Hild: A Novel (35 page)

Cian, and men armed with swords now, were backing slowly from the room, blades pointing everyway, like the spines of a hedgepig. Cian’s belt-buckle blade looked tiny and vicious, like a red viper’s tooth.

The Gewisse was gone. Fursey was gone.

*   *   *

Flames flickered quietly in Hild and Begu’s chamber, glinting on the silver thread of the single hanging. Begu wrung out the cloth over the slop bowl and dipped it again in the copper bowl of warm water. She wiped Hild’s neck carefully. Hild sat like a statue.

“How did you get it on your neck?”

“I don’t know.” Her tongue felt heavy.

“There’s some on your shoe, too. Ooof, it’s soaked through to your hose. Your best blue hose, too. And splashed on your skirt.” She rinsed and wrung and wiped again.

Begu beckoned Gwladus from the shadow by the alcove. “We need cold water—something to soak these clothes. And more rags. And food.” She looked at Hild. “You look peaky. I expect it’s the shock. Though perhaps you’re hungry. I know I didn’t get fed while the queen birthed.” Hild said nothing. She felt nothing. “Bring a lot,” Begu said to Gwladus, “a lot of everything.”

Gwladus left.

“Take it all off,” Begu said to Hild. “Every scrap.”

Hild stood and stripped, hands cold and clumsy, and Begu washed her head to toe, firm, soothing strokes. “Oh. You have a little cut here, on your shin.”

Hild looked at it. It seemed very far away. Not her leg.

“Does it hurt? Well, it’s nothing much.” Begu mopped at it. Hild felt a distant tingle. Begu seemed to mop at it for a long time, then she wrapped a rag around it and tied it. “There, now.”

Now Hild felt cold, cold to her marrow, cold as marble. Everything smelt of blood, as though she was drowning in it.

Begu murmured on and dried Hild as she would a newborn calf, then helped her into a clean, long-sleeved bedshift. “Let’s get you warm.” She helped Hild into bed, then covered her and stroked the hair from her face. “Stay there while I tidy this away.”

Begu began to examine each piece of clothing for blood, folding and smoothing the unmarked things.

“I’ll tell you about the baby, shall I?”

“Cian…”

“I’m sure Cian’s fine. He’s a hero. Lie quietly now.”

The king would be half mad with fear. She should be there. But she couldn’t seem to move.

Begu talked about the way the queen’s women had fussed. “Anyone would think they’d never seen a baby born before. And the queen. She looks so quiet, but she swore like a gesith! Mind, they always do…”

Cian. She should be there.

“… Eanflæd, she’s called.”

Eanflæd. The new peaceweaver, born in blood. They were all born in blood.

“I worried for a bit that she’d reject the little thing. But then she— Well, what’s this?”

Hild opened her eyes. Begu was frowning over Hild’s drawers. She touched a fingertip to the red stain. “It’s still wet.” She looked up. “It’s yours.”

Hild didn’t understand.

“Does your belly ache?”

Hild put a hand on her belly.

Begu beamed. “You’re a woman! Though you’ve picked a fine night for it: the king half dead, the queen with a new daughter, everything in uproar.”

Hild rested her hand on her belly. A woman. Then she realised what Begu had said. “The king’s half dead?”

Begu waved aside the king’s health. She shook Hild’s drawers. “You’re a woman!”

Gwladus came in, followed by two kitchenfolk carrying a massive tray and two buckets of water. Begu waved the drawers again and said, “We’ll need more rags, and raspberry-leaf tea!”

Gwladus sighed, told the kitchenfolk where to put their burdens, and turned to leave with them.

“Wait.” Hild sat up. “Find out how the king is, and Cian.”

“And bring mead. We’ll have a feast! Up, up, you,” she said to Hild. “You’re looking a lot better. It takes people that way sometimes I suppose. That and the shock. Nothing a bit of food won’t cure. Come on. Get dressed.”

“Cian—”

“Stop fussing about Cian. He can take care of himself. He saved the king’s life. They’ll make him a hero. Besides, you can’t help him from that bed, can you?”

Hild couldn’t argue with that.

“That’s right. No, no. Proper clothes. You’re a woman now. Your finest gown, with the underdress and shoes Onnen sent that will match your veil band. Make sure you line your drawers.” She handed Hild a clean rag, showed her how to fold it. “I’ll just do this.”

So Hild dressed for the first time as a woman to the sound of Begu dipping and wringing, and visions of Cian dead at a half-mad king’s hand.

