Cenwulf smiled to himself when he heard the squealing and the bustling coming down the stairs. His steward bowed and went out without a word, but with a pleased chuckle.
And then the door flew open and slammed against the wall, and Baldwin launched himself at his father. “Papa’s home!” he cried.
“Hilda!” Sigefrith whispered. “Are you sleeping?”
She lay with her back to him, as always, and her breathing was slow and even, but he wanted to talk to her. He was dying to talk to somebody.
“Who the devil can that be?” Egelric asked. “You and Malcolm are the only characters that ever visit me out here.”
“I hope it’s no one looking for me,” Alred said.
“I think someone’s coming!” Mouse called eagerly from the window.
“You keep thinking and thinking, Mouse,” Oswald said. “No one ever does.”
Alred and Iylaine sat a while in silence behind Gunnilda’s house. Iylaine could hear the after-breakfast bustle of the family inside, still joyous over Bertie’s return, but she supposed that the Duke’s ears could only hear an occasional muffled shout behind the closed door. For him there was only the whithering of the wind across the downs.
“I missed you, Iylaine,” he said softly. “You know the worth of silence, especially when it is shared. Not one of the men that were with me has learned that secret.”
“Dunstan,” Alred said as the three came out of the bedchamber, “would you kindly go down and have our bags taken out again—at least what we shall need for tonight and the morrow?”
“But I thought we were staying here,” Dunstan protested softly.
Leofric stood a moment in the shadows, hoping, now that he was there, that he would not be noticed after all. He was relieved to see that Alred was not wearing his sword.
It was Dunstan who saw him first. “Leofric!” he cried and ran across the hall to fling his arms around him. This was already surprising: Dunstan had never been so affectionate in company.
When her cousin arrived, Iylaine was still staring at the pink stone she held, reverently now, in her hands. He came upon her as silently as the swoop of an owl, but when she first saw him, he seemed to be as surprised as she.
“Iylaine!” he gasped. “What—how do you say?” Then seemed to realize he should not have spoken aloud. “Were you waiting here for me?” he whispered.
In years past Iylaine had always delighted in the autumn, but this one seemed unbearably ugly to her. She was older and believed herself a little wiser. She had changed unalterably since the last fall, and now, she thought, that she had lost the spotless innocence of a child, she could see the ugliness and the decay behind all the things she had once loved.
Always before she had liked to watch the charcoal burners as they tended the seething barrows that they built up like pagan tombs to undying fire-kings, but this year she hated their smutty smoke, hated the smudges of soot that every flat surface left on her clothes, and hated the way her hair reeked of the smoldering pyres.
Wynflaed sobbed and woke and sobbed again. She struggled briefly with her blankets before she quite understood that she was only in her bed—and that it must have been a dream.
“Wyn?” Mouse called softly.
“left hand 4 waves, hands at crotch 3 butt shakes, another 4 hand waves, turn…”
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