Nicola Griffith - Hild

He raised the cup to her. “I, Oeric, son of Grim, swear on my oath, on this mead by this river under this tree, that I will be your man. I will protect you, obey you, defend your name and person as long as I breathe.”

He sipped the mead. Smiled tremulously.

“Finish it,” Hild said. He was going to need it.

The king’s new thegns sent to their farmsteads for tools and men, and the great clearing by the Aire rang with hammers and adzes and clattered with lathes. The king’s hall rose.

The days grew colder and the nights colder still. Hild missed the warmth of Begu sleeping by her.

They woke to hedges salted with frost that didn’t melt until noon. The king rode out with Osric Whiphand, Paulinus Crow, Coelfrith Steward, and Cian Boldcloak to tour the land of his new thegns and inspect the fortifications at Aberford. While they were gone, Stephanus paired priests and parties of gesiths and sent them north and south and east and west to root out any wealh with a tonsure and drive them from Elmet. “None must remain,” he said. “They are spies.”

Hild persuaded Pyr that none would think him soft if the Loid workers were fed and sheltered, for a healthy Loid worked faster. And besides, she spoke for the king when she said that in Elmet now there were no more Anglisc, no more Loid, there were only Elmetsætne. She set Morud to making sure all grumbles reached the right ears.

More people, Loid and Anglisc, straggled in and sought her out, some to swear to her, some just to see for themselves the tall maid who called them all Elmetsætne. The daughter of a hægtes and an ætheling, some said—no, a wood ælf and a princess, said others—though that didn’t stop them wanting to touch her hem or catch up a fallen hair for luck. Farmers, coppicers, a dairymaid. A quiet man with a bow and a huge silent dog. Half a dozen ragged children, slings thrust through their twisted grass belts, who looked to have been living on their wits for a season. And one man, Rhin, older and footsore, whose tunic was too small and worn in places that didn’t suit his body, a man who didn’t take his hood off—he begged her pardon, he said, with a glance at Morud, who ignored him, but his ears were aching in the cold.

Hild sent the man with Morud to Oeric, for a meal at least, and said to Gwladus, “Do you trust him?”

Gwladus said, “He has the look of a man more used to skirts.”

Hild nodded. She should send him on his way. But he might prove useful. “Find out what you can. Ask Morud.”

That night she called Oeric to her wagon. She sat wrapped in a wolf fur on the step, and studied him. Perhaps it was that he was getting fed regularly, perhaps that he now had a ring on his pointing finger, her token, but he looked older, more solid.

“I gave you that ring so that you could do my bidding without hindrance. Why is Gwladus telling me some of my people are hungry?”

“We have food for eight days, lady. And some of these beggars are Loid who will move on.”

“When the king returns, we’ll be leaving. I doubt it will be eight days. But even if we stayed a month, I gave orders that all my people were to be well fed and well clothed. All. Take heed. In my service there are no Deirans, no Bernicians, no Loid or Anglisc, no Dyfneint or Elmetsætne. In my household there are only my people.” Her household. Yes. “Gwladus will speak in my name in the world of servants. You will speak in my name to freemen. You are mine, as are all those sworn to my service.” Her people.

The king came back from his tour. Cian came to Hild’s wagon, carrying his saddlebag over one shoulder, and accepted the cup of hot spiced wine Gwladus brought him outside.

Morud brought him a stool, set it by Hild’s.

Cian dropped his bag and sat. He unhooked his scabbard, propped it next to him against the wagon. “We leave for York in the morning.”

“All of us?”

He glanced at Oeric, who stood a discreet three paces out of earshot. “Stephanus and his priests will stay, as will Pyr and two understewards, a score of gesiths, and those men Grimhun has at Aberford.” He glanced at Oeric again. Oeric gave him a bland look.

“How is Grimhun?”

“Happy as— Why is that boy with the old sword here?”

“Oeric? He’s…” She beckoned him. “Cian Boldcloak, king’s gesith, this is Oeric, son of Grim, my sworn man.”

The two eyed each other, but Cian’s height, the cut of his clothes, his sword and jewels clearly overmatched Oeric’s. Oeric inclined his head. Hild waved him away.

Cian sat. “He’s sworn to you? He’s coming to York?”

“Him and more than a dozen others.”

“You have a household ?”

“Will you help me?”

“Help you do what? Feed them? I’m a king’s gesith, not a landed thegn.”

“Just… help me. You and the brothers Berht could train Oeric, enough so he’d be more help than hindrance in a fight.” Then she remembered the brothers Berht were with Grimhun at Aberford, for now.

He drank off his ale and held out his cup for a refill. Gwladus took it. “Have you told the king?”

“Not yet.”

“Tell him.” He took the refilled cup from Gwladus, with a nod of thanks. “The lady’s a rare one, eh?”

“Yes, lord,” she said. “Will you want stew? Some of the new… household have an odd notion of king’s property and it seems some hares wandered into a snare and then somehow got dropped in a pot.” She turned to Hild. “Should I bring three bowls?” She tilted her head slightly in Oeric’s direction.

“Yes. No, wait. Bring enough for everyone. Put up a board. We’ll eat together, this one night, the household. Tell Oeric and Morud to help.”

When they’d left, Cian cleared his throat, drank more ale, rubbed his lip with his knuckle. Eventually he bent and lifted his bag to his lap.

“I made something.”

He untied the bag, lifted out a lump wrapped in sacking. Hefted it. Held it out.

Hild took the bundle, unwrapped it. Dark wood gleamed in the firelight.

Travelling cups, three of them. Tiny things, fitting one inside the other: small, smaller, smallest. Old wood, black with age. Carefully cut with the grain, smooth as a girl’s shoulder and as warm to the touch.

“I cut them from the root of the great thorn hedge. The biggest will hold two fingers of white mead.”

She put them back together. They felt dense and weighty in her palm. She turned them, it, over and over in her hands. Old in the days of Eliffer of the Great Retinue… “Oh.” Carved under the base was a tiny hedgepig, prickles out.

“Look at the others.”

She slid them free again. On the smaller one, the hedgepig’s prickles were drawn in; on the smallest one, the hedgepig lay curled in sleep.

“One for you, one for me, one for Begu,” he said. “So we may drink to home wherever we are.”

Edwin sat on his chair under the oak, warming his hands over a brazier while Coelfrith stood patiently nearby. He seemed in high good humour.

“Clotrude is with child. My son is having a son!”

“May he be strong and lucky.”

“Of course he’ll be lucky.”

Hild bowed her head. An ætheling was always lucky. At first. “My lord…” She wasn’t sure how to say it. “My lord, there will be extra people returning with us to York.”

His hands slowed. “Extra? How many?”

“Fewer than a dozen.” So far.

Edwin turned to Coelfrith, who said, “Lord King, if we’re to make the journey tomorrow as you wish, with a dozen extra mouths the food might not stretch. As it is, by the time we reach York the horses will be skin and bone and our porridge gritty with the end of the sack.”

“We can feed ourselves,” Hild said.