Hild

13

BEGU’S HAIR STRAYED FROM UNDER HER VEIL BAND and she muttered to herself as she folded dresses and rolled hose. Her muttering became peevish. The war band had been gone a fortnight.

“Gwladus will do that,” Hild said.

“Gwladus is busy doing the work of all the men who left with the gesiths. I’m doing this.”

Hild doubted Gwladus would ever do men’s work, but she said nothing. She leaned against the doorpost, remembering Mulstanton, Begu wondering out loud whether she would need her bed.

Begu carefully stowed their ivory treasure boxes in the carved trunk that would ride under their direct supervision. “I don’t even see why we have to leave the Derwent. Eanflæd is still so tiny!”

Hild shrugged. “It’s how it is.”

“Why can’t we at least wait until the war band comes back?”

They wouldn’t all come back; they never did. And this time Cian was with them.

“I wouldn’t move a lamb at that age, never mind a princess!”

Hild nodded.

“What’s Sancton like? Is it near the sea?”

“No. But Brough, where we’ll go later, is on a river as wide as the sea, and sometimes if you’re at the dock early enough you can go out on a boat that will go to the sea and be back in time for dinner.”

“But not at Sancton.”

“No.”

“I miss the gulls.”

Hild stroked the back of Begu’s arm. “I’m sorry we have no home.”

Begu said without turning, “Moving is stupid!”

Her hair smelt of the resiny pine they used to ward off moths. Hild didn’t know what to say.

“Oh, just go away and let me finish this in peace. I think the queen wants to talk to you about something.”

At the door of the queen’s apartment, Hild put her finger to her lips for a moment and old Wulfhere, who had taken a spear behind the knee at some long-ago Kentish battle, nodded and said nothing.

She watched Wilnoð and the queen, who sat on stools with a tablet weave between them. Every now and again Wilnoð tapped the foot of the painted and gilded cradle and kept it rocking.

After a moment Hild cleared her throat. Wilnoð looked up. “Good,” she said. “You can take the queen out for a brisk walk. Accept no excuse.” The queen began to shake her head. “The babe’s asleep, Æthelburh. She won’t melt if you let her out of your sight. Go for a walk.”

The string-thin paths of early spring were wider now, wide enough for the queen and Hild to walk abreast. The soft green tapestry of the woods was stitched with the bright gleam of birdcall, too many birds to name.

They walked silently. It was clear the queen’s thoughts were elsewhere. Or she was trying to find a way to say something.

They’d been walking now for a while. The queen seemed to have forgotten that they should pause for Wulfhere to catch up but Hild felt no obligation to remind her.

They heard the creak-crash of a deer deep in the woods, followed by a sudden hammering nearby. Æthelburh clutched at her cross.

“It’s a woodpecker,” Hild said.

“Not a wood sprite?”

Hild shook her head. The hammering, loud—a big woodpecker—came closer. “If we keep still it might fly this— There.” A red plumb-bob shape flicked across the trail in the characteristic rise-and-dip path. It would be heading for the big oak by the clearing. Woodpeckers liked that one; she had seen the plates of bark there the other day; the tree must be infested. Perhaps it would fall in the next big storm, be nothing but broken wood when they came back to the Derwent. Once again, Hild was struck with longing to have a home, year-round, where she could watch and learn a wood, a stream, a hillside in snow and fog and sun, in wind and rain, in summer and winter. Begu was right. Moving all the time was stupid.

“Begu misses the sound of gulls,” she said. “She misses her home. I never had one. Do you miss yours?”

Æthelburh stroked her cross. “When Eanflæd fell asleep last night I listened for the sound of the wheat. In the Kentish summer it rattles and hisses in the breeze. Everywhere. Wherever you look, from every vill: golden wheat waving like the sea.”

Hild felt she should offer the queen something, as a comfort. If it were up to her she would climb the ash and watch the badgers, this was just the kind of weather that badgers liked: warm sun to drag out their bedding to air. But she doubted the queen would want to climb a tree and, besides, badgers reminded her of Osric.

“Do you want to go see the rookery?”

