Hild nodded, wondering about Hereswith. I am with child. The letter had only come two months ago but who knew when it was sent?
“What will I do if I get the words wrong tomorrow?”
“You won’t,” Hild said. “All you have to do is say your name. You know your name. And then swear against their demon Satan and for the Christ.”
“And his father, and the holy breath—or is it flame? That bit never makes sense.”
“No.” She didn’t like to think about it. James talked about a Holy Fire, a cleansing fire. Perhaps it meant being cleansed of the memory of the grit and slide of blade into spine. One quick sear, he’d said, and done, like a cauterising iron. But he had never tended a cauterised wound. Most swelled, turned angry, and leaked stinking pus. But her mother would have mentioned pain. But perhaps her mother hadn’t killed as many people as she had. She put it from her mind, scraped the bowl clean, and licked her fingers. The lamb tasted good this year.
“And I don’t understand why the Christ, or whichever one it is, is so squeamish. No blood in the church. No woman with her monthly bleeding. It makes no sense.”
James hadn’t thought to mention that to Hild. Perhaps they didn’t think a hægtes bled.
“And wearing white. What god likes plain old white and no jewels?”
“It’s so those priests can see if you’re bleeding,” Gwladus said, putting the bowl of stew on the table, along with a wedge of crumbly new white cheese and fresh watercress.
“What would they do if you are?” Begu said.
“No doubt nail you to the door, like the Christ,” Gwladus said. “And jam a hat of thorns on your head.” She laid her hand, brief and light as a drift of hawthorn blossom, on Hild’s head.
Begu didn’t notice. “You’d think their god was a slave, the way he let himself be treated.” She ladled herself some stew. The curtain swished behind Gwladus. “Your bleeding’s due soon, isn’t it?”
“Not tomorrow.”
“Better wear a rag just in case, or it’s a hat of thorns for you.” She paused, spoon over her bowl. “Do you suppose we’ll feel any different? I asked Cian if he felt different, afterwards. He said he felt … better. But he wouldn’t tell me how.”
No, thought Hild, because then he’d have to explain what he’d felt bad about, and neither of them wanted Begu to know what they did in war.
“Then I asked your mam, and she put on her meek-as-milk face and said it made her a better person, but the queen was listening, so you know how much that means.”
Hild nodded. Saying what made the people in power think well of her was as much a habit for Breguswith as showing her curves was for Gwladus.
“Do you think it odd that we’ll be swearing fealty to a god, like a gesith to his king?” When Hild didn’t say anything, Begu sighed. “Now what are you thinking about?”
“Um? Oh. My mother. And Gwladus. How they’re not so different.”
To Hild’s astonishment, Begu just nodded. She picked up her knife. “Let’s eat some of this lovely cheese. Let’s eat a lot of it. It’ll be a long morning.” She paused, cheese in hand. “What do you suppose the body of a god tastes like?”
“It’s bread. Like the bread Coifi buried at the root of the hedge.”
“But bread dipped in god juice. I expect it tastes like the air from a forge, buttered.”
Buttered?
“… cheese, then you can tell me about this Uinniau who’s coming from Rheged to witness for the king.”
* * *
Uinniau, prince of Rheged, sister-son of Rhoedd king, stood by the font. He was older than Cian, and though he had done some growing, he still was not tall. He still was freckled. His eyes still were the clear hazel Hild remembered. But he was no longer the boy who had bounced like an apple on the back of his too-large mare on the way from Caer Luel to Broac. He was there to stand in for his uncle as British witness to the baptism of Edwin, overking of the Anglisc. He wore the air of power the role lent him.
The font was the beautifully carved stone Paulinus had taken from Elmet, now mortared over the old well in the principia courtyard and bright with gilding and fresh red and blue paint. The font took up the north corner of what would become the church but was now merely a freshly sawn timber frame and a roof, open to the air. Beyond the brick of the principia, wind twisted the clouds this way and that, sometimes tearing them open and loosing flurries of cold rain, sometimes driving the sky clean for a moment and making way for a brief flood of daffodil-yellow sun. When the sun shone for more than a few heartbeats, it raised a strong smell of the dung with which the gardens north and west of the principia had been manured that morning.
