Nicola Griffith - Hild

When they reached the top, the headland smelt of windblown grass and cows. The horizon was dusty with purple heather, and daisies starred the grass. There was no sign of Cædmon or cows.

“He’ll be along,” Begu said, “but perhaps not until middæg.”

“A fort!” Cian said, pointing at the broken Roman signal tower, and he ran towards it, drawing his wooden sword. It wasn’t the same sword Ceredig had given him, he’d outgrown that one long ago, and kept it in his kist. This was sized for a man, shaped oak with a square of painted stone Hild had found from a broken pavement in Caer Luel set into the carefully carved hilt, and bits of begged scrap metal hammered into the edges to give it heft. His scabbard was a real one, but old, discarded long ago by one of Mulstan’s men, though now freshly relined with sheepskin and its wood cunningly painted to look jewelled and chased. Hild and Begu were working on a tablet weave to replace the fraying baldric.

Begu and Hild ran, too.

Cian climbed the low east wall, jumped inside, and popped up again, eyes shining. “You shall attack and I’ll defend!” He unslung his shield.

“Aren’t you old for games?” Cædmon, standing, rubbing his eyes. He’d fallen asleep inside the tower, waiting. He studied the odd sword for a moment. “Old for toys, too.”

Cian, ready for battle, slammed his sword hilt on his shield. “This is no toy!” The painted stone fell out of the sword.

Cædmon folded his arms and was about to smile when Begu said, “It isn’t a toy. Truly. My father just last night declared it a shield fit for an ealdorman. Didn’t he, Hild?”

“He did. And it was given to him by a Bryneich lord in the presence of the king. I was there. And the knife he wears slit the arm of a man of the Dál nAriadne.” Though she had been the one wielding it. “Begu and I are working on a baldric fit for a prince. And look, we have brought back your book.”

“And bell.” Begu, holding out the bell, looked about. “Where are the cows?”

“Having to do with the hall’s freemartin. Da thinks Winty—”

“The one caught with thorns,” Begu said to Hild.

“He thinks Winty might be in season and he wants to be sure before he begs the prize bull. Besides, I’ve not mended the hedge.” He unfolded his arms, took the bell and then the book. After a moment Cian sheathed his sword and slung his shield onto his back, then stooped to search for the fallen stone.

Cædmon unwrapped the book. He opened it upside down. “What does it say?”

“God things. Prayers.”

“Like songs?”

“Yes,” Hild said, surprised. “Like songs.”

He held the Psalter out. “Tell them to me.”

Hild stared at the black letters. “They are in Latin.”

“Then speak them to me in Anglisc. Here.” He pointed with his thick finger. “Tell me that.”

Hild remembered some of the words and could puzzle out others. She mouthed the Latin phrases to herself carefully, then thought about it. It would be easier in British, but then Begu wouldn’t understand. “And I am needy and poor. God, hurry for me. You can help me and save me. Lord, don’t dawdle.”

“God sounds like Guenmon,” Begu said. “Or your mam, Cian. Don’t dawdle! Hurry up!”

“Or was that his lord, not his god talking?” Cian said, picking up his painted stone.

“Lord and god are the same in this book, Fursey says.”

“A lord would never say don’t dawdle,” Cædmon said. He looked at Begu. “Would your da say that?”

“Not in hall. Up here he might.”

“Then”—Cædmon squinched his face up, thinking—“then maybe he would say, ‘And I am needy and poor. God, hasten for me. You are my help and saviour. O Lord, do not delay.’” He pointed again. “Tell me this bit.”

Hild traced the words with her finger, muttered the Latin to herself, and tried again. “Praise Him, sun and moon. Praise Him, shiny stars. Praise the Lord, you kings of the land and everybody, princes and judges, here.”

Everyone looked at Cædmon. He shook his head. “No.” No? He had no idea how difficult it was to read. To read in another tongue. To turn that tongue into Anglisc. She would never again make a difficult thing look easy. For a moment she missed being the bringer of light and having people truckle to her.

“No,” he said again. “Like this. ‘Praise Him, sun and moon. Praise Him, all you stars of light. Praise Him, you kings of the earth and all you peoples, you princes and all you judges of the earth.’ You have to say it like a hoofbeat. Like a song.”

Cian and Begu nodded. After a moment, so did Hild.

“Keep the book a while. Come up here at times and tell it to me. Once I get the hedge mended.”

The next morning Hild sought out Fursey and found him in hall eating oyster stew, drinking ale, and complaining to the young servingman about the size of the fire: “… so small it wouldn’t keep a rat’s arse warm, never mind a man about God’s work, and why are you gawping like that, you dim-witted spawn of a toadstool? More wood for the fire. More wood!”

He was talking in Irish of course, something he did on those days when he was still suffering from the night before but not yet drunk again.

“Father Fursey,” Hild said, also in Irish, for Anglisc at these times made him snappish. “Give you a good day. Might you be willing to talk to me, at all, about the worth of this priest’s breviarium psalterii ?”

Fursey snorted, slurped up another mouthful of oysters, chewed and swallowed, and scratched his birthmark. “It’s worthless. A poor hand, and the text is corrupt, taken from an old, outmoded, and discredited translation of the Septuagint. And the old priest or, rather, someone who had gone before him made a personal and, might I add, eccentric selection of Psalms. Singularly without use or ornament.” Another slurp, more chewing, a noisy swallow followed by shouting for more ale, which the servant only understood when Fursey shook the empty leather cup in his face. “However, as a palimpsest—though it would take work and some pumice, which no doubt my lord Mulstan could acquire, him being so good at that and, ah”—he rubbed his hand over his chin—“pumice would be so welcome. Now what was I…? Worth. Yes. Well, as a palimpsest it could be worth as much as… Ach, give it to me.” He flipped through the pages, counting, measuring with his hands against the scarred board of the table. “Hmmn. Perhaps the skin of two lambs or one particularly small calf.”

“Thank you. Do you happen to know where Mulstan might be found?”

“I do so happen to know. And as soon as the misbegotten mushroom brings me more ale, I’ll be finding him, for it seems himself has need of my skills.”

“Perhaps you might be willing to name to me the place, so that I might find him and ask him a pressing question without taking up your most valuable time, and may god smile upon the rest of your day.”

“Does God ever smile, except perhaps at His more extravagant jokes?” Here he smiled mockingly, though whether at himself or the servingman refilling his ale cup, Hild could not tell. He took a long, long drink and shrugged. “Howsomever, Mulstan might be found at the dock house by and by, for there I’m to meet him and make record of some exotic shipment, but where he’ll be til then, the hairy creature, I couldn’t begin to say.”

Guenmon could say, and she did, and a lot more besides. She told Hild that if she hurried Mulstan might be found at the smithy, probably with Onnen. “And if you see that great boy skulking about tell him I have an errand or two. Hanging about his mam’s skirts like an unweaned calf…”