“I would be happy to watch the rooks with you.”

Hild led them onto another, barely discernible path and the scent changed from summery open green to something cooler and loamier. Apart from that once with Begu, on the day they became gemæcce, she was the only one who walked this way. After a week with no rain the rivulet ran clear and quiet, and instead of the vivid primroses of spring, its narrow banks bloomed with blue cornflowers and a spill of delicate creamy yellow petals, over which no butterflies flittered. Bitterwort. An antidote for several poisons, and good for fevers and fatigue. Her mother was always looking for it but the root was the best part and it wouldn’t be ready until autumn, when they wouldn’t be here.

After a little while, the small, densely packed ash and elder gave way to a clearing and, beyond that, a stand of tall elms. The ground beneath the rookery was white with bird shit. The kah-kah of young birds, recently fledged but still wanting to be by their parents, echoed through the trees.

They sat quietly on a rock, beyond the patch of shit. The breeze was soft and warm. They watched the birds.

“They look like crows,” Æthelburh said.

“They’re young. They’ll lose those face feathers in autumn and look like rooks. At least, that’s what happens at Goodmanham and York.”

Æthelburh’s face, pale and plump for a week or two after the birth, was beginning to plane down again. Her eyes were half closed.

Hild lost herself for a while in the gossiping to-and-fro of the young birds. The breeze changed slightly, coming now from the south as well as the west. Coming from where Cian was. Perhaps he was fighting. Perhaps he was hurt. Gradually she became aware that Æthelburh, no longer sleepy, was watching her.

“You look like that when you listen to music,” she said. “You watch everything, don’t you? Why?”

“It’s peaceful. I learn things.”

Æthelburh untied her braid and began combing through it with her fingers. “What things?”

“That rooks—dogs, cats, people—do some kinds of things depending on how old they are. Like those young rooks. In autumn they’ll lose their face feathers, and they’ll start playing—flying for the fun of it, only they’re not doing it for the fun of it, they’re proving they’re good enough for the rookery, that they can stay. Like gesiths with their boasting and fighting. And rooks are like jackdaws—like people. They have families. They talk. They don’t like change. There’s an ash spinney a mile away where they like to go pluck the twigs for their nest. Always the same place; one patch is almost bare of twigs. But they’re just twigs, why fly all that way? I don’t know. But that’s what they do.”

Æthelburh untangled a burr from her hair and flicked it away. “And what do dogs and cats do?”

“Dogs own space and cats own time.”

Æthelburh’s hands paused for a moment, then resumed their comb-and-pick.

“The cats share the barn and the byre. All of them. But you’ve seen the big ginger tom with the torn ear?” For a moment she couldn’t remember which vill he belonged to. It didn’t matter. “He gets to sit on the hay bale by the door at middæg. The two grey queens curl up there at æfen. The tom wouldn’t go there in the evening, and the queens wouldn’t go there at middæg. But a dog in hall or the kennel likes his own corner, morning, noon, and night. That’s his corner, no one else’s.”

“And people?”

“Kings travel from place to place like a cat but want to own those places like a dog. It’s why there are wars.”

The queen blinked. “And the queen?”

“The queen…” She was realising she’d just compared Æthelburh’s husband to a dog. “The queen is like a new bird in the colony. She finds new grubs, builds new nests as her price for belonging.” Hild tilted her head back, in the direction of the vill.

“Derventio was Paulinus’s idea. A lot of things are Paulinus’s idea.”

Ah. She waited.

“Like Eanflæd’s baptism. It was agreed as part of the marriage settlement—any girl would be mine to baptise—but the timing… That’s Paulinus.”

Some hint was moving, eellike, just out of Hild’s reach. “Have you had news?”

“No. But it will come. The king, my husband, will be victorious. He’ll return laden with gold and glory to Sancton, where Eanflæd will be baptised as my husband’s tribute to God, the first Yffing.”

It didn’t need a seer to foretell that. An Anglisc overking with a huge war band against a rabble of petty Saxon lords, all calling themselves king. The only question was how long it would take to subdue them, and who Edwin would install as his underking.

