Nicola Griffith - Hild

“I will call the gods to speak, if you lend me a war horn.”

“A war horn? Very well.” He gestured to Lilla, who handed him the great horn of the Yffings. He held it up for all to see. “Will this do?” The gold filigree around the rim and tip shone as yellow as the absent sun. “Mind now, Mother, even if the omens are the right ones, you don’t get to keep this one.” He handed it back to Lilla, who walked it over to the old woman.

She weighed it in her hands. “You are familiar, lords, with omens of black-winged birds.” Hild, who had been watching the gesith with the dagger—it would be Cian’s birthday soon and she was wondering where she could get him a pretty thing like that—focused on the old woman. Her mother straightened subtly. They didn’t look at each other. Black-winged bird. Why not just say rook? “If the birds fly from the southwest during undern, it portends numerous offspring. If they fly overhead, the fulfilment of wishes.”

Hild ran through the portents her mother had schooled her in. If the birds flew from the southeast during morgen, the first quarter of the day, the enemy will approach. From the east was more difficult: relatives coming, or battle to arise, or death by disease. During æfen, and on into sunset, if they flew in the southeast, treasure would come, and overhead meant the petitioner would obtain the advantages hoped for. Then there were the more ominous single-bird sightings, and the opposite meanings assigned to two birds. But now it was undern, the quarter day before the sun stood at its height, and they were interested in rooks, many rooks, flying from the southwest or overhead, because it was rooks that roosted in the undern elms and the elm wood beyond. What did Edwin want to hear? He wanted a peaceweaver, yes, but what else?

The old woman lifted the horn and blew a blast that surprised everyone. Below, in the fenced settlement, two warhorses screamed. War hounds bayed and other dogs barked. The gesiths all dropped spears to the ready. One, with a shield, brought it to the defence position. And then Hild understood. A war horn. Recognised by man and beast. Even crows and ravens. And crows and ravens nested to the south and east of Sancton, among the elm and oak on the other side of the river. Ravens knew war, knew the tasty morsels war offered. They would come.

They did, seven of them: big and black and bright, croaking up from the southwest, then flying overhead once and landing with audible thumps on the turf at the top of the hill.

“Seven black-winged birds from the southwest, that then flew overhead, my king. Seven, the luckiest number of all. Numerous offspring and the fulfilment of your wishes, King. Dunne says you shall have your peaceweaver.”

“Well, Mother Dunne, you shall have your reward.” Edwin looked for Coelgar, remembered he would be with the wagons. “Lilla here will see word is given for your winter comfort.”

It was an undeniable omen. The old woman was clever. A war horn to call ravens. Hild would remember that.

The king, now in high good humour, looked at the Christ bishop. “And you, Anaoc?”

The Christ priests were mostly envoys from British kingdoms, come to talk to a rising king about trade and alliances and marriages. Anaoc was from the kingdom of the southwest wealh, or as they called it, Dyfneint, whose every other king seemed to be named Geraint.

“Christ and all his followers abjure superstitiones .”

The king, still smiling, said, “Don’t spit.”

Anaoc swallowed. “My lord, we refuse divination, idolatry, and the swearing on the heads of beasts.”

Superstitiones . Hild tried the word in her mouth. Superstitiones . It must be Latin.

“But it works, Anaoc.”

“We have no quarrel with that, my lord. We who live in the light of Christ find superstitiones sinful not because they are not efficacious but because they are efficacious due to the intervention of demons.”

“Demons.”

“Servants of the devil, God’s adversary.”

Edwin scratched the snakes of his beard. “You’re a bold man. Does this boldness mean your prince no longer wishes my help against the Gewisse?”

“No, my lord! That is, yes, my lord, our need is as urgent as ever. It is only that I cannot help you because my God will not speak through animals or other portents.”

“Though your god’s enemies will?”

Anaoc nodded unhappily.

“So the god saying through his birds that I will have more children speaks as the enemy of your god?”

Anaoc said nothing.

“Now this is very interesting, priest. Am I to believe, then, that your god does not wish me to have more children?”

One of the drunker gesiths spat. Hild doubted he’d even been listening, but Anaoc swallowed again and bent his head. “My lord, forgive me, I am but a mortal. My God does not make His wishes known to me.”

“Then what use are you to man or beast?”

A gust of wind shook a spatter of raindrops from the daymark elms. Coifi’s bullock lowed.

Edwin smiled. “We’ll talk more of your Christ god and his enemies another time, priest. Coifi, the priest of Woden, has a calf whose innards wish to speak of our destiny.”

Anaoc bowed and withdrew. When he thought no one was watching, he wiped his shaved forehead with his sleeve. The Dyfneint’s petition would fail because Anaoc had failed; the kingdom would soon fall to the Gewisse and its people be sold into slavery. Hild wondered if the priest’s god would be a comfort to him then.

She turned her attention to Coifi, whose attendants had the bullock by the nostrils and who himself was beginning the slow one-handed drumbeat. Dum- dum , dum- dum , like a heartbeat—though, without the hard enclosure of the ritual place, the drum had no resonance, no menace.

The drum beat faster, like a heart speeding up. Away from the usual ceremonies it sounded thin and wrong. Perhaps it was because childbirth was a woman’s issue, and Woden was leader of the Wild Hunt, carrier-off of the dead, god of gods, a man’s god; even the elms they stood by were men’s trees.

The nearest stand of ash was a good mile or so up the river. Hild had been there with Cian only a few days ago. It had been wet then, too, and Cian had been wondering aloud, again, who would sponsor him for his sword. The leaves would fall soon, he said, and it would be his birthday, and Hild’s, and one day his fifteenth birthday would come and there would be no one to give him his sword. Hild had told him, again, that all would be well, she knew it would be, she just wasn’t sure how.

The drum stopped. Coifi handed it to the young man behind him, raised his bare arms. “Woden! All father! Husband to Eorðe.” Edwin leaned forward and Hild sensed her mother move slightly; she had realised something. But Hild didn’t dare look at her. “Here stands your many times son, Edwin the son of Ælla, the son of Yffi, the son of Wuscfrea, the son of Wilgisl, the son of Westerfalca, the son of Sæfugl, the son of Sæbald, the son of Segegeat, the son of Swebdæg, the son of Sigegar, the son of Wædæg, the son of Woden, god of gods, and of his wife, Eorðe. He asks that you both guide my hand as I give to you a bullock, so that you may speak your wills in the matter of a peaceweaver for your son and his wife, Cwenburh.”

He held out his hand to the assistant with the drum, who handed him the black knife.

At Goodmanham, and in the enclosure here at Sancton, Coifi had roofless temples floored in boards that were scrubbed white before every sacrifice. Hild wondered how the blood patterns would be read on the wet and already slippery grass.

The bullock knew something was up. Perhaps he smelt the blood awareness in the tightening attention of the gesiths. He bellowed and tried to kick out at Coifi’s assistants but one managed to grab the bullock’s tail and lift it, and the bullock stretched out his neck and lowered his head. Coifi, slick as goose grease, slashed its throat with one diagonal backhand slice. Blood dropped like a red sheet from the open neck, like something in a mummer’s play. It spattered and gurgled and just as the bullock’s front legs buckled Coifi moved again, but this time Hild saw his muscles bunch and strain as he whipped the knife along the beast’s underside. Its guts fell out.