Hild

23

HILD TOOK WHAT HAD HAPPENED, put it in a box, wrapped it with a chain, and buried it deep. She wore the ring. She was the king’s fist. She felt nothing, cared for no one.

She rode with James to York—Craven would have to wait—while Edwin and Paulinus took the war band to Elmet for the muster. Eadfrith would join him there, and Osric and his Craven thegns, and thegns from south Bernicia, Deira, and Elmet with their men. Gwynedd was the greatest kingdom of the British, rich with trade, strong with alliances in Ireland, the north and west, and Less Britain. Cadwallon would field many blades, and good ones. But Edwin would bring more, and better. This time Cadwallon’s neck would meet Edwin’s sword and Cadwallon’s bishops would kiss the Crow’s ring.

Hild and James arrived in York, where the queen and the infant heir, and all the queen’s women, joined them from Derventio to lock themselves in the fortress. Hild, the king’s niece, the king’s seer, gave up the king’s token to the queen and in exchange was given charge of the twoscore armed men. Men like Bassus and Oeric who had last stood in a shield wall a generation ago, or never.

But the walls were strong and the water sweet. If Eanfrith Iding brought his Picts down from the north, Osfrith and his men would stop him at the Tine. Oswald Iding was busy with the Irish. She wasn’t worried about Penda: If he was as cunning as she thought, he’d be doing nothing, simply watching and waiting to see how the balance tipped between Edwin and Cadwallon.

The queen’s women got back to work on the huge embroidery for Dagobert and the lesser one for Æthelric. The queen herself took up the reins of the wīc and the fortress. James reported to the queen, often with Breguswith and Hild at her shoulder, every middæg in the king’s chamber—for life outside the walls went on as usual. Woodcutters and charcoal burners didn’t make war. Wheat and barley grew untroubled except by weeds. Cows must be milked and butter churned in the cool of the morning.

Trade ships came and went with the tide. To the Franks, who brought wine and walnut oil in exchange for wool cloaks, it didn’t matter that Domnall Brecc was now king of the Dál Riata, that with the death of Osric Iding in the defeat of the Ulaid, the tide of the other Idings now ran very high indeed. The Frisians, who traded glass and silver for jet and tunics, didn’t care that Edwin had flung his army straight as a spear for the throat of Cadwallon to take Gwynedd before it could ally with Penda and form the solid anvil against which the Idings and the men of the north could hammer the Anglisc. The people of the Baltic, who brought amber for linen, were not interested in the grinding struggle between Sigebert and Ricberht for kingship of the East Anglisc. They cared only for the confluence of trade, the rich mix of goods from north and south, east and west.

The women grew snappish and the men surly. The army would be in Gwynedd now. Hild kept herself moving in the yard with the men, in the garth with the women, in the dairy, in the byre: If she kept moving, she didn’t have to think. She didn’t have to see into herself. If she kept moving, no one else could see into her, either. She was glad that it was easy to stay away from her mother in York.

She presented a smooth exterior, cool as enamel, to the world. She watched as the other women began to startle and clutch their crosses at every glimpse of a mail shirt turning a corner and every tramp of nailed war boots on stone, and refused to understand. Then one day, outside in the great yard watching the men try to form two shield walls, she heard the steel slither of blade from scabbard and began to turn, heart tripping, thinking Cian. She knew he was a hundred miles away, maybe lying with his guts fallen like a tangle of rope on the grass, or already dead, but for that moment she knew, just as certainly as she breathed, that it was Cian behind her.

That night she dreamt of them all dead, banners in the mud, bloodied men of Gwynedd gouging gold bosses from sword hilts and prying loose jewels; thin women stripping clothes and belts; vermin-riddled boys pulling boot nails, rummaging for blood-softened twice-baked bread. All night ravens croaked and thumped into the dream turf and flies boiled off the bodies.

The next evening, listening to the inferior scop who had been left behind, her throat tightened. He sang of war and glory and returning heroes, and Hild found herself remembering the parts Cian liked, how he sulked when she wouldn’t play the firing of the furze. The box she had buried deep rattled in its chains.

On the ninth day, in her rooms to choose a gift ring from her box, she picked up instead the cunningly nested travel cups Cian had carved from the Elmet thorn. She touched the little hedgepig and she was there, at Aberford, wreathed in the scent of smoke, listening to Grimhun sing as Cian whittled, flick flick flick, the hairs at his wrist gleaming like bronze in the firelight. She was standing by her wagon in Elmet, holding the cups: So we may drink to home wherever we are.

“Drink it.”

She blinked: Begu, sitting opposite, holding out the largest travel cup, now filled. Where had she come from?

“Drink it.”

The mead was harsh. Hild drank it without blinking, not taking her eyes off the two smaller cups, still nested together, that Begu was turning over and over in her hands.

“—horrible mead. Not surprising with Gwladus tiptoeing around like a thief waiting to have her hand struck off. What’s got into you? Oeric and Morud are half convinced you were possessed by an ælf in Craven or had your mind stolen by a river wight. It can’t go on.”

Hild didn’t understand any of this. She slid the cup forward for more. After a moment, Begu refilled it, then she separated the two remaining cups and, with utmost care, filled those, too. She pushed Hild’s towards her, picked up the medium-size cup, and raised it to the small one.

“To Cian. May he drink his portion with us soon.”

Hild didn’t realise she’d been crying until she started again.

“I thought so.” Begu fished a handkerchief from her belt and mopped at Hild’s face. “You’re messier than Eanflæd. Though not as loud. Here. Blow your nose.”

Hild obeyed.

“All done? Good. Because when you leave this room, you’ll have your head high and a light in your eye. You’re the lady Hild, the king’s seer. We’re at war. You’ll wear a happy face.”

She nudged Hild’s cup until Hild picked it up again, and lifted her own.

“To Cian,” Begu said again, deliberately, and nodded when Hild, dry-eyed, touched cups and tossed off the mead in one swallow. “Now. Listen. What’s going on with Gwladus?”

“She’s free.”

Begu huffed. “I didn’t think you’d cast a glamour and made the collar invisible. No. Look at me. Why are you being so mean to her? Anyone would think you were trying to drive her away. If that’s what you’re doing, you should just say so and put the poor woman out of her misery. Your mother would take her faster than that.” Ringing snap of fingers. “But you need her, now more than ever.”

“But she’s free.”

“Don’t be such a child. Where should she go? She wouldn’t last a day outside these walls. And working for you suits her. People step aside for her. She shines with your reflected wyrd. Like Oeric. Like Coelfrith with the king, or Stephanus with Paulinus. Why should it be any different for Gwladus just because she’s free?” She sipped at her mead, pulled a face, took another sip anyway. “You’d have to pay her a little. Especially for the bed duties.”

Hild shook her head. “No more of that.”

Begu tilted her head. “Only Cian will do?”

“No!”

“So anyone will do?”

“I can’t. Not with Cian.”

“Well, no,” Begu said. “He’s not here.”

“Not ever. You don’t understand.”

Begu laughed, but it was the same old hurt laugh she’d laughed a year ago over Uinniau. “I can recognise foals from the same stallion, even if I never met the stallion.”

