Hild: A Novel (22 page)

And Fursey exploded again like a duck from its covey, this time his Latin peppered with Irish.

“I don’t understand,” Hild said. “Are we in danger?”

“Our immortal souls are in peril! Christ will strike down the apostates! He will—”

“I’m not an apostate. Am I? Good. Are you? Lintlaf, then? No? Then stop it. Answer me this instead. Did the East Angles ever fight the Svear?”

“What?”

“The East Angles. Did they fight the Svear?”

Fursey, speechless, turned away. She looked at Lintlaf.

“No,” he said.

“Then how did Eorpwald, or Rædwald, capture Svearish slaves?”

Fursey, despite himself, said, “He probably bought them.”

“You can buy slaves?”

“Certainly you can buy slaves.”

Lintlaf said, “Coelfrith says that at Gipsw
ī
c, you can buy anything. Anything at all. It’s Rædwald’s great w
ī
c. Eorpwald’s now. Like a vill, but a port.”

“Like Woodbridge.”

Fursey snorted. “Like Woodbridge the way Mulstanton is like York.”

Hild felt very rustic. It made her cross. And the fumes of the gold-working had made her head ache. “We shall visit Gipsw
ī
c. We shall buy a slave.” A wedding gift for Hereswith. More practical than a gold brooch. Someone to help her sister when Hild could not.

“My apologies, lady,” said Lintlaf. “But not today. Burgmod told me specially that you’re to be there for Æthelric Short Leg’s arrival.”

*   *   *

The men—Yffing and Wuffing alike—were already at their board, and Eorpwald’s womenfolk were being seated while the visiting women waited behind the hanging separating the women’s quarters from the hall. Mildburh peered through a convenient gap between curtain and wall, and gave Hereswith, Hild, and Breguswith a running commentary.

“And now Æthelric Short Leg is standing,” Mildburh said. “He’s escorting the queen to her place. He does it so well. And now he’s returning to his seat at Eorpwald’s right hand. He doesn’t limp.” She giggled—a very annoying giggle, Hild thought, like a whinnying horse. But she had such a headache; everything was irritating her. “And his legs are the same length. And not short.”

Mystifyingly, Hereswith blushed and looked at her mother.

“Saewara was right, then,” Breguswith said, and Mildburh giggled again. Hild knew what that meant: It was something to do with what a man and a woman do in the dark. She pushed Mildburh out of the way so she could see.

Æthelric’s hair was beautifully combed, as thick and lustrous as a beaver pelt, and caught back with a blue-enamelled gold ring. His arm rings were inlaid with garnet and more blue enamel. Like Anna, his brother, he had the dark hair and eyes and fine bones that hinted of a mother with west wealh blood somewhere in her family, though the muscle snaking around his wrists and cording at his neck and throat were anything but delicate. His quilted warrior jacket was the colour of old bronze, with marigold borders. His hose and boots were half a shade darker, the exact brown of his eyes.

Hild looked at Hereswith’s hair, shining like corn and gold; at her overdress of red and marigold; at the ivory underdress embroidered in blue and gold and red, the ivory wool veil secured with gold and garnets. Her sister could not have complemented Æthelric’s colours more closely if she’d tried, nor he hers. Even his enamel matched her eyes.

She put her eye back to the gap just in time to catch Saewara, as she took her place next to her husband, shoot a significant glance at the hanging behind which they stood.

Of course. Cousins. Her sister and gemæcce already had the beginnings of a kin web here in this foreign land. They wouldn’t be all alone.

The king’s scop struck a chord and the steward drew back the hanging with a flourish. The pipers piped and drummers drummed. Everyone stood. Even the flames seemed to roar as they entered.

Gold gleamed from every shadow, every hanging and dish, every arm and waist and veil. Jewels glittered at ears and throats and fingers. White wax tapers burnt like stars in silver holders down the middle of every board. Light sparked and shot and bounced from every fold and every corner. It hurt Hild’s eyes.

The noise and heat and music were overwhelming. Food and drink poured into the hall.

A swan on a great silver platter, its feathers boiled clean and glued back on with honey. Wine like blood, and mead the colour of sunshine. A sea of jellied eels. Sturgeon in a lake of bilberry sauce. Pearl-white bread. And music, music from all sides of the hall and from the centre, all playing parts of the same song. It was like being inside a lyre, inside a drum, inside a pipe. Hild thought her head might burst.

