Hild

26

THE WORLD TURNED. They moved to Bebbanburg, to Yeavering, to Derventio. It was a warm spring, a warmer summer. The queen swelled.

At Goodmanham, dogs panted in the shade and every day the heat thickened. Fleeces piled in the woodshed stank. Milk curdled. Æthelburh, big as a cow, leaned on her women and sweated and did not always attend the king’s counsels.

Cian made Wuscfrea a tiny bow with blunted arrows, and Eanflæd borrowed it and nearly blinded her brother. The queen, who knew of her godson’s troubles, did not forbid him her children. Instead, she asked Hild to watch over them until she herself could do so again.

So Hild took to bringing berries and small beer to the yard where Cian played with the children, and then would sit and spin while they ate in the shade of the great elm. Sometimes she and Cian talked a little, idly, of the weather, or of Eanflæd’s fearlessness, or of Æthelburh’s health. Sometimes he would float away while still sitting there, and Hild, who knew him so well, heard the wash and lap of his thoughts as though they were her own. My daughter also would have been fearless; my daughter would have been crawling by now; my daughter might have taken her first step today.

As far as she knew, he had not wept.

One day, over strayberries, while Eanflæd played with her new toy—a cunningly carved dog—and Wuscfrea piled dirt, they began to talk about the news they’d discussed in council with the king: a contagion in the south, sweeping through Kent, and the death in East Anglia of Ricberht.

“Hereswith’s husband, Æthelric, is Sigebert’s heir,” she said.

“So. And, after him, your nephew Ealdwulf?”

She nodded, but he had already drifted away, though this time, when he came back, he spoke aloud. “They would have been of an age.”

“Yes,” she said, and gave him the reddest strayberry in the bowl. A strayberry for a daughter. But it was all she had.

Hereswith had also written, in part:

Pray, not for her to be wrong—kings fell—but that it would not be soon.

Eanflæd shrieked: Wuscfrea had snapped the tail off her dog. After she had been persuaded to stop trying to make him eat it, Hild and Cian talked of other things.

The queen got bigger. Goodmanham sweltered.

News came to the counsellors from Osfrith at Tinamutha: Clotrude, his wife, had died in childbirth. For the rest of the morning, Cian was drawn and distant. As they left Edwin’s council, he asked Hild how the queen did.

“She’s well,” Hild said. “But it’s too hot to carry such weight in public with grace.”

The heat did not ease. Tempers frayed. Hallfolk and housefolk alike slept outside, and talked late, and drank too much, and were up at dawn, looking to the south and west, hoping for cloud. The sky stayed blue. The midden heaps reeked.

“We should go to Elmet,” her mother said. “Or north to the Bay of the Beacon. A bit of sea air would do us all good.”

“You could go,” Hild said. “Take Luftmaer.”

The queen came to the next meeting of counsellors and their hangers-on. Hild relayed her latest news from Fursey: the Burgundian bishop, Felix, had moved from Canterbury to Rendlesham. Perhaps to escape the contagion. More likely at the behest of Sigebert.

Edwin looked at Paulinus. “A Frankish bishop at the court of a Frankish puppet king of the East Angles. Where is your pope in this? And where else is Dagobert dabbling his long Frankish fingers?”

Hild looked at Æthelburh, who was herself from the Frankish-influenced court of Kent. There again, so was her own mother. But her mother thought now only of herself and her children.

Æthelburh said, “Your son’s son is half Frankish.”

Paulinus said, “And Osfrith has no wife now. What if he chooses a Kentishwoman or one of the East Anglisc, builds ties with those Frankish-leaning kingdoms? What if he has plans?”

Æthelburh wanted her son to be heir. Paulinus also saw advantage in that. Between them, they knew all Edwin’s fears: Osfrith was well liked, and, at the cusp of Deira and Bernicia, well-placed. And he had given his heir a dynastic name.

“Bring the child to court, my lord,” Paulinus said. “An honoured guest.”

A hostage for good behaviour of kin, like Oswine for Osric.

“Yffi’s very young,” Edwin said. But Hild could see he was thinking about it. “And what of the rest of the north? What of Rheged?”

“We’re grooming Oswine for Rhianmelldt,” she said, and glanced at Æthelburh. The queen’s eyes glimmered, but Hild had no notion what she was thinking. Would she raise the old idea of marrying the mad maid to Cian? But Æthelburh said nothing. “Meanwhile we have Uinniau.”

“A nephew,” Paulinus said. “Any king would sacrifice a nephew.” Any king would sacrifice anyone, but no one thought it prudent to say so.

“Then send Eadfrith to charm Rhoedd,” Hild said. “He could talk the birds from the trees.” And he was no use at the head of an army; gesiths no longer quite trusted him. Perhaps he could even be married to Rhianmelldt. It would flatter Rhoedd, and suit Æthelburh…

“Lord King,” Cian said, and everyone turned. Boldcloak rarely spoke on matters other than war. “Lord Eadfrith might be better sent to Penda. To counter Cadwallon’s sway. Penda is Gwynedd’s friend, yes, but perhaps not yet wholly our enemy.”

“You’re thinking marriage?” Hild said. “I don’t think Penda has another sister. Or a daughter.”

Paulinus bent his gaze on Hild. “Perhaps the king of Mercia has a spare son.”

“He doesn’t,” she said.

“Pity,” Edwin said.

“But what of Penda himself?” Paulinus said to Edwin. “Your niece is of age.”