Hild stared at her.

“I’m not blind. And I’m not stupid. Though a lot of other people seem to be. But he’s my foster-brother and you’re my gemæcce. So, this once, we will speak of it.”

Hild said nothing.

“So. Cian’s father is your father. But if that was common knowledge, his life would be worth nothing next time the king gets nervous. Even Cian himself doesn’t know, and you don’t want him to because he’d give it away and get himself killed. Yes?”

Hild looked at nothing in particular for a while.

Begu sighed. “But I know, just from looking at him. Your mother knows, and Onnen, of course. And you. Who else?”

Eventually Hild said, “Fursey.”

“That priest? Well.” She tilted her head, thinking. “I think the queen wonders. And what the queen knows or suspects, so does Wilnoð.”

“Bassus?”

Begu waved her free hand dismissively. “He’s just her husband.”

“The Crow.”

“Ah. Yes. He’s not stupid either, more’s the pity.”

Hild felt sick.

Begu nodded. “Too many people. One day it’ll come out.”

So many things to keep hidden. It would be easier to go to war, to charge with spear and shield, to fight in the open.

“Well, we can no more control that than we can control the birds. We can only control what we can control.”

Control. Yes. Not of the thing itself but of the understanding of the thing. That’s what she did. Nudge. Guide. Control.

“… control yourself, at least. Me, I’ll just continue to pretend I am both blind and stupid, and brightly say the things other people find foolish, and so make the truth foolish.” She squeezed Hild’s hand and let go. “Tidy your hair now, go talk to Gwladus, and set this house in order. Do rethink those bed duties. You’d only be punishing yourself and you can’t be distracted. We’re at war. You’re the king’s seer, the king’s fist in all but name. Hold your head high and tell everyone it’s going to be all right.”

Silence.

“Hild, gemæcce, we all have men at war. So tell us it will be all right. Make us believe it. Please. Tell the queen. Tell your mother. Tell me.”

Uinniau. Luftmaer the scop. The king himself. Every one of those thousand men had women waiting for news. But news would be a while. She would have to bridge the gap. She would have to do it alone. She was the king’s seer. This was her path.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll feast.”

It was a great feast. The fat of a fecund land at midsummer. Fruit, meat, bread, rich butter and sweet cream, fresh mead, the scent of roasting rosemary and thyme. At Hild’s bidding, the scop sang only glad songs, songs of hearth and home, children and harvest.

Women wore their finest, children ran between benches, laughing, and if the dogs were too few and the din of conversation lacking the deep bass rumble of the war band, no one chose to notice.

The queen moved from bench to bench with the guest cup—not white mead but the gentler, sweeter yellow summer mead—offering it to traders and drovers, sailors and farmfolk who might never drink from such a thing again.

Hild had suggested to James that he give a blessing. He should wear bright robes, and speak only of grace and good fortune, speak simply and not at length; a hall was not a church, a feast not a Mass. James, more used to supervising fellow religious and attending to administrative detail, seemed thankful for the advice.

When he rose to give the blessing, the din quieted a little. His face seemed more ash than charcoal, his hair less bouncy than usual, and he tugged the collar of his robe from his neck; perhaps the thick embroidery itched. He lifted both hands, as Paulinus or Stephanus would but without the conviction.

Hild made a slight movement of her shoulders, a rolling, to draw his attention. When he looked at her, she lifted her cup and mouthed behind it Food! Wine! and nodded at the scop, who strummed a chord.

The din fell to a hum.

“Let us be thankful for our blessings!”

A few Ayes! and scattered thumps on the board set a muscle in his cheek twitching. Choirs didn’t do that when he exhorted them. Hild smiled at him reassuringly.

“He brings us this food. He gives us this wine.”

Then he seemed to lose the thread. Hild mouthed Grace, good fortune, God’s blessing.

“And let us ask for His grace and favour for our army, whose cause is just.”

Calls of agreement. Short, Hild mouthed. Simple.

“May His light shine upon them. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

“Amen!” Hild said loudly. Amen, said the queen and Breguswith. Amen, said the Gaulish stonemasons.

Amen, said the folk hesitantly. Then again, Amen! Amen!

James sat. Hild stood and spread both arms like an incantation.

“I had a dream!”

Silence settled into every corner of the hall. Every movement ceased. Every eye fixed on her.

“I had a dream. And in my dream the enemy gathered on a cold, wet heath. The men of Gwynedd tucked their helmets under their arms to listen to their treacherous king. But in my dream, they heard only the cawing of crows and ravens sitting wing to wing on a withered tree. Cadwallon Twister spoke but the men of Gwynedd heard nothing. For the crows rose like a black cloud and stooped on them. They flew and flapped about their bare heads, clutched at their skulls, and tugged at their hair. Black eyes, black beaks, black wings beating, beating. And when the enemy could look past the flurry of feathers, what did they see?”

Not a sound.

“The enemy saw, on the roof ridge of the hall, a raven with a red thread in its beak. And the enemy lost heart. For they knew, for we all know: They ride to disaster and ruin. The pulling of human hair means death. The perching on a withered tree means no food or drink. The red thread brings fire. I have seen it. Our enemies will starve in the saddle, they will fall before us, and behind them their homes will burn.”

She lifted a hand and the drummer began a soft, slow beat.

“I say to you: The very trees and stones and sods of the earth will be against the men of Gwynedd. Every stream will run foul or hide its face from them. Their horses will stumble blind with terror and fall over shadows. Their army will scatter like birds before a thrown stone. Their bones will break, their wounds rot, and their children cry out. And with every cry, courage will leave them.”

She looked at the women and men and children one by one. Up one bench. Down the next.

“But our men, oh, our fine men, every breath they draw will increase their courage. Every swing of the sword will multiply their strength. Every river will make itself known to them and its waters will be sweet.”

The drumbeat quickened.

“No Anglisc spear will separate from its shaft, no sword break in battle. No spear will miss its cast, no shield fail. I say to you: Our men will reap the enemy like corn. I say to you: Our men will drive Gwynedd into the sea. It is their wyrd. I have seen it. Our gesiths, with their shining mail and inlaid helmets, with their swords and arm rings, with their bright cloaks and painted shields, our menfolk mounted on horses with glittering headstalls and chased-leather saddles, our husbands and sons and brothers will come home to us.”

She looked at Æthelburh.

“Edwin Yffing, overking of the Anglisc, will return dark with sun and unscratched by anything but brambles.”

She looked at Begu.

“Uinniau, prince of Rheged, will return wreathed in glory and glittering with spoil.”

She looked at her mother.

“Luftmaer the scop will come home. He will come soon, with news that will make our faces split with smiling and our throats ache with song.”

The housefolk began to move through the hall filling cups.

“So let us drink to our men, who will sit by us once again. To our men, who will be here for the corn harvest. To our men, oh, our shining men, who will sing with us at our next feast.” She lifted the great guest cup. It still took two hands. “To our men!”

To our men! The hall bulged with their roar. They drank.

Hild smiled. Drank. Smiled again. Sat. The musicians played.