Uinniau—and the priests, and the baptismal candidates and their sponsors—stayed dry and relatively sheltered. The crowd spilling into the courtyard was not so lucky. They didn’t seem to mind. They’d all enjoyed the big Easter breakfast the queen had ordered for anyone within the walls who asked. Anyone who wasn’t about to be baptised.
Hild tried not to think about her empty belly or how tired she was of standing. The morning had started with singing in hall, then a procession—led by Stephanus with the great cross, James with the choir, priests with censers, Paulinus with his crook, then the white-robed candidates, then their sponsors—cutting smoothly through the crowd to the church. Then the great Easter Mass began, complete with special blessings of a giant candle—thick around as a gesith’s thigh and nearly as tall as Hild, carved and gilded—and the water in the well, or font.
At the very dawn of creation your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them wellsprings of all holiness …
Two priests swung censers over the font. Wind whipped the heavy smoke into the women’s side of the royal party. Wilnoð coughed. She tried to stifle it, but that just made her eyes water. At least it covered the smell of dung.
Paulinus began the proclamation of the word of God. Begu, in the second rank of white-clad candidates and short enough to be half hidden, frankly leaned on Hild and shut her eyes. Hild, always visible, always watched, settled an attentive look on her face and drifted away into the music still cycling through her head. Cool, clear, endless as sky. Perhaps it would help with any cleansing burn to come.
Begu stirred and Hild came back to the moment. Stephanus was passing along the rows of candidates, touching a glistening thumb to each forehead.
… oil of catechumens … liberation from sin and its instigator, the devil …
She had to bend slightly for Stephanus to reach her forehead. His touch was light and quick. The oil didn’t seem to smell of anything.
… profession of faith …
And the world slowed, for this was the oath.
All around her, she felt chests rise and lungs fill, ready to give voice to the words they had learnt. Then she would be baptised and god’s flame would burn her, or not.
Paulinus’s gaze fastened on her.
He, at least, hoped for her to burn. She breathed deep. She was Anglisc. She would not burn. She would endure and hold true to her oath. An oath, a bond, a boast. A truth, a guide, a promise. To three gods in one. To the pattern. For even gods were part of the pattern, even three-part gods. The pattern was in everything. Of everything. Over everything.
“God the Father,” she said. God the pattern. “God the Son, God the Holy Spirit…”
All around her, words took shape and rolled from their mouths, high-pitched and low, harsh and smooth, loud and soft. They spoke together, oathed together, breathed together. Her kith, her kin, her king. Her people.
Her heart beat with it, her tears fell with it, her spirit soared with it. Here, now, they were building a great pattern, she could feel it, and she would trace its shape one day: that was her wyrd, and fate goes ever as it must. Today she was swearing to it, swearing here, with her people.
She watched the king bend to the font and the water poured three times on his head in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He flinched but didn’t burn. P
aulinus welcomed him to God with a kiss on the cheek and a great gold-and-garnet cross to hang about his neck, then turned to her.
She met his gaze, agate to jet. She would not flinch, not even if the water turned to a river of fire. She stepped forward, bent her head, and set her will.
The water was cold, like ice, like flame, and she clamped her muscle to her bone so hard that she felt turned to stone. The world faltered then resumed and the queen was kissing her cheek, welcoming her to God, and she wasn’t burnt.
She hardly felt the queen fastening a cross around her neck or leading her from the font. Watched through a daze as Paulinus poured the water three times over Begu’s head, anointed her on forehead, breast, and both palms, and Breguswith came forward to kiss her cheek.
White-clad back after white-clad back bent over the font. After the king and his family came his counsellors. Coifi and his priests. Rank after rank of gesiths joining Christ, now their god, god of Yffings.
