Hild

27

AUTUMN IN ELMET. At Caer Loid and then Aberford, Edwin watched while the Elmetsætne bent the knee and brought their children to the lady seer and Prince Boldcloak for blessing. Then it was Christ Mass in York, the turning of winter to spring in Bebbanburg, and the wind-whipped grass of Yeavering while the chief men gathered and brought their tribute.

Æthelburh had not apologised for calling Hild hægtes; queens never did. Instead she gave her presents—oil of jessamine, blue silk the colour of periwinkles on a dark day, a beautiful string of pearls and moss agate that would buy three warhorses—and gifted Begu and Uinniau, and Breguswith and Luftmaer as well. Small things, mostly, combs and pretty eating knives. More precious, she included them in all she did: her weaving circle, her Masses, apportioning the yarn, and consulting on supplies. She discussed sending Breguswith to Arbeia to sort out the cloth trade flowing through the Tine valley. She had in mind a place called Redcrag, not far from Tinamutha. Perhaps Breguswith could find Osfrith a nice wife while she was at it. Some northern princess. If the Picts and Irish got restless, it would be good to have the Gododdin and Alt Clut bound to the Yffings.

Begu and Uinniau could not be promised in marriage until the Rheged situation was settled, but they behaved as though they were and lived as part of Hild’s household.

One afternoon Begu spooled the last of the yarn into her skein, twisted it neatly. “I wish Rhoedd would marry Rhianmelldt off to someone. Anyone. I don’t care. I want Uinny. I want him safe. When will that be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I want it settled before there’s another war. Just tell me there won’t be war for a while. Tell me Eadfrith is charming that horrible Penda.”

“I’m sure he’s doing all he can,” Hild said. She reached for another heap of yarn. War with Penda would come, one day. The Yffings would fall, one day. She would make sure it was not soon. But Mercia was strong and getting stronger, and Edwin, instead of spending time giving away gold and attracting gesiths, was letting the Crow fill his head with nonsense about God and divine kingship and true marriage.

“What?” Begu said, pausing mid-spool. “Is there going to be war?”

Hild shook her head. “It’s not that.” Edwin was planning something. She just didn’t know what.

Spring at Yeavering. They cantered into the wind at the top of Ad Gefrin: Hild on Cygnet, Eanflæd on a dun pony she called Nettle, and Cian on Acærn, cloak streaming behind him, with little Wuscfrea tucked in the crook of his right arm. He galloped with his head thrown back, laughing, and Wuscfrea crowed at the wind.

Eanflæd rode ferociously, fearlessly, as though she were twenty feet tall and her mount straddled the world. She hated Hild to get ahead. She wanted to be first. Today Hild indulged her.

In hall, the king watched them. Paulinus watched them. She thought perhaps the queen watched them, but more subtly. She took care to wear her gold cross prominently outside her dress, took care that her every public word supported her uncle. Care, always care. Meanwhile, she sent a message to Fursey: Get someone inside Mercia. Tell me who leads, Penda or Cadwallon. But Penda’s hall was not Christian. She sent a message to Rhin: Get someone inside Gwynedd. Get someone to Rheged. Get me information.

Cian had a woman in Yeavering, the sister of the goatherd he had taken up with before. He’d had one in Bebbanburg and, before that, York. She had smelt her on him as he’d laughed and swung Eanflæd around in the rain by the great hedge. She’d smiled, gone to Linnet’s, helped her wring the neck of three chickens, and told herself she was glad he was healing. That night, when she held out her wrist for Gwladus to unfasten the carnelians, Gwladus stroked her hand and stood, breasts forward, mouth parted, and Hild understood she was offering herself: a gift, a solace. Hild swallowed and didn’t move, didn’t touch.

She hadn’t touched anyone. Every day the chief men arrived in Yeavering with their proud young sons and daughters: soft skin, hard muscles, challenging eyes. Every day, Hild found a way to step to one side of her yearning. It was too dangerous. Every day, Paulinus and his priests watched her. Every day, the king watched her.