To Cian, she said to herself.

After the feast, people smiled at Hild when they passed. Gwladus stopped rubbing at her neck, and Hild began to treat her as she always had. Better: She fed her and clothed her as before, only now she gave her more presents, and now Gwladus didn’t come to her room in the afternoon. It occurred to Hild that she would have to teach her to ride—only slaves were expected to run alongside the horses. She should probably teach Morud, as well. Morud, after all, had given his oath. Perhaps Gwladus would want to swear, too.

That first morning after the feast, Hild and the queen and the queen’s women gathered in the little wooden chapel, now overshadowed by the half-built walls of the new church, to pray. They knelt silently. Hild tried to talk to the Christ, imagined casting her mind-voice up and up to fall into the sky. Breathe upon them. Give them strength. Give them courage. Silence. No one was listening. She thought instead of the pattern, of birds and foxes, the ripple of wind in the grass, the spreading ring of a salmon breaching in an Elmet pool…

On the second morning, a dozen housefolk joined them, standing quietly in the back. On the third, the chapel was full, and Hild felt their eyes on the back of her neck. Soon, she had said. Soon, with news that will make our faces split with smiling and our throats ache with song.

That night, lying naked next to Begu—it was too hot for a blanket—she half dreamt, half imagined a blue sky, bright with banners, and Cian looking at her, angry, rubbing his lip with a mailed fist. You’ll be sorry. I’ll die wrapped in glory. The scops will sing of me for a thousand years, and boys with sticks will scream my name as they attack each other in the wood: Boldcloak!

Angry. Keeping him ignorant keeps him safe. But angry was better than dead. Better than lying with his back broken across a ruined wall, with another man’s ear between his teeth, mouth frozen in a snarl.

All the next day, and the next, the worry never left her. Cian shitting his bowels out in a ditch. Cian with a gaping head wound, not knowing his name. Cian with his eyes pecked out, buried with thirty others in a grave so shallow the dogs would dig him up as soon as the king rode on… On and on, like a cat licking her mind.

The flax was hacked and stacked and she was dressing a sickle cut when Morud ran into the yard shouting that two messengers had arrived: the scop and a priest, Hrothmar. The king had swept Gwynedd into the sea!

She stared at the split skin. Closed her eyes. God, if you can hear me, let his skin be whole.

Then she opened her eyes and finished the dressing.

Hrothmar was happy to let Luftmaer get the glory and play scop to the queen in her chambers. He was exhausted and filthy, too tired to stand up and too sore to sit comfortably. He slumped on a stool in the deacon’s room, sipping beer, wishing the seer wasn’t there. She took up all the air, like a smouldering fire. He couldn’t breathe. And he didn’t like the way she kept gripping the hilt of her seax and the muscle that jumped in her neck. He’d spent enough time with gesiths in the last three weeks to guess at her mood. He’d heard the songs. He just hoped the deacon could control her.

She loomed over him. “Tell me.”

Just like the king in a bad mood. Oh, if only he’d never heard of the Christ. If only he’d fallen off his horse and died.

“Lady,” said the deacon, “I think you’re frightening the good father.”

She turned on the deacon. She actually bared her teeth at him, like a hound lifting its lip. The world turned grey around the edges.

The deacon was saying something. “Don’t faint, Hrothmar. Breathe. Heaven preserve us. Lady, please sit down. Over there, as far away as possible. Please don’t make any sudden moves or he’ll fall off his stool. Now, Hrothmar. Take a deep breath. Look at me. Tell us what happened, in your own words. The lady will sit quietly until you’re finished.”

Hrothmar doubted the lady would do any such thing.

The deacon sighed and stepped between them, blocking his view of her. “I’ll ask questions, then. Answer them as you can.”

He found that if he kept his eyes fixed on the deacon he could manage.

Yes, he said, they’d swept through Gwynedd, taken Deganwy. The king had driven the enemy into the sea. Right into the waves. Then they’d besieged Cadwallon on Glannauc, Puffin Island. But when they’d taken the fort on Glannauc—hard fighting, horrible, such noise, so many men wailing and weeping and bleeding on both sides, why did men do such things? Yes, yes. Thank you, just one more sip…

On Glannauc? Well, they’d found Cadwallon gone. Where, they weren’t sure. The king was very angry. He’d ordered Luftmaer and him, miserable sinner that he was, to report the news to York without delay. Why him, he didn’t know, perhaps… Why, yes, the bishop had given him a letter. Addressed to the deacon. A list of the dead.

“Give me the letter,” the demon said in a voice as harsh as two boulders grinding together.

He shivered. He took the letter from his pouch and, trembling, held it out in the general direction of the deacon. If he met the demon’s eyes he was lost.

The door slammed open.

“What’s wrong with him?” Begu asked Hild while James fussed over the fainted priest. “He looks even whiter than usual. Did you hurt him? Well, never mind. I have a message! I have two. Luftmaer brought them. What’s that?”

“A letter,” Hild said, and broke the seal.

“Never mind that. I had a message from Cian.”

The world sharpened. The weave on Begu’s dress stood out as clear as knife cuts. The priest on the floor suddenly stank of horse.

“A message from Cian.” Not dead. “To you?”

Begu nodded. “To ‘Begu, my foster-sister.’”

“Give it to me, word for word.”

“‘To Begu, my foster-sister, Mulstan’s daughter, from Cian Boldcloak. Greetings. I am well. Uinniau is well.’ That’s it.”

Hild stared at her. I am well. Uinniau is well.

“Uinniau sent a message, too. He said, well he said all sorts of things.” Begu blushed. “But mainly he said he has a slash on his forearm, nothing really, and that he’s bringing me a blue enamel bracelet. Just as you said! Decked with spoil! Oh, and he said Cian had a twisted knee. He’s limping but fine.”

Limping.

“So what’s in it?”

Hild looked at the paper in her hand. “A list of the dead.” She unrolled it. Tiny words. Long and dense and black. Many dead. But not Cian. Not Cian. “Lintlaf is dead.” She sighed. She had liked the Lintlaf who made the ride to Tinamutha.

The priest moaned. James helped him back onto his stool. While Hild read the list, Begu found Hrothmar’s beer cup and refilled it.

Gwrast, too, was dead. Brave Bryneich.

When Hild crossed the room the priest moved his head back, like a cat trying to avoid a hit in a fight. She pulled a ring off her finger and held it out. “Say a Mass for Gwrast. Say a Mass for every man. Say two Masses. One for those who are coming back, and one for those who are waiting for us beyond this life.”

Hild kicked the stool by the window so hard it hit the other wall and fell on its side. “Don’t even think about nagging me about giving away good rings,” she snarled at Gwladus. “Limping. Limping! Poor thing. A message for Begu, ‘his foster-sister.’ I hope his bowels turn to water.”

Gwladus righted the stool, tipped the jewels in the box onto the bed, started sorting through them. “Ah, the moss agate. Well, it’ll be hard to replace that exact shade to match your earrings. But it could have been worse.”

“I should never have freed you,” Hild said.

