Nicola Griffith - Hild

“Cian, Onnen’s son, is unhappy. A sword would make him happy. You could give him one.”

Mulstan tipped his head back and studied the sky. The clouds were like puffs of wool, far away. “Cian is wealh.”

Hild said nothing.

“Aye, and so is his mother, for all her Anglisc ways.” He sighed and slid his seax along his belt to a more comfortable position. “He’s young.”

“He has no father.” Silence. Hild ploughed on. “When he was six, Ceredig, king in Elmet, gave him a wooden sword.”

“Ceredig?” He mused upon the implications of that, humming in his throat.

“And he has been gifted by lords of the north with shield and horse.” An exaggeration perhaps, but the pony, Acærn, like Ilfetu, had not left Tinamutha, so Mulstan would never know. “He has had the esteem of royalty. But Ceredig is no longer king in Elmet, and Cian is here. And his mother.”

The smith’s hammer started up again, ting-ting-ting . More throaty musings from Mulstan, only this time Hild made out words. “Young ram… wants to charge at things… his mother… who knows what at… Ceredig, eh?” He cleared his throat. “Well. Well. Has the boy had instruction?”

“My mother’s sworn man has shown him a little. He’s travelled with the royal war band. He sleeps in hall with your men and exercises all the time. The sword is his path.”

“You speak like a seer.” He sounded disapproving.

“It is his path.”

He knew the rumours. And she sounded so certain. But he hated this notion of meddling with wyrd.

“Please, lord. He is like a brother to me. I wish to see him happy.”

“No doubt so would his mother. Well!” He slapped his thighs and stood. “I thank you for bringing this to my attention, little maid. I will think on it.”

“Thank you, my lord, for listening. And for Cædmon’s kid, or pig. Thank you on behalf of my uncle.” The king.

Hild sat with Begu in hall to one side of the open door. Midafternoon sun poured into the hall, throwing shadows all one way along the floor. It shone on the carefully cleaned table where they sat, on the flat band of red-and-black tablet weave growing between them, and on the walrus ivory of the eight square tablets, each the size of a child’s palm.

“Keep it taut,” Begu said, for the third time.

Hild kept leaning forward to touch the ivory. The tablets she used at home were polished elm. Her mother’s were antler horn. These looked like something you could eat, like wafers of creamy curd or slices of the meat of some gigantic nut.

Each tablet had a separate warp thread through the holes at its four corners. They were twisted a quarter or half turn after every pass of the weft shuttle, also of ivory, to make the pattern. Hild had seen her mother and Onnen weave a band in one afternoon while one also worked a spindle and distaff and the other threaded the weft shuttle back and forth rapidly, beating in the weft every few passes. But she and Begu were new at this, and they must constantly stop to remind the other of something: turn this tablet a half turn, keep that warp taut, beat in that weft. It was a simple pattern but strong, a march of red and black squares.

Guenmon came by with a cup of meat tea for each. The men had killed two oxen that morning for tomorrow’s feast—Hild had heard the snarling and snapping of the bulldogs as they controlled the cattle for the butcher. The fresh bones were boiled with their tatters of meat in salted water to make a tasty drink thick with marrow. Guenmon had added a pinch of thyme and a hint of precious pepper.

“It smells like a dream,” Begu said.

“Wait til you see the meat itself,” Guenmon said. “Luscious and marbled through with fine white fat. The spring grass always does it. And there are to be three fat-tailed sheep, as well as all those waterfowl Mulstan will be bringing home in his net. Celfled has promised us a stitch of eels and a hind from her woods. And Cædmon’s sister brought us sacks of the freshest greens. But so she should, given that plump little milk goat the lord gave her. And I tasted that batch of mead we made from the run honey. Onnen’s the finest brewster I’ve met. Though I think I might be a better maltster.” She saw that neither girl had an opinion on the matter. “Well, now, that’s a fine bold pattern. For Cian is it?”

“It is.”

“Red and black. So as not to show the dirt and the blood, I expect.” Begu paled and paused. Guenmon tutted to herself. What did the girl think got spattered on such things? “Will it be ready for the feast?”

“I hope so,” Hild said.

Now there was a maid who wouldn’t be surprised by blood. “I’ll leave you busy little gemæcces to it, then.”

She smiled to herself at the sudden shyness that fell on the two girls as she walked away.

Gemæcce, Hild thought, staring at the pattern. She looked up, found Begu looking at her, blushed, looked down again. After a breath or two she looked up.

“Is it good?” Begu asked.

“Yes,” Hild said. “Yes, it’s good.” And she sipped at her tea and scalded her mouth and spat and laughed. “Ow. Be sure to blow on it. At my uncle’s table, no one blows on their food. You will have to learn to clap.”

“You will teach me.”

“Yes. At his table no one waits. The food arrives just right, or the housefolk are punished.” The wealh are punished. And Begu was half wealh—though beyond Mulstanton by the Bay of the Beacon no one would know.

When the housefolk began putting out the fires in hall, Hild went to find Onnen. She walked to the beach, where the grass met sand, past the place where kitchen servants turned their vast spits in their outdoor kitchens while others built a long, long board on the sand for the food, and found her between the two towering piles of wood that would be lit that night—that is, one towering pile, and one fallen mess.

Onnen was shouting at a slave in Anglisc. “Did I not say, throw the faggots on the shadow side of the pile, the shadow side?”

The slave hung his head. He was nearly as old as Mulstan, but thin and knob-kneed and barefoot.

“And where is the shadow? Look at me. Where is the shadow?”

The slave pointed.

“Yes. And why didn’t you throw the wood there, as I told you? Because you’re lazy, witless, and ignorant. And now the whole thing is a disordered heap and must be built again. I should have you whipped.” She saw Hild approaching from the wood path and walked to meet her with a step that was as quick as usual but not light.

“Will you really have him whipped?”

“I might.”

Hild had never seen her threaten a slave with a whipping for such a little thing. “Are you… well?”

Onnen folded her arms. “I could cheerfully strangle you. I feel like a bee in a bottle. Mulstan is plotting something, I can feel it, and it’s something to do with you, with what you said to him. What are you meddling with?”

“Cian needs his sword.”

“Sweet gods! Cian is too young for his sword! Oh, he would get the benighted blade, all in good time, if you simply let things alone. Look, look here.” She tapped the brand-new iron hangers on her belt. “I have the keys. The rest would follow naturally, in time. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Hild didn’t know what to say. Love and bed games were one thing, keys another. Onnen might be a cousin of Ceredig king, but Ceredig was dead, and Breguswith, daughter of kings, might not want to let her go.

“My mother—”

“Aye, your mother. Well, I warned her my decisions wouldn’t—” She made an impatient gesture. “I don’t want Cian to be a man just yet. If he must ape his betters, he should at least wait until he’s grown before he goes off to get killed. Think what would have happened at Tinamutha if he’d had a sword.”