Hild: A Novel (9 page)

Hild did what she always did when she couldn’t influence a thing; she stopped thinking about it.

Cwenburh was sitting quietly, leaning against Teneshild, who was laughing at Æffe, who was pointing at the newly whitewashed wall opposite the doorway. “Yes,” Æffe was saying. “Coloured paint on the walls, like the undercroft in York. Anything you like. I saw it in Frankia, oh, long ago.”

“A picture of anything?” Teneshild said.

“The queen had a picture of rutting couples which she kept covered by a tapestry except when she and her women would be undisturbed.”

Now everyone was listening.

“Hung like stallions, they were.”

“Sounds uncomfortable to me,” Burgen said.

Several women shifted on their stools.

“Mind you, in my younger days I saw a man once who would have put old Thuddor the Yeavering bull to shame.”

“Only saw?” Burgen said.

“Yes,” Æffe said with such regret that they all laughed. “He was my brother’s cowherd. He’d been rounding up the calves for gelding. It was a hot day. He didn’t know I was there. He pulled off his tunic and just poured water all over himself.” She grinned. “The water was very cold. He might have looked like Thuddor before he got wet but more like a freemartin after.”

Off-colour jokes followed, until Burgen began a more serious talk about how to keep your cunny slick so you could take your man inside as many times as you wanted, no matter how big his stick. She had dismissed goose grease, pondered flaxseed oil, and was about to discuss the merits of Frankish walnut oil when Cwenburh straightened and said, “Have you ever seen a fountain?”

A few older, well-travelled women, who knew what a fountain was, smiled, expecting another joke.

Burgen obliged. “All husbands are fountains if you treat them right.”

“No,” the queen said. “A real fountain, built of stone. Have you seen one?” In the strange white wax light, she looked pale. “I’ve heard that there’s one up by the great wall, at Caer Luel, a fountain that still works. That’s the picture I’d like on my bedchamber wall.”

“What’s a fountain?” Leofe said.

“It’s a white stone spout in a white stone courtyard from which water squirts like a whale’s breath.”

“Truly?” said Ædilgith.

“Oh, yes,” said Æffe, “and then the whole thing bursts into song and flies away.”

“No,” said Cwenburh, “no, it’s real. A Christ priest told me of it, once. He said in summer it was like standing by a waterfall, cool as a cave. Imagine, being cool as a cave in the middle of summer.” She wiped her neck. She was sweating. In winter.

Hild looked around, saw her mother watching the queen intently.

“A fountain,” Cwenburh said. “I would like a fountain. A picture of one at least, so that when I lie on my bed, when I lie on my bed…” And she bent suddenly in the middle like a hairpin.

Teneshild put a hand on Cwenburh’s shoulder. “My queen?”

Cwenburh cried out, forlorn as a bird in a net.

Breguswith stood. “Lie her down, lie her down now. Loosen her girdle.”

“It’s the babe,” Teneshild said.

“Yes, and too early. Hild, bring me my bundle. Ædilgith, go fetch cold water—cold, mind, for drinking—and you, ladies, if you will,” this to Æffe and Burgen, “please gather the tapers so I can see, and send everyone away, and then ask the housefolk for hot water. Mildburh, Hereswith, stay with me. The queen will have need of a kinswoman at this hour. No,” she said to Teneshild, who was lifting the curtain to Cwenburh’s bed alcove, “there’s no time for that. Onnen, help me.”

There was no time for anything. No time for Ædilgith to return with water, no time for farewells, time only for one long wail and a great slow seep of blood and a sigh, and the queen was dead.

Hild regarded her mother as she closed the queen’s eyes. Her mother’s hair was no longer the same colour as Hereswith’s. The rich honey shine was duller, as though dusted with ash, the way petals lose their brilliance before they shrivel and fall. But Hereswith was about to bloom. And thanks to her mother, when the time came she would take her place as peaceweaver.

Breguswith looked up, saw Hild watching her, and smiled. She didn’t say anything, but Hild knew what she was thinking: Thanks to me your prophecy has now come true. The king will give us everything we have dreamt of.

