Nicola Griffith - Hild

Edwin crooked his finger to Hild. She bent to listen.

“How far gone is she?”

“Perhaps six months.”

“He’d better pray it’s not a boy.”

“He’s loyal, body and soul. He saved the ætheling.”

“He saved me from Eamer. But a man changes his ambitions when he has a son. And his son, they say, would be a mix of Ceredig and Cadwallon, an heir to Elmet and Gwynedd. It doesn’t take a seer to foresee the north dreaming of Coel Hen come again and making trouble for the Yffings for all time. No, I want Cadwallon’s line stamped out, quenched forever. When it’s time.”

Cadwallon had escaped back to Wales, and Edwin would not follow. They did not know how strong the Mercian and Gwynedd alliance was. Penda hadn’t followed Cadwallon to Elmet, to Northumbria, and now was not the time to provoke him.

Edwin was looking at her with particular intensity. “Quenched forever,” he said again. “When it’s time.” He leaned back. “Though, as you say, Boldcloak did save the ætheling. He should have something for that.” He smiled, slitty-eyed. “Yes, he shall have something for that.”

Hild’s belly clenched with dread.

At York, the new church loomed huge and hollow and half-built around the tiny wooden shelter where they’d been baptised, dwarfing even the full war band glittering and gaudy in their gold. Their newly painted shields seemed childish and defiant against the cold stone; their arm rings and finger rings and looted torcs didn’t shimmer in the shadow. They rubbed their wrist guards and jewelled hilts against their cloaks, trying to coax an extra gleam or two, but they stayed sullen and dull. Some touched their crosses. Many more, their hidden amulets.

It felt all wrong. James had suggested to Paulinus that for this ceremony, perhaps the gesiths’ training yard would be best, but Paulinus had insisted—Christ’s house for Christ’s warrior—and when Hild had raised it with the king, Edwin, still slitty-eyed and unfathomable, had said that in matters of godness, he would let his chief priest decide.

After the Mass, James’s choir did their best, but without a roof to reflect and multiply their note, the rising hymns felt like loaves with their tops sliced off: flat and strange and thin.

It was strange, too, to watch a man take an oath on his knees.

But when Edwin raised him and faced his war band, and Hild, and the very pregnant Angeth, and pronounced Cian Boldcloak his right hand, his chief gesith, they beat their shields and roared: Boldcloak! Boldcloak! And Cian glowed like Owein come again. He glowed for Angeth.

Hild watched her. Three months.

James poured her more wine, and said, “You look as though your burdens are heavy on you, child.”

“I’m marriageable age, three hands taller than you, and I helped save the ætheling. I’m not a child.”

James sipped without comment, and Hild sighed.

“I’m sorry. Yes. They’re heavy. And part of me wishes I were a child.” Had she ever been? Perhaps in Elmet, before her father died.

“Do you wish to confess?”

“No.” Flat and hard. She sipped her own wine: sour. “This is sorry stuff.”

“I’m spending less time here than I did. And sometimes my stores… Well, let’s just say sometimes my stores appear to evaporate in my absence.”

Thou shalt not steal. If Christians truly believed they would go to a fiery hell for breaking commandments, how come so many of them did? “How is Catterick?”

“Osric scowls and schemes, but he’s all wind.”

For now. But Osric was like everyone else, waiting, watching for the misstep: hers, Edwin’s, Paulinus’s. Waiting to see which way Penda cast. “The church?”

“Almost finished. And it feels… blessed.”

“This morning I had news you might find interesting. Felix, a Burgundian bishop, has arrived in Canterbury.”

“Burgundian? That is interesting. What is Dagobert up to?” He tapped his fingers against his lips and hummed, a mannerism that no longer quite suited him. “Didn’t you say that Dagobert is backing Sigebert?”

She nodded.

“Penda and Cadwallon, Cadwallon and Less Britain, Dagobert and Sigebert…” He shook his head. His hair was shorter: his curls no longer bounced. “I do hope it doesn’t turn into another interesting year. I think we’ve had enough excitement.”

But Cadwallon stayed in Gwynedd. Penda went back to his Mercian stronghold at Tomeworthig, and his West Saxon subking took charge of Dyfneint. Eadfrith recovered, and took a hundred gesiths to Craven to remind Osric of Edwin’s strength, and then on up to Tinamutha for the summer, to reinforce Osfrith in case of Pictish raids: There were rumours of bad weather north of the Tweed.

The court moved to Sancton. Every other woman in the place seemed to be giving birth, every other gesith beaming through his whiskers or getting drunk in despair, according to his situation. Breguswith and Begu were so busy that eventually the mothers asked Hild to help. The rumour began that the seer’s touch was a blessing: The babies came faster, more easily, and with less pain.

“She doesn’t do anything different from me,” Begu said, scrubbing her arms over a bucket, while Breguswith sat on the stool, showing her age for once, and Gwladus, muttering about Hild’s sleeves, untied Hild’s bloodied apron for the cold tub. “It’s not fair.”

“She’s the seer,” Breguswith said tiredly. “She tells them, ‘You’ll give birth right now and you won’t feel a thing,’ and they’re too frightened to do otherwise.”

Gwladus snorted.

Begu stood there dripping. “Well, how can I learn to do that?”

“Start by growing half an ell.”

And have a mother who prophesied the light of the world and fought for it to be true, Hild thought. A mother who left her home not once but twice to make a place for her children. She poured a cup of the new ale and took it to her mother. She touched the familiar cheek. Breguswith blinked and tilted her head. Hild smiled and shook her head. She sat on the bed. She watched her mother, and Begu, and Gwladus, and felt, for the first time in an age, at home and ordinary.

“Just two left,” Begu said, wiping her arms dry.

“Arddun’s due any hour,” Breguswith said. “But if I’m any judge hers’ll slip out like an eel.” She paused. “Then there’s Angeth. But she’s not due for weeks. We’ll be at Derventio by then.”

Gwladus shook her head.

“What?” Begu said. She looked at Hild. “What is it? Is something wrong with Angeth?”

Leaves unfurled. Hedgepigs woke and siffsaffs flew anxiously, endlessly, back and forth from their nest in the nettles with food for the fledglings. Ewes swelled like the fluffy white clouds in the cornflower-blue sky.

After the king dismissed his counsellors, Hild caught up with Cian outside the hall. “My lord Boldcloak!”

He turned. “My lady seer. The king wants us back?”

She shook her head. They stood more than a pace apart. His hair gleamed chestnut in the sun. He wore it differently now, shorter. Perhaps Angeth liked it that way. “Walk with me,” she said.

They walked without speaking along the path they knew well, west, to the elm wood, where once they had sparred. She had her staff. He wore his sword. She knew they wouldn’t use them, might never use them with each other again.

Finches sang. A bittern boomed.

“Do you remember the morning I got baptised?”

“I do. You wet your head. You had a bite on your jaw. You have the mark of it still, when you burn dark in summer.”

He touched his chin.

They came to the clearing.