“Don’t you see, child, what I’m telling you? When we get to Sancton, Eanflæd will be baptised. She will need powerful sisters and brothers in baptism. I had thought of asking you, but you’re Yffing. Blood kin. My husband will not allow any greater tribute than an infant. You can’t be baptised until he is. And he won’t take baptism yet—though when he does, all must follow. Do you understand what I’m saying? Those who go first will find themselves in positions of favour. It happened in my father’s court.”

“But as you say, I’m blood kin.”

“Your mother is not. Nor your… your gemæcce’s foster-brother. You might mention it to them.”

In the half-light of the byre, Hild smoothed her girdle self-consciously.

“It suits you,” Fursey said. While his voice was as light as ever it sounded a little scratched, a little hollow, and she had not missed the way the bones of his wrist stuck out, the hole in his boot, and the small tear in his skirts. He smelt of dust, not horse. He had walked.

“What happened to your mount? We’re leaving for Sancton tomorrow. You nearly missed us. Why did you run? Why were you away so long?”

“I shouldn’t have come back at all.”

Hild just waited.

Fursey laughed. “Oh, you’ve learnt a vast great deal since Tinamutha. I’ll miss you.”

I’ll miss you. Sometimes if you ignored things they went away. “Eanflæd is to be baptised.”

He raised his eyebrows, which only emphasised how drawn his face seemed. “You’ve heard already? I thought I’d outpaced that news.”

“News?”

“Your king is proceeding in triumph to Sancton with most of the war band, claiming the death of five Saxon kings—if a kingdom is a stony field and a muddy stream. Though sadly Cwichelm and Cynegils are not among the dead. They’re still running, pursued by threescore of the war band under Eadfrith. And, no, I’ve no news of Cian.”

He’d be fine. He would. “How soon will they be in Sancton?”

“Six days from now perhaps. They have wounded.”

Not Cian. Cian would be fine. “The queen said a strange thing.”

“Yes?” He sounded so very tired.

“She said my mother, and Cian, should take baptism.”

“Did she now?”

“She said it would give them power and influence.” Fursey nodded. “But why would she want my mother to have that? I don’t think she likes her.”

“She does like you.” He smiled, but tiredly. “And you’re both blood. She’s trying to protect you.”

From the king. From Paulinus. From Cadwallon and all the conspirators who wanted her dead for no other reason than she was an Yffing.

“Child, I’m weary to the bone and I must leave again soon enough, so—”

“You can ride with me to Sancton. As we travel you can tell me about baptism.”

“I’ll tell you everything you could possibly wish to know about the holy rite of baptism, but I won’t be going to Sancton.”

Silence.

He said, more gently, “I must leave. For good. Your king can’t trust me.”

“I don’t understand. You didn’t do anything wrong. I can explain—”

“My king is dead. Fiachnae mac Báetáin, king of the Dál nAriadne, was slain by Fiachnae mac Demmáin of the Dál Fiatach. At Lethet Midind. Three of the Idings fought at my king’s side.”

Idings. The friend of my enemy is my enemy.

Hild stood. “I’ll find you a horse.”

“Oh, sit, for pity’s sake. I’ve a night’s grace. As long as I’m not seen.”

One night. “I’ll send at least for food.”

“I would like that. Have your three-scilling wealh bring it for me. She knows how to keep her mouth shut. And I’d like to see her wicked face one more time before I trudge my weary way into the unknown.”

“I won’t be long.”

When she got back, Fursey was curled on the straw, asleep. His face twitched as he dreamt; a gold fleck of straw glinted by his nostril. Priest, prince of Munster. A shabby man without a king. Without a home. Fursey. Who had taught her her letters.

He stirred when she sat on the bale next to his.

“Gwladus is bringing cold mutton, bread, and cheese.”

He scratched his stubbled tonsure.

“You need a shave.”

“What I really need is a drink.”

“Gwladus is bringing heather beer—everything else is packed.”

His lip curled, but his scorn was halfhearted.

“Fursey?” He looked at her. “What will you do?”

“Drink the jar dry.”

