Nicola Griffith - Hild

“Oh,” he said. There, on the old stump, was a robin. “Not the same one, surely!”

“His son, perhaps.” It turned its head, looking at them with one eye, then the other, then flew away. “Angeth,” she said. “Is she quite well?”

He came alert as a dog at the scent. “She was sick yesterday. But women with child do that. Don’t they?”

Not usually past the fourth month. “And has she gained weight?”

“They do that, too, surely?”

“Send her to me.”

The robin sang from the trees.

“Cian.”

“She might not come,” he said. “I… I spoke harshly of you in Deganwy. At first.”

She looked him in the eye, the eyes she’d seen wide with lust, wet with tears, shining with joy. “I’m sorry. That day… I am sorry. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Then send her to me. Make her come.”

Hild pulled her stool next to Angeth’s and took her hand. She pressed it gently with her thumb. Her thumb mark filled out slowly.

“It’s not usually that bad,” Angeth said. Her face was puffy, too, no longer the smooth tawny health of Elmet.

“Have you been having headaches?”

“Yes, but that could be anything. The sick headaches and lights, anyone can have those.”

“You had the sick headache as a girl?”

“No.”

“And you’ve been throwing up?”

“It could be anything! If every woman who—”

“And the belly pain, right here.” She touched Angeth at the crease of her baby bulge, right under the ribs. It wasn’t a question. And now she knew this was not her mother’s doing.

Angeth shook her head. “No. No.”

Hild wanted to stroke her, soothe her like a horse, but she knew Angeth would shy away. “We have to know.” She stood, stuck her head through the curtain. “Gwladus. Bring the piss bucket.”

When the bucket came, with two inches of water in the bottom, Angeth shook her head again. “No. No. Not now, not today. My bladder’s empty.”

“Then we’ll fill it.” Hild got up again. “Gwladus! Small beer. Lots of it.” She sat down. “Tell me a story of Gwynedd.” Silence. “Or not. I could offer you yarn to spin instead.”

After a while, Angeth said, “You’re so young.” Hild said nothing. “They say you’re a witch.”

“Your husband knows better.”

Silence. “You’re very like,” she said eventually. “Now I see why you might have quarrelled. Like to like don’t always agree.” Her hazel eyes were small in the swollen face, but not dull. “So very like. In the wood, when you grabbed me, I thought you were him, just for a heartbeat. Him, or a devil taking his form. When I told him that, he laughed. He laughs a lot with me.”

“Yes,” Hild said. “He chose you.”

And then the beer came, and they drank, and they talked peaceably of gesiths and how sometimes they had no more sense than sheep. Of trade from Deganwy to Manau to Ireland. Of the gold route from Tintagel. Of how it was to leave one’s father’s house. And Hild found she liked Angeth, princess of Gwynedd.

When it came time, Angeth pissed in the bucket and let Hild take it and tilt it towards the light.

“It’s foamy,” she said. “But there’s no blood.” Not yet. “We have time.”

Angeth cupped her belly with both hands.

“You could have another.”

She shook her head. “I could pray.”

“Christ doesn’t always listen. Angeth, please. We have time, but not much.”

Angeth shook her head. “There’s always hope.”

“I’ve seen this before. And there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. You’ll puff up like a fungus. Your muscles will start to ache. Your piss will turn pink. You’ll have fits. You’ll fall unconscious. You’ll die. There’s a tea.”

“I want my baby.”

“It’s wise not to wait.”

“You want it dead. You all want it dead.” She sounded more tired than angry. Then she bent suddenly, head in her hands. “It hurts so.”

Hild put a hand on her shoulder. The shoulder hardened to iron. Angeth straightened. A princess of Gwynedd.

“Can you say there is no hope, not one jot or tittle? No. Only God is infallible. Can you say you have never been wrong? Can you swear it? Can you swear that I’d live?”

“It’s not—”

“Can you swear it?”

She had no power over life and death. “No.”

“Then I won’t take your tea.”

Seven weeks later, in Derventio, Hild found Cian kneeling in the church. It was splendid now, nothing like the plain stone of long ago. Carved and painted wall panels glimmered with gilding. Candles burnt against the violet dusk.

He lifted his face from his hands. His pupils were dark with despair, like holes scorched in wood. “I didn’t believe you when you told me they’d put glass up there. But there it is.” The wick on one of the candles flickered and spat. “She had a fit. She can’t see. You must save her.”

“I’ll try.”

“You must.”

“I’ll do everything I can.”

“Swear to me.” He gripped her arm. Strong hand on strong arm. “I’m sorry, for everything that’s passed. I’m sorry. Swear you’ll do what you can, for both of them. Swear to me.” The grain of his face was taut and twisted, knotted as a burr, hard as iron.

Hild looked at his hand. A match with her own. “I swear.”

And she tried. While the rain drummed outside and Cian drank steadily in hall, she and her mother fought like dogs to save Angeth and her baby. To drive the shadows from Angeth’s chamber they lit candles as though beeswax cost nothing. After her water broke they walked the semiconscious Angeth back and forth. They sang to her.

A cup of pennyroyal tea two months ago and it would all have been over. The baby dead but the mother alive. Pennyroyal now might bring the baby fast enough for it to survive, but it would kill Angeth. And though she couldn’t see, she could smell, and nothing would hide the minty scent of pennyroyal. And she was mad with fear.

“We should make her comfortable,” Breguswith said, meaning dose her insensible and let her die in peace.

Can you swear? Angeth had asked. Hild shook her head.

“It’s cruel,” Breguswith said.

“I swore,” Hild said. “Help me.”

They did what they could. They stripped her naked and bathed her with scented rosemary when she was hot, wrapped her in blankets when she shivered. They tried to get her to drink parsley broth. They massaged her belly with goose grease, felt the shiver and squeeze, counted.

Angeth seemed to think she was a girl again, on the mountainside, falling over, bruising her belly on a stone, crying about the pain. Hild hoped she stayed there. The green grass of Gwynedd was a better way to end than blind agony in a dark, close room.

Hild measured Angeth’s hand across the knuckles, then measured the same distance above her inner ankle and rubbed the shin. Felt her belly, counted. Too slow.

Angeth passed out again. They flipped her over. While Breguswith held her face free, so she could breathe, Hild tried to find the dimple by the spine, above the bottom, but Angeth was so swollen she wasn’t sure if she was rubbing the right place.

They turned her over, propped her up. She shuddered, half conscious. Breguswith laid her hand on her belly, counted, shook her head.

Angeth moaned like a child. Then shrieked, hard and sudden, and fainted again. After a moment, she writhed. Her arms and legs shot out, stiff and straight.

“Hold her!”

It was like trying to hold a greased pig.

“It’s coming!” Breguswith said, and there it was, crowning. “Push. Push.”

Angeth couldn’t hear them. Hild pressed on the quaking belly, timing it to the ripple of muscle under her hands.