Nicola Griffith - Hild

“Him and his son both. And Hereswith shall bring her gemæcce to Modresniht.”

“Mildburh.”

“Child, I know their names.” She picked up the two skeins again. “Yes, it’s time to declare ourselves. We shall make a striking group at the feast. Now, tell me whether and why we should choose the left-spun yarn or the right.”

Hild, in fact, did not choose either. Her mother chose for her—armsful of both—and with Onnen wove a beautiful spin-patterned pale yellow underdress with wrist- and throat-work in blue and glittering real gold. Her long, rather old-fashioned—as was right for a child, light of the world or not—sleeveless jacket was as blue as the summer sky just after sunset, and fastened with a great wheel-like gilt-copper brooch whose rim was as large around as her closed fist, like a hand on her chest it was so heavy, for all that it was mostly copper.

Every time she swallowed, she gleamed. Every time she lifted a hand, she glittered. Every time she breathed, she glinted. She was breathing fast; her legs trembled; the glitter and gleam and glint became an endless shimmer.

She stood behind the hanging in the doorway between the kitchen corridor and the hall proper, thirty women and girls waiting beyond her. They did not talk to her. With Cwenburh still ill, she was to be cupbearer. “But Hereswith is older,” she’d said when her mother prepared her, but her mother had taken Hild’s face between her hands and said, “This is your wyrd.”

Beyond, in the columned hall, the scop was finishing his praise of Edwin’s vast holdings, the whiteness of his sheep, the richness of his soil: the necessary preamble to the introduction of the women of the household to begin the Modresniht feast. The hall had been quiet at first, less to listen to the scop than because everyone was hungover from yesterday’s Yule feast. As the informal jars of heather beer began to empty and housefolk brought in the wooden platters of intricately woven and spiced breads with their little pots of fruit butters and jams and herb pastes, stomachs and heads settled and conversation began to rise like a tide. The scop’s chant moved majestically from folk and fold to hearth and hall, wealth and wine, his rolling Anglisc now transmuted into the language of flame, and gold, and honour.

Hild’s legs trembled. She stood as straight as she could.

“Soon now,” her mother said.

Hild nodded but couldn’t speak. What if she dropped the cup? Or spilled it? Or tripped? What if she took it to guests in the wrong order? The omens would be calamitous.

“Hold out your hands.”

She obeyed.

“It’s heavy,” Breguswith said. She put the great cup in Hild’s hands. Hild sagged. She had never held anything so weighty.

It was as wide around as her rib cage, not gilded bronze but pure gold, with silver and gold filigree, studded with garnet and beryl and blue enamel. It was empty.

Breguswith gestured to a houseman in a work tunic, who passed her a red-glazed jar. She unstoppered it. The stinging scent of white mead made Hild blink.

As Breguswith began to pour, a houseboy lifted the hanging cloth and a rush of housefolk carrying stoppered jars flowed around Hild and into the hall. “Hold still!” Breguswith said.

Hild did her best. The boy still held the curtain. The housefolk in hall were spreading out along the wall behind the benches, ready with their jars. The scop’s voice rose.

The weight of the cup was unbearable. The noise was unbearable. The heat was unbearable.

Her mother was smoothing Hild’s hair back from her forehead, tucking it securely behind her ears. She was saying something. “… since a maid without a girdle was cupbearer? Never, is my guess. It’s a job for a queen but today, O my light, O my jewel, it is you. Today you are queen in this hall. You step first, with me just one step behind, and your sister and her gemæcce…”

She wanted Onnen. She wanted Cian. She wanted the queen to rise from her sickbed and take this cup from her.

“… Edwin first, then the guest at his right, the guest at his left, then across the hall to his…”

She wanted her mother to have dreamt of Hereswith as jewel and light. She wanted the king to be dead, dead, dead so that someone else’s closest female relative would do this.

Even over the din of conversation, the scop’s voice rang with that triumphal note which, whether in Anglisc or British, meant it was time.

“… here at your shoulder. But you step first, you step first. Step now, Hild.”

From behind her she felt the women smoothing their dresses, checking their wrist cuffs, and flicking their veils one last time. The houseboy was looking at her. Her hands felt slippery on the gold. It was too heavy. Her hands were too small. She would drop it.

The boy stuck out his tongue. She blinked. He crossed his eyes.

“They’ll get stuck,” she said in British. He nearly dropped the curtain in surprise, and it was with a private smile she stepped into the hall.

It had been the principia of the Roman prefect, then the palace of the king of Ebrauc, and was now the feasting hall of Edwin, king of Deira and Bernicia. It was too big, too high, too hard. More stone than wood. Wealh. Really wealh, in a way Ceredig’s smoky great house had not been.

It was not smoky here. She could feel the air stirring about her. She dare not look up from the cup in case she spilled, but she knew the roof would be too far up, in too much shadow, to see. Perhaps there were windows up there. But she wasn’t cold.

Wood coals glowed in a series of pits down the centre of the room. You could lay a herd of cows on those coals, end to end. Torches roared and rushed in their brackets along the high second-storey wall (how had the housefolk lit those? ladders?) and matching torches burnt less vigorously along the inner colonnades, behind the benches where the men sat in two long—long, long—rows facing one another across the fire pit. The walls were draped with tapestries and smaller hangings brocaded in gold and stitched with jewels. The shadows gleamed.

In the centre of the right-hand row was Edwin’s bench. He wore red. Four huge bands glittered on his left arm, three on his right. Royal bands. Every time he reached for bread, muscles in his neck and shoulder bunched and corded. Any one ring would, she knew, make her cup seem light. His sons, Eadfrith and Osfrith, sat on his right; Lilla, his chief gesith, on his left. As Hild approached slowly with her cup, Edwin looked at her and put down his bread. The scop played a dramatic chord on his lyre. Many turned to look and saw the girl in yellow and blue, carrying gold. Conversation dropped from deafening to loud.

Hild moved with as much grace as she could muster until she stood before Edwin and slightly to his left so that her back was not quite turned to the guests—British in Anglisc clothes—across the way.

“Edwin king,” she said as loud as she could, and because her voice was higher than any other voice in hall it cut through the din and the hall quieted more. Now she could hear distinctly the hiss and roar of the torches. “My king,” she said. And her carefully prepared speech fled. What could she say before so many that any would want to hear? “Great King. For you, a drink.” And she held out the cup. She nearly lost her balance.

Edwin, smiling, stood, leaned over the table, and took the cup in one hand. “I will lighten it for you,” he said, and took a great swallow. The gold at his temple and throat and arms, pinned to his chest and along his belt, winked. He handed it back. Hild took it carefully. Then she turned to the eldest ætheling, Eadfrith, who stood and drank, then to his brother, Osfrith. All around her, men began to stand. Her arms ached, but she held the cup out straight, as though it weighed nothing. She moved down the bench to the chief gesith, held it out.