It was not supposed to happen this way. It was never meant to end like this. The words clamor through her mind like warning bells, rung moments too late. Hilda’s head throbs with the their sickening melody. The world slows as her breaths quicken, as she bursts through the door of Wulfheah’s home and begs for aid from him. She implores him, pleads with him, robbed of the mantle of her pride with fear in her eyes and trust in her breast. She lowers herself to the place he’d sought to keep her trapped. She hugs her arms, and hates herself for thinking of him as safety. Her protector, her refuge, her haven. Words tumble out of her, every one of her walls collapsing with her vulnerability.
"Burga is... she's in hysterics. We were just talking and then she just flipped on me--I've never seen anything like it," she says with a deep breath. "She thinks I... Just go calm her, Bearda. Please."
The words have scarcely escaped her lips when the door slams open, revealing a year’s worth of rage with green eyes and messy blonde braids. The woman reaches for a pot on the shelf and hurls it, screaming in a shrill voice:
“Hilda is a whorish she-devil! Truly the spawn of her father!" The aim is hindered by tears and madness, and Hilda dodges the pot, scrambling to escape Burga’s ire.
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!" Hilda cries as Audelwyn leaps up and grabs her arm, pulling her back out of range for a moment.
"What in the world happened?" She urgently hisses into Hilda's ear, trying to get between her and Burga. Her words are almost drowned out by Hilda’s pulse, but she catches enough of them.
"She said she thought he didn't love her and then she just--I didn't say anything!" Hilda exclaims under her breath. The shrill voice continues its tirade as Burga grabs a plate, and lobs it at the younger women.
"WHORE! You can see it all over her hideous body!"
At long last, he responds. He steps forward, approaching his wife with the saccharine “Please, love…” that never failed to nullify her fits before, but he is met with a slap to the face.
"How could you let her tempt you? You? You! You!" Burga cries, hand beating against his chest emphatically. Audelwyn pulls at Hilda.
“Come on Hilda, before she tries to kill you or something,” she urges, but Hilda keeps her eyes locked on the woman. She is safe. She is safe, she is safe, she is safe--Burga can’t hurt her while her husband is here. Tenderness catches in her throat. Perhaps he still… His efforts to calm his wife crash and burn, and Hilda’s panic turns to rage.
"I AM NOT A WHORE," Hilda shouts, her anger overcoming her senses, and her lies numbing her tongue. Worse than a whore, he had said… She blocks out the phrase. "YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME, YOU PSYCHOTIC BITCH!"
He speaks. He speaks and her heart flutters. He speaks and she feels warm, and safe, and worthy--but the words that fall into the air are not loving. His words are not warm, and they are not safe. They slip through the spaces of her ribcage: harsh, and quick, and laughably false. They latch onto her heart and squeeze. She wants to scream. She wants to beg him to do to Burga what he had done to her--to pacify her with lies and a soulful gaze, to calm her with tenderness, to shape her mind with his potter’s hands and make everything stop. In her heart she is kneeling at his feet, pleading for him to do to his wife what he’d done to his mistress--to silence her with sharp words and twisted logic, to degrade her past argument and leave her cold and empty and fooled beyond saving. But she remains standing as he calls her a whore. Hilda keeps her head high as he bares his soul, uncharacteristic and sweeter than honeysuckle nectar. When he kneels in front of his wife with all the piety of a god, her hurt turns to anger, and her rage blends into horror. A plate almost grazes her shoulder and Hilda gasps.
"Burga he's lying--" she protests, swatting the plate away. "PLEASE," She begs, "THINK THIS THROUGH, LOGICALLY! WHY WOULD I EVER WANT TO SEDUCE A MAN? MUCH LESS YOUR HUSBAND? YOU KNOW ME, BURGA, YOU KNOW MY FAMILY!"
He looks at her, struggling to mask a victorious smirk beneath his collected gaze. She feels her foundation shake beneath the weight of his truth, his excuse, his confession.
"Why would I lie?" Bearda asks, "About dear Hilda at that? I am filled with remorse for my misdeeds." Remorse. She almost breaks into panicked laughter at the word “remorse.” He regains his footing, and steals the ground from beneath her. Hilda watches him with spite in her eyes and fury where her heart should be. Remorse…
"Do I even know you at all, Hilda?!" Burga shrieks. "I thought we were friends!" Hot tears pour down Hilda’s cheeks. She hates him. She hates him. She wants to throw herself at him, tooth and nail. She wants to sink her teeth into his neck and destroy everything he could ever become. She wants it all to stop.