“No, I mean—”

“I know what you mean, child.” He rubbed his chin. It made a dry scritching. “I’ll leave tomorrow. I’ve a fancy to see your sister again. She’d welcome me, do you think?”

“My sister? Hereswith?”

“You have another?”

“No. I mean, yes. Oh, yes.” Of course she’d welcome him. He was Fursey.

“And she needs to learn to read. Once the overking’s daughter is named for Christ, it won’t be long before Paulinus is forcing the whole island to dip their heads and kiss his ring. Hereswith will need advice.”

Fursey and Hereswith. Hereswith and Fursey. If she knew where he was, if she could write to him, he wouldn’t be gone. And she could write to her sister. They wouldn’t be lost to her.

Gwladus brought the food. Fursey was too tired to do more than smile, and Gwladus seemed to catch his mood. She put the tray on the ground, nodded, and left.

Hild sat down next to him. “Tell me about baptism.”

He talked as he ate. Hild was content to watch, to try to carve the picture of him on her mind.

Baptism, he said, a lamb bone in his hand, was getting your sins washed away.

“What’s a sin?”

“It’s… well now, it’s a kind of stepping from the path. A wrongdoing.” At Hild’s blank look he said, “An oath-breaking against God.”

“A sinner is a nithing?” Cian wouldn’t want to be thought of as a nithing.

Fursey drank more deeply of his beer, clearly wishing he had not embarked on an explanation.

Another thought occurred to Hild. “But if you haven’t taken an oath to the Christ, how can you break it? How can you have sins?”

“We’re all born sinners. All born with a stain on our soul.”

“A stain?” Like a birthmark?

“Some more than others. Perhaps that’s why the queen suggests—” He shook his head. “Ah, but don’t worry about it. Paulinus will explain everything to you long before your own baptism.”

“I don’t like Paulinus.”

“No one does but Paulinus.”

“If I get baptised, I want you to do it.”

Fursey paused, cup halfway to his mouth. “You don’t want me to baptise you, child—hush, now. You had best get used to being called child. It’s what priests do with their flock because we represent God on earth, and you are God’s children.”

“So are you.”

“Don’t interrupt. Paulinus won’t take kindly to being interrupted. Listen to me now. When the time comes to be baptised, let Paulinus do it. He’s a bishop, perhaps to be an overbishop. And baptism is like…” He drank his beer, wiped his mouth, refilled his cup, considered. He switched to Irish. “Baptism is very much like a sword in this way: that the man whose hands the sword or the soul passes through adds his lustre. Just as an overking’s sword is more noble than a thegn’s, a bishop’s blessing is more holy than a priest’s, which in turn is better than a deacon’s. It’s the way of the world, which is to say, the way of men—who, being created in God’s image, reflect His intentions for the world.”

“You were baptised by Brendan himself, so why aren’t you a bishop?”

“Well, now, perhaps I will be. Just not today, and not here.”

A little after dawn the next day, she walked with him as he led his mare down the path to the daymark elms. They stopped.

“Well,” he said, and hitched at his belt.

Hild didn’t know what to say.

“This time it will be long and long before we meet again.”

Her throat closed.

“Well,” he said once more, and he looked small and tired and she couldn’t bear it. She opened her arms and hugged him, hard. He patted her back. Patted her again. “Child, I can’t breathe.”

She let go. It was like letting go of the world.

His eyes glistened. “Help me up now.”

She made a stirrup for him. His shin was dirty. It would be dirtier before the end of his travel. Such a long way to go. All alone.

She heaved.

He looked down at her. “Goodbye, now, Hild, daughter of Yffings. Fare well.”

Yffings didn’t weep. But she watched him, watched the path until even the dust of his passing had fallen.

In the predawn light, thin and grey as skimmed milk, mist rose from the river, cool and smelling of secrets. A bittern boomed from the marshy plash downriver but fell silent at the approach of thirty people, eleven in white wool robes—twelve if you counted little Eanflæd, fast asleep in her swaddling and snug in the queen’s arms. Ducks rose in a flurry of wings and honked into the distance. Something splashed hurriedly into the water, out of sight.

