Nicola Griffith - Hild

“Clemen of Dyfneint would take you in,” Hild said. “If I asked. You could— I owe, I’d give…” But words abandoned her. She began to shiver.

“Here.” Gwladus dragged a blanket from the bed, draped it over Hild. “Where’s that godfucked boy?”

HILD TOOK WHAT HAD HAPPENED, put it in a box, wrapped it with a chain, and buried it deep. She wore the ring. She was the king’s fist. She felt nothing, cared for no one.

She rode with James to York—Craven would have to wait—while Edwin and Paulinus took the war band to Elmet for the muster. Eadfrith would join him there, and Osric and his Craven thegns, and thegns from south Bernicia, Deira, and Elmet with their men. Gwynedd was the greatest kingdom of the British, rich with trade, strong with alliances in Ireland, the north and west, and Less Britain. Cadwallon would field many blades, and good ones. But Edwin would bring more, and better. This time Cadwallon’s neck would meet Edwin’s sword and Cadwallon’s bishops would kiss the Crow’s ring.

Hild and James arrived in York, where the queen and the infant heir, and all the queen’s women, joined them from Derventio to lock themselves in the fortress. Hild, the king’s niece, the king’s seer, gave up the king’s token to the queen and in exchange was given charge of the twoscore armed men. Men like Bassus and Oeric who had last stood in a shield wall a generation ago, or never.

But the walls were strong and the water sweet. If Eanfrith Iding brought his Picts down from the north, Osfrith and his men would stop him at the Tine. Oswald Iding was busy with the Irish. She wasn’t worried about Penda: If he was as cunning as she thought, he’d be doing nothing, simply watching and waiting to see how the balance tipped between Edwin and Cadwallon.

The queen’s women got back to work on the huge embroidery for Dagobert and the lesser one for Æthelric. The queen herself took up the reins of the wīc and the fortress. James reported to the queen, often with Breguswith and Hild at her shoulder, every middæg in the king’s chamber—for life outside the walls went on as usual. Woodcutters and charcoal burners didn’t make war. Wheat and barley grew untroubled except by weeds. Cows must be milked and butter churned in the cool of the morning.

Trade ships came and went with the tide. To the Franks, who brought wine and walnut oil in exchange for wool cloaks, it didn’t matter that Domnall Brecc was now king of the Dál Riata, that with the death of Osric Iding in the defeat of the Ulaid, the tide of the other Idings now ran very high indeed. The Frisians, who traded glass and silver for jet and tunics, didn’t care that Edwin had flung his army straight as a spear for the throat of Cadwallon to take Gwynedd before it could ally with Penda and form the solid anvil against which the Idings and the men of the north could hammer the Anglisc. The people of the Baltic, who brought amber for linen, were not interested in the grinding struggle between Sigebert and Ricberht for kingship of the East Anglisc. They cared only for the confluence of trade, the rich mix of goods from north and south, east and west.

The women grew snappish and the men surly. The army would be in Gwynedd now. Hild kept herself moving in the yard with the men, in the garth with the women, in the dairy, in the byre: If she kept moving, she didn’t have to think. She didn’t have to see into herself. If she kept moving, no one else could see into her, either. She was glad that it was easy to stay away from her mother in York.

She presented a smooth exterior, cool as enamel, to the world. She watched as the other women began to startle and clutch their crosses at every glimpse of a mail shirt turning a corner and every tramp of nailed war boots on stone, and refused to understand. Then one day, outside in the great yard watching the men try to form two shield walls, she heard the steel slither of blade from scabbard and began to turn, heart tripping, thinking Cian . She knew he was a hundred miles away, maybe lying with his guts fallen like a tangle of rope on the grass, or already dead, but for that moment she knew, just as certainly as she breathed, that it was Cian behind her.

That night she dreamt of them all dead, banners in the mud, bloodied men of Gwynedd gouging gold bosses from sword hilts and prying loose jewels; thin women stripping clothes and belts; vermin-riddled boys pulling boot nails, rummaging for blood-softened twice-baked bread. All night ravens croaked and thumped into the dream turf and flies boiled off the bodies.

The next evening, listening to the inferior scop who had been left behind, her throat tightened. He sang of war and glory and returning heroes, and Hild found herself remembering the parts Cian liked, how he sulked when she wouldn’t play the firing of the furze. The box she had buried deep rattled in its chains.

On the ninth day, in her rooms to choose a gift ring from her box, she picked up instead the cunningly nested travel cups Cian had carved from the Elmet thorn. She touched the little hedgepig and she was there, at Aberford, wreathed in the scent of smoke, listening to Grimhun sing as Cian whittled, flick flick flick , the hairs at his wrist gleaming like bronze in the firelight. She was standing by her wagon in Elmet, holding the cups: So we may drink to home wherever we are.

“Drink it.”

She blinked: Begu, sitting opposite, holding out the largest travel cup, now filled. Where had she come from?

“Drink it.”

The mead was harsh. Hild drank it without blinking, not taking her eyes off the two smaller cups, still nested together, that Begu was turning over and over in her hands.

“—horrible mead. Not surprising with Gwladus tiptoeing around like a thief waiting to have her hand struck off. What’s got into you? Oeric and Morud are half convinced you were possessed by an ælf in Craven or had your mind stolen by a river wight. It can’t go on.”

Hild didn’t understand any of this. She slid the cup forward for more. After a moment, Begu refilled it, then she separated the two remaining cups and, with utmost care, filled those, too. She pushed Hild’s towards her, picked up the medium-size cup, and raised it to the small one.

“To Cian. May he drink his portion with us soon.”

Hild didn’t realise she’d been crying until she started again.

“I thought so.” Begu fished a handkerchief from her belt and mopped at Hild’s face. “You’re messier than Eanflæd. Though not as loud. Here. Blow your nose.”

Hild obeyed.

“All done? Good. Because when you leave this room, you’ll have your head high and a light in your eye. You’re the lady Hild, the king’s seer. We’re at war. You’ll wear a happy face.”

She nudged Hild’s cup until Hild picked it up again, and lifted her own.

“To Cian,” Begu said again, deliberately, and nodded when Hild, dry-eyed, touched cups and tossed off the mead in one swallow. “Now. Listen. What’s going on with Gwladus?”

“She’s free.”

Begu huffed. “I didn’t think you’d cast a glamour and made the collar invisible. No. Look at me. Why are you being so mean to her? Anyone would think you were trying to drive her away. If that’s what you’re doing, you should just say so and put the poor woman out of her misery. Your mother would take her faster than that.” Ringing snap of fingers. “But you need her, now more than ever.”

“But she’s free.”

“Don’t be such a child. Where should she go? She wouldn’t last a day outside these walls. And working for you suits her. People step aside for her. She shines with your reflected wyrd. Like Oeric. Like Coelfrith with the king, or Stephanus with Paulinus. Why should it be any different for Gwladus just because she’s free?” She sipped at her mead, pulled a face, took another sip anyway. “You’d have to pay her a little. Especially for the bed duties.”