“PLEASE,” Hilda begs, and the other woman slumps against the doorjamb.
“Did ‘please’ work for Hibald?”
"HIBALD WAS NOT INNOCENT" Hilda protests, moving back only to find a wall behind her. She feels Audelwyn tugging her again toward the door, snapping to her defense. Her words are drowned out by the madwoman’s.
“Neither are you!” Burga shouts, moving to block the doorway. “No one is leaving!”
Hilda screams back, her argument weak and her eyes stinging. “My mother never hated Godlefe, Burga! She hated the man who broke his oath! Who harmed his own family!”
A banshee scream of wordless anguish escapes the older woman, bending and twisting until words finally emerge. Hilda’s ears ring with the shrillness of her voice. "Do I look like a bloodletter to you? Or wait--you are blind, Hilda! Blind enough to think of a golden band around my finger as nothing more than decoration! As worthless as a scop's words!" A smirk threatens to emerge at the corners of Hilda’s lips. Bearda certainly thought so.
Hilda sinks back against the wall, thoughts racing. She can work with this. She can use this. She can run in the devil’s shoes and spin this; she only had to think of how. It spills from her mouth like venom, and her heart pounds from the rush of sure victory. Her pulse leaps in her ears and she almost understands--almost--the sick pleasure he derived from poisoning her mind.
"Believe what you wish to believe, Burga, I will not stop you," she says wearily. "I do not care what you think I did. There are no prospects for you to ruin, no reputation for you to destroy, regardless of my innocence or supposed guilt. I have never expected to marry, so you cannot ruin that. I have never expected to love, so you cannot destroy that. I have only ever been seen as spiteful, and undesirable, and your assumptions will do nothing to change that. So believe what you want to believe. I suppose it must be far easier for you to blame me, despite decades of friendship, and affection, and mentorship, rather than to consider for one moment that you are not smart enough for the man you love. That your love goes unrequited."
The syllables hang in the air for a delicate minute, like dewdrops on spider silk, but her victory is cut short. Hilda’s pulse turns to ice and her pride frosts over when the other woman starts forward, snatching a dagger from the table and gaining on her with her lips curled back in a snarl. “I can ruin one thing at least.”
Everything blurs into a storm of shouts and movement. Aude leaps in front of Hilda--she knows from the flash of flame-coloured hair, and the soft coaxing of the girl’s voice. From Burga’s hisses, and Bearduwulf’s worthless shouts. Move. She has to move. Hilda slips out of the spot by the wall to the lullaby of Audelwyn’s attempts at reasoning, and hides behind his taller frame. He will protect her. Against his own choice, if need be.
"You are a woman who was wronged and hurt." Aude steps forward, reaching to softly grab Burga's hands, "A woman who doesn't deserve the crimes her husband forced upon her. Don't get mad at Hilda, she's not the one who cheated on you. Don't attack her. It takes two to engage in such activities. Go for a walk. Let yourself calm down and think through what actions you want to make from a place of calmness, not from a place of pure anger. Much better decisions are made when you're outside of the heat of emotions."
"You go for a walk!" Burga howls, yanking back her hands and brandishing the knife. She sweeps a large berth around herself, backing towards the door.. "This is family business! Get out! GET OUT! Bearda loves me!"
Hilda moves closer to him, huddling between his body and the wall. ‘I saw you kissing him. In the mead hall many months ago.’ Burga had sobbed against her shoulder, outside, before madness warped her mind. ‘He never kissed me like that, in front of everyone… Many times have we lain together, or done the other secret things married couples do, and many times he has kissed me, but never... never like that.’ She feels like a fool, the way those words ring in her mind even now. The way she runs not to Aude, not to Seaxa, not to Blodau, but to him. The man that defiled her and left her to rot, alone. The man that broke her spirit, and left her in ruins. Her sense nags at her mind--knowing him, he’ll let her get stabbed. ‘Never like that...’ She wants to beat herself for feeling proud in that moment. For wanting him to protect her, to take her side. To stand up for the one he once claimed to love, and not the one he is required to. Her foolishness will get her killed. Here; now. He will smile with arrogance and apathy, and when her blood stains the floorboards he will shame her for leaving a mess. Worthy women are murdered neatly.
Seaxa steps forward, drawing his own dagger and advancing. “Burga, if you wish to fight, I will fight. But we are kin, and know too that no man leaves a knife fight unscarred.”
