Egelric's prayer is answered

Egelric hands fumbled in drowsiness and panic as he tried to unlatch the door. He had been dreaming of his daughter, and now – such a knock at such an hour could not be for a friendly visit. Any other night he would have thought to have taken his knife in one hand, but he had been dreaming…

“Alred!” he gasped. His worst fear…

“Sorry to wake you, old man,” the Duke smiled wearily. “May I…?”

“Come in!”

Egelric stepped aside. Alred came in and stood slightly stooped before the fire with one arm curled over his breast.

“Are you injured?” Egelric asked. Anything, he prayed, so long as Iylaine was unharmed.

“Jupiter, no!” Alred laughed softly and, it seemed, awkwardly. “I need your help, Egelric. And Sela’s. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Anything!”

Sela appeared in the bedroom doorway. She was not frightened of Alred, but even so, with her shyness, Egelric was surprised to see her now. Her dark eyes were as wide and as curious as a foal’s.

“Good evening, Sela,” Alred said in a low voice. “I apologize for waking you, and that I may not greet you properly.”

“Are you hurt?” Egelric asked, still dazed, still fearing that he would be told of some injury to his daughter. “What is it?”

“Well…” Alred said, laughing nervously again.

Sela slipped past Egelric and went to the fireside.

“Good evening, Sela,” Alred repeated softly, smiling up into her face.

She began pawing at the front of his cloak, above the curl of his arm, and he chuckled. “You already know, don’t you, my darling? God bless you.”

“What is it, Sela?” Egelric asked, still expecting to see a wound.

Alred allowed her to pull the cloak open, and for an instant Egelric thought he did see a wound – a red, wrinkled wound where only the smooth skin of a man’s breast should be. But the wound quickly resolved itself into a tiny, squinting face.

“Good God! A baby! Not my lady – ?”

“Heaven forbid! Not yet. You want him, don’t you, Sela?” he chuckled, for Sela was trying to extract the baby from the folds of his cloak. She patted her breast, and he said, “Bless you! He hasn’t eaten yet, though he tried his hardest to devour my finger on the ride here.”

“But – but whose?” Egelric gasped.

“Wake up now, my little mouseling,” Alred cooed. “There’s a beautiful woman here wants an audience with you.”

“Whose is it?”

Alred allowed her to take the baby, and Sela began purring in her throat as she did with Wulf. Egelric was suddenly trembling with a jealous anger.

“Damn you! Whose baby is that?”

Alred looked up at him at last, briefly, and then turned back to Sela. “Sela, dear, would you kindly take this little mouse into the other room to be fed? I suppose the other fire is better.”

She nodded and disappeared into the bedroom.

Alred waved a hand at the door, and Egelric went to close it.

“Now, what does this mean?” he asked when he had returned to his fireside.

“You don’t think he’s mine, do you?” Alred smiled.

“That thought had not even occurred to me.”

“Nor to me, until just now. Listen, Egelric. He belongs to the girl who was attacked by the elves February last.”

“Doesn’t she want it?” Egelric snapped.

“I have no idea. She’s dead.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, indeed! It’s a strange story, Egelric, and I suppose we shall soon be hearing fifty lurid versions of it. The truth is that the girl died bearing the child. It seems he was too large a baby for so small a girl. And she lay dead and cold for an hour or more before her aunt decided that she would not be buried with that elf child in her body, and so they had Mother Duna come back to cut it out of her, as they do at times when they despair of the mother and are desperate to save the child. Only, as you can see, the little boy was still alive, and poor Mother Duna nearly let go of her hold on her soul when she heard it cry out.”

Egelric glanced uneasily at the bedroom door.

“None of the women would touch him then. Her uncle brought him to the castle. And I did the only thing I knew to do,” he shrugged.

“Bring it to me.”

“You aren’t afraid of elf children.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

Alred only looked up at him with pleading eyes.

“The devil I will!”

“Egelric…”

“I have enough worries with the elves I have!”

“I doubt he will be much additional trouble.”

“Very clever of you to hand him off to Sela! She won’t let him go now.”

“She would be an odd sort of woman to turn her back on a helpless infant.”

“Shall I be foster father to all the babies the elves don’t want?” Egelric cried.

“Well… Say, you don’t still think Wulf isn’t yours, do you? He looks more like you every time I see him.”

“Oh! I have no idea,” Egelric muttered.

“You love him just as much either way, don’t you? And Baby?”

“Baby…”

“He’s a sweet little boy, Egelric. It isn’t his fault his father was a brute. And an elf.”

Egelric sighed, defeated. His prayer had been for anything, so long as Iylaine was unhurt.

“If Sela will,” he said. But he knew she would.