Sometimes she rode with some laughing girl or strong young man. She drank with them, she played tug-of-war, she sat hip to hip with them on spread cloaks to watch the mummers perform by roaring bonfires while cattle lowed, and she knew what it meant when sometimes one of them took that extra breath or held her eye for that extra heartbeat, but she turned them aside with a smile. And with Cian she always remembered to turn in time to hide that same look in her own eyes; grew practiced in dropping her shoulders when he leaned past her for beer and she smelt another woman on him; learnt to pretend she didn’t notice when he sometimes paused and looked at her, puzzled, then turned away.

She stepped to one side of her yearning but didn’t step outside herself, didn’t close down. She simply pruned those parts that might reach out, that could damage her. Like pollarding an oak. One day, she would no longer need to train her growth, one day she would be free to spread as she wanted. Then she would grow very like the others, very like: though, as with all pollards, with the marks there for those who knew to look. For now, she was the light of the world. She wanted to keep the Yffings in power for a while, keep herself—and Cian and Begu and her mother—safe until she could find another way. She sent a second, longer message to Rhin: Here is silver. Have your man sow discord between Rhoedd and Cadwallon. Discord would weaken the British, perhaps make the west look ripe for Penda to pluck instead of allying with them. War between the Mercians and the British would weaken them both and delay the clash of stags.

In the south, plague spread. In East Anglia, Bishop Felix began a great abbey for Sigebert. In the west, Cadwallon quarrelled with Rheged and Alt Clut. Hild smiled.

Eadfrith sent a messenger with news of gifts sent to York from Penda.

“What gifts?” Hild asked.

“Gold,” the messenger said. “Eadfrith weighed it at a stone, exactly.”

“What kind of gold?” Why would he send tribute? It didn’t make sense.

“Hackgold.”

“Describe it.”

“Pommels,” he said. “Strap ends. Hilts.”

Cian was coming alert now. “War gear!”

Hild nodded, said to the king, “These aren’t gifts. They’re taunts. Probably stripped from the gesiths he killed in Gwynedd.” Penda was feeling stronger.

Edwin flushed and something moved behind his eyes. Some decision.

The high wooden sides of Edwin’s Romish talking stage sheltered the thegns from the wind. The chief men assembled on the benches were glad to fling off their cloaks and soak up the sun.

The Yffing totem, recarved with a cross and repainted in crimson, blue, and green, with the boar in bronze and gold, gleamed. Paulinus stood before it, on the platform, the other king’s counsellors, including Hild and Cian, ranged behind him. Hild was the only woman. The queen sat with her women, including Begu and Breguswith, on the side benches.

Paulinus spoke of the great church rising in York, the church in Craven, the Christian king of the East Angles and their king-to-be, the king’s great-nephew.

“What do we care?” one man called. Hunric.

Paulinus kept talking: “The gesiths who now flocked to Christ’s banner—”

“Aye, and got the shit kicked out of them in Gwynedd!”

“—the king’s heir, Wuscfrea, there, to the king’s right, born into a marriage blessed by God.”

“He’s still sucking his thumb!” shouted a man behind Hunric. Some of the thegns laughed, but more nodded. Hild had told her uncle it was madness to let Paulinus speak—did he not remember last time? But Edwin had smiled that smile with too many teeth and said didn’t she see the world was changing? Besides, the Crow was chief priest of the Yffings and entitled to speak.

Hunric stood. Paulinus’s cheeks mottled, but before he could start foaming, Edwin shouted cheerfully, “Bishop, let the thegn speak! Haven’t you learnt anything yet? Sit down. Let him have his say.”

Paulinus sat down just a little too quickly.

Hild glanced about her: Cian, as surprised as she was. Paulinus, angry, yes—a bishop of Rome to be interrupted by a barbarian!—but underneath that a glint of… satisfaction? Then Coelfrith, face showing nothing; not surprised. The queen, her face composed.

