The thegns thought they understood. Oh, they would talk for two days, yes, the tide of conversation ebbing and flowing, but they knew the story of Edwin’s dream at the court of King Æthelberht long ago, and why should they deny him? What was one more god? Gods were like the flotsam that washed up with the waves, always coming and going, and those big enough to remain gradually were worn away by wind and water and time. But the thing must be talked about, beards tugged, and the last of the year’s mead drunk.
The thegns were wrong. The Christ and his priests were different. They were a storm that would change everything. They read. They would sweep the beach clean. But not of her. That was not her wyrd.
* * *
When the thegns understood their Witganmot wasn’t to be at the big oak, or even in hall over mead, but at the new talking stage, they muttered. It was Romish, not Anglisc. It wasn’t right. But then Coifi announced he had blessed a new totem to stand witness to their pledges. And wasn’t a totem better even than an oak?
Hild listened to the newly arrived thegns as they inspected the talking stage. It looked like a wedge of cheese, Tondhelm said, though higher at the edge than the point. He stood with two others on the stage at the wedge’s tip, careful not to brush against the still-drying paint on Coifi’s Woden totem. Tomorrow they’d sit with other listeners in rows rising to the back. The thing reeked of new wood. Hunric, a thegn from near Goodmanham who had ridden in with many men, said that there would be splinters in all their arses by moonrise the next night.
That night, after the main feasting, the queen withdrew from the great hall with her women and those who had ridden with their men to the Witganmot. Breguswith and Begu went with them to the women’s hall, but Hild stayed awhile with Oeric at her elbow. The men got down to the serious business of drinking. Cian and her hounds drank as mightily as the rest, or seemed to, though she suspected several were pacing themselves for the wrestling and boasting to come.
There was much gossip among the thegns, who had less to prove than the young gesiths: who had brought the most cattle for the king, who wore the most gold, who had a new wife, a new son. The scop sang songs of their ancestry, flattering them outrageously, his boy scooping up armlets and finger rings and sparkling daggers as the progressively drunk thegns sought to outdo each other in generosity.
Hild noticed that Hunric threw his smallest ring, and boasted merely that he had brought the most cattle, which was true, and that his son would beat anyone else’s son at anything—once he was grown. Given that his son still ran bare-legged with a wooden knife, this was a safe boast, one no one would remember in a dozen years. A canny man. Edwin, she saw, had raised his cup to Hunric and Hunric toasted him in return. Hild knew what Hunric didn’t: that the king was only amused by those he thought little of.
Faces grew redder and drinking competitions sprang up at every bench. Bets were laid. Soon they would start boasting about their horses, and the scop’s man—traditionally the keeper of the boasts—would set up the racing for the morning. Meanwhile, the scop’s praise grew more extravagant. The thegns roared: The scop was teasing Tondhelm about a brain as small as his ear finger and a prick bigger than his arm.
She picked her way through the raucous men—who were too worried about what other men might be thinking of them to bother with a woman—to Cian, who was telling some involved story about the little sheep of Gwynedd and why the men of that land were also small.
He grinned at her when he was finished. “I’m leaving now for the women’s hall,” she said. “I’ll send Oeric back. Take him under your wing. Don’t let him make any boasts he can’t keep. And if you’re planning to ride Acærn to riches tomorrow, don’t drink too much more of that.”
To which he just grinned again and offered her his cup, and she grinned back and sipped.
* * *
The women’s hall, if anything, was even bawdier than the men’s. Veils were askew and sleeves tucked in belts. Arddun and Gwladus could barely keep up with filling the cups, and Hunric’s wife, inarticulate with mead, was shaking a broken-stringed lyre as though it were a choking baby.
Breguswith was deep in conversation with two women Hild didn’t know, and Begu was whistling like a cowherd. Hild sat next to her on one of the queen’s prettily embroidered cushions and took off her shoes.