When Paulinus turned from the font to the crowd and raised both arms—his arms were very thin Hild saw, very dark against the cream and gold of his robes—time began to flow in its proper course. The Crow cried out in a great voice that they had put on Christ, they had risen with Christ, and they would share the glory of Christ. The air under the roof bulged with choir song and the crowd cheered. She was baptised to Christ—their name for the pattern, her path, her wyrd. She was still herself.
Uinniau smiled at her and winked.
* * *
The hall heaved. Every freeman and woman within miles, all wearing their best, squeezed behind long tables; Oeric sat in his white robe with two lesser priests of Woden—no, not priests, not anymore—and several gesiths. Every servingman and woman was pressed into service; even Gwladus, even Morud. The hall roared with conversation, and despite the raw weather, it was hot. The thick slippery scent of the oil on her hands, the chrism of olive and balsam, stuck in her throat. Hild wiped her hands surreptitiously on the board cloth, but it didn’t make much difference to the smell.
She ran her finger around the collar of her robe, as though it itched, but it was the gold chain around her neck she felt. It was thinner than she was used to, a woman’s chain but bearing a massive gold cross. The great garnets flanked by pearls running down the centre looked like the bloodied froth that flew back in ropes from the bit of a hard-driven horse and the chain cut into her neck. But she couldn’t take it off, and she couldn’t look uncomfortable in it; it was the Christ’s symbol and half the people were still wondering if she would vanish with a wail and a puff of smoke.
Begu reached over and lifted the cross as though admiring it. “Better?” She hefted it. “It must weigh half a pound. Not very practical though. That great big knuckle of a thing will catch on everything. Still.” She weighed it again admiringly. “You should hold it yourself every now and again. It looks pious, and it’ll save your neck until we can get you a thicker chain.” She let it go. “Go on.”
Hild cradled the cross in her right hand. Christian.
Begu lifted her own cross—silver gilt, from Breguswith—and leaned in to Hild. “What does the writing say?”
“‘In Christ’s hands.’”
“Sounds like the kind of thing you’d say before running into a burning byre. Not that I’d ever run into a burning byre. You’d have to be mad. But that’s what it sounds like. Are we really supposed to long for death and a seat at Christ’s right hand? Well, I’d be on the left. Maybe you’d be on the right. Christ might look at your seax and your bare arms and get confused.”
Hild smiled. Begu was still most definitely Begu. “I’m sure he’d sort it out. James says Christ is all-knowing and all-powerful. He could put me in both places at once if he wanted.”
“Or maybe all three, or, no, six! At the right and the left of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Though … a ghost…” She frowned. “What would a ghost look like in heaven?”
Hild tried to imagine a ghost sitting in the golden light of heaven. Ghosts grew from the thin grey mist of hollow hills, the damp and drizzle of dusk, the breath of the dead. They drifted and glimmered along boundary ditches on moonless nights …
“Are all the men of Rheged Christians?”
Hild blinked.
“Well?”
Hild followed her gaze to the other end of the king’s board, where Uinniau was seating himself after a toast to the king.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was so handsome?”
“I didn’t think of it. I didn’t notice.”
“Well, he’s noticing you.”
Uinniau was smiling in their direction and raising his cup. Hild raised her own.
“And people are noticing him noticing.” Begu nodded at Cian, at the second bench. “He used to scowl just like that when his ma first cast her lot with Fa.” Begu giggled at her foster-brother and stuck out her tongue.
The world sharpened suddenly, as brilliant and bright as when she got rain in her eye. She saw everything: a lick of Cian’s hair curled in front of his right ear; Breguswith sitting with her back to Osric, talking instead to the queen; the queen— “The queen’s breasts are bound.”
“Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said? She’s given Eanflæd to nurse. Now that the king’s baptised, she’ll get to work giving him a son. Or maybe she already has. He’s certainly looking pleased with himself.”
Edwin was leaning back, chin on one hand, smiling, eyes half lidded, listening to Osfrith and Clotrude exchange some witticism. It was a look Hild recognised: a cat watching a stunned mouse, in no hurry to kill. Who was his smile for?