Eorpwald’s flat-faced queen carried the great cup from guest to guest, and one by one important men from different kin groups stood to toast. It seemed to Hild that Æthelric and his North Folk formed a distinct group, one of three: the North Folk; Eorpwald and his men; and another thegn, Ricberht, whose men seemed easier with the king’s gesiths than Æthelric’s. He looked Wuffing, but something about the bunch and flex of his shoulders, the aggressive jut of his chin, made her think perhaps he was from a lesser branch and easily offended. Like Osric? Her mother would know.

Edwin smiled at every toast, and drank and drank. Hild was offered the great cup, and again. White mead. She drank deep.

More food. More wine. Another gulp of the guest cup, and another. The world seemed as though she was peering at it through a hollow reed. She drank more of the white mead and it writhed down her gullet like a fiery snake. She drank again. The burning was something to hold on to as her headache threatened to engulf the world.

More food. More wine. Flames burning higher. Speeches. Songs. Long recitations of kin. Hereswith the daughter of Hereric, the son of Æthelric Spear, the son of Ælla, the son of Yffi, the son of Wuscfrea, the son of Wilgisl, the son of Westerfalca, the son of Sæfugl, the son of Sæbald, the son of Segegeat, the son of Swebdæg, the son of Sigegar, the son of Wædæg, the son of Woden.

Hereswith, she thought, sister of Hild. And she didn’t even have a gift.

Guests stood one by one and pledged mighty gifts. And Hild, drinking again from the guest cup, saw her wavering face reflected on the surface of the white mead, like a face slipping over the sea, leaving, leaving, and then she understood: heresy, apostasy, dancing with death. Her mother was right: Eorpwald was weak, he couldn’t even decide between gods. He would die. Æthelric would be king. But what Hild knew now, what her mother hadn’t yet seen, was that Æthelric, too, would fall. He was self-satisfied, pleased with his vanity, and not deigning to work for the respect of other men. Hereswith would flee to her nearest family: her mother’s kin across the sea.

Hild stood. She raised her arms. She was the bringer of light, seeker of patterns. She had just the gift for Hereswith, something to help her in the time to come: the truth.

*   *   *

Hild was lying down somewhere and every time she opened her eyes the world began to spin. She closed her eyes. Her mouth tasted of vomit.

“What possessed her?” Hereswith’s voice. “What did she mean by it?”

“I don’t know, child.” Her mother.

“But why did…”

Hild’s mind slipped off the table. When she came back Fursey was talking.

“Possessed her? No. She isn’t possessed.”

“She—”

“With respect, Lady Hereswith, although Eorpwald king has apostatised, using the word
possessed
where Romanists can hear you is not healthy.”

“But—”

“Go back to the table, child,” Breguswith said. “It’s your feast. Don’t let your sister’s gift spoil it.”

“Gift? She prophesied my—”

“Gift,” Breguswith said firmly. “Your husband will be king. Your son will be king. You will live long and happily … overseas, with kin. Go back. Smile at your betrothed. Tell your uncle all is well.”

The world was muffled for a time.

Someone slapped her right cheek. “Child. Wake up.” A hand behind her head, tilting it. A cup against her lips. A vile smell. “Drink.”

Hild squirmed weakly. But the hand was implacable. She drank.

A blink later she was on her side and vomiting violently.

The hand again, and then the cup. “Drink.” This time it was water. “Rinse and spit. And open your eyes. You can hear me.”

Hild opened her eyes: her mother, squatting by her head, a dull pewter cup in her hand.

“Good.” Breguswith nodded at the wealh to take the bucket of vomit away. She put the cup back to Hild’s lips. “Drink.”

Hild swallowed the lukewarm water.

“Now this.” Her glass-claw beaker.

“What is it?”

“Necessary. Now drink. Only a little.”

It tasted like burning earth. Hild felt her face turn instantly red.

“Again.”

“I’ll be sick.”