“Stop thinking,” Gwladus said. “You’ll frighten everyone and spoil the party. Drink this.” Hild sipped: stinging white mead, made from … She sipped again … heather honey. Part of some thegn’s tribute or a gift? She looked up, saw Breguswith looking at her, then back at the women she was in conversation with. Hild made a note to herself to make friends with whoever that was.
“Stop it,” Gwladus said, but then had to fill another cup.
Hild sipped absently, then heard her name. “Hild knows that song. We sang it together at Mulstanton. Don’t you?”
Hild nodded.
“How does the tune go? The one Cædmon sings to Winty.”
So Hild sang the jaunty tune about running free in green, green grass, and Begu joined her, and someone restrung the lyre and plinked the tune.
Gwladus refilled her cup. “Better,” she said. “But the queen says you must drink this down in one, then smile, then drink another.”
Hild doubted Æthelburh had said any such thing. She looked up, but couldn’t even see the queen.
“Oh, for earth’s sake,” Gwladus said, and took Hild’s face between her hands. “Look at me.” Hild found herself looking straight down Gwladus’s bodice. Gwladus tilted her chin until their eyes met. “Listen to me. Truly: Arddun told me that the queen has ordered that anyone sober enough to walk a straight line tonight will be put in the corner and covered with honey. So drink, look stupid. Better still, be stupid. Look at your mother.” Breguswith’s cheeks were now cherry red, her sleeves undone. “She knows when to let go. You should, too.”
And, later, when the women were kilting up their dresses and setting loose their hair to dance, Hild did, too, and a little while after that she even forgot to think about what she was doing.
* * *
Hild squinted in the morning light, glad of the keen wind and low clouds. She didn’t think it would rain. She stood with the other women, pale but tidy, at the north end of the horse path. At least they merely had to cheer while the men rode their horses against one another.
In the first race, one gesith had to vomit from his saddle before he could drink the race toast. He was better off than his race mate, though, who fell off at the first bend and broke his collarbone. Edwin gave the winner a dagger.
More racing, more accidents, more wagers, more straining and shouting and falling in the mud.
Gold, boast, blood, sweat: The crowd shook off its lethargy and grew cheerful.
The only grumbles came when the midday feast—roast ox and heather beer, on benches set under a canopy of branch and reeds—was delayed for the Crow to give thanks to his Christ. Christ wasn’t their god, some muttered, not yet. But most didn’t care. They were happy to eat. They planned to doze on full stomachs for most of the Witganmot and rouse themselves sufficiently to vote as their chief men directed.
Hild watched the looks and nods travel up and down the benches—the king and the Crow, Hunric and Coelfrith, Coifi and Tondhelm—and knew Paulinus would be pleased.
* * *
The king and his chief men—the æthelings, Coelfrith, Paulinus, Coifi—sat on a bench at the back of the speaking platform. The men of the kingdom sat in the tiers rising before them. The women sat at ground level to one side, out of the thegns’ direct line of sight; they did not have a voice in the Witganmot. Begu sat next to Hild, nibbling on the bread she’d tucked in her pouch at breakfast. She chattered about this and that as one by one the men—wearing their finest, groaning with gold, moustaches carefully greased—stood and swore their oath to their king, named the tribute they had brought, and numbered the spears they could rally at the king’s word. Many of them got very florid: They liked
the sound of their own voices, liked the regard of their fellows.
Many of the women were frank in their assessment of the men, gossiping about which would make a good husband, which good sport. Hild mostly listened to the birds. “… Trum something, I forget what,” Begu said. She was pointing at the man now standing, wearing rich brown embroidered with gold. “Isn’t that a lovely colour? Like a polished acorn—like Cian’s horse. Oh, I was so pleased that he beat Lintlaf today. I bet one of my combs on the race. No, no, not the comb you gave me! I’d never part with that. But anyway I won, so now I have two extra combs, I’ll give you one…”
Hild listened to the hweet of a siffsaff somewhere over the rise and thought perhaps later she’d walk to the west of Ad Gefrin where last year she’d found a throstle’s nest with eight eggs—eight!—bright with their red blotches. But it was probably too early for eggs.
