Nicola Griffith - Hild

“Look at me!”

“You just get uglier!” Tondhelm shouted. Laughter.

“Am I rich?”

Frowns.

“I ask you, am I rich? I am not. Why? Because my god is not as powerful as the Christ god!”

Begu whispered, “Why would he say that? Why—”

“Woden’s shrine is made of wood. Painted wood. But in Rome they stain glass like jewels, they build of stone like the giants of old, they cover their ceilings in gold!”

Gold.

“Woden is a great god, a fine god, but there is a new god, more mighty still. His altars are spreading. The men who have been to Kent, to East Anglia, have seen how rich their kings are, how generous to their thegns. I have seen it.” He pointed to Coelfrith, to Osric, to the others sitting behind him on the bench. “They have seen it.”

“I have seen it!” Coelfrith shouted.

“Gesiths who took the Christ’s blessing do well for themselves,” Coifi said. “They have rings on their swords, jewels at their belts, horses swifter than the wind.”

“Does he mean Cian?” Begu whispered. “I think he does. Cian! And you said this was going to be boring!”

“The Christ god will make us richer than the Franks! I tell you truly. It is our wyrd.”

Behind him, Coelfrith was stretching his eyes at someone in the front tier: now, now.

A man leapt to his feet. Hunric. “Edwin king! I say the chief priest of the chief god is the one to know! If any man can. For what can men know? Our understanding is like that of a sparrow flying through the king’s hall at Yule. Outside it’s all howling darkness and rain, inside it’s a warm hearth and music. The sparrow flies in one door, into light and laughter. Then out the other door, back into the dark. And that moment for the sparrow is like our moment in middle-earth. Because, like the bird, we know nothing of what came before now or what’ll happen after.”

“I know what comes after this!” Tondhelm shouted. “Food!”

“The food’s not going anywhere,” Hunric shouted back. “I say that if the priests are right, and they were right in the king’s dream long ago, when he was just an exiled ætheling—and look at him now! our king! overking!—then men aren’t on middle-earth for long. We’re like that sparrow, mazed by a moment of comfort. Well, if the priests say they can teach us the before and the promise of the after, then I say we listen!”

Other thegns were standing to speak, and Hild knew they’d be there all afternoon.

“Hunric’s sparrow is a very stupid sparrow,” she said to Begu. “Birds always know where they’re going!”

“Don’t be silly,” Begu said. “It’s not about the bird. It’s about people who don’t know where the bird is from or where it’s flying to. I think.”

“Then the people are stupid. I know where all the birds around here nest.”

“You’re getting peevish,” Begu said. “Are you hungry? Eat this bread.”

She got more peevish when, at the door of the great hall, Gwladus, waiting with Morud, told her the feast was delayed: The king wanted her in his small room with the other counsellors. She handed Hild a lump of cheese. “Eat this. You might be a while. Two messengers came, with three letters.”

“The deacon talked to them while you were all out there listening to the windbags,” Morud said. “Something’s up. The deacon looked right peaky.”

Hild arrived in the small room just as one of the messengers—they were both priests with the Roman tonsure—unrolled the letter. Others were still arriving—no sign of Paulinus—and she took a place next to James. Morud was right. James looked a little damp around the hairline, and his complexion was tinged with ash.

The priest began to read in Latin in that peculiar, weighty voice that Hild realised was common to those used to waiting for an echo from stone walls.

“To the illustrious Edwin, king of Anglisc: from Boniface, bishop, servant of the servants of God…”

King of Anglisc, not all the Anglisc.

The second priest translated, in a voice of brass, better suited to the hangings and corners of a king’s hall.

“The words of man can never express the power of the supreme Divinity…”

In this at least, Boniface, the bishop of Rome, was just like a scop. The words of man can never express… But he was going to try, and at length, by the look of that letter.

Clearly Edwin had just reached the same conclusion. He leaned back in his great chair, tufa at his right hand, Coelfrith at his left, looking bored and mildly irritable. No doubt he was hungry, too.

Paulinus arrived finally, looking slitty-eyed as a cat who’d killed a pigeon. Three letters.

“… Divine Majesty who alone created and established the heaven and the earth, the sea…

“To Him are subject all imperial power and authority, for it is by Him that kingship is conferred.”

The king put his chin on his fist.

“… our Redeemer in His mercy has brought light to our excellent son Eadbald and the nations subject to him…”

Our excellent son Eadbald. Boniface was putting himself on a par with the god, and a Jutish king on a lower bench.

“… your gracious queen and true partner…”

The queen wasn’t there, Hild realised. Three letters.

“… affectionately urge Your Majesties to renounce idol-worship, reject the mummery of temples and the deceitful flattery of omens, and believe in God, the Father Almighty, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit. This faith will free you from Satan’s bondage…”

The king flushed dull red but the reader ploughed on, oblivious.

“… cannot understand how people can be so deluded as to worship as god objects to which they themselves have given the likeness of a body…”

The translator faltered momentarily, then steadied.

“Accept the message of the Christian teachers and the Gospel that they proclaim. Believe in God, the Father Almighty…

“We impart to you the blessing of your protector, blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles. With it we send you a tunic with a golden ornament, and a cloak from Ancyra, asking Your Majesty to accept these gifts with the same goodwill as that with which we send them.”

The Anglisc translation continued for a moment, followed by silence.

Everyone looked at the king. “So. I’m in some wight called Satan’s bondage but this princeling priest, Peter, will protect me. Did I hear that right?”

The translator swallowed.

“This Romish bishop thinks himself my foster-father, and tells me if I’m a good boy, I can be almost as good as his son Eadbald. Are you sure you got those words right?”

The priest swallowed again and couldn’t speak.

“Eadbald is my wife’s brother. The Kentish king, king of the Jutes. A small people, who owe their grace and favour to the Franks. I, on the other hand, am Edwin, overking of all the Anglisc. So, priest, are you sure you got those words exactly right?”

Paulinus took a half step forward. “If my lord King—”

“Shut up.” Edwin hadn’t taken his eyes off the translator. “So not only am I in bondage to a wight, beholden to a mere prince, and striving to be as good as a Jutish king, I’m to be grateful for a tunic, which is the mark and favour from a godlike bishop. You’d better show me this tunic, then, this most marvellous tunic for which I will be happy to acknowledge my fealty to a priest in Rome.”

The translator, white-faced, didn’t move. It was Paulinus who strode forward, took the package, unfastened it, and went to one knee before Edwin’s chair.

Edwin took the tunic, shook it out, held it up to the light.

It was purple, with a silklike lustre and sheen.

“It drapes beautifully,” Edwin said. “Don’t you think?”