Sigefrith scooted back his chair and hid his annoyance behind a smile.
“Afternoon, runt. What do you want? My daughter wanted a new saddle, and my squire wanted the afternoon to go visit his not-only-a-cousin. Have a seat, to start.”
He was still looking at her. Affrais was almost certain he was looking at her. For that instant she had dared look up at him, his eyes seemed to be looking directly into her own.
Synne had said that Lord Hingwar’s nephew would doubtlessly come, and a strange young knight at Lord Hingwar’s side must perforce be his nephew. But so far all she knew of him was a pair of piercing eyes.
Leofric cringed every time they turned a corner or went through a door. It was the first time he had attended a gathering that included Alred since he had seen Sigefrith and the others return home from Denmark the previous autumn.
He had spoken to Alred once, it was true, when Alred had accompanied Leofric’s two nephews to Raegiming. But that had been on behalf of the King. Alred had only come to inform Leofric that he wanted the two young knights kept busy until Sigefrith returned, so that Sigefrith could decide what to do with them. Afterwards he had gone up to dine with Leila in her apartments and had gone away again without another word for Leofric.
“Hallo, sprout,” Malcolm said and dropped himself gracelessly in a chair.
Dunstan sighed and marked his place in his book.
“I shan’t hurt her,” Vash said to the young doe that stood over Iylaine’s body. “Go on back to your fawn.”
The deer hesitated, but she moved off when the owl opened his eyes and screeched softly at her.
Iylaine ducked behind a tree and waited for the grooms to pass. She had somehow managed to walk past the guards at Nothelm gate, but she did not care to take unnecessary risks. Inside the castle she had been nearly delirious with her desire to get out, but now that she was out, she felt her cunning return to her with her calm.
They had arrived home that evening in time for a late supper, and then she had had to sit up with Gwynn and Margaret and tell of her adventures. Finally she had pleaded fatigue in order to escape to the solitude of her bedroom, though she was not tired, and her bedroom was not what she wanted.
Wynflaed leaned over the table, and when her tears fell she could hear them slapping against the wood. The pain was less when she sat in a chair, but it was still because of her pain that she cried.
As there were times when the pain was so great that she could no longer lie quietly in her bed and had to get up to sit in the dark kitchen until it had passed, so also were there times when her unspeakable fear was so great that she could not stand and work and smile, nor even worry about her mother, but could only sit, and rock herself, and cry.
“Mama, look who’s here!” eight-year-old Cedric said proudly.
“Alred!” Leila gasped. She had not had a visitor of any sort since the King and Cenwulf and young Sigefrith had come to see Leofric’s and Eadgith’s new baby weeks before. Alred she had not seen in more than half a year.
Malcolm had thought she wanted him to come with her to show her the path and help her down the face of the cliff, but Iylaine had found her own path, so steep that he could not follow her. He had always been impressed by her dexterity and the strength of her hands when she climbed trees, but he had never seen anything like this feat of rock-climbing outside of the race of goats.
By the time he reached the shore, he was exhausted from the repeated terrors of watching her as she swung herself across a gap or simply leapt from rock to rock; and somewhat embarrassed at his own groping, stumbling descent. By the time he reached the shore, she had been standing on the sands for a while already.
“He doesn’t have to get you on a battlefield, you know. He’s King—he can knight his horse if he likes.”
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