The king’s feet were dancing this way and that, but even the king had to listen when men spoke at Witganmot. Eventually, though, the speeches came to an end, and then the king stood, walked to the front of the platform and the totem, and made his own speech, full of praise for the strength of his men, the wealth of their tithe, the generosities he would visit upon them during the next year in reward for their loyalty. He named a man here, a man there, sometimes joking, sometimes flattering, pleasing everyone with his notice. Then he said he would stop, for there was a fine feast in the making, and once they had made their weighty pronouncement on his question, they could eat until dawn. But for now, he would let the Romish high priest, Bishop Paulinus, speak. Paulinus had words from his god. The god had also spoken to the king in a dream at the court of Æthelberht—they all knew that story, he wouldn’t repeat it here—but they were to understand that Paulinus spoke as with the king’s mouth: His words were the king’s words.
The thegns roared and thumped their benches.
Paulinus took the king’s place. His white robe, embroidered in crimson and yellow, shimmered. The cloth-of-gold stole around his neck must have weighed more than a sucking pig, and the gold-headed crook in his left hand blazed with jewels. When he raised his right hand, his ring flashed like Earendal, the dawn star.
The thegns sat back, enjoying the display of wealth and power, expecting a short, rousing speech about wealth and wyrd, the king’s protection and the Christ god’s cunning, the promise of good weather and better luck, of alliances and strength of arms and honour, larded with flattery.
The Crow began well enough, speaking loudly and clearly, careful of his accent: the bishop of Rome held the king of the Anglisc in high regard, and his power and favour would shine upon the isle as a mark of his blessing and the blessings of God. The Franks would honour them, and the Frisians, and the people of Rome. Their cattle would grow fat, the corn tall, and gesiths would flock to the tufa to make one nation under God. Everyone would know the name of their king, of the Yffings, of Northumbria! They had but to accept Christ as their God, and all those who were in agreement with him would be cleansed in the Fount of Life.
The thegns nodded and murmured among themselves. Fine promises, exactly what you wanted from a god.
Begu whispered to Hild, “We’ll be going into the feast early.” Indeed, one thegn was already standing to make his agreement.
But Paulinus wasn’t finished. He fixed them with his glittering eye—so dark, so foreign—and began to admonish them about Satan, about driving out the wealh priests as his spies, about obeying the will of the one true God, who spoke only through His bishop in Rome. Their king willed it! Their king demanded it! Their new God commanded it!
The thegn next to the one who had stood shouted: Who was this god to command a king? To command thegns in good standing?
Paulinus overrode him in a torrent of words. They had no choice but to obey! If they obeyed their God’s commandments, He would deliver them from their earthly troubles, save them from the everlasting doom of the wicked, and give them a place in His eternal kingdom forever. But they must obey. They must bow their heads.
The rumble of disgruntled thegns drowned out the Crow’s now thickly accented last words.
Bargaining? They were used to that. Persuasion? Yes, of course. Bribes and promises? Naturally. But commands to submit? They didn’t even know this god. What had he done for them? Had there been a battle the god had won for them, a crop he had brought home with unexpected bounty? Yet the priest wanted them to obey. Was he mad?
It was Coifi who stepped in. He sprang onto the platform and strode forward, holding out his arms so his leaf-green cloak billowed. “Hear me! Hear me!”
He stepped in front of Paulinus.
“You know me!”
They couldn’t disagree.
“I am the chief priest of the chief god.”
Even more unarguable.
“Look at me!”
“You just get uglier!” Tondhelm shouted. Laughter.
“Am I rich?”
Frowns.
“I ask you, am I rich? I am not. Why? Because my god is not as powerful as the Christ god!”
Begu whispered, “Why would he say that? Why—”
“Woden’s shrine is made of wood. Painted wood. But in Rome they stain glass like jewels, they build of stone like the giants of old, they cover their ceilings in gold!”
Gold.