Now they all turned to look at her: woman, not seer. Future queen of Mercia. But she watched the queen, whose smooth face hid something.

“You would stand as Penda’s godfather at his baptism,” Paulinus said. “He would acknowledge you as overking.”

Overking of all the Anglisc. But marriage to Penda was not her path, had never been her path.

Hild did her best to sound bored. “My king, a priest once told me, ‘Whosoever stands as godfather to another adopts him in religion.’ Penda would be as your adopted son. He would expect to inherit your mantle as overking. My lord bishop is a priest. He forgets how much a man wants for his sons.”

Counsellors murmured agreement and cast sidelong glances at the foreign man in the black skirts. Hild turned back to Æthelburh, expecting gratitude for protecting Wuscfrea’s inheritance, but met, instead, a polished, impenetrable queen.

Edwin sent a messenger to Eadfrith in Tinamutha: Bring Yffi to me, then go to Mercia to charm Penda.

Paulinus, thwarted, began to nag Edwin. About Elmet. About more money for the church in York, to hasten the building. About bringing Rheged firmly into the fold. Paulinus was feeling his age, Hild realised. He wanted his pallium before some old-man’s illness swept him to heaven.

The heat built. Æthelburh no longer attended the council. Housefolk and hall folk were irritable and sleepless. In council Paulinus raised the subject of Woden’s enclosure.

“It’s an affront to God on our very doorstep, a monument to pagan practice. We must tear it down.”

“The people won’t like it,” Hild said. “They’re already uneasy.”

“The people must do as the king directs,” Paulinus said. “God is on our side.”

Hild bent her head to her uncle. “My king, not yet. In autumn, perhaps, or when the weather breaks. But not yet.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“It’s empty of its god. It has no power. But last night ravens and jays were calling after the owl was abroad.” A murmur went round the room. “Housefolk say: ravens and jays in conversation with the restless dead.”

“Superstition,” Paulinus said.

Ten years ago, Edwin would have smiled and said, Don’t spit. But he was getting older, too. He had called his son Wuscfrea. He was as desperate as Paulinus to make his mark. He said nothing.

“You need a husband,” Paulinus said.

Edwin studied her, then turned to Paulinus. “Burn it.”

The day they tore down Woden’s totem, lightning cracked the sky open and spilled thick, cold rain. Cool wind gushed through the hall. That night, as the rotting timbers burnt, Æthelburh, attended by Begu, gave birth to twins, quickly, easily, like popping peas.

In counsel the next morning, Paulinus smiled at Hild triumphantly: the heathen totem was destroyed, the weather had broken, the queen was well and the twins healthy. He would baptise them on Sunday.

But on Friday, Hild was woken by Gwladus before dawn. “Wilnoð says come. The twins are hot as fire.”

Their cheeks were red, their eyes dull, their lungs full. “They’re going to die,” the queen said. “I know it. They’re going to die.”

“No,” Hild said. “Not if we rub their chests til they cough out the phlegm, and then keep them warm when they start sweating.”

Æthelburh didn’t seem to hear her. “They’re going to die.”

Hild laid the back of her hand across Æthelburh’s forehead. “You’re hot.” She looked at Wilnoð. “Has she been coughing?”

Wilnoð nodded.

“Well, nothing to worry about,” Hild said. “I’ll give you some tea.”

“You wanted to give Angeth tea,” Æthelburh said.

“This is a different tea.”

“We have to baptise them,” Æthelburh said.

“No, lady,” Hild said. “That’s not what they need. They need—”

“You were going to marry Penda and steal the overkingship from my son.”

“Lady, that was the Crow’s idea.”

“You put it in his head. You’ve put demons in my babies.” She clutched her cross. “Get back, hægtes! I won’t listen to you.”

Hild shook her head, hurt. She said to Wilnoð, “She’s raving. Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

Æthelburh shouted, “Don’t listen to her! Is she the queen? I’m the queen! Bring me the bishop!”

Wilnoð, with an apologetic look at Hild, left the room. Hild wished her mother was there. She murmured to Gwladus, “Find Begu.” She was probably with Uinniau. “If you can’t find her, get Cian, and tell Arddun to bring Eanflæd and Wuscfrea.”

Æthelburh would see that Cian loved her children, all of them, like his own. He was her godson. If he said baptism could kill them, she’d listen to him, surely.

But she didn’t. And in the middle of the shouting and pleading and Eanflæd’s wailing, Paulinus and Stephanus arrived, breasting the night in their robes like ships in full sail, unstoppable. “Keep trying,” she said to Cian. “Do what you can. I’ll talk to the king.”

But it was no use. Edwin pointed out that the totem had come down, the weather had broken, and Paulinus was his chief priest. The queen was the queen. If she thought the babies should be baptised, then they would be.

Cian, who had tried til the end to change the queen’s mind, came to find her under the daymark elms. “They’re dead,” he said. “Both of them. Still in their baptismal robes. The girl had black hair.”

He didn’t even sway, just folded down on his knees, thump, like a butchered bullock, and for a moment Hild saw blood, red as a mummer’s sheet, falling from his throat and running over the grass.

She folded him in her arms, as she had Angeth, as though he were small enough to carry, and he shook, and she stroked his hair, over and over. His arms crept around her. He wept.

He wept for an hour. He wept as the elms shivered and the shadow changed and her back began to ache, but she didn’t let go.