Hilda the Quill (died 877) was a Preost of the Order of the Ancients and one of the Order's lieutenants in Winchester, Hampshire during the late 9th century AD.
Biography[]
Hilda learned early in life that the Roman Catholic Church was no place for a woman of intelligence. Orphaned at six years old, she found shelter in a monastery, but, while the young male initiates spent days at study and prayer, she was banished to the kitchen. She began listening in doorways, hiding in shadows, and blackmailing monks with secrets she learned, asking only that they teach her things of importance: reading, writing, and Latin. In the Church, her voracious intelligence was her undoing. In the Order of the Ancients, it was a revelation. Bishop Ealhferth saw value not only in her sharp wit, but her ruthlessness. She quickly built a network of children like herself, quick and sharp; small hands quick to steal, small ears quick to listen. No secret in Winchester was safe from the Quill's army of little spies.
Hilda's body
In 877, Eivor Wolf-Kissed, who was summoned to Winchester by King Alfred the Great with the objective of eradicating the Order in the city, investigated "the Quill" at the marketplace, learning from the children Aelwyn and Wigbert that "the Quill" and her men were based out of the sewers. Aelwyn, secretly one of the Quill's employees, warned her mistress of Eivor's approach, so Hilda and her men ambushed Eivor when he found her hidden subterranean chamber. Eivor proceeded to climb the wall atop which Hilda was standing, and he cut her down before killing her guards. He proceeded to finish her off with his hidden blade, and, in her last words, Hilda insulted Alfred's God and professed that she was merely educating the youths and allowing for young girls to walk the path to enlightenment.