Stephanus led the procession, swinging a brass censer. It kept going out. It was out now, but no one mentioned it. Getting to the baptism place on the river was the important thing, not stopping to fuss with burning Frankish resins. Few of them knew what to expect, but they all knew rivers flow with sidsa, especially near dawn. The air trembled with it, like the skin of a colt standing still but longing to run, run, run over the rich new grass.

James the Deacon led his six-man choir in a low spoken chant. One of them, the straw-haired youth with the freckles, kept stumbling over the words. Everyone ignored that, too.

Someone’s belly rumbled. Berhtnoth nudged Berhtred and whispered. Berhtred hitched at a sword belt that wasn’t there, then wrapped his arms tightly around his wool-draped middle. Their hair, like Cian’s, glistened. Everyone was hungry. Paulinus had insisted that those to be baptised not eat in order that their bodies be empty and pure enough to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the queen had suggested that the whole party forgo food.

Cian, like Breguswith, like the four members of James’s choir, like Burgmod and Eadric the Brown, Grimhun and the brothers Berht, had been persuaded of the political advantages of baptism. Hild and Edwin’s other kin—the æthelings, Osric, and Oswine and Osthryth—must follow Edwin’s example, and Edwin, before making a decision, wanted to see with his own eyes what happened when some finger of Christ’s spirit took up residence in a body.

Hild walked with Begu behind the candidates in white: all treading carefully, unwilling in the strange mist-wrapped half-light to break a twig in passing; they didn’t want to attract the attention of any ghosts, holy or otherwise. Fursey had been a little vague about the Holy Ghost; Hild thought perhaps it was some kind of godly cousin, an otherworldly ealdorman of the Christ. She wondered if she would see it. The morning was certainly uncanny enough.

Begu leaned in to whisper, “Eanflæd wouldn’t be sleeping like that if she was hungry.”

Hild said nothing. She didn’t want to talk. Fursey had told her that today would be the feast of Pentecost, which commemorated tiny tongues of flame dancing on saints’ heads. She wanted to see that. No wonder they did this by a river. She hoped Cian wouldn’t get burnt.

She had warned him about the flames. He had wetted his head as a precaution. The brothers Berht had followed his lead.

She hadn’t cried when Fursey left. Yet now, as they trod solemnly towards Sancton’s river for this Christ mystery, she found she had to swallow and blink fiercely and try not to listen for his mocking Irish voice that made everything seem less important, less frightening.

At the great curve in the river where the north bank was low and the current slow, a swath of reeds, recently cut, was laid in a green path over the mud to the water. Paulinus, resplendent in his jewelled cope and carrying his gilded shepherd’s crook in his left hand, stopped and raised both hands. Stephanus stopped swinging and clanking. James quieted his chant.

Hild and her mother raised their heads, alert to the pattern. They were about to meet their new god.

There was no sound now but the river.

Paulinus cried out, a great shout in Latin. Another great shout, something about eternal life and the seal of God, and Stephanus, James, and the choir all shouted in unison.

The river poured.

“Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee,” he shouted in Anglisc, “into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

“Amen,” said the priest and the choir and Æthelburh.

Paulinus shouted some more, and his normally waxy face began to flush as he warmed to his theme. He spoke too fast, and his accent was too strange for Hild to follow every word, but he seemed to be talking to someone called Satan. He sounded like a herald provoking an opposing army, taunting them with their imminent defeat, boasting of his champion’s skills and the worthlessness of his enemy.

Paulinus’s cheeks grew mottled. He waved his crook. Hild wondered if it was a good idea to provoke an uncanny enemy when the sun was not quite risen. She glanced to her left, to the north and east—she wasn’t the only one—but there was no sign of Satan and his army in the shadowed woods.

The sky began to pale in earnest; a blackbird sang, then stopped abruptly.

Paulinus stopped, too. He smiled and gestured to Æthelburh—who glanced at Edwin and took his left arm with her right—and then to Stephanus, who came forward with a white-and-gold stole and laid it around his neck. Hild found herself, along with everyone else, leaning forward.