*   *   *

Hild lay on her stomach in the loft of the new Yeavering byre, looking down through the platform timbers at the old tom who liked to curl up in the straw between the milch cows. The faggots of tree hay prickled through her underdress but she barely noticed. Part of her mind was on the tom—his left ear was missing in a line too clean to be from a cat fight—and part was daydreaming of the war trail. She was going with the king and his war band when summer turned from green to gold. She would see a fountain, deeds worthy of song. She might be the one they sang about. She was the light of the world. Everything she said became true.

The tom liked to clean himself before curling up. He always began with his balls. He reminded her of the old thegns who had once been gesiths but now lived on land given by the king. When they came to visit they scratched themselves in hall, and after too much mead bored the young gesiths with stories of how hard it had been in their day, swearing that, by Thunor, if they didn’t have responsibilities at home, they’d stand with them in the shield wall and the youngsters would see a thing or two!

Perhaps she’d get to see a shield wall. Perhaps she would see patterns that no one else could. She might be worth a score of gesiths to a king who would listen …

The tom had cleaned his balls and his belly and was now working on his forepaws in that on-off, this-then-that way that meant he was falling asleep, when Hild heard her mother’s low voice.

“… can not. No. Anglisc ladies don’t tread the war trail.”

“But lowly wealh do?” Onnen. They were right beneath her. “For pity’s sake, she’s a child.”

She couldn’t see them; the gap between the timbers was in the wrong place. She inched to the edge of the platform then stopped. If they were facing her way they’d see her if she peered over. She flattened herself to the boards, willed her heart to stop its noisy banging, and listened hard.

“… she’s Yffing,” her mother was saying.

“She’s
nine
.”

“Needs must.” Rustle of straw, catch of fingernail on cloth. Her mother stepping forward to put her hand on Onnen’s arm? “And Edwin was just through those territories on his way to Vannin. Most of them. They know his strength. They can’t match it. They won’t try. She’ll be safe enough. And think: months under the eye of the king as the light of the world. Months!”

“And months for you out of the eye of the king to weave your schemes.”

Silence. Hild knew that silence and wasn’t surprised by her mother’s cool tone. “Hereswith needs training. Here.”

Here.
Hild frowned.

“Please,” her mother said, and Hild’s heart squeezed. She had never heard her mother say
please
. “Keep her safe for me.”

Onnen sighed. “And if I can’t?”

“You will.”

Hild tried to sort it out. Her mother wasn’t coming. She was staying to train Hereswith. Her mother and Hereswith weren’t coming.

“… not like you,” Onnen was saying. “Some of the choices I make—you won’t like them.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?” And now her mother sounded weary, which frightened Hild even more.

Rustle, flick. The sound of women turning to go, making sure their wrist cuffs and veils were in order.

Wait, she thought. Wait. She didn’t want to go on the war trail. She didn’t want to be part of a song. She wanted to stay with her mother.

She rolled onto her back and stared at the rafters. It didn’t matter. The king had already said yes, and when the king said yes, that was that. She was going, with or without her mother.
Yffing
, her mother had said
. Needs must.
And
Please
.

When she peered over the edge of the loft platform, the old tom was gone. If she never came back, would anyone miss him?

4

I
N DAYS PAST
, when Morcant the Murderer was king of the Bryneich and Hereric the ætheling expected to be king when his father died, and Edwin was only the spare, the track to the coastal hill fort of Colud had seen more than one ambush. And, indeed, as the war band—Lilla in front with the great banner, then Edwin riding before three hundred gesiths and their hounds, with Hild at his left hand and the æthelings Eadfrith and Osfrith at his right—rode out of the late-afternoon sun towards the sea, Hild saw that armed and mounted Bryneich awaited them. But the shields of the men and their lord, Coledauc ap Morcant, whom men called prince, were slung on their backs not their arms, and between them, instead of a hedge of spears or a burning barrier, lay a heap of tribute.

It was a small heap, and painstakingly arranged to show all the gold on the side facing the Anglisc and gleam in the westering sun. Similarly, though the hill ponies of the Bryneich had been combed and their manes plaited, though they glittered at mouth and headstall, their tail pieces were plain, and when one stripling leaned forward to get a better look at the Anglisc, the saddle revealed by his swinging cloak looked lumpy and forlorn, showing gaps where jewels and inlay had been gouged out. Hild became aware of the height of her own gelding, the weight of her luxurious piled-weave cloak, and the great kneecap of a brooch pinned at her left shoulder.