“Oh, well,” Gwladus said. She pondered the jewellery. “I’ll have a word with the white priest. That ring’s worth more than a pair of Masses.”

“Why didn’t he send me a message?” Hild said.

“His pride’s hurt.” Gwladus poured the rings back in the box. “And now your pride’s hurt, I expect.”

“I’m the king’s seer. A gesith can’t hurt my pride.”

“No? Well, that’s good then. Because men can be cruel when their pride hurts. Like Lintlaf. He was a fine boy, but then he was a man.”

Cian was a boy; now he was a man. “Are you sorry he’s dead?”

“The boy died long ago. We all die. Here.” She held out a big ring of flawed jet. “Give this away next time.”

Hild slid it onto her finger, felt its weight. It would leave a good bruise on Cian’s cheek when he came back.

But Cian didn’t come back. The king left Eadfrith at Deganwy to watch for Cadwallon and settle the countryside, and Cian stayed with him. Oswine came back, and Uinniau—bringing a bracelet fit for a princess for Begu, which she immediately slid onto her wrist, and a blue glass cup for Hild.

“There was a plate, too,” he said, as he and Oswine ate with them in the sunny courtyard outside the women’s wing. “But it broke.”

Begu swatted him on the back of the head. “Glass does that, fool.” He beamed at her. She poked him in the arm. Hild didn’t know why they didn’t just get down in the grass and go at it like dogs.

She looked from one to the other. “No message from Cian?”

Uinniau assumed the earnest face all men used when lying for their friends. “He said to say he was well. That he’d be back as soon as Gwynedd is settled.”

We’ll speak the truth, you and I. Boy, then man.

“That won’t be long, surely,” Begu said, stroking her bracelet, turning it this way and that in the sunlight. “Cadwallon’s run away and his army’s broken.”

“It might be months,” Oswine said. “Clemen in Dyfneint has heard rumours of Penda preparing to march. Eadfrith has taken half the remaining war band south to Caer Uisc to stiffen his resolve. Cian doesn’t have as many men as he should. Gwynedd’s army might be broken, but they’re not dead.” He realised Uinniau and Begu were both giving him looks. “What? It’s true.”

“Months,” Hild said. “And he volunteered for this?”

“It’s a great honour.”

“You smell of horse,” she said, and walked away.

The court moved to Derventio. Breguswith, who had been giving Hild speculative looks in York, was now busy once more with wool. The king, unhappy about Cadwallon still being alive somewhere, consoled himself with the thought of controlling all Gwynedd’s trade with Ireland and Less Britain. He spent his time with the queen and her trade master, or plotting with Paulinus about how to extend their reach into Rheged. He didn’t ask for Hild. Paulinus had been with him in Gwynedd; the campaign had gone well. Paulinus was now his sun and moon.

Hild knew Edwin would change his mind soon enough; it was his nature. She would be ready. Meanwhile, she spent her days with Begu. Begu was the only person who didn’t make her angry. With Begu she didn’t have to think.

They were making a new baldric for Uinniau, as they had long ago for Cian. This would be in a green-and-brown dart pattern. They were good at it now, after years of practice, and it was pleasant work: sitting in the sun, cooled by a light breeze, listening to the sound of housefolk not worried about war and fieldfolk pleased with the ripening corn, to birds singing and children who spent more time playing than chasing them off or pulling weeds. She could pretend it was enough to sit with a tablet weave between them, as women had for generations, and sometimes talk, sometimes fall into a half trance, mind floating free.

Begu hummed the gemæcce song to keep the rhythm of the back-and-forth: One to hold and one to wind, one to talk and one to mind, one to beat and one to load, one to soothe and one to goad…

A team, taking it in turns. Like her and Paulinus, though he didn’t know it.

She followed the shuttle, back and forth, pondering her worth if Edwin didn’t change his mind. Her worth as not-seer, as the king’s niece. For Cadwallon or Penda, Eanflæd would be the great prize, but Eanflæd was too young. Lady Hild, the king’s niece and seer, had kin ties almost as good. And her advice was gold.

But Edwin would rather die with his guts spread over three fields than see Cadwallon himself wed to an Yffing. Cadwallon’s children, perhaps. Children were much more biddable. Cadwallon had two daughters by his first wife. She couldn’t remember if they were marriageable but thought the eldest—Angharad? Antreth?—probably was. If Cadwallon had any wit, he’d be trying to marry the daughter to Penda.

Edwin couldn’t allow an alliance between Gwynedd and Mercia. She couldn’t allow it.

They are our enemies. We marry them.

And there it was. So simple. Her and Penda.

“Tighter,” Begu said. Hild blinked. Begu nodded at the sagging weave, then more closely at Hild. “You look… I don’t know. Are you too hot? Come on, we’ll go inside. Wilnoð says Arddun found someone who knows of a patch of strayberries. You like those. I want to talk to your mother, anyway, about that brown cloth she got in from Aberford yesterday. It has a lovely hand, truly fine—better than that tunic the king got from the pope, I bet. Though not as lustrous; you need those foreign goats for that. But the colour would suit Uinniau, don’t you think? Besides, if we’re to be married, there’s half a hundred things I need to be making.”

Married. What would be, is. But there was no harm in being cautious and making sure of her fallbacks. And Cian’s. What had happened between them had been a mistake born of her fear for his safety. Just fear. She could mend that.

“Ask Wilnoð to save some strayberries for me. I must speak to the king.”

The king put his chin on his fist. “It seems we’ve been here before, Niece. If you’re so in love with your bog, by all means go slog about in it.”

“Thank you, Uncle.”

The Crow never smiled, but she felt the intensity of his regard drop a notch. He was reassured by the king’s indulgent tone. Rivals weren’t indulged; counsellors weren’t indulged. Nieces, mere maids and marriage counters, were indulged.

“Just try not to spike anyone important.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“And if you should happen to hear or see anything interesting, I’d be happy for a message.”

“Yes, Uncle. May I take some men along for the purpose?”

The Crow’s gaze sharpened.

“There are men leaving tomorrow for Caer Loid and Aberford, as you well know.”

“Yes, Uncle. But Pyr, I’m sure, will have a use for every one of them.”

“Oh, very well, pick your usual faithful hounds. But you’ll ride without my token.”

The Crow’s attention eased.

“Yes, Uncle.” She would have refused the token if offered. The point of the visit was to find out what kind of token she did or didn’t need.

She travelled with her household, a score of Edwin’s men to bolster the garrisons at Caer Loid and Aberford, and a wagon of goods those garrisons—and her own Menewood—couldn’t produce on their own. Some of the gesiths had recently healed wounds; she set an easy pace.

When they hit the old army street heading into Elmet, she turned in her saddle and said to Oeric, “Sing something! Something jaunty!” And so they marched into the cool wood singing about the Curly-Haired Cat from Caer Daun, who involved herself in an improbable number of adventures with an impressive variety of men.

When they left the shelter of the trees and crested the rise, she braced herself. But the new hall and tidy huts looked nothing like Ceredig’s palace, nothing like the long ago with Cian. The orchards might never have been, and the great gouge where the thorn had been torn from the earth was grassed over and partly hidden by a stout stockade. The old oak was still there, but next to a new church. The smoke seeping from the eaves was wood smoke, not peat, and a cow lowed where the geese had cackled. This was a royal vill, thoroughly Anglisc.