This was planned. Hild’s heart moved from a walk to a trot.

Hunric bent his head. Straightened. “He looks like a fine boy, King. Strong, lusty. But a boy. We have Idings in the north, Rheged and Gwynedd to the west, and Penda to the south. We need a strong man in Elmet. We need Cadwallon crushed. Will you call your grown sons to you?”

Hild’s gaze locked on Æthelburh. The queen was examining her cuff. She looked at Begu, who was frowning slightly, puzzled. At her mother, who wore her usual enigmatic expression.

Edwin didn’t even bother to stand. “I hear you, good Hunric. You are wise, as always. I will think on it. Come to the feast tonight and hear my word.”

The hall was packed. The mead flowed. Hild, wearing her best clothes and jewels, didn’t drink a drop. She couldn’t eat. She kept smiling, kept raising her cup, kept meat in her hand, and when no one was looking, tossed it to the dogs. No one noticed. Noise rose like the tide.

Hild’s ears rang. Something was coming.

Speeches. Toasts. Songs. It passed like a dream, or like the charge into battle. Unreal. And in the centre of it all, Edwin, her uncle, sitting, chin in one hand, smiling, eyes half-lidded, watching, in no hurry. Her mind whirred, but this time her lathe was blunt, and the world simply spun and made no sense. This time, all the people she loved were here, in a row, at the king’s board. This time her mother didn’t have her back to anyone. She was laughing with Cian.

This time there was no Osric, staring about him with beetled brow. This time it was just her, searching face after face, trying to understand.

Her mother caught her glance and smiled. That smile she had smiled when Hild was seven years old and preparing to carry the great gold welcome cup: Be brave, be strong.

Then she saw Coelfrith stand and leave the hall, nod to the scop on the way out. She caught Edwin’s gaze, and he smiled that smile with too many teeth. For her.

Gwladus leaned in, filled her cup unnecessarily, murmured, “Pinch your cheeks. You’ve gone white as milk.”

Hild wasn’t listening. She was watching Coelfrith come back into the hall with two men, one bearing a sack made not of hemp but of fine white linen, one a keg of polished oak, bound with copper.

She was vaguely aware of Gwladus on one side, Begu on the other, but she couldn’t pay attention. She was caught in what felt like a dream, one of those endless dreams that turned on itself, one she couldn’t escape. It unfurled with dreadful lack of surprise. It had all happened before.

Edwin stood.

The scop played a dramatic chord.

Edwin took his time catching the gaze of all his people: the beady black of the Crow, Uinniau’s open hazel, Breguswith’s bright, bright blue, Cian’s darker blue, and her own moss agate.

She felt the weight of gold around her neck, the wink of carnelians at her wrist, the seax at her waist, the fine dress with stiffly worked gold borders. A sacrificial cow.

Edwin poured the white mead with his own hand. Smiled at her again.

Then he turned to Cian, held out the cup.

Cian rose. Hild, still in a dream, half expected to hear the hiss of surf, see Mulstan grinning and holding out a sword. But it was Edwin, with a cup.

Cian took the cup.

“Cian Boldcloak. Hero of Gwynedd. Chief gesith. Queen’s godson. Son, so it is said, of Ceredig, king of Elmet.”

Cian’s hand began to shake.

“Hunric has said we need a strong man at our border. A loyal man. Hunric is wise. Cian Boldcloak, you have proved your oath beyond doubt. You saved my life. You saved the ætheling’s life. You love our son. You are brave in battle. You’re strong. You’re baptised. You are royal through your father. Your father whom I bested in fierce and honourable battle.” Men began to beat on the benches. Cian looked as though he were facing a strong wind. Edwin raised his hand. “Cian Boldcloak, will you and your lady wife take Elmet? Will you hold it as ealdorman until Wuscfrea comes of age?”

Cian blinked, said, “Lady wife?”

“My niece, the lady Hild.”