The brooch was new to her. Earlier that day, when the war band had reined in to form up before riding out of the hills, Edwin had kneed his chestnut in front of her grey and crooked a finger at Coelgar, who turned from some serious talk with the young æthelings and tossed something gleaming. Edwin caught it. It looked heavy. He leaned forward, pinned it to her cloak, and sat back. “Better,” he said. It weighed three times the gilt-copper brooch that had seemed so massive and rich at that Modresniht not so very long ago. “Pin that other trinket out of sight. I can’t have my niece looking like a beggar.” He wheeled his horse. “Ride close to me.”

And now a Bryneich, one with a harp slung on his back rather than a shield, stared at her, at her brooch, leaned to Coledauc and whispered, and Coledauc looked directly over the heap at Hild.

Hild straightened and looked right back.

Watch men and women
, her mother had said,
put yourself inside them. Imagine what they’re thinking.

The little muscles around Coledauc’s eyes tightened. He was weighing information.

Perhaps her mother had already paid for stories to be sung, and Coledauc was thinking: It must be true, for no king in his right mind would bring a child on the war trail. The childlike thing sitting on a cygnet-coloured gelding with a silvered saddle and wearing a brooch worth a son’s ransom must be the princess niece with a reputation as a seer and sorceress. Dunod said she’d known of Ceredig.

Coledauc’s mount stepped in place then tossed its head. His fist on the reins clenched briefly and Hild imagined him wanting to back away from her: Aiiee, look at those eyes! They were boring right into him. Could she read his heart?

She gave him her best fathomless look.

Without taking his gaze from her, Coledauc nodded to his bard, who bent from his mount to lift something from the heap to join the items already lying ready across his saddle bow. The bard now fixed his gaze on her—they must think she could cast spells—and Coledauc turned to Edwin. He closed his eyes briefly, then smiled, as men do when they’re about to do something difficult but want to seem at ease, and walked his mount forward.

The tension in his shoulders and the ripple in his jaw shouted
Usurper!
, and when he spoke he shaped the Anglisc carefully, like a man mouthing something disgusting. Hild realised that every shape the man’s body made refused the words, and that the bard was nodding along. The bard had made the speech.

“… pleased to offer you a portion of the great Bryneich treasure so that we may continue to walk side by side in friendship…”

Hild watched his body and ignored the words.

Friendship! When the fathers of these Anglisc beasts had crushed his people, driven them from their rightful strongholds.

“… and welcome you to our hall.”

He braced himself, tightening down in his seat, waiting for the usurper to laugh in his face and dare him to do something about it. But Hild knew he knew there was nothing he could do. His men numbered only fifty, if you counted boys and grandfathers, and those mounted on hill ponies whose ears barely reached the Anglisc mounts’ withers.

But Edwin nodded as if to a trusted right hand, made no mention of the pitiful nature of the tribute, and began a pleasant speech back about eternal friendship and valued counsel and allies against the wolves of the Irishmen and Picts who, as everyone knew, had no honour.

Coledauc, who had been slowly loosening, stiffened at that. Hild considered.
Honour.
Perhaps Coledauc thought Edwin was making sly reference to the shameful deeds of Morcant, his father. Perhaps the king was.

But the king’s voice was smooth and Coledauc seemed to let go of his tension: If the Anglisc king spoke lies they were pleasant ones. And eventually he was done.

Coledauc beckoned to his bard. “In addition to this treasure from the Bryneich, my family wishes to offer more personal tokens of friendship. Accept, from our son, Cuncar”—three months old, Hild knew, probably blissfully sucking his toes by the hearth with his mother
—
“gifts for each of your own sons, and for your”—he cleared his throat—“your relative. The seer.”

A gift. For the seer.

The wind from the hills was picking up, blowing Ilfetu’s forelock this way and that. Hild leaned forward and brushed it out of his eyes. She felt every hair, distinct as flax.

On the beach, gulls squabbled. The bard was looking at her still. She kept her face as calm as the pool at Goodmanham as her thoughts boiled.

A gift. From a king. To her as the light of the world. What should she do?