Paulinus and Stephanus waded thigh deep into the river and turned. The king and queen followed.

The spot was carefully chosen. The water was not still—for that would be dangerous; sprites liked quiet water—nor was it swift enough to sweep a mother off her feet. Even so, and even with her husband to steady her, Æthelburh stopped when the river lapped at her knees.

For a moment, Hild thought Paulinus would refuse to step closer, but Stephanus stepped first and the Crow had no choice but to follow. Stephanus uncapped one of the tiny silver pots at his waist and held it out.

If Satan were to come, it would be soon. Hild longed for her seax, or even Cian’s hidden buckle knife.

“Face west,” Paulinus said. The king and queen turned cautiously to face upstream. Paulinus dipped his thumb in the pot. It glistened a little. He traced a cross on baby Eanflæd’s forehead. She opened her eyes and made a questioning sound. Stephanus stowed the pot in his belt and brought out a different one.

“Do you, Æthelburh, on behalf of your daughter, renounce Satan and all his works?”

Hild tensed. She was so aware of the position of her mother and Cian and Begu that she could feel them like firelight on her skin.

“I do,” Æthelburh said in a clear, strong voice.

“Face east,” Paulinus said, as a king would speak to a wealh.

Edwin narrowed his eyes but the Crow did not blink. Edwin turned. The river pushed at the back of their knees.

Paulinus bent and scooped a double handful of water. “In the name of the Father”—he dribbled water on Eanflæd’s head—“and the—”

The rest was lost in the baby’s piercing shrieks.

The gesiths all crouched—Hild very nearly did—then straightened. The shrieks seemed to break the spell: It was just a river before dawn, with people getting wet. Hild saw her mother’s shoulders drop at the same time as she herself realised this was not unlike one of Coifi’s blessings—and they had never met Woden.

Paulinus trickled more water and raised his voice, though no one could tell what he was saying. He wiped at the struggling child’s head with his stole, then dipped his thumb in the second pot and touched her head, then nose, then breast. The outraged shrieks grew louder. Paulinus, unmoved, signed the cross in the air over father, mother, and daughter just as light broke over the river.

“Oh, you should have seen it!” Begu said later to Gwladus. “The baby never shut up, and the Crow scowled at James, and James nodded at his choir to sing, but they started on different notes and it sounded like the cows at Mulstanton when they haven’t been milked! And then James waded into the river at the head of the others to be baptised, and he bumped into the king. They nearly went down, splosh. Wonder if the Christ would have saved them then? If the king’d had a sword at least one priest would be headless now. But the big surprise was Cian. The queen stood for his godmother! Took even the Crow by surprise.”

It had taken them all by surprise, especially Hild. She didn’t know much about baptism, but she knew royal favour.

“Cian’s mouth dropped so wide I thought he’d drown when Stephanus and James dipped him backwards in the river. They did it three times. Once for the Father, once for the Son, and once for the Holy Ghost. But the sun was up by then so we didn’t see any ghosts. Not that they might not all be ghosts by next week. You should have heard their teeth chattering on the way back!”

She was exaggerating. The sun had been high as they walked along the river, the choir singing and censer swinging. It had glinted on the wet hair of the gesiths and Breguswith—who had not been forcibly bent backwards like the men, but held at an angle while Paulinus dribbled water on the crown of her head.

Hild had walked next to her mother. Breguswith didn’t seem any different, apart from being wet, but she was not inclined to talk—she had always had a fine sense of occasion, and Hild had told her what Fursey had said, that she was supposed to be filled with grace, washed clean, serene; Breguswith was determined to play the part. Hild then walked with Cian. He didn’t talk, either. He hadn’t talked much since his return from fighting the Saxons with what looked like a bite mark along his jaw. “The shield wall is like being thrown into a pit with boars and blood,” he’d said. “A striving of mud, and muscle, and madness.” And he had refused to say more. The bite was healing. Perhaps baptism would wash him clean of the things he had done.

Hild stayed at his side, content to walk in silence and watch a covey of mallards, all drakes, green heads sparkling in the sun as they dove and preened and made their own kind of baptism.