Every head in hall turned. Hild felt the weight of their regard. Like a gold crown. She regarded them back.

“Don’t faint,” her mother murmured, one hand under her elbow. Where had she come from? “Take a breath. Take another. Stand.” The ground was a long way down, and heaving. “Breathe. Straighten your back. Smile. Step forward. Step now, child.”

She walked with her mother at her elbow. Palms beating on tables followed her like surf.

Then she was standing with Cian before the small oak table carved and inlaid with Edwin’s emblem. The red-gold boar’s head flickered and swam in the torchlight as though it was running. Coelfrith’s men placed the sack and the keg on the table, opened the sack to spill a handful of hazelnuts over the oak. Mead and hazelnuts. Fruit of Elmet.

“Bishop,” Edwin said, and Paulinus stepped forward with the white cloth in his hand.

Edwin smiled at her, that spreading, lard-melt smile of a king roping his subject, harnessing her to his purpose. Paulinus smiled at her. Cian smiled at her and held out his left hand.

Cian, with his chestnut hair. Cian, with his bold cloak. Cian who didn’t know the truth. You can’t have him.

His hand was still out. Cian, the six-year-old with the stick, the fourteen-year-old with the boy’s sword, the gesith with the ringed sword.

You can’t have him. But now she must. The Yffings would fall. She’d seen the pattern. And now, at last, she also saw a way, when that time came, to keep them both safe. To keep her people safe.

She put her hand in his.

They put their hands on the table. Edwin and Æthelburh laid theirs on top, and the Crow draped the cloth over all.

Paulinus spoke for a long time—of loyalty, of a marriage to be witnessed before God in Elmet, of sacred oaths—but Hild hardly heard him. All she could see was the triumph on his face, the satisfied articulation of his lips: Sinner, his mouth said, doomed sinner and no more my rival. He knew the truth. Æthelburh knew. And Edwin. But now the lie, Cian, son of Ceredig king, would be sealed over the truth. Edwin thought the lie would make him safe without having to call in the sons Æthelburh wanted to keep far away. Without having to let his seer go.

But that was like a tiny piece of grit in a loaf of pure white bread. It was nothing. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the truth, rising like birdsong, like the scent of flowers opening to the sun, of her wyrd. Cian’s hand beneath hers. It always had been so. It had always been meant to be so. Fate goes ever as it must.

On the slow journey from Yeavering to Elmet, during the day, riding one on either side, Cian and Hild talked to Edwin of revenues and tithes, of plans and obligations; of how Edwin would bring Wuscfrea to learn the land and how often seer and ealdorman would visit the court. At night they separated, Cian to the fireside among his gesiths, Hild to her wagon, with her mother and Begu and Gwladus.

Her mother spoke to her alone just once. “This keeps you safe, both of you. It keeps us all safe. We think it’s for the best.”

We. Æthelburh and her mother, protecting their children.

As they rode south the weather softened to full spring. James the Deacon joined them outside York with his choristers. At Caer Loid, the night before the wedding, he heard her confession.

“There can never be too much love in the world,” he said. “You do it to save two lives. More than two. God blesses you. God blesses your land. Pray, every day, and find peace.” Then he smiled and looked around the small, plain church. “Also, give the place a bit of gilding. A beautiful house makes God happy.”

The small church was packed: Paulinus and Stephanus officiated, embroidered robes swinging as stiff as dragonfly wings through the incense smoke, jewels winking in the bright candlelight—white wax candles, lots of them. Lots of wax from lots of bees; her bees; her church; her people. James and his two choristers sang, though the wooden church packed with people was not the best sound board he could have chosen. The Latin flowed over her like smoke.

The front was packed with those who would leave soon: Edwin and Æthelburh, Wuscfrea and Eanflæd, Wilnoð and Bassus, Breguswith and Luftmaer. She would never live with them again. She would never follow the court to Bebbanburg and Yeavering, Derventio and Goodmanham, Sancton and Brough and York. She would only visit. At the end of the second bench, Begu and Uinniau. Strange, to think she was marrying before Begu.

