Nicola Griffith - Hild

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.”