Nicola Griffith - Hild

In Eorpwald’s garth Breguswith looked at Fursey, then at the blood across the front of Hild’s dress, then at the naked slave.

“Well. I hope she’s good with stains. Put some clothes on her.” She turned away, then back. “Priest, with me.”

When they were gone, Hild turned to the wealh, who was tugging at her iron collar, trying to ease the chafing. “What’s your name?”

“Gwladus.”

Oo-la-doose . A west wealh name. Southwest. Dyfneint. Hild had witnessed Edwin’s refusal of their man, Bishop Anaoc, and his plea for aid against the Gewisse, against war. Perhaps this woman was taken in that war. “When were you collared?”

“Last cider-making.”

The Dyfneint were great cider-makers. It was a land of apples, so they said.

Gwladus tugged at her collar again. She looked nothing like Hereswith. She was at least two years older, half a hand shorter. Her eyes were grey-green, and her hair would be paler when washed. Her whole body would be paler. Her nipples were more pink than red.

Gwladus covered herself with her hands. “Lady, can I have clothes? Like the queen said?”

“She’s not a queen. She’s my mother.”

In the kitchens, Gwladus, now in a plain tabby dress and with half a loaf in her hand, sat opposite the killer child, who said, “What skills have you?”

Gwladus chewed the bread and said nothing. Her chief skill wasn’t likely to please this one.

“I could sell you back to the princeling, Ælberht.”

Gwladus had heard worse threats. She tore another bite from the bread and thought. It was the best bread she had eaten for nearly a year, and Ælberht was probably also too young to appreciate her talents. She’d be best off here by the princess with the slaughter seax.

She tried to remember what she’d done the first week in the collar before she’d learnt her other skills. “I shovel shit.” Then, in British, to herself, “Gwladus of the Dyfneint shovels shit!”

To her horror, the princess said, also in British, “In Dyfneint, there is no shit?”

Gwladus wanted to throw her ale in the proud little face. But the princess would kill her, dead as a sucking pig.

“And your family,” the princess said, “what do they do?”

“My family are dead. Now.”

“So, then. You are lucky to be shovelling shit.”

It was true. Gwladus’s shoulders dropped.

The princess nodded at Gwladus’s collar. “Your neck is sore.”

After a moment, Gwladus put down her bread. The killer child was her mistress. For now. “Yes, lady.”

“Tell the kitchen you are to lave it with comfrey and slather it with goose grease. Then we’ll see about getting you a lighter collar.”

The doors to Eorpwald’s hall stood open but gloom filled the corners. No firelight, no rushes, no tapers called forth the glint of gold and jewels. Edwin sat with Lilla, Osric, and Coelfrith at a bench opposite the door. They were playing taff and sipping ale, but every time a passing shadow darkened the doorway, Edwin looked up.

Hild sat quietly with her mother in the corner between the wall and the inset doorway, where someone entering might not think to look. There were no housefolk present.

Breguswith nodded and Hild turned one of the elm tablets. The vine pattern, sunset red and gold, was barely visible in the gloom, but men, her mother assured her, wouldn’t think to wonder at that. Listen and draw no attention, she said. Quiet mouth, bright mind.

Hild listened to the muffled rattle of antler dice in their leather cup, the brighter spill onto the table, Osric’s mutter of disgust, the click as he scooped them up again. He and her uncle looked nothing alike. Osric was more like a badger: thick, splayed fingers, sloping shoulders, black hair, and pointed teeth. She hated him. Hated him for the mud and blood of Tinamutha. She hoped her uncle would one day burn him out of his sett, stake him out as a warning to all his kind.

A man in priest skirts entered the hall. Breguswith nodded. Hild turned a tablet. Breguswith wove the shuttle through the warp, beat the weft, nodded. Hild turned the next tablet.

The priest stood before Edwin’s bench and bent his head. Shaved at the crown: Romish. Edwin looked at him over the rim of his cup and Lilla gestured the priest forward. The priest raised his arms. Lilla ran practiced hands over the priest’s forearms and ribs, around his waist, down his thighs and calves. Clearly the priest was used to this: He turned unbidden for Lilla to feel between his shoulders. He had the blackest hair Hild had ever seen and a dark shadow along his jaw.

She dropped her eyes to the tablet weave until he turned around again.

Edwin put down his cup. “You have a message for me?”

“I do, lord.” A Jutish accent. Kent.

“Is it long?”

“No, lord.”

“Then spit it out.”

Hild leaned forward but at a frown from Breguswith leaned back again until the weave was taut. She turned a tablet.

“Father Paulinus bids Edwin king to remember his dream.” Paulinus. A reeve for the bishop of Rome?

“Does he now. Does he indeed.”

The men at the table did not even glance at one another. Clearly they knew of this dream.

“And does Eadbald king also bid me to remember?”

The priest hesitated. “My message comes from Father Paulinus.”

Now there were swift looks between Edwin and his thegns. Edwin leaned back. “But we have been remiss to keep you standing and thirsty. Sit.”

Breguswith rose, laid the weave in Hild’s lap, and bent for the jar of wine and five cups on the floor behind her.

Hild busied herself with rolling the tablet weave while her mother moved gracefully from king to thegn to priest, pouring and smiling. She could still make men watch.

When she was done she settled at the farthest end of the bench with the wine jar, giving the impression that the only thing on her mind was the hope to give exact and prompt service.

“So,” said Edwin, “from Paulinus. What of Mellitus?”

“Archbishop Mellitus went to Christ three months since. Our father now is Archbishop Justus.”

“Justus? I don’t remember him.”

“He is a wise and holy arbiter, my lord.”

“Of course he is. And does he, like Paulinus Crow, think it time to remember my dream?”

“I am not privy to the archbishop’s thoughts, my lord.” The priest drank. Hild heard his gulp.

“A little more?” Breguswith said in a very strong Jutish accent. “It’s the finest Frankish grape.” She smiled. The priest beamed back at his fellow countrywoman. “Though perhaps you are used to such things, spending time at Eadbald’s court with the archbishop.”

“Oh, no,” the priest said. “Father Paulinus does not travel at the archbishop’s side.”

“But I bet he wishes he did, eh?” Osric said.

The priest put his cup down.

Breguswith smiled at Osric but Hild knew from the set of her shoulders that she was irritated by his clumsiness. Hild didn’t like the way Osric smiled back.

Edwin smiled, too, but his smile wasn’t meant to fool anybody. “Forgive our cousin, priest. What’s your name?”

“Stephanus, lord. Stephanus the Black.”

“Then drink up, Stephanus, and we will hear more from Father Paulinus.”

Hild lay on her back in the pear orchard, arms behind her head, watching the leaves shiver in the breath of air that passed for wind in the flatlands of the East Anglisc. Where did wind come from? A great cave far to the north, her mother said, where everything was white, even the bears. From Arawn’s realm, Onnen said, stirred by the hooves of the horses and hounds of Hel as they hunted high in the sky. Especially in autumn, when the leaves turned brown and began to fall. These leaves were still green, but not for much longer.