Arrayed before it, spear blades glittering in the sun, a row of armed men drawn up to greet her. She smiled. Clearly it didn’t matter to Pyr whether or not she bore a token.

Pyr and his new wife, the daughter of a local thegn, welcomed them with a feast, and every time Hild complimented him on a dish, he explained exactly where it came from and how he had made it possible. The swan? From the bywater north and east, which he knew about because of his careful survey last year. The salmon? Oh, yes, he’d not let the gesiths piss in the river east of the weir, so their breeding ground was clear. The medlar butter? Well, that was a lucky trade just this spring, though not really lucky because of course it was careful cultivation of the trade web the wealh—beg pardon, the Loides—had had since Ceredig was king. It had taken some patience to set up again, and careful negotiation…

Careful was his favourite word, and as she studied him from beneath half-lowered lids she wondered if he used it so often to counter the wealh reputation for recklessness and improvidence. What would it be like to grow up with that burden? But it was Pyr’s wealhness that made it possible for him to be steward of such an important vill without the king worrying too much. Even if Edwin didn’t visit often and mark it as his own, the local thegns wouldn’t follow a wealh. At least not a common wealh.

Pyr’s wife, Saxfryth, filled her cup anxiously. Hild reminded herself to guard her expression. They watched everything she did. She might not bear the token but they knew the songs, and she was still the king’s niece and seer. No doubt they wanted to be reeve and steward to whomever Edwin named ealdorman, and her word carried weight. She smiled at the woman and said, “I know another woman called Saxfryth who lives south and east of Aberford. She’s a fine weaver but could learn a thing or two from you when it comes to brewing. This is good mead.”

The woman blushed.

“Pyr, you and your wife are stewarding the king’s vill well. He’ll hear that from me.” Perhaps he blushed, too, but his skin was too sun-browned to tell.

She spent three days by the Aire, talking to everyone at the vill, spilling fulsome praise: for the sturdy stockade, the fine carving in the hall, the black earth and healthy coleworts in the kitchen garth, the strong hum of bees in the skeps along the garth’s edge. She listened to the groom talk about pasture for horses and the unwillingness of the local thegns to part with the right feed. She discussed with Saxfryth the best way to recruit more women; the hall was still sadly lacking in fine linens. She suggested to Pyr’s garthman that the place really did need an orchard and that, yes, she knew from experience apples and pears both would grow well just east of the stockade.

She talked and listened and sampled until the Caer Loid household began to relax. The king would be pleased, she said, over and over, but they still leapt to anticipate her needs, getting underfoot and irritating both her and Gwladus.

The nights were better. Hild reacquainted herself with Lweriadd and Sintiadd, both plumper than they had been but no less inclined to sly looks and slant comments. Sitting by the fire in the summer evening as Hild the daughter of the might-have-been king, not Hild the seer of the overking, speaking nothing but British, she felt her face setting in a new shape, happier, younger. But as she listened—to every joke, every complaint, every song, every tale of woe—she found that under their contentment ran a thin thread of unease, the sense of trouble a long, long way off. It took a while to tease out the thread: The thegns didn’t come to the hall to gossip and catch up on news as often as the Loides thought they should; the Anglisc were suspicious.

Suspicious of what? That the Loides were in league with the Christ, and so with the wealh priest web, and so with the spies of the men who would overrun Elmet in their quest to bring down Edwin king.

Had they not heard that Edwin king had just won a great victory over the Welsh? she asked. Yes, yes indeed, Lweriadd said. She knew that; everyone who ate barley cake knew that. She knew that half the Christ priests around here were sons of priests who had inherited their books and couldn’t spell more than their names. But the wheat-eating Anglisc were suspicious. Where was Cadwallon? they asked. Who was hiding him? Who was plotting with him? She knew that Cian Boldcloak had the Welsh king bottled up tight in one of his green valleys—set a king to catch a king, eh? and such a handsome one!—but the Anglisc thought all wealh were the same.

The next morning she told Pyr that instead of riding directly for Menewood she would personally escort the gesiths to their post at Aberford: In case Paulinus had any spies in hall, she told him the lady Breguswith would enjoy hearing how the weaving progressed there.

Morud guided them north and east to Brid’s Dike, past Berewith, and on to Aberford.

She smelt Aberford before they rode over Becca Bank. She reined in, closed her eyes. Smoke, stale urine, lye, dung, and, sweetening it all, weld. “They’ve been busy,” she said. “There must be a score of women working on cloth here.”

The men sent as relief for the Aberford garrison glanced at one another, and one touched his breast where no doubt his amulet hung, but Oeric and the others exchanged knowing looks—except for Grimhun, who fidgeted with his arm ring and leaned forward in his saddle. Hild waved him on. “Go on,” she said. “Go see what they’ve made of your walls.”

He bent his head gratefully and kicked his horse into a canter.

The rest of them followed at a jingling trot.

Aberford was an oddly segregated settlement: gesiths in a long house by the banks to the west of the road, women in a series of huts on the east. The east was bright with swaths of yellow, green, brown, and smaller patches of red and blue and black: cloth drying on racks and lines. Goats were tethered—goats had a tendency to eat good wool—and children pulled weeds from plots of weld and other dye plants. A lost-looking duck paddled back and forth on a newly dug pond.

Hild stayed long enough to meet the garrison commander and Heiu, the woman Breguswith had put in charge of the cloth workers. Hild complimented her on her cloth—Begu was right, it was very fine—and promised that on her way back she would spend a little more time inspecting the weaving huts and talking about supplies.

Then she rode with Oeric, the brothers Berht, Morud, and Gwladus south and east over the high tussocky sheep land to the holding of Ceadwulf and the other Saxfryth.

The boy Ceadwin now had a little sister, Ceadfryth, in swaddling clothes. Saxfryth still wore Hild’s yellow ring, but now she’d added a thin silver band inset with some muddy-looking blue stone Hild couldn’t identify. The silverwork was fretted, not solid—but real silver.

The men and Ceadwin went to look at a horse Ceadwulf wanted their opinion on, and Gwladus disappeared into the kitchen to take the measure of the housefolk. Hild and Saxfryth sat with bread and cheese in the garth, with Ceadfryth in a wooden cradle at Saxfryth’s left hand.

“Good cheese,” Hild said. She smiled at the sleeping baby. “She looks strong, well fed. And Ceadwin must be three hands higher now.”

Saxfryth beamed, as women did when you praised their children and housekeeping. “The gods have been kind.” She sighed and rolled her shoulders. “And you, lady? Have the gods been kind to you?”

“Well enough, though now it’s the Christ that the king and his household look to.”

“The Christ.” Saxfryth sucked her lip, leaned over the sleeping child, and brushed away a fly that wasn’t there.

“He’s a god like any other,” Hild said. “With priests who are men and subject to men’s fancies. I know some good priests, wealh and Anglisc alike.”