“I am no man,” the woman shrieks in reply.
“Seaxa, don’t--” Hilda feels guilt bubble out of her like water from a broken fountain. “Please don’t…” Whatever Burga does, it will be justified. More thoughts, rattling. A just death. A messy death, from a mess of a woman. Audelwyn’s voice rouses her from her fatalist musings as she hisses a warning to Seaxa, and reaches to grab Burga’s shoulder.
“I am sure Bearda loves you. But men are weak of will. Please Burga, let yourself calm down before you get yourself hurt.”
Burga recoils, but in a moment she is pointing the knife into Aude’s face. “DON’T TEST ME! I’ll kill you,” she seethes, “I’ll kill ALL of you!”
“Burga,” Seaxa says quietly. “You have made a good sister. I do not wish you buried yet.”
Hilda wants nothing more than to grip Bearda’s tunic, to wrap her arms around him and hide as he stands before her, but instead she sinks further into the wall, and fights the urge so fall upon her knees. Her hands begin to shake as she watches Audelwyn move, quickly, obscured from her full view. The dagger clatters against the floorboards.
“Burga, you have to calm down,” the girl urges. Burga shrieks.
“You don’t understand!” she bawls. “This is my marriage! A hare-brained girl like you wouldn’t understand!”
The words escape before Hilda can stop them. “Don’t you DARE call her that!” she shouts, stepping forward despite herself, though still too far for Burga to reach. “She has been NOTHING but GOOD TO YOU.”
Audelwyn holds Burga firmly and lowers her to the ground, speaking in soft tones Hilda can barely hear through the pounding in her ears, and the anxiety roiling in her stomach. She wonders what look lies across the face in front of her, past the strong shoulders and blond locks. She wonders whether knowing would heal or hurt. Burga whimpers, slowly looking up to Audelwyn. She nods slowly but reconsiders, swiftly driving her forehead into Audelwyn's nose.
"YOU TWO COLLUDED TO RUIN MY MARRIAGE! I SEE THROUGH YOUR LIES!"
Audelwyn falls back, releasing the older woman, and Hilda instinctively moves closer to him. Undoubtedly, he felt her bump into his back. Self-loathing rises in the back of her throat like bile.
“Aude!” Hilda cries out. Burga scrambles for the knife.
“You,” she exclaims, looking at Audelwyn. “You spoke out at my table in your wealish tongue!” She turns her head sharply, glaring at the Dunlending, calling her forth from her long silence. “And you too, thrall of Gerta!”
Seaxa retorts before Blodeucoed has the chance. “You’re mad, and she is a free woman!”
“I-I am no thrall!” the wealh replies with wide eyes, gripping her heavy wooden bowl like a shield. Audelwyn snatches the dagger while Burga is distracted.
The woman wheezes, “My knife! No, no, no, no, no! I have a right! Revenge! I HAVE A RIGHT.” Tears well up in her eyes again as she collapses against the floor.
“You have no right to kill someone, Burga,” Audelwyn responds, horrified. “You are going insane!”
“WERE I BUT A MAN I WOULD EXACT EVERY INSULT TO MY FAMILY WITH BLOOD! SEAXA!”
Seaxa closes his eyes, blinking away hot tears. “Burga, I--Burga! Listen! I cannot do this!”
“That’s insane, Burga! They would kill a man for doing so!” Hilda shouts. No one has ever accused her of knowing when to shut up.
She does not know when Blodau reached the doorway, only that as Burga screeches, “YOU LOVED ME, SEAXA!” Blodeucoed’s bowl crashes down against the back of her head, and the woman slumps to the floor. All eyes turn to Seaxa.
“Never!” He stammers, looking to Bearda. “I swear it upon my--upon our father’s honour.”
Hilda’s mind stops racing. Everything goes quiet as she pushes past the brothers, and steps over the unconscious woman. She unbolts the door, but the hands that push it open do not feel like her hands. The feet that carry her out do not tread with her steps. She exhales air, and breathes in panic, and in a moment the flood of thoughts crashes across her skin like powdered glass and she is running. Somewhere, anywhere. Away.
She shatters on the road, warmly lit by tavern lights, and sheltered by a crumbling fence of mortar and river stones. It is there where she curls her knees up against her chest. Hot tears pour down her cheeks and she sobs, quietly, until her chest aches and her breath leaves her, as he left her: ruined within, ruined without. Abandoned, and housed by a damaged haven.
It is there where they find her.
