Nicola Griffith - Hild

“Well,” he said. “I’m surprised it took you so long.” He settled comfortably on the path by her feet and smiled blandly. “So, now. You dragged me away from my mead for a pressing reason?”

Her thoughts tangled in her head. Hereswith. Her mother. Hereswith. She was so lonely. Edwin. Plots… After a helpless moment she told him instead about Coelgar and the negotiation planned for middæg.

Fursey nodded and, while clearly aware of her frustration, asked her sensible questions about the weight of dishes and their size, the lustre of the cloth Coelgar had carried off to York.

“And do you want treasure of like kind—a dish for a dish, a jewel for a jewel—or what the treasure represents?”

But Hild tugged some more at the knot in her head. “What did you mean, you’re surprised it took me so long?”

Fursey glanced at the wealh, working her way up the lavender bed with her manure basket. “I’d recommend gold and hacksilver, and yes, some silk if they have it. Gold is well and good, but it’s not subtle. Silk as a gift is subtle. And while you have fripperies for men—I’ve taken the liberty already of gifting Coelgar, the æthelings, your mother’s men Burgræd and Burgmod, and young Lintlaf with your ray skins—you’ve not many for women.”

The wealh began moving back down the bed on the other side.

“What I meant was what I said. You had many clues—Christ knows I laid them nicely in your path—but you were slow picking them up. These days there is no luxury to be slow. Events are moving from a trot to a canter. Soon they will gallop. You must have a firm hand on the reins. And you must learn to look ahead—”

“I always look ahead. I’m a seer.”

“Take your mother. You spoke of her as a queen bee. That’s because she thinks herself a queen.”

“She should have been.”

“But she is not. Remember that. The world is full of should-have would-have. As your poets say, ‘Fate goes ever as it must.’ You must, you must , learn to see the world as it is.”

Hild was so sick of musts. She plucked a stalk of lavender and sniffed at it.

Fursey tapped her on the arm. “You’d rather smell lavender than shit. I understand. You’re not yet eleven. Your father is dead. Your sister is leaving. Your, well, let us say your childhood companion has left already. The king fears you—oh, yes, he does. Listen now. It is true that a maid two years from her womanhood should not have to see the world as it is, but you’re not a maid. No, I said listen now. You are a prophet and seer with the brightest mind in an age. Your blood is that of the man who should have been king and a woman who is half sister to the king of Kent and wants to be a queen. That’s what the king and his lords see. And they will kill you, one day. If not Edwin, then the king who kills him.”

She threw her lavender at the wall. A bee zuzzed in surprise and bumped into the apple budding on a bough overhanging the wall.

“Of course, they’ve already tried. But you know that.”

She looked at him.

“Ah, now, that’s better. And you know who, too. The king’s cousin—your cousin—at the mouth of the Tine.”

Hild’s spine went rigid.

Fursey smiled. “No one can hear us. I walked the orchard before I came to find you. Always remember that: Scout the ground. The only person nearby is that slave. And even if she has the Irish, which I doubt, she isn’t close enough. So let us speak of what the king will not: cousin Osric sitting athwart the Tine valley and its flow of trade from the whole north and east. The man who has almost as great a claim to Deira as your uncle, and near as many men.”

She shook her head. Never say the dangerous thing aloud. Never.

Fursey waved to get the wealh’s attention. He called, “If you’re about finished with this lovely manure, the lady and I would appreciate a jug of beer.” The wealh put down her manure basket and approached.

She bobbed her head. “Father?”

He repeated his request in Anglisc. She bobbed again, then glanced at Hild, who, after a moment, nodded. “But bring small beer.” Before Fursey could protest she said, “Coelgar is a canny bargainer. I don’t want you any drunker.”

When the wicker gate slapped behind the wealh, Fursey said, “They treat you like a prince, so think like one. Your mother does. She’s already planning. She’ll wed your sister to the man who’ll become king of the East Angles. Why?”

“So we’ll have somewhere to run. When it’s time.”

He laughed. “Do you really think so little of your mother? No. Try again.”

Hild went blank.

“Think. What do you know of Rædwald?”

“He’s dead.”

“And?”

“And he was rich.”

“Ah. Good. And?”

“But I don’t see what good it is to be rich if someone like my uncle with all his gesiths will come along and take it all away.”

“What do you think pays for gesiths? Gold. And there’s as much gold to be had from trade as from killing a man and taking his. More. Think. See the whole isle. Who controls the flow of trade?”

She hadn’t thought about this before. “Osric?”

“He controls the trade that flows from the north to the Tine valley.” From the Picts, the Gododdin, the Bernicians, the north Deirans. “But Rædwald, now Eorpwald, soon Æthelric, controls the Anglisc trade for all of the south, trade with Frankia, Rome, Iberia.”

Suddenly she saw the whole east side of the isle as one strong warp, weighted by the overking, with the main pattern wefts flowing through Tinamutha and Gipswīc, lesser threads through Lindum and the Humber, and minor threads like the Bay of the Beacon. But cloth had more than one warp.

Fursey was nodding. “Now you begin to see. Who hates your uncle with a deep and abiding hatred?”

“Cadfan and his son Cadwallon.”

“Why?”

Hild didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “Because my uncle was foster-son to Cadfan, and he and Cadwallon quarrelled—”

“Ha! That old Cain and Abel story. No doubt they did quarrel, boys do, but this is a hatred of kings. The fight for wealth and power. For gold. Edwin is now overking of the Anglisc. All ports in the east bow to him. Just as all ports in the west bow to Cadfan. Dál Riata and Alt Clut, Rheged and the Irish—to reach the wines of the Franks, the priests of Rome, they must all bend the knee to Gwynedd.”

Hild frowned. “Sometimes ships from Less Britain stop at Caer Uisc in Dyfneint.”

“And Dyfneint bends the knee to Cadfan of Gwynedd.”

It was true. “But my mother, and Hereswith—”

“Someone will be overking after your uncle. Your mother is plotting. With East Anglia in her pocket—”

“She’ll gather the next weft. Osric?”

“Perhaps. But don’t forget the Idings, also your cousins. Most of them.”

Not Eanfrith, the eldest. His mother was Bebba of the Bryneich. But when she’d died Æthelfrith had taken Edwin’s sister Acha to wife. Hild’s aunt. You’re all cousins in this benighted wood. She couldn’t remember who’d said that.

A thought struck her. “And you. You’re woven through the other warp.”

He tilted his head and smiled slyly. “My king hates your king. But he also hates the other Irish kings and the Dál Riata, who are sheltering the younger Idings. So we might be on the same side. Or we might not. But the end of that song is not yet written. For just a little while, at least, I am your friend.”

The gate creaked.

“Blessings upon you!” Fursey called to the wealh in Anglisc, while making the Christ sign at her with one hand and taking the beer with the other. Hild wished that she had let the wealh bring full beer, or even mead. Hereswith. Osric. Hereswith …