“I suppose you can guess why we’re here,” Sir Sigefrith murmured.
He and his godfather sat in the cloistered court of the castle in the ruddy light of torches and the blue light that followed sunset. His sister’s window was open far above, but he knew she would not be listening, even could she hear. Still, it gave him comfort to know she was there.
Alred had been struggling with the wind all the way across the downs. When he had gone out that morning, the sky had been full of flocks of tiny, wooly clouds. By afternoon the wind had blown in storm clouds from the sea, and the shepherds had already brought the sheep and their tiny, wooly lambs in to shelter.
He had left his horse at Sigefrith’s castle, and now he was risking the rain for a chance to return home on foot. He delighted in his combat with the wind—the struggle made him feel alive, and it seemed to force its way into his lungs and fill him with the clear, cold sea air.
One of the Sigefriths had taken the other up onto the roof of the tower. It was a difficult climb for the Queen in her skirts, but she decided she would go up. They had opened the bedroom window so that Lady Ragnhild’s soul might fly unhindered, but the bedroom had remained stifling from the heat of the fire, and it still smelled of blood. Now Eadgith thought she could use some air as well.
“Oh, dear!” she sighed as she reached the top of the ladder and her husband’s beloved feet came into view. “I don’t know how I used to climb up here when I was a girl.”
Egelric’s room was dim with the coral-colored light that had fooled him into believing it Sunday the first time he had awoken beside Lili.
It would soon be sunrise in the long heart of the valley, but here in the lake’s narrow gorge, the sun would not appear above the cliff for a long while, and no man could tell the hour but for the color of the light: ember brightening into coral, and rose into daffodil, and then the hushed blue light of day, as when the sun hid behind a cloud.
Sigefrith had been surprised to hear that Sir Godefroy had come without Britmar, Baldwin, or even Leofric. He and Malcolm liked to joke that it was a wonder Sir Godefroy could make it as far as the bedroom door in the morning without someone to follow. He always seemed to be in somebody’s train.
Moreover, he had requested an audience with the King, which must have seemed a great presumption to the man. Sigefrith thought that the matter must be important; no one took his title of King as seriously as did Sir Godefroy—not even Sigefrith himself.
Egelric did not rejoin the men until he had seen his wife undressed and resting on her bed, with a low fire and an order that she be brought something warm to drink. He and she knew that her trembling was not due to the cold, but it was easier for both of them to pretend it was.
He also knew that she would not rise again until he returned to her. There were times, he thought, when it was convenient to have a wife who asked one’s permission and obeyed one’s commands.
Egelric regretted agreeing to Eirik’s demand as soon as the door was opened and, over the top of Lili’s head, he saw what she was seeing.
He saw how it must appear to her: the three tall men in the dim room, their grim faces, and the sword laid out behind them on the table.
Though there was an understanding in the family that Eirik would stand up for Murchad’s right to retain his Irish lands if ever his uncle, the King of Leinster, were dethroned by Whitehand, still the two knew that there was a chance that they would meet in battle someday.
And so, when they met now, it was always in that strange twilight between enmity and amity, in the netherworld of enemies whose ladies are sisters.
“What is this?” Egelric asked.
“It’s a harp!” Lady Lili cried and clapped her hands in delight.
Malcolm scrabbled for the knife he hid beneath the windowsill, but he was too disoriented; it was not his own bed, the window was on the wrong side of him, and—
“Malcolm!”
“All that really matters is Matilda. Matilda, and Matilda’s children… but Matilda at the heart of everything.”
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