Free Hild: A Novel by Nicola Griffith Page B

Edwin’s absence and Cwenburh’s absorption in her belly, tightened her reins on the running of the household and laughed with the queen at her happiness. She seemed unperturbed by the queen’s continuing good health. As the days lengthened, she spent time teaching Hereswith and Mildburh the intricate work of piled weaves. It must have been difficult, because it made Hereswith bad-tempered. In the evenings, with the light good for nothing but spinning and skeining, they joined the other women of the household in their gemæcce pairs, old woman with old, young with young, women who had woven and spun and carded together for years, through first blood and marriage and babies, who had minded each other’s crawling toddlers and bound each other’s scraped youngsters, and wept as each other’s sons and daughters died of the lung wet, or at hunt, or giving birth to their own children—all while they spun, and carded and wove, sheared and scutched and sowed. Hereswith and Mildburh, Breguswith and Onnen, Cwenburh and Teneshild, old Burgen and Æffe. Onnen was the only wealh. Hild watched them, and the other not-yet-girdled girls—Cille and Leofe, who were already meant for each other, and half a dozen younger—and wondered when her mother might choose her gemæcce and who it might be. She was taller than all the unmatched girls, even the ones with breast buds, just as her mother was taller than the queen and Cian was unusually tall for a boy with a wealh mother. In the stories, tall and royal ran in the same breath.
    It was usual that a highborn girl was paired with one who was slightly less so, that they might travel together when one married. In Hereswith and Mildburh’s case, Mildburh might be the queen’s cousin, but Hereswith was the highest ranking unmarried female blood relative of the king. She was the default peaceweaver. But perhaps not for long, not if Cwenburh brought her child to term and it was a girl.
    Tonight, they were using beeswax tapers, a new luxury, because Ædilgith, recently returned with her gemæcce, Folcwyn, from the court of the East Angles, said that Rædwald’s queen and daughters made magnificent embroideries by such light, and the court was the richer for it. And indeed, Hild thought, as she rewound Ædilgith’s skein of blue-green wool while Ædilgith held—for Folcwyn was shaking with the ague, caught no doubt from the East Anglisc marsh they had passed on their way to the coast—the tapers cast a light as white and clean as moonlight. Though moonlight never wavered the way the taper light did when one of them flicked a veil back over a shoulder—Ædilgith said the East Anglisc wore their veils longer, too—or stood to rearrange her dress and then resettled on her stool or the cushioned travelling chests.
    Ædilgith tapped the side of Hild’s hand and motioned for her to pay attention to the tension on the yarn between them. “I like this colour.”
    “It’s uneven,” Hild said, thinking about the East Anglisc. Good enough only for housefolk.
    Ædilgith glared at her. Hild glared back. After a moment Ædilgith decided to ignore the insult. “Folc thinks that if the year is as rich as it seems it could be, and trade is good and the king generous, we might buy indigo. Think of it. Weld and indigo would make a green bright as a grebe’s feather.”
    “Like your eyes,” Hild said, to be friends again. Ædilgith was notoriously vain about her eyes. Her most prized possession was a beryl ring, and Hild had overheard her tell Folcwyn that she wouldn’t marry any man who couldn’t give her beryls for her ears and green garnets for her veil band. Hild wondered who Hereswith might marry, then remembered that mention of her name in the king’s wagon. Already it seemed a long time ago. Hereswith’s bleeding had come more than a year since; it was past time, Onnen said, to find her a husband. But would she marry as peaceweaver to a victorious overking or as the gemæcce of the cousin