The back rows were dense with her people: Oeric and Hild’s gesiths—a formal gift now, from the king. Pyr and Saxfryth. And behind them Morud and Gwladus, Lweriadd and Sintiadd, Rhin and a knot of Menewood folk.

Onnen wasn’t there. There had been no time. But perhaps they could visit the bay after the harvest. She shied away from that, the world where she was married. Not yet. Not just yet. She gripped her seax for courage. Now she knew how Hereswith had felt. She wished Hereswith were there. But there were scores of people. Elmetsætne. Her people. Faces she didn’t know, not yet. But she would. She would know them all.

She looked left and right. She couldn’t see as much as she’d like; the unfamiliar veil got in the way. No doubt she’d learn how to manage that, how to use it to her advantage, as her mother did.

Paulinus droned on. James sang some more.

And then Paulinus was giving them the blessing, “… Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Blessed by God. You can’t have him. She had to. God blesses you.

The church bulged with the people’s Amen. Cian was beaming. Beaming at Paulinus, the king, the people. Her.

This was the sum of all his dreams. Greater than his dreams. This was honour, respect, riches. Belonging. Ealdorman was not so different from king, and he was to be ealdorman in his very own Elmet wood, ealdorman for a strong king. For a while.

She took his hand.

Beef and mutton, salmon and eel. Good bread and mead, an astonishing quantity of mead.

Gwladus filled her cup often. Cian filled her cup. She filled Cian’s. They drank a lot and didn’t talk much. The space between them slowly filled with awareness, like a honeycomb, thick, dense, holding them in their place.

No one noticed. Wedding feasts were for the guests, not the newlyweds.

Night was for the newlyweds.

Hild sat on the borrowed blanket on the borrowed bed in the bower, wearing nothing but her thinnest, finest undershift, while Gwladus hung her overdress and veil in the nook and pondered where to hang the belt and seax.

“Here, over the corner post,” Hild said.

Gwladus looked at the slaughter seax, then at Hild. “It’s a wedding night, lady, not a war.”

“I’m used to it. He’s used to it. It’s just a knife.”

Gwladus sighed, hung the belt over the post, and carried the bucket of soapy water through the curtain. When she came back she brought a tiny bottle and a gold comb from Hild’s box. She dabbed a drop of jessamine on her little finger, ran it over the comb’s teeth, and combed Hild’s hair. Hild closed her eyes, enjoying the pressure of the hand on her crown, the tug of the comb, the firm strokes.

“There.” Gwladus tipped Hild’s chin up, examined her critically, tucked a fall of hair behind Hild’s left ear. Nodded. She put the comb and bottle away, then spent a while fussing with the placement of the taper, trying the table, then the niche, back to the table, the windowsill. Hild couldn’t see what difference it made.

Eventually Gwladus settled on the table by the corner.

Hild picked at the blanket. Gwladus cleared her throat. “So. I beat the mattress. The sheets are clean and warmed. That is, they were warm, and I’ve no doubt you’ll warm them up again soon enough. And I found some dried lavender for your pillows. There’s water in this pitcher, beer in this, and cheese here under the cover.”

“Gwladus…”

Gwladus ignored her. “I won’t be outside the curtain, not tonight, but I’ll be in Begu’s room next door. If you need me. Not that you’ll need me.”

“Gwladus…” She heard voices outside.

Gwladus stood before her, close enough for Hild to smell. Hild didn’t look up. If she did, she would pull Gwladus close and never let her go. “Enjoy him, lady. I can hear them outside now. I’ll send him in. Only him.”

The curtain swished. The door beyond opened. Raucous laughter. Hild reached for her belt, arranged the seax so its handle would be towards the bed, an easy draw.