“Don’t forget your necklace, that thick gold one.” Hild found the heavy necklace, put it on, moving like someone under water. Was this what it meant to be a woman? No one had ever told her about the thick tongue and the strange distance. She lifted the girdle Begu had brought from Onnen, let it dangle from one hand.

“It’s like a toothache in your belly, isn’t it?” Begu nodded at Hild’s other hand curled protectively over her stomach. “The tea will help with that. And mead. Besides, the ache’ll be gone tomorrow. Here, give me that.” She took the girdle from Hild. “I can’t put it on until you stop clutching yourself. There. Too tight?”

Hild shook her head.

“It’s a pity your good hose are in the bucket. Still, no one will see. Besides, if that cut reopens you’d only bleed on them again. Keep still.” She rummaged in the sueded leather purse hanging from her own girdle and took out the comb Hild had given her. “We’ll comb you out nicely before we try the veil band. No, no, you’ll have to sit on the bed. It’s like trying to comb the top of a tree!”

Hild sat blankly while Begu combed, working methodically from the ends to the crown. When the tangles were dealt with, Begu lifted Hild’s hair, bunching it close to the scalp, then stroked the comb through it vigorously, as though brushing out a horse’s tail.

“I swear, your hair’s the exact same colour as Cian’s. You could be twins.”

Begu let go of the hair and let it fall over her forearm, then carefully slid her arm away so it fell thick and straight between Hild’s shoulder blades.

“There. No, keep
still
.” She pushed the veil band carefully over Hild’s forehead.

Modresniht, Edwin putting the heavy arm ring on her head like a crown. Her path.

“—ever is the matter? Oh, shush, shush, it’s all right.” Begu wrapped her arms around Hild. “It’s all right. It happens to everyone. You’ll like it soon, I promise.”

Hild shook her head. Her ears fluttered as though filled with butterflies.

“Put your head down. Down. There now.” Begu stroked her back. “There now.”

“Take it off.”

“Your band? But—”

“Take it off!”

Begu lifted it off carefully. Hild breathed. Begu nodded to herself. “That’s better. You went as white as milk.” She felt carefully around the embroidered, jewelled band. “I can’t feel anything sticking out.”

“That’s not it.”

“What is, then?”

“It’s all different. Everything.”

“Well of course it is.”

“You don’t understand.” They came for her in Lindsey. They came for the king in his own hall. Cian, her Cian, killed a man. She should have stayed. How would she be the light of the world feeling like this?

“Of course I do. It happened to me not long since.” She flapped her hand at Hild’s worry. “In a fortnight you won’t even remember how it was to be a child. Besides”—she took Hild’s hand—“it’s happened. There’s nothing to be done. And I’m here. Your gemæcce.”

“But—”

“No buts. No nothing. It is as it is. How does that new scop’s song go?”

“Fate goes ever as it must.”

“Just so. Cian’s a man now. A hero. You’re a woman. So are you ready to try again, with the band?”

Fate goes ever as it must.
Hild bent her head, to all of it.

This time when the circle pressed on her head, she was ready. I’m not a child in hall, she told herself. We’re none of us children.

“Stand up. Now put this on.” Begu handed her the purse the queen had given her. “And your seax. There.” Begu’s face stilled. Her hands dropped into her lap. She smiled: slow, surprised, proud. “Your mother will never tell you what to do again.” Again that smile. “Wait there.”

She stood, poured drinking water into the clothes bucket until it brimmed and trembled.

“Now come and see. No, wait. I forgot. I have a present for you.” She jumped on the bed, stood carefully, and felt along the shelf for the twin of the clumsily painted box she’d given Hild. “Here.” Earrings. Moss agate strung on gold wire. “Keep still. Oh. Oh, yes. They match your eyes exactly. And this.” She tucked an ivory distaff through the girdle, a match to the one at her own waist, then jumped off the bed. “Now come and look.” Hild came and stood next to her. “You look like a queen.”

Hild looked down at her reflection. A tall, obdurate woman gazed back. Blue-green veil band embroidered with gold-and-silver thread, sewn with lapis and agate and beryl. Agate swinging from each ear. Heavy yellow gold resting between her breasts. Dyed-blue girdle. A matching purse with ivory lid. Distaff.

She reeked of power: richly dressed, strong-boned, uncanny. She laid her hand on her seax and gave herself a long look. Begu was right. No one would be fool enough to get in the way of this woman. She looked like a pale and unearthly queen.

“You could order flame to leap back into the log and it would,” Begu said.

Hild smiled, feeling the power of it. The smile turned the unearthly queen to a haggard and bony youth playing dress-up. She stepped back, startled.

