuse to keep still, which in turn made everything take twice as long.

Hild watched the flexing muscles of the strapping young women and men, streaming with sweat, and said, “Begu could help here. She’s good with animals. I’ve seen her keep a cow with a gashed udder calm.”

Her mother followed her gaze to one particular man with a curl to his rich brown hair and a light in his eyes. After a moment she nodded. “But find out his name and his family.”

Hild did: Berenic. Two sisters, a mother, an aunt, no wife, no children. Even-tempered and kind, though with a fondness for beer.

So then Begu spent her days at the fold. Soon after that Oeric was riding with messages to Aberford and Derventio, and Morud was drafted to fetch and carry for the household, to groom a horse, or cut wood, or help dig another pit.