“No,” Gwladus said clearly from the other room. “No, I mean it. You, and you. Not a foot past this door or the lady will turn you into a toad. A prickless toad. That’s right, you clutch at it while it’s still there.” More laughter. Muffled comments. “Now, my lord. This way. I’ll run these oafs off.”

The door closed. She stared at her knees. The curtain swished.

He sat on the bed next to her.

She stared at his knees. Blinked. Looked up at his face. “You’re wearing your cloak. Are you cold?” It came out as a challenge.

Even in the shadowed light, she saw his pupils tighten to pinpricks. “You’ve got your seax to hand. Are you frightened?”

Silence. Voices outside slowly faded. She tried again. “Really, are you cold? I am.”

He jumped up, flung out his left arm, and settled back down with his arm and cloak around her. Around her shoulder. They sat stiffly. The thin linen between her breasts trembled. Was she scared? This was Cian. She had knocked him down half a hundred times.

She touched her cheek to his. It prickled, a little. A muscle in his jaw jumped. He had knocked her down half a hundred times. But his jaw still jumped. She reached around his waist. Closed her eyes.

Silence. She breathed, in and out, in and out. He breathed, as fast as she did. She felt the muscles sliding over his ribs. He smelt of thyme and mead and that iron-and-salt tang that made her nostrils flare.

She knew what he looked like. Knew how his prick bobbed free, that his nipples looked like red currants. Knew the feel of his tongue. Knew him alive and alert and ready. But she didn’t know this man.

She put her other hand on his belly. Hit his buckle. She pulled back. “That buckle!” The knife buckle.

He blushed.

“Take it off. Take your cloak off. Take it all off.”

“Not until you throw your knife in the corner.”

They sounded like six-year-olds. “I won’t throw it.”

She stood and carried it carefully to the nearest corner, by the table. Turned. Saw how his gaze fastened on her as she stood outlined by candlelight. Trust Gwladus. She let him look. It was a very thin undershift. He could probably see right through it, right to her. Her nipples sharpened.

He took off his cloak. She folded it carefully while he pulled off his shoes, then his belt, then his tunic. She laid them in a pile on the cloak, then carried it to the corner, next to her knife, out of reach. She turned, looked deliberately at him, at the lines of tight muscle under his hose. The baggy part, tented now. Growing, pointing a little to the left.

They both swallowed.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

That made no sense. “But you’ve had lots of women.”

“I know what to do with women. I don’t know what to do with you. No, I don’t mean— You’re not housefolk. You’re highfolk. And Anglisc.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“And I don’t know if you want me. I don’t know why you didn’t want me before.”

She took his hand, laid it on her breast. She knew how that would feel, knew the line of fire that would run to his belly, to his loins. “Of course I want you. I’ve put my hand on your belt since I could say my name. I’ve shown you magic, I’ve made magic for you. Drop your shield now, and we’ll give each other magic.”

She stepped against him, so his nose touched the arch of her ribs, so he could smell her, smell that earth and honeysuckle and sharp sap of woman running out of her. She put a hand on his shoulder—the fillet of muscle running from his neck to the bone at the point—and one on the back of his head. And it leapt between them, like the understanding between gesiths locked in combat, like the awareness running between a school of fish, a flock of birds, a herd of horses: We are us.

She did want him. She wanted all of him, everything, wanted to fill herself with him until she couldn’t breathe. Wanted to pull him through her from the outside, to pull his skin through her skin, his muscle to hers, his bone to her bone. She could squeeze him, crush him to her, flex, strain, and reach, fight without blood, without bruises.

And she did.

She closed tight around him, tight as a fist, tighter, and his eyes were the bluest blue she had ever seen, bluer than the sky, bigger than the sky, wide, endless, the horizon of home.

On the day after her wedding she lay at the edge of the hazel coppice, one cheek pressed to the moss that smelt of worm cast and the last of the sun, listening: to the wind in the elms, rushing away from the day, to the jackdaws changing their calls from “Outward! Outward!” to “Home now! Home!” In a while she would follow.