Gwladus burst in. “Ha,” she said, and put a massive tray on the table. “Scrying for your fortunes? Well, here’s some news for you. Lilla is dead as a doornail. The king’s roaring like a bear stuck with a pin but is said to be breathing easy now. They say tomorrow he’ll be none the worse for wear than that scratch on his arm. Arddun said the witch, that is, begging your pardon, the lady Breguswith, sniffed the blade and thought the poison poor work.”

“Poison?” Begu looked at Hild.

Poison.

“What?” said Gwladus.

“Tell me of the poison.”

“He couldn’t talk, Lintlaf said. Tongue sticking out like a dead thing. And he was dizzy and cold. His heart kicked. But he’s fine now. As I said.”

Poison. “I’m fine,” she said to Begu. If it was Eamer’s blade that nicked her shin, it was poor work indeed. “Go on.”

“The bishop is telling everyone God saved the king. The king is shouting for his army and vowing fit to turn black in the face. He’s shouting at the bishop that if the Christ will give him bloody victory over the West Saxons, he, the king, will give his new daughter for baptism to the Christ. The bishop is shouting at his priests to pray for victory. The captains are shouting for their men—and at each other, for both Lilla and Forthere are dead and no one knows who’s in charge. Lintlaf just shakes his head and the brothers Berht scowl like black dogs. The queen is shouting at her women to shut the king up or he’ll wake the baby. The baby is crying. The baby’s name will be Eanflæd. Her hair is black and her eyes blue. And she’s a pair of lungs on her. Pink and plump and loud as a sow.”

“Cian?”

“He’s fine, Lintlaf says. He’s under guard til tomorrow when everyone’s calmed down—but guarded by your dogs, who think he’s a hero.”

She gauged the impact of her news, nodded in satisfaction, then whipped the cloth off the tray, and began to point. “I brought the white mead, and sweet pastries, and an underbelt for the rags. There’s so much shouting that no one cares what leaves the kitchen tonight.”

“See?” Begu said. “There’s nothing you can do. He’s fine. You’re fine. Now we celebrate.”

They feasted and drank, fierce swallows to themselves as gemæcce, to Æthelburh and Eanflæd, to the king for surviving, to Gwladus for the feast, to Arddun for the news, to Cian.

“He’ll get a ring for this night’s work, Lintlaf says,” Gwladus said. By now it seemed natural that their wealh should be sitting on the bed with them, sipping from a walnut cup with a silver rim. “A young gesith who saved the king. It’s like one of the old songs.”

“Cian saved the king!” Begu said. She jumped off the bed and danced about with her mead. “Cian saved the king!”

For some reason they all found this funny.

More drinking, more toasts, then they were kneeling by the brimming water bucket watching as Gwladus blew out all the tapers and lit a twist of hemp fibre floating in a dish of tallow.

After the white wax light, bright as moonlight, the broad flame flaring and dying in the rough clay dish felt like something from the beginning of the world. The water gleamed, ochre and black.

“Look, you,” Gwladus said. “Look into the water and tell us what you see.”

“Yes,” said Begu, “oh yes! Do seer magic.”

Hild looked down at the water, at herself, a woman. A woman who knows. Standing like a queen. Light of the world. Queen of the world.

“I could be a queen,” she said.

“Is that what you see? Is that your wyrd?”

Hild looked deeper, letting her mind sink into the glimmer and shadow, as she might in the wood, looking at the leaves, or lying on her back watching the clouds, letting the thoughts come, letting the things she already knew arrange themselves in a pattern, a story that others might call a prophecy.

“Is that your wyrd?” Begu said again.

“No.” There was no world in which she would be queen to another’s king. Eanflæd would be peaceweaver. She was the light of the world.

“And what about Cian?”

“Shh,” Gwladus said, “she’s seeing.”

Cian. Gwladus was right. He would swear an oath to the king, swear to lay his life down for the king’s honour. He would be a hero with a ringed sword. And more, for Lilla was dead, and Forthere, and Edwin wouldn’t know whom to trust, and Cian had proved his loyalty. Edwin … She shook her head.

“What? What are you seeing now? What’s she seeing now?”

“Hush,” said Gwladus, and to Hild, in British, “Drink this. Ah, and another sip. Now look you, look deeper.”

And with the mead burning in her gullet, Hild felt all-wise, all-seeing, all-powerful.

She looked in the water, watched the rippling faces of her companions. Rustic little Begu, who knew nothing of the world. Gwladus, a wealh of the Dyfneint, who just wanted to go home. And perhaps she would. A Gewisse had tried to kill the king, a Gewisse who had forsworn himself.