Nicola Griffith - Hild

Red and black, blood and dirt. Her seax opening the Irishman’s arm, skin and muscle gaping like a flower.

Onnen smoothed her dress and sighed. “I don’t know what possessed you, but it’s done. Tonight stay close. Stay with Cian, stay with me. For once, do as you’re told. Now leave me alone to see to this mess. Unless you want to help?”

At the beach the tide was out, whispering to itself as it ran along the pebbly sand and put a pale frothy line along the deep blue near the horizon. As the sky darkened, people—perhaps two hundred, all Mulstan’s fighting men and kin, the beekeepers and swineherds and milkmaids, the sailors and guests and visitors, sitting in the sandy grass as heedless on this one night as children—began to lean back and loosen their belts and girdles and sashes and pick at the mountains of food of every kind. The beef, marinated all morning in vinegar and imported olive oil, and roasted right there on the beach, the sheep, the hind, the songbirds, the eels, the chard and mallow and goosefoot, the sow thistle and cresses and coleworts, all flavoured with vinegar and dill and sage, savoury and pennyroyal, rosemary and rue.

Hild sucked the juices from her bread trencher and gnawed the soft insides from the crust. She sat a few paces down from Mulstan, who had his arm around Onnen. Cian and Begu had competed to see who could eat the most red carrots in the time it took Hild to drink a cup of sweet elderflower wine, and now both were smeared with herby, vinegary streaks, and as neither had thought to count their carrots they were contemplating another contest. But then Mulstan unwound his arm from Onnen, nodded to his scop to strike a chord—Hild recognised Swefred, Mulstan’s chief sword man, drafted for the purpose—and stood.

It took a while for the quiet to spread down the boards, but eventually all that could be heard was the slish-run-whisper of the surf and a querulous child, soon shushed.

“We stand on the other side of another winter and at the beginning of a summer that all the signs point to as good beyond memory. We live on good land, by a rich sea. Our stock is healthy, our crops thrive, and our children are strong.”

Hearty, if sleepy and well-fed, rumbles of approval all around.

Mulstan gestured to Onnen, who stood. “I have taken to wife this woman, Onnen, of the Elmetsætne, and she will help me husband this land and see the old snug in winter and the young fat in spring.” He twined his hand in Onnen’s and raised it, and again there were rumbles of approval, though not as many; this was old news. “And Onnen has a son.”

Mulstan looked down the board at Cian and gestured for him to stand. Cian scrambled up, wiping his hands down the front of his tunic.

“I welcome Cian as Onnen’s son and my fosterling.” People craned to see Cian; the light was leaking away and the cooking fires were being put out, one by one. Mulstan turned to Swefred, who handed him a long, wrapped bundle. “A thegn’s fosterling should have arms.”

Cian quivered like a horse bitten by flies.

“Cian, fosterling, come receive your arms.”

“Wipe your face,” Begu hissed at him, and when he looked at her, blank as butter, she made a wiping gesture at her cheek. He lifted his hand as though he wasn’t sure it belonged to him.

“This is your path, brother,” Hild said. “It is come. Walk tall.” Then, as he stood there, overwhelmed, she said as her own mother had long ago, “Walk now.”

He did.

And he smiled. He smiled as he tripped over everyone’s feet and knocked over their cups. He smiled as he took the bundle, smiled as he unwrapped the sword, as his mother touched his cheek and Mulstan enveloped him in a bear hug. He smiled wider as the last fires went out and the sea slished. Smiled as he lifted his blade and tried to see it in the sudden rush of dark.

Then the rising moon, which had been flat as a silvered plate, popped as round as a ball of cheese, and it was full night. Mulstan gave a great shout and the crowd echoed him. He knelt by the tiny pile of birch shavings and sheep’s hair, and with his steel struck a spark, and blew, and a tiny curl of flame, like a dragonlet’s tongue, licked at the salty night. The crowd roared. The flame built, and Swefred, arms full now of unlit brands, handed them one at a time to Mulstan, who plunged each into the flame until it caught, then handed the first to Onnen, and the crowd roared, then one to the smith, and they roared, to Celfled, to the tanner, and on. Behind Swefred, Guenmon gave out unlit torches to everyone within reach and they passed them from hand to hand, still dark. Each initial torchbearer began the walk to hearth or hall, hut or smithy, and along the way touched the torches to those as yet unlit, and rekindled the fire for another year.

And then the crowd roared again, and this time didn’t stop, and Cian, holding his own torch now, turned, sword raised, as a ship, pale sail glimmering in the moonlight, drew close to the beach.

Hild reached for a seax that wasn’t there, then found an eating knife with one hand and Begu’s wrist with the other. She began to push her way through the crowd to Cian. We are us. They would die together. But then two men in the bows of the ship unfurled a standard, and after a moment’s flapping in the unsteady night breeze, the linen cloth streamed clear. Moonlight gleamed on the gold stitching and a single garnet sewn at the eye: the royal boar. The king was returned.

Hild was explaining to Begu for the third time why she did not need to dismantle her linden-wood bed, that she would not require silverware, that there was no room on the boat for her pony, that, yes, she could and should bring her ivory tablets, when she became aware of Onnen watching from the doorway.

Hild had last seen that expression on her almost-mother’s face in the hall of Ceredig king, when the two strange men had beckoned Cian into the light.

“What are you doing?” Onnen said.

“We’re packing,” said Begu. “And I had no idea it was such a difficult thing. Hild says I won’t need my bed. She says I won’t need any hangings. But I don’t know. What do you think, Onnen?”

“You won’t need to pack your bed.”

“I won’t? Well. If you say so. But—”

“You won’t need to pack a thing. Hild, with me.”

They walked into the sunlight and gusting wind but got only halfway down the steps before Onnen took Hild by the shoulders and brought them both to an awkward halt.

“What have you promised her?”

“I have told Begu she is to come with me.” Hild looked up into Onnen’s eyes. She had to squint against the sun. “We are to be gemæcce.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

Hild touched the heavy hilt of her seax, given back just this morning by Cian, who, sword-proud, no longer needed it, and drew herself up. It was only because Onnen was on a higher step that she was taller. Only that.

Onnen laid her hand on her own knife and for a moment they both breathed harshly, then Onnen sighed. “Hild.”

“We are to be gemæcce. Guenmon said so.”

“Guenmon is a bleating ewe. Think.”

“I have chosen.”

Onnen shook her head. “Your mother will choose.”

Silence.

She touched Hild on her shoulders gently, increased the pressure until Hild turned a little and they were both looking out over Mulstan’s sunlit holding. “Begu is all Mulstan has. She must marry, so that when Mulstan dies, the cowherd and butcher, the shepherd and fisherfolk, the milkmaids and smith, have a lord, have safety, are not turned like slaves from their homes.”

“I could get the king to give it to me.”

“Are you so sure?”

“I am his bringer of light. He promised to reward me with riches beyond human ken.”