“Gesiths came through here last year, hunting wealh priests. Spies, they said. And then Anglisc priests came, but they were more like reeve’s men than priests. You could see it in their eyes, feeling the backs of sheep for the wool, tasting the beer, peering at the cows and the hay in the rick. Weighing in their minds, totting it all up, and making marks on those slates of theirs.”

If Paulinus wasn’t careful, his zeal would drive a wedge between the Elmetsætne, returning them to Loid and Angle. If she were Cadwallon she could make something of that. “A woman should judge priests for herself, as she would any other man. When they make demands you think unfair, speak to the king’s man at Caer Loid.”

“He’s half wealh himself, they say.”

“He is. And a fine king’s man.”

“The gesith you were here with last time, Boldcloak, he’s wealh, too, they say. Son of a king.”

Hild nodded blandly.

“I liked him,” Saxfryth said.

“Yes. He liked your buttered mushrooms.”

“He remembers!” Saxfryth gave her an arch look. “So he’s not with you?”

“He’s in Gwynedd. The king’s right hand.”

“Well! A wealh.”

“Another wealh,” Hild reminded her. “Just like Pyr. A trusted man. And worth getting to know.” Saxfryth nodded. “Aberford. You find it a good market for your wool?”

“It is, lady. Though uncommon picky. Our neighbour had half her weight turned down. Short-fibred, they said.” She smiled complacently. “But my sheep give the best wool. Ceadwulf knows how to breed them.”

Hild smiled and nodded. “A good market for good wool, then. More than enough to balance out the king’s tithe?”

Like all good traders, Saxfryth hunted for a way to dodge praising the seller’s goods, or at least hedge that praise, but Hild caught her gaze and held it. “Yes, lady. More than enough.”

Hild nodded, ate a piece of cheese, tilted her head back to watch a hawk circling against the blue sky.

“Lady? Ceadwin is seven now.”

Hild closed her eyes briefly. “If he came with me, he would have no foster-brothers or foster-sisters.”

“At least not yet.”

“And he’d have to be baptised.”

“Christ’s a god like any other,” Saxfryth said. “As you say.”

“I travel a lot.”

“Even so. Lady, you promised. He’ll be no trouble. Besides, having a child at your knee will soon make you bear children of your own, everyone knows that. And Boldcloak won’t stay in Gwynedd forever.”

Hild stood. “I’ll send for him in spring.”

They rode in a glittering, jingling column, past adders sunning themselves on south-facing rocks and knots of red campion. The sky was as blue as the heart of a cornflower and the furze flamed yellow.

They rode down the slope to the ancient track for a mile or so, until they were moving parallel to the low hills to the north.

Hild watched the right-hand edge of the ancient track closely. At her heel—unlike Gwladus, he still preferred his feet to a horse—Morud said, “You won’t see a path. I used a different way each time. That way it stays secret like.”

“Secret.”

“You never said, but I thought you might want it that way.”

Hild was glad, fiercely glad. Secret. Yes. “Morud, I’ll give you a new knife for this. Two knives.”

Hild had fallen in love with what Menewood could be. Now she fell in love with what it was becoming: a thriving settlement in a fertile, half-secret valley of bogs and becks and ponds and meadow.

Four dozen souls less one, Rhin told her, with fields of clover and oats, barley and colewort. He showed her tally sticks for everything from folk able to wield a sickle, to pigs, to skeps, to milch cows. They toured the byre, made of good oak; the tiny new forge; and a dairy laid in dry stone. He showed her the cleared millrace, the great gritstone grindstones from over the Whinmoor, and the almost finished elm mill wheel. He took her round to the mix of huts and homesteads, some timber, some wattle, some with stone foundations and reed roofs. And everywhere men and women knelt to her and kissed her hand. She was not just the king’s seer, the king’s niece, she was their dryhten, their lord. They lived and breathed at her pleasure and the efficiency of the land’s management.

Hild touched the children under the chin so she could look into their eyes, and held the hands of old folk long enough to feel the size of their bones. The dull-eyed ones, Rhin said, were lately come to the mene. They would soon fill out, soon shine. And Hild’s heart filled until she could hardly breathe: her people.

The first fortnight she spent every morning and most afternoons with Rhin, walking, talking, pointing, running grain through her fingers, listening to the hum of bees. He had taken her at her word and in the spring had set all the children to searching the countryside for hives, giving a reward for every one discovered. They had two beekeepers, though one was mostly plaiting skeps, and those skeps hummed and dripped with honey.

She walked in the evening through her domain, as aware of it as of her own body. The dragonflies and damselflies zooming over the water; the gush and rush and mineral bite of the millrace compared to the softer babble of the beck. The clatter of reeds by the pond, scented with green secrets; the chatter of wrens and goldcrest flocks, squabbling with each other like rival gangs of children.

Everywhere she looked, she thought of things she must tell Rhin: Set aside much of the mead for white mead this winter; thin the coppice and make sure they made more charcoal this autumn, for next year when Penda made his move there would be war, long hard war, and war meant iron, and there was no smelting without charcoal. Breed more goats, especially the long-haired kind. Graze them in that overstood beech coppice—pollard the standards and let the goats trim the rest or cut them for firewood and tree hay.

So she fell in love with the mene, and the mene fell in love with her. She felt buoyed by her people, her land. Everything tasted round and ripe. The air was as rich and sweet as cider. Just breathing fed some part of her. She spent half the nights lying by the pond listening to the bullrushes and the frogs. At dawn she rode Cygnet along the ridge and looked forward to the next month when she might see the peregrines returning.

Mine, she thought, looking down at the low woods with the water glinting through the green. Mine, when the men and women formed their line to start sickling the barley. Mine, when she smelt the wild garlic in a just-cut glade of coppiced hazel. Mine, mine, mine.

She ignored the rattle of the box buried at her heart, and the whisper of Penda… Not now. Not yet. Here, now, this was hers. Secret. Hidden.

Sometimes she found letters in the hollow pollard oak to the south of the mene, left by some priest or other for Rhin, but more often the priest web was a thing of tired-looking men arriving at night and huddling with Rhin to share rumours of the isle before moving on north or west or east to the coast and a boat to Less Britain.

Sometimes at night she stayed up with Rhin, drinking the last of the heather beer and discussing the news. The Picts had sent some kind of embassy to Rheged and been rebuffed. Yes, he’d try to find out more. Cadwallon, they said, was in Ireland. He was enough of a nuisance that Domnall Brecc had sent a war band, led by Oswald Iding, to subdue the troublemakers. Good news for Edwin, they agreed, two enemies off squabbling with each other.

Good news, too, for Cian Boldcloak: His time in Gwynedd would be much easier without rumours of a king to stir up opposition. Perhaps he would come home soon.

She couldn’t sleep that night and instead walked into the woods and lay on her stomach by the garlic in the coppiced glade, cheek on her hands, sighting along the tips of the grass stems, dull as lead in the moonlight. Was Cian sitting under the moon in Deganwy? Perhaps it was raining. Perhaps he was sitting, chin in one hand, drinking horn dangling from the other, listening to stirring Welsh song, half drunk, half dreaming of glory. Though he had glory in plenty now. Perhaps he was listening to a song about himself. With Eadfrith still in Dyfneint, he was the most important Angle in Gwynedd, and scops and Welsh bards were not stupid.