“Woden is a great god, a fine god, but there is a new god, more mighty still. His altars are spreading. The men who have been to Kent, to East Anglia, have seen how rich their kings are, how generous to their thegns. I have seen it.” He pointed to Coelfrith, to Osric, to the others sitting behind him on the bench. “They have seen it.”
“I have seen it!” Coelfrith shouted.
“Gesiths who took the Christ’s blessing do well for themselves,” Coifi said. “They have rings on their swords, jewels at their belts, horses swifter than the wind.”
“Does he mean Cian?” Begu whispered. “I think he does. Cian! And you said this was going to be boring!”
“The Christ god will make us richer than the Franks! I tell you truly. It is our wyrd.”
Behind him, Coelfrith was stretching his eyes at someone in the front tier: now, now.
A man leapt to his feet. Hunric. “Edwin king! I say the chief priest of the chief god is the one to know! If any man can. For what can men know? Our understanding is like that of a sparrow flying through the king’s hall at Yule. Outside it’s all howling darkness and rain, inside it’s a warm hearth and music. The sparrow flies in one door, into light and laughter. Then out the other door, back into the dark. And that moment for the sparrow is like our moment in middle-earth. Because, like the bird, we know nothing of what came before now or what’ll happen after.”
“I know what comes after this!” Tondhelm shouted. “Food!”
“The food’s not going anywhere,” Hunric shouted back. “I say that if the priests are right, and they were right in the king’s dream long ago, when he was just an exiled ætheling—and look at him now! our king! overking!—then men aren’t on middle-earth for long. We’re like that sparrow, mazed by a moment of comfort. Well, if the priests say they can teach us the before and the promise of the after, then I say we listen!”
Other thegns were standing to speak, and Hild knew they’d be there all afternoon.
“Hunric’s sparrow is a very stupid sparrow,” she said to Begu. “Birds always know where they’re going!”
“Don’t be silly,” Begu said. “It’s not about the bird. It’s about people who don’t know where the bird is from or where it’s flying to. I think.”
“Then the people are stupid. I know where all the birds around here nest.”
“You’re getting peevish,” Begu said. “Are you hungry? Eat this bread.”
* * *
She got more peevish when, at the door of the great hall, Gwladus, waiting with Morud, told her the feast was delayed: The king wanted her in his small room with the other counsellors. She handed Hild a lump of cheese. “Eat this. You might
be a while. Two messengers came, with three letters.”
“The deacon talked to them while you were all out there listening to the windbags,” Morud said. “Something’s up. The deacon looked right peaky.”
Hild arrived in the small room just as one of the messengers—they were both priests with the Roman tonsure—unrolled the letter. Others were still arriving—no sign of Paulinus—and she took a place next to James. Morud was right. James looked a little damp around the hairline, and his complexion was tinged with ash.
The priest began to read in Latin in that peculiar, weighty voice that Hild realised was common to those used to waiting for an echo from stone walls.
“To the illustrious Edwin, king of Anglisc: from Boniface, bishop, servant of the servants of God…”
King of Anglisc, not all the Anglisc.
The second priest translated, in a voice of brass, better suited to the hangings and corners of a king’s hall.
“The words of man can never express the power of the supreme Divinity…”
In this at least, Boniface, the bishop of Rome, was just like a scop. The words of man can never express … But he was going to try, and at length, by the look of that letter.
Clearly Edwin had just reached the same conclusion. He leaned back in his great chair, tufa at his right hand, Coelfrith at his left, looking bored and mildly irritable. No doubt he was hungry, too.
Paulinus arrived finally, looking slitty-eyed as a cat who’d killed a pigeon. Three letters.
“… Divine Majesty who alone created and established the heaven and the earth, the sea …
“To Him are subject all imperial power and authority, for it is by Him that kingship is conferred.”
The king put his chin on his fist.
“… our Redeemer in His mercy has brought light to our excellent son Eadbald and the nations subject to him…”
Hild: A Novel Page 40