Nicola Griffith - Hild

James stood there. Eventually he said, “It wasn’t the queen who sent for me, was it?”

She poured wine. Rhenish, his favourite. “She’s at meat with the king. She knows I’m here.”

“You speak for her?”

“We share the same worry.” She handed him a cup. After a moment he took it. They both sat. “The north is balanced on a sword edge. Your bishop could tip it the wrong way.”

“What is it you want from me?”

“First, tell me exactly, tell me clearly, why he’s forcing baptism.”

“Boniface won’t give him the pallium, won’t make him archbishop of the north, until all the north is converted.”

“But how will Boniface know? Does God keep count and drop tally sticks from heaven on the bishop of Rome’s head?”

“Stephanus keeps the tally. He sends it to me. I compile the report that goes out under the bishop’s name.”

“If you wrote that we were all baptised, would Paulinus get his white wool shawl and leave us alone?”

“I can’t lie to the pope!”

“Why?”

“Because.” But she fixed him with her steady gaze. He sighed. “The pope is God’s representative on earth. Lying to His Holiness would be like lying to God Himself. I’d go to Gehenna.” The hot hell where you burnt like a pig on the spit, forever. “It would be a sin.”

Sin: an oath-breaking, a straying from the path. She sipped her wine. “The Crow has to stop. The north will turn if he doesn’t. The king could make him stop. But the king hears only what he wants to hear. Someone must persuade him the Crow is mistaken.”

“Child—”

“Do you want the church in York to rise and your choir’s voice to rise with it? Then the king must stay on his throne and ensure the church’s tithe. He won’t stay on the throne if the north turns. The north will turn unless your bishop is muzzled.”

“How is that something the king will want to hear?”

“He’ll hear if there’s more than one voice. I’ll speak. The queen will speak.”

“The queen?” He looked into the distance, calculating the benefit. After a long moment he said, “It can’t get back to the bishop.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“Thank me by pouring me another cup. In York they’re very near with the wine when the king’s away.”

She wondered why he didn’t ask his Christ to make wine out of water, but no doubt he’d have an answer for that, too. She poured, then excused herself to check with Gwladus, who told her that in hall the king had called for the scop; there was no hurry.

She went back to James. They drank steadily. He told her of the church in York: The Frankish stonemasons were skittish about every omen, fractious about the weather, finicky about the food. The choir, on the other hand, was beautiful, just wondrous, like heavenly angels.

His eyes glistened, his chin lifted. He stroked his carved cup. The wine made him happy. When you understood what made people happy, you understood them.

“Deacon,” she said, “have you ever seen Paulinus happy?”

He ran a finger round the rim of his cup. “I have seen him uplifted in the service of God.”

“Especially when it is in service to himself?”

He leaned back, hands behind his head. “That’s not quite it. It’s more that he’s a man, though he likes to pretend otherwise.”

She waited but he did not seem inclined to say more. “He doesn’t think he’s a man?”

“No, no. Simply that as a man he can persuade himself of ridiculous things in order to persuade others.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Most of the time he believes he is truly saving all those hundreds of half-drowned baptisands.” He mused for a moment. “And when he doubts himself, I’d say he banishes those doubts by banishing his bodily needs, denying his humanness.”

Reminded, he eyed the wine jug. She nodded and gestured for him to go ahead. He poured and sipped.

“Ah. That’s a truly lovely wine. But when it comes to the joys of the flesh, I am weak. No doubt because I’m a mere deacon. Paulinus, being a bishop, is made of sterner stuff.”

“I’ve noticed that he doesn’t care for food or wine.”

“He thinks bodily joy—love of wine, of a handsome figure, of venison smothered in bilberries—a weakness, a sin.”

“But you don’t.”

“God made our bodies. And God is love. Love is never wrong. And so love of bodily joy, I think the Christ would agree, is never wrong.” He picked up his cup. “Except when it becomes greed. Which leads to gluttony. Which is most definitely a sin.”

“How can you tell the difference?”

“That, dear child, is a mystery. For today, let us say five cups of wine is love, and six gluttony.”

“Then you can have one more.”

He beamed. “That’s so.”

“I have another question.”

He waved a hand magnanimously.

“Why does God speak to some people and not others?”

She pretended to sip while he picked carefully through his thoughts. Next time she would suggest that the line between love and gluttony might be moved to eight cups.

“The only priests God speaks to, in my experience, are those who think they should be overbishop.” He raised his eyebrows: Did she understand?

She nodded. All priests lie. Except to the pope. “But God does listen to some people. He listened to some of the mothers when their children were dying.”

“Listening is not the same as speaking.”

“He will speak to me. Tell me how.”

“Oh, my dear. I wish we were sitting in the sunshine of Rome.”

She frowned. “Does sunshine make a difference?”

“No, no. But Rome does. There are Greek texts… The Greeks thought about these things. You’d like them.” He shook his head. “But I have none here. The bishop doesn’t see the value. To tell you the truth, I don’t think he reads it very well.”

“Teach me how to talk to him. I want to ask something.”

“Well, I don’t think the bishop would disagree with me if I said that God helps those who help themselves.”

She considered that. “So I can ask for something if I do something?” Give a gift, get an audience. That made sense. She had already arranged the alliance between deacon, queen, and seer. She would ask for an omen.

God sent an omen at dawn, tangled in a birder’s net.

Hild stood in a shaft of light in the king’s hall and held out the jay by its unnatural white legs. She shook it lightly. The king, the queen, even James stepped back.

“Look closely, my king.”

But Edwin wouldn’t come near it.

“White legs, white bill, white eyes. White as a ghost. But caught in a net, killed by hunters who already had full bags.” She gestured at two men by the door, with nets and slings tucked in their wide leather belts and bloodstained game bags at their hips. They looked as though they would bolt, but for Gwrast on one side and Oeric on the other.

Edwin ignored them. “Tell me what it means.”

“A warning about greed. Christ, they say, is often spoken of as a white bird.” She looked at James, who nodded. Doves were white birds, after all. “The people ask: Why would I want to be baptised if my wyrd is to end strangled in a net? Others say: Greed is what killed the white bird, the hunter’s greed. That sometimes the birds in the bag are enough. Greed and hurry, Edwin king.”

“Ah. You’re talking about the Crow. You want me to rein him in.” He looked at Æthelburh, who nodded, and at James, who bowed his assent. Then at Hild. “I’ll have to give him something to do,” he said.

“There’s Craven. We’re to go in summer. The bishop could go ahead of us.”

He thought about it. “Well, why not? Make him cousin Osric’s problem. But not too much of a problem. We can’t have more murmuring. The deacon here will go to keep an eye on him.”