There were songs in plenty about Penda, too. He was cunning, and young, and strong. But Penda was a decision for another time. She found herself wondering, instead, if Cadwallon would stay in Ireland. He was as wily as a fox, and his hatred ran deep. There was nothing for him in Ireland. He’d find his way back to Gwynedd in the end. Cian needed to come home. He’d be safer. And she could tell him all the things she had seen, the things she’d learnt, the people she was helping. She would show him the mene, tell him of her plans. They could mend what had broken between them. They could ignore it. It hadn’t happened.

A hedgepig wheezed and puffed at the edge of the clearing, nosing in the grass for snails and worms. So we may drink to home wherever we are.

The barley was cut and drying. After a report of bandits, Hild and her gesiths rode out to the Whinmoor.

It was a fine day, sound as a late plum. They rode from flock to flock, copse to copse, but found nothing. As they turned back for the mene, Hild told herself she was glad; she didn’t want to see the light go out in anyone’s eyes. Nonetheless Cygnet was skittish. She wasn’t the only one. Oeric’s mount pranced and snorted.

She caught Oeric’s eye, then Berhtnoth’s. She grinned. “A ring to the first back!” She kicked Cygnet into a gallop. With whoops and whistles, the men raced after her.

And so her blood was singing under her skin and Cygnet hot under her thighs when she saw the birds flying from the old ivy-covered oak just north of the beck, where it flowed west to east before turning south for the mene. She touched Cygnet into a tight, hard curve, slowed to a canter, then a trot, and reined in.

Part of her registered her gesiths shouting and making their own turns to follow her, but she was focused on the tree, unsure of what she’d seen, only that it had made her pay attention.

There. A starling with a worm still wriggling in its beak, disappearing into the deep V of the top boughs about three times her height from the ground. Then, yes, a dove, with a fly. Her heart thundered from the ride, and Cygnet was blowing hard, but gradually they both settled. After a little while, first the dove then the starling flew away from the oak.

She swung off Cygnet. Thick ivy made the climb easy. By the time Oeric jumped down from his snorting mount, she was perched on the right-hand bough, peering into the cleft. She stripped a twig and used it to bend the ivy to one side.

A nest. Four chicks. When the twig poked through the ivy they sat up, peeping, and flapped their tiny wings and opened outsize beaks to show red, red mouths.

Two starlings and two doves.

“Lady?” Oeric called from the base of the tree.

“Doves and starlings,” she said, amazed. “Sharing the same nest.”

“Doves and starlings?”

“Doves and starlings.” She laughed. “Starlings and doves!”

Oeric was looking nervous, but she didn’t care. She laughed again, as chains burst in the dark and a box shattered to splinters. “It’s an omen, Oeric. An omen!” His horse was good, and Grimhun’s, and Berhtnoth’s. Good for hours. “Omens must be spread!”

That evening she drank beer with Rhin. She felt as bright as the first morning of the world. “I sent them galloping to every corner of Elmet—to Caer Loid, to Aberford, to Saxfryth, to the south river, even back to the Whinmoor. Doves and starlings sharing a nest, like Loides and Anglisc sharing Elmet.” An omen that would persuade even Edwin. “It is possible. It’s all possible.”

He was smiling at her. “Of course, lady. Because of you. Have some of these currants. Our latest visitor picked them on the way in this morning and your woman said you were fond of berries.”

Hild ate a handful, bursting them with her tongue against her teeth, one by one, tart-sweet pops of deep red juice. Doves and starlings. Starlings and doves. She only had to think how to couch it to Edwin, and for Cian to come home.

“Sadly, our visitor won’t tell anyone where the patch is; his to know, he says, ours to be grateful. But he did bring news. A rumour of Cadwallon. He’s in Less Britain, they say.”

Less Britain. Cadwallon was lining up the Britons-over-the-sea against the Anglisc. Oh, yes, Edwin would have to listen. Elmet needed Cian. It would work. Doves and starlings. Starlings and doves.

“Just a rumour, less than a rumour, a whisper. Though no doubt it will please Boldcloak, now that he’s taken up with that Welsh princess.”

Hild swallowed carefully. “Welsh princess?”

“It’s the latest news. Cadwallon’s daughter.”

Her tongue felt like wood. “Another wild rumour, no doubt.”

“Oh, no. This one’s true. I’ve heard it twice.”

“A bastard daughter?”

“No. His eldest by his first wife. Angeth, his treasure. A rare beauty by all accounts, ripe as a June strayberry and twice as subtle. Now playing lady and hostess to Boldcloak’s lord and host in the king’s hall at Deganwy. Boldcloak’s to be Edwin’s underking there, do you think?”

This must be what it was like to be fighting, to be winning, to lift your arm for the triumphant blow, only to blink, to sway, to look down and see a thick snake in the grass, but it’s not a snake, it’s your arm, staff still in its hand. Between one blink and the next your arm is no longer your arm. There it is, it’s just not yours. Stupid, stupid Cian.

“Lady?”

She watched her hand—it looked so strange—reach for the currants, pick the reddest, the plumpest, put it in her mouth, and deliberately burst it against her teeth.

The world was easier to understand when choices fell away. It was like understanding a tree when all the leaves dropped: There it was, the pattern of the boughs, the tree itself.

She saw patterns everywhere. Where before she had seen flowers humming and rippling with bees, now she saw that bees liked red flowers best. Red and striped.

“Plant more phlox,” she told Rhin. “Phlox, red clover, campion.” She didn’t bother to explain. She didn’t repeat herself. More red meant more honey, which meant more mead, and therefore more people willing to listen. She was going to need people to listen, or Cian would die and Elmet with him. Edwin would not like this news. She needed time to think, to plan, before Edwin heard it.

As the days cooled the colours around her did, too. Bright red flowers were replaced by dark red berries. The sun set earlier. The berries now were tinged with blue. Perhaps it was warmth that made the colour. Red meant life. Blue meant the blue lips of harsh breathing and death. The end of things.

She rode out often on her own, or walked, from dawn to dusk, watching everything. Cows, she noticed, stood broadside to the sun on a cool day, but nose into the wind, and otherwise, when sleeping, when chewing, pointed their head or tail south.

Then she realised deer also lined up north to south.

There were patterns everywhere. She saw it in the tiny yellow clusters of a late daisy, and they reminded her of the seeds on a strayberry. There was an order there, she could almost taste it, but she couldn’t articulate it. If she just kept looking it would all come clear.

Migrant peregrines began to arrive. The young, first. Brown and buff. Females followed by smaller males. Why were young birds so dull? It was always the same, no matter what kind of bird. The adults, which followed days later, were much more definite: blue-black on top, whitish barred with grey beneath. Did that mean something?

The sky turned grey. Grass bleached. Leaves fell. More rumours came from Gwynedd: Cadwallon was readying ships in Less Britain. Eadfrith ætheling was planning to stay in Caer Uisc with Clemen for Yule. Boldcloak’s woman was with child.

