Resistance Bordering On Rebellion

Chapter 5 | Hild's Tale | A Serialised Historical Fiction Novel

Chapter 1 of Hild’s Tale was featured on Top In Fiction!

This is Chapter 5 of Hild’s Tale, a historical fiction novel based on (though not tied to) real events that took place in the kingdom of the Northumbrians during the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Abbess Hild, or Saint Hild as she later became known, was a woman who defied social and political expectations to become one of the most powerful people - yes, people, not women - in seventh-century England. Despite this, she was sidelined in the major contemporary histories; this story aims to give back the spotlight she so rightly deserves.

🎙 Members can find the audio version of Chapter 5 at the top of this post.

Chapter 4 was the first in Hild’s own words, as Bede began read the autobiographical Life Abbess Æthelhild had given him. Hild described her experiences as a young child forced through baptism as a political move by her king, including her lack of understanding about what was happening.

📚 You can read all previous chapters at the link below.

INDEX OF CHAPTERS

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Chapter 5

So the great abbess was an unwilling participant in her baptism, Bede wondered to himself.

He sat back in the chair he’d placed next to the hearth, Abbess Æthelhild’s book resting on his knee. It was a handsome object, its two wooden covers bound with taught, shiny leather embossed with dragon-like swirls and fastened with a glittering clasp at the end of a long cord. He ran his thumb across the deep grooves, picked at the edge of the lock with his nail.

Just a handful of pages in, Bede was already concerned by what he’d learnt.

He grasped his forehead, willing the lurking shadow of strain to leave.

Growing up in the monastery at Monkwearmouth, some sixty miles away and sixty years past, Bede had been taught that Abbess Hild of Whitby was a model of godly living to which all could aspire, male or female. She had trained kings and bishops; arbitrated disputes between kingdoms and religious factions; built this illustrious monastery with all its reputation for craft production and learning.

But she says she didn’t understand her baptism. And that her father was a pagan.

He could barely bring himself to say the word, even in his mind.

Pagan.

He read the passage again.

My father however, despite his outward act of obedience to the king’s will, continued to make offerings to Woden, Thunor, and the rest at the little shrine he kept at the spring beneath the edge, ignoring the altar the king had forced him to raise to Jesus.

There it was, in the abbess’s own hand.

Ignoring the altar the king had forced him to raise to Jesus.

Hild’s home was pagan.

They ignored Jesus.

He rubbed his brow again.

She was one of the greatest Christian figures of the previous century…

He couldn’t reconcile it in his mind.

Was everything he’d been taught about her a lie? Was he on a fool’s errand, seeking to learn about her life so that he could include her in the Ecclesiastical History of the English People he was writing?

Bede walked across to the low table placed underneath the small unglazed window, leaving the Life on his chair. Hands trembling, mind whirring, he poured a glass of wine from the jug, drinking slowly and deeply, hand on his hip. He stared for a long time at the trails of green glass that ran down the sides of the cup, studying the little bubbles punctuating the otherwise perfect item. He breathed steadily through his nose, knowing that he needed to be calm if he was to make sense of it all.

Jaw set, he placed the glass back on the table and strode back to his chair, taking a deep breath before he picked up the book once more.

Dear Lord, Saviour, please, protect my heart and mind.

He crossed himself, and sat down to read the next chapter.