Nicola Griffith - Hild

Hild flopped down on her back and laughed. Begu, her jackdaw, her gemæcce.

The weather changed overnight. On Easter morning clouds smoked and twisted across a low sky and those who had to be away from a fire hurried between buildings pulling their clothes close against the cold, wilful wind.

The queen did make it to the Mass, though the king did not. Hild noticed that no men attended but the queen’s Jutes, the priests and choristers, and a few housefolk in tunics painstakingly cleaned for the occasion and spattered about the shoulders with the first fat raindrops—no Anglisc men but Cian.

Cian glared at Hild, but Paulinus, in his cope stiff with jewels and gold thread, had seen him and smiled, and now Cian was duty bound to stay.

Hild ignored him. Her belly ached, strange and heavy, and she felt a little sick. Perhaps it was all the incense smoking in the brass censers two priests swung from chains.

The music made Hild forget her belly. Voices soared overhead. Outside rain runnelled and gushed over the tile roof.

Paulinus’s sonorous Latin brought her back to earth. The ache in her belly returned. She concentrated on shifting her weight unobtrusively from one foot to the other. She wished she could sit down, but only the queen, looking pale, had a three-legged stool.

The Mass droned on. Rain beat on the roof. A wealh woman coughed carefully, persistently.

Music soared again, Paulinus walked in state back up the aisle, preceded by the smoking censers. The wealh woman’s coughing rose to a crescendo. The queen stood, swayed, and Wilnoð and her other women hustled her away. Begu, with a glance back at Hild, who nodded, went with them.

Outside, under the dripping eaves, Stephanus spoke to Cian: The bishop would have words with the young lord at the feast, if the young lord was willing. Cian bowed and suggested that not only was he more than willing, he was honoured. Hild breathed deeply of the damp but fresh air and wondered when he’d learnt to lie like a thegn. Stephanus hurried away, holding his skirts above the wet. Cian scowled after him and wiped his rain-wet forearms against his tunic.

“Well,” said Fursey, and they turned. “Stephanus seems as pleased as a black cockerel. If I were an expert on the matter, which I am, I’d say the Roman bishop anticipates his first gesith baptism.”

“I’m not a gesith—”

“Yet,” said Hild.

“—and I’ve no wish to be a priest!”

“I imagine not,” Fursey said, smiling. “Luckily, baptism does not make you one. Though indeed”—his smile broadened—“it does make you exceedingly wet.”

They followed him, mystified, to the hall for the feast.

Forthere stood watchful at the door while guests removed their weapons and leaned them against the east wall. Cian set his sword next to a sword-and-dirk pair with silver fine work: Pictish. Ciniod’s emissary come at last. Hild laid her seax near an old British blade with a magnificent yellow pommel stone, probably Dyfneint, which meant Geraint had sent yet another petitioner. At least he hadn’t made the mistake of sending a bishop again. She wondered what had happened to Anaoc. As she refastened her belt she scanned the row of weapons for evidence of Dyfneint’s enemy, the Gewisse, but Cian and Fursey were already moving towards a knot of drinking gesiths. She hurried to catch up.

She felt queasy again, and the strange ache low in her belly was back.

The feast proper had not yet begun. The king’s scop—a new one, the East Anglian who had sung the lament for Rædwald—supervised musicians with pipes and lyres; housefolk were still laying out bread trenchers and bowls and cups. Women moved from torch to torch with burning tapers. In the centre, all along the fire pits, men clasped forearms, or bowed, or punched shoulders in greeting. The largest knot stood around the king. The thin Dyfneint emissary in a scarlet cloak—the Dyfneint loved their Roman ways—stood by Paulinus, who had removed the jewelled cope but whose black was relieved by an emperor-purple silk sash wound about his middle. Stephanus hovered respectfully; even James the Deacon was there. The Dyfneint glared at the yellow-haired man with luxuriant moustaches talking in confidential tones to the king; Gewisse, the most powerful of the West Saxons, loved their whiskers.

The king’s group made a good show of being absorbed in one another’s conversation, but every time the king laughed, or sighed, or turned slightly to hold out his cup to a houseman for a refill, they noticed, and their stance or expression or volume subtly matched his.

None wore a blade, not so much as an eating knife, but Lilla stood always by the king’s elbow, and Eamer and even Lintlaf were nearby and drinking sparingly. Eamer and the other Gewisse appeared not to notice one another. Perhaps it was that Eamer no longer considered himself Gewisse: A gesith’s oath took precedence over all else. There again, Eamer didn’t acknowledge her, either. She wondered why. He had seemed to like her well enough in Lindsey, though perhaps she had misread him.

At one end of the fire pit, Osric stood with Breguswith and the brothers Berhtnoth and Berhtred. Osric didn’t lean in to Breguswith the way Mulstan had Onnen but slung his arm around her mother’s waist. Her mother smiled and laughed and gave Osric smouldering eyes but, like a cat with a stranger, faced more away than towards him. They drank freely, as did Eadfrith and Osfrith, looking very much the young princes. Oswine stood nearby, clearly wishing to stand with his cousins the æthelings rather than with his father but uncertain of his welcome.

Cian was tense. A feast day was a time for great boasts, heroic deeds, offers, and oath-taking, and Edwin was overking, the best lord a gesith could hope for. Cian, a thegn’s foster-son, wanted to make an impression.

Hild said to Fursey, “Give Cian your drink. He needs courage. He’s going to talk to the Crow.”

“I am?” Cian said.

“You said you would. Forget the king for now. Drink that. Good. Now another.” She caught Stephanus’s eye, as warning, then took Cian by the elbow and steered him towards Paulinus. Stephanus leaned and murmured something in his bishop’s ear. Paulinus turned, smiling.

“Call him lord bishop,” Hild whispered, and pushed him very slightly.

“Ah. Our Mass-going warrior,” Paulinus said, and held out his hand.

Cian inclined his head but perhaps didn’t know the amethyst ring was to be kissed. “My lord Bishop.”

The muscles around Paulinus’s eyes tightened briefly. “Yes. Well.” He ran the tip of his ringed finger around the rim of his blue glass wine cup. “Stephanus tells me of your interest in the faith, young… Cian of Mulstanton, by the Bay of the Beacon.”

“My lord Bishop. Yes. That is, the music was, the music is very fine.”

“Yes. I brought Deacon James here especially to uplift souls to the greater glory of God.”

“Most foresighted of you, Bishop,” Hild said.

Paulinus focused on her, then looked back at Cian, and again at Hild. “You are cousins perhaps?”

Hild stilled. For a moment she had forgotten how dangerous it was to stand side by side with Cian, how a stranger would see their height, their hair, their solemn faces.

Cian laughed and shook his head. “Though we played together like fox kits for the years of our childhood.”

Paulinus’s hooded eyes gave away nothing, but Hild worried. The Crow was not stupid.

Her belly ached.

The crowd rippled. “No,” the king said loudly—for the second time, Hild realised. “No, my lord Ceadda. I won’t be badgered in my own hall.” He turned deliberately from the West Saxon, looked over to Hild’s group, waved at the Dyfneint. “Lord Dywel, come speak to me of Geraint king’s proposal. In fact, all of you there, my lord Bishop, yes, and your priests, and Niece, come here and speak to me of things suitable for a feast day.”