Breguswith laughed grimly. “You won’t.” Hild drank. “You will lie there for the count of fivescore. Then you will stand, wipe your face, check your dress, and walk with me back into the hall. You are a seer overwhelmed by vision, not a silly maid who can’t hold her drink. You will not hide. You will not hang your head. You will smile. You will eat. You will make a show of drinking your wine. One more sip of this. Good. Now gather your wits.”

Hild didn’t remember much of the rest. Her muscles trembling. Her insides hot and tight. The hall swollen with light and heat. Rows of pale faces with staring eyes. Gold gleaming from deeper shadows, though darker now, grimmer, like the stuff of dragon hoards and monsters and exiles … Æthelric saying something to her of a burial—would she see it? Smiling and agreeing. Smiling and sipping, hanging on, hanging on.

*   *   *

They approached Rædwald’s burial mound from the river at dawn.

Hild, on the first boat with Eorpwald and Edwin, smelt it before she saw it: the old, cold scent of deep, turned dirt; the smell of bones. Then bluffs on the eastern bank emerged from the mist. The mound loomed long, high, and oval against the horizon. Bare earth, easily twoscore ells long, longer than Edwin’s great hall at Yeavering. The gilded stem and stern post of a ship reared from each end. Six ells high at least. The carved eyes, gilded and inset with glass, glimmered with an otherworldly light.

Æthelric Short Leg stood at the prow of the second boat, his chief gesith beside him. His eyes burnt like a wight’s. He knew his fate: a warrior’s fate, a king’s. He would be ring-giver, hero, laid into the earth with his treasure like his uncle Rædwald; sung for on the river at dawn, in hall at night, on the road at noon. Remembered. Renowned. She had said so, before every Angle in hall.

The three boats cut silently through the clear water, then slowed. Slack tide, when the muscular surge of the water stops, is just gone, like a dying man’s breath.

Water slapped the bank. Boats rocked.

Eorpwald said in a strong voice, “My father, who was king.”

“Rædwald, who was king,” Edwin said.

And Hild and Breguswith, and the gesiths of the north and the East Angles, and Æthelric and Hereswith, and Anna and Saewara murmured, “Rædwald.” “King.” “Lord.”

The scop stroked his lyre and struck a pose. He plucked a chord and chanted:

Hold, earth, now your hero cannot

the treasure of kings!

Wrested from your dark

torn from your deep

by men

who laughed

laid it in swords

boasted and beat it

into cups.

Heroes who killed

each the other

for the glory

for the gleam

for the gold of kings.

For Rædwald, king.

“Rædwald, king,” they said.

Now there is none

to burnish blade

to lift the golden cup.

For he is gone.

He is gone.

“He is gone.”

So, too, goes

the fish-scale corselet

the ribs that moved it.

So goes

the one who hammered it.

So goes the horse

from the pasture

sun from sky

sea from shore.

So goes

the ship over the horizon.

So, too, it goes.

“So, too, it goes.”

So it all goes. Hild shivered. She was cold and sick and poisoned to the bone. Her skin felt greasy and her teeth hurt.

Beside her, Edwin stirred. Rædwald the overking was dead and under the dirt. Now Edwin was overking. Hild could feel him swelling like bread.

*   *   *

Gipsw
ī
c, Rædwald’s w
ī
c, was as big as Rendlesham, bigger, and humming with the sting and salt of a port. There were king’s men in their matching tunics and spears everywhere. And everywhere coins. Gold and silver, Roman, Frankish, Byzantine. And everything for sale.

Hild and Fursey and Lintlaf—who was vilely hungover and worried about his mare and her gaudy regalia, which they’d had to leave in the king’s enclosure:
No droppings between the stalls
, the guards said,
princess or no, hero with a ringed sword or no
—had never seen anything like it. Fursey muttered to himself about the dangers of pride and usurping the glories of heaven, and nagged at the two sturdy wealh Eorpwald’s steward had lent Hild to carry her small chests of hacksilver. Lintlaf assumed the dangerous-hero-with-a-quick-sword mien he adopted whenever he felt overwhelmed. Hild, at first wary of so many strangers, soon forgot her caution under the weight of sheer wonder. They wandered the waterfront—filled with ships, more ships than any of them had seen at any one time, and swarming with men in strange clothes and with skin of every colour (one was as black as wet charcoal)—stopping at random to finger merchandise, calling out to one another:
Touch this! Look at this! Smell this!