Nicola Griffith - Hild

He stood and stretched, said to the horizon, “And now will you be a hero with me and take the wall, shoulder to shoulder?”

“Am I to be Branwen again?” And she couldn’t help the sigh in her voice.

“Be who you like,” he said, ever the generous lord. “You choose.”

“Owein,” she said. “His sword was blue and gleaming, his spurs all of gold—”

“No, I am Owein. I am always Owein.”

“Then I will be Gwvrling the Giant: He drank transparent wine, with a battle-taunting purpose; the reapers sang of war, of war with shining wing, the minstrels sang of war—” She spat out her tooth. It lay white and red on the turf at her feet. They stared at it.

Hild bent and picked it up. Her tooth, from her mouth.

“Soon you will grow another, and stronger.”

She nodded.

“You must put it in your belt, or a sorcerer could steal it for a spell.”

She pushed it into her sash.

“You are bleeding.”

She wiped her mouth with her hand. A tiny, bright smear.

“Bright was the blood,” she said, the next part of the verse of Gwvrling the Giant.

“And bright was the horn in the hall of Eiddin!” Cian said, relieved. He held out his digging stick. “Gwvrling must have a sword. Come!”

And they scrambled over the tree trunk and swung their swords at invisible foes together: Y rhag meiwedd, y rhag mawredd, y rhag madiedd —in the van are the warlike, in the van are the noble, in the van are the good.

As usual, after a while they found it more exciting to swing at each other, and, as usual, Hild got hit more often because Cian’s reach was greater than hers, his sword longer, and he had a shield.

After one particularly hard smack at her shoulder, Hild jumped back. “Let us swap arms for a while.”

She had never dared ask before, but today she had bled, like a real Yffing. Cian considered, then held out his sword for Hild’s stick and slid the shield from his arm.

They leapt together again, and Hild found that taking a blow to a shield was a much finer thing than a blow to the ribs. She hacked with enthusiasm.

“Swap back now,” Cian said, panting a little.

“Just a while longer.”

“I want it. It’s mine.”

Hild didn’t want to give them up, and the wanting turned her mind smooth and hard as a shield wall. “It is yours, absolutely and only yours, given from the hand of Ceredig king. No one of this earth could dispute it. I do not dispute it. I ask for your great favour, a hero’s generosity.”

Cian blinked.

“And as we fight you may think secretly to yourself, Those arms are mine, I have but to say the word and they are in my hand again, I have the power to take them back anytime, anytime.”

He rose up on his toes, and back down, thinking. “Anytime?”

“Anytime.”

“It is mine?”

“It is yours. That is your secret power.” Holding secrets, her mother said, made a man feel mighty.

“Well, then. You may keep the shield for a time.” He lifted his stick and charged. They battled for a while.

Once again, Hild stepped back. “Now here, back to you, are your sword and shield.”

And he took them, returned her stick, and smiled. “These are mine. But you shall borrow them again. Tomorrow. Tomorrow when we come back to dig your hole.”

She nodded.

“It’s hot,” he said.

They sat by the pool. Hild slid her stick in and out of the water. The cherry leaves whispered in a slight breeze.

“You like the water.”

“I do.” She laid the stick aside and watched a waterbug dimple the surface and skate across it.

“And you’re not afraid of the sidsa?”

Her mother’s word for sorcery or witchcraft, not the immanence, the wild magic of these hidden places—there was no Anglisc word for that. Sprites live in rivers and springs, and are not to be meddled with , Onnen said. “I’m not afraid.” She was the light of the world. Besides, her mother said it was still water that was bad. She frowned slightly, as Breguswith did, and said, in Anglisc, “Still water is not to be trusted. It shines and it gleams, but is not what it seems.”

They both giggled. It shines and it gleams, but is not what it seems.

“And yet it is so… magic,” Hild said, in British. “Watch.” And she slid her stick in again at an angle. “See how the water breaks it?”

“I do!”

“And yet when I pull it out, it is whole.” She slid the stick in and out, in and out. Whole, broken, whole, broken. “What spirit breaks and remakes? Or is it only a glamour? Now, listen.” The cherry leaves whispered again, and again more strongly as air moved over them and the pool. “Feel the breath of it? Now look you down there. The mud seems rippled, does it not?”

“It does.”

“Yet it is not.”

“It is too. I can see it.”

“Then put your hand to the bottom.”

“The sprite will eat me if I disturb her magic.”

“She will not. I will give her an offering.” She drew her tooth from her sash and threw it into the pool. The soft silty mud closed over it and it was gone.

“You have given yourself to the sprite!”

“I have offered my tooth, of which I’ll soon have more.” But she touched her tongue to the raw place on her gum and hoped the new tooth wouldn’t belong to the sprite, hoped it didn’t mean she would drown one day when the sprite reclaimed what was hers. “Put your hand to the bottom.”

He rolled up his shirt sleeve. Slid it gingerly into the water.

“Now lay your palm on the bottom. And tell me, is it rippled?”

“It is smooth.” He patted the muddy bottom, sending up a swirl of brown. Hild had a sudden fear he would find her tooth and bring it out.

“Gently, gently. You may take your arm out now.” She lifted her face to the sky. The wind had died once more. “The beast begins to sleep again, and so forgets to weave its spell. See you now, the sand is smooth in appearance as well as fact. It is only when the water sprite breathes that it casts its veil on our eyes.”

Cian rubbed his arm dry on the turf, then on his tunic. “Tomorrow you shall show me more magic.”

“Tomorrow I shall show you the great frog who swallowed the heart of a hægtes.”

But the next day the Goodmanham steward declared it an auspicious time to harvest the rest of the flax—the base of the stems had turned yellow—and every able-bodied member of the community, young and old, was drafted, even the visiting thegns Wilgar and Trumwine. Men pulled the plants whole from the ground; housefolk, mostly wealh, gathered and tied the stems into bundles, then leaned them into stacks to dry. They laid cloth on the ground and shook the already dried bundles until seed rattled out; children carefully folded the cloth and carried it to the women who funnelled the tiny golden-brown seeds into jars and sent the cloth back to be laid again; at which point other wealh pulled the bundled stems through the coarse-toothed ripples set like arrowheads into posts to pull free the empty seedpods. It was thirsty, scratchy work; the children, highfolk and urchins alike, ran to and fro with jars of gruit—heather beer.

From the resinous scent of it, it was her mother’s special batch, heavy with sweet gale, which Hild already knew would lead to loud laughter and the energy to work all day. Many of the women did not drink and sent her instead with empty jars to the river.

Her mother scooped out three fingers of salve, handed the pot to Hild, and warmed the greasy stuff between her palms. When she worked it into Wilgar’s back, Hild thought he looked like a bristly black hog smeared with lard before going on the spit. She put the pot at the end of the bench out of the sun and watched her mother kneading the slablike muscles, pushing into his fat with her thumbs, running along lines of sinew like a saddlemaker pushing the needle through thick leather.