“Ah, now, you’ve smeared mint sauce on your sleeve,” Begu said. “Never mind, we’ll have to dye everything anyway if they’re to be of any use. What a waste and fuss for a bit of water and a few words. Though at least we didn’t have to blunder about in a muddy river. Oh, oh, he’s looking at me.” She tucked her braid behind her ear, untucked it, and turned carrot red.
Hild was on her feet before her thoughts caught up with her body and she realised Begu meant Uinniau. Uinniau was looking. Not the king. The king barely knew Begu existed.
The air in her lungs evaporated in a puff that she turned to a laugh, and she sat down. Breathed. Smiled.
Begu glared at her. “It’s not funny.”
She smoothed Begu’s hair. Her hand trembled. “Sshh, sshh. Your hair is fine. You look lovely. White is a good colour for you. You look like … like apple blossom.”
Begu allowed herself to be offered a morsel of lamb. Hild smiled some more and breathed. Behind her smile, her thoughts whirred like a pole lathe, back and forth, shaving away the layers. As she let Morud refill her cup, as she commented on the food, as she chatted about the best way to dye already woven cloth, she studied the table.
Paulinus was standing by a torch-lit pillar with Stephanus, who had arrived the day before from Elmet, almost unnoticed in the press of representatives from neighbouring kingdoms. Hild thought she’d even spotted a man from Craven, though not Dunod himself. For once, Stephanus was not taking notes. For once, Paulinus had drunk more than a single cup of wine: Edwin’s baptism was the beginning of his triumph. And Edwin still needed him. So, the king’s smile was not for Paulinus.
Her mother was still talking to the queen, who listened intently. Hild couldn’t think of any reason why Edwin would go for her now. Not her mother.
Next to her mother, Oswine stabbed sullenly at his trencher with his eating knife. But he was an unimportant piece in the game. Osthryth, with her white robe and pointy teeth, looked more like an ermine than ever. She was even less important than her brother, unless Edwin needed to appease some king with a marriage.
No. Edwin didn’t need to appease anyone today. He was baptised. His plans were in place.
Next to Oswine, Osric sat like a bulldog in a white robe. His little brown eyes alternately tracked Breguswith—she was ignoring him steadfastly—and the king. The king, pretending to be unaware of his kinsman’s r
egard, gestured to Coelfrith, said something in his ear, and leaned back again. Coelfrith left the table quietly. Osric watched him, watched the reeve’s nod to the scop on the way out, and the scop’s answering nod, and straightened. His shoulders went back—the hound waiting to be tossed the heart of the kill. Hild caught the glint of Edwin’s teeth before he hid his widening smile with a forced yawn and covered both with his hand.
Osric.
Now the pattern was clear: her mother, not staying with Osric at Arbeia; her mother, ignoring him now; her mother, getting baptised early, growing close to the queen, reweaving Onnen into her plans. Her mother, changing sides, so gradually, so carefully that even Hild hadn’t noticed. She had understood, long before Hild, that Edwin was ready to topple his cousin.
At the doorway, Coelfrith, carrying a three-legged table and followed by two of his men—one carrying something brick-shaped, wrapped in closely woven embroidered linen, another with a long, finely carved birch box—made a brief eddy as he entered.
Osric stroked his moustaches with that pleased look men wear when they expect acclaim. 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, Coifi’s clay brown, the æthelings’ blue-grey, the black-brown of Osthryth and Oswine and Osric.
Edwin, king of Deira and Bernicia, of all Northumbria, overking of the Angles, lord of the north, and most powerful man on the isle, smiled and raised his cup to Osric, who inclined his head and swelled with pleasure. Edwin gestured for him to stand.
This was how it would be for her, she realised, when Edwin king decided he no longer needed a seer. She would stand, plump and fed and brushed like a sacrificial cow, with gilded horns and a ribbon around her neck, too stupid to know she was being led to slaughter.
Edwin poured the white mead with his own hand and held out the cup to Osric.
Hild wanted to throw bread at his head. Think! It should be poured by the queen! But the queen watched impassively, and Hild kept her face and hands still. Osric took the cup.
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