When Morud brought the message from Caer Loid that the king wanted his seer in York, Gwladus was already packing.

Hild stood before Edwin still in her travel cloak. The queen was with him, and Paulinus and Coelfrith, but no others, not even the endlessly scratch-scratch-scratching Stephanus.

Edwin’s eyes were red-rimmed. “What the fuck is Boldcloak doing?”

Killing us all. But the habit of protection was too strong.

She flicked dirt off a fold of her cloak. “Being a man, my king.”

“With the Twister’s own daughter?” Paulinus said.

“With all of them, no doubt.”

Silence.

“He is young,” said Æthelburh. “And he feels like a conqueror.”

“I’m the conqueror.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Paulinus. “He’s a gesith getting above himself.”

“He’s thinking with his breeches, lord King,” Hild said. “As young men do.”

“I never did.”

And Hild, surprised, realised he was right. She had never seen him take a woman after a battle. “You’re a king, lord. Cian is a king’s man. Your loyal man.”

“But to get her with child!”

Hild bent her head. Cian had been stupid.

“Perhaps it’ll bring Cadwallon back,” Æthelburh said.

“It’s too late in the year for a ship to cross from Frankia,” the Crow said dismissively.

Hild wondered at that. Frankia, not Less Britain? She wondered, too, why the queen didn’t have the Crow flayed for such a tone. But the Crow was right, it didn’t matter for now: No one could cross the sea, whether from Frankia or Less Britain, until spring. And there were other things to worry about.

“Cadwallon has two daughters,” she said.

“Oh, by the Christ! Don’t tell me he’s taken the other one, too.”

“No, King. In my worst dreams, she’s in Penda’s bed.”

Edwin’s eyes swarmed green and black, but he turned his gaze not to her but to his queen and reeve and priest. “Just why didn’t any of you think to mention this before?” He swung back to Hild. “And where the fuck have you been?”

The winter was mild. To Hild it seemed as though every woman in hall was swelling with child. Except Æthelburh, who smiled relentlessly at other women’s bellies. The queen seemed truly happy only when James arrived for the twelve days of Yule and led a new choir for the Christ Mass. When he went back to Craven, the queen went back to smiling and keeping her own counsel. It occurred to Hild that for a royal woman it must be like living as a hostage in an armed camp. Paulinus was her go-between. Was this how it was for Hereswith, how it had been for her own mother?

She tried to talk to her mother about it, but Breguswith—like Begu—was spending most of her time with her man. She seemed impatient: no armies were moving, no messages could cross the winter seas, no one could do anything about anything until spring. Why didn’t Hild stop thinking and just enjoy herself? Hild wondered if her mother had been possessed by an ælf or if this was just how it was with a man in your life. She could no more stop thinking than stop breathing.

She thought about marrying Penda. Edwin would like it. One of the conditions for the marriage would be Penda’s conversion. Edwin would be his godfather and therefore Penda’s overking. Overking of all the Anglisc.

Paulinus would like it. With all the Anglisc converted, he’d get his pallium at last. He could die happy, knowing that as overbishop he’d sit in heaven at the right hand of the pope.

Penda would like it. Her kin ties were strong, her advice better than gold. She was young and strong. She could manage a household—she could manage a kingdom.

Would she like it? If Penda was as cunning as she thought, she might like him well enough. She could take Begu with her. And her household.

One day when Uinniau was out hunting with Oswine, she asked Begu how she thought Uinniau would like to be her chief gesith. When she got married.

“Who are you marrying?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Because the queen hasn’t said anything. And I thought the king didn’t want to let you go. You’re his seer. Oh, have you annoyed the Crow again?”

“No. Uinniau. Would he like it?”

“Why wouldn’t he like it? I’d like it, anyway. I don’t want him going off to war anymore. He’s done enough now so that Luftmaer can write a song or two for our children. Only I suppose it wouldn’t be Luftmaer who’d be doing the singing, would it?”

Everything would be different. Everybody.

“Do you suppose he’d get fat, like Bassus? Sitting at home safe and sound while everyone went off to war with your husband king. And, oh, Oeric would be cross.”

“Oeric could never be a queen’s chief gesith.”

“You do have someone in mind. I knew it. Or is this just one of your endless plots? It’s winter. You really should just drink some more and find someone to play with. You spend too much time in your head. I wish you’d take Gwladus to your bed again. If you won’t do that, at least climb a tree or something. You’ll start looking like the Crow, nothing but bones and a beaky nose.”

That evening Hild watched Paulinus at meat, eating little, covering his cup with his hand. He was a foreigner, like Æthelburh, a long way from home. But unmarried. A bit like a seer. Did his god talk to him? Did it make him feel the way she did when she felt the pattern looking out at her from every blade of grass, every leaf, every beetle’s wing? Had he watched beetles when he was a boy, at home? She found she couldn’t imagine him as a boy. Couldn’t imagine him at home, belonging. He had always looked like this: planed and hollowed, eyes hooded, lost to the world of men, honed to nothing but patterns and plans.

When Gwladus brought her wash water the next morning she sat and stared at herself. She lifted her hair from her face. Planes and hollows, eyes hooded…

Gwladus’s face appeared over her shoulder. They looked at each other in the water: Gwladus so soft and pliant, Hild hard and clear.

“I’m not pretty.”

“You don’t need to be pretty. You’re like lightning. Like a tide. Like a blizzard.”

“Something to run from.”

“Something to get caught up in. Something to remember for the rest of your life.”

As Penda tightened his hold on the middle country, he swept the roads clear of bandits. He appeared to have no quarrel with priests; the web hummed. Hild wondered if this was because he didn’t know about the web or because he wanted it to flourish for his own purposes. He seemed like a canny king. But kings always fell in the end. It was the way of the world.

That night she dreamt Fursey was talking to Hereswith. It’s what women do: weave the web, pull the strings, herd into the corner. It’s their only power. Then she was inside Hereswith, and Fursey was talking to her. Unless they’re seers. Your mother has built you a place where you can speak your word openly.

She lay looking at the elm of her ceiling for a long time. Power. Place. Marriage. She did not see how they fit together. Perhaps Fursey would.

She woke Gwladus to stir the fire and light candles and then wrote Fursey a long letter, using the codes they each hoped the other understood: S for Sigebert, P for Penda, R for Ricberht, Uncle for Edwin, Sister for Hereswith, Æ for Æthelric…

In the morning she took the letter, along with a ham, to Linnet’s house, where a priest would call soon and carry it by a circuitous route to Rhin, who would see it safely to its destination.

Winter passed. Messages flowed freely. Sigebert was still fighting Ricberht in East Anglia. Eadfrith and Clemen were still in Caer Uisc. Still no clear sign of Cadwallon. She pondered Less Britain. Long ago, its kings were the sworn men of Gwynedd. Did that oath hold?

She didn’t share her thoughts about Cadwallon with anyone. She didn’t mention Penda. She didn’t tell anyone of her Elmet omen. For the first time, she could not see her path. She would wait.