“I shall receive him in my sitting room,” Eadgith said as calmly as she could, but she could feel the rush of blood to her face. Britamund was watching her curiously.
“Brit,” she said as she rose, “would you kindly help Emmie if her thread runs out before I return?”
“Don’t let go of your bone, young pup!” Sigefrith cried as he came through the curtain that divided his bedroom. “It’s only your reflection.”
Malcolm cringed. He did not need to turn around, for he could watch the King’s approach in the mirror in which he had been inspecting his own face—and been caught in the act.
Brede carefully crossed the beam that spanned the trench. The brook had not yet been diverted to fill the moat, but the men had dug until they reached groundwater, and the bottom of the trench was full of black mud. The last thing he wanted to do now was fall in, if the tall man who was coming down between the rows of cherry trees was the man he thought he was.
Safely across, he walked up the hill to meet him. He would not let him get to the house before speaking with him.
“Happy birthday!” she squealed.
“Shhh!” Vash cautioned. “Happy birthday to you, too,” he whispered.
Iylaine lay perfectly still in the dark. She could hear Wynna breathing softly in the other bed, and behind the wall she could hear Bedwig tossing in his sleep and little Gytha lying quietly, only giving her thumb the occasional suck. From across the hall she heard Alwy’s slow snoring, the baby breathing through pursed lips, and Gunnilda’s restless stirring.
It was Gunnilda that worried her. Gunnilda acted as if she didn’t pay attention to Iylaine’s comings and goings, but recent experience had taught her that Gunnilda knew very well where she had gone and when she would likely return. All that mattered was that she didn’t go somewhere she shouldn’t.
Sigefrith found Eadgith sleeping on the couch before a dying fire, curled up protectively around the soft swell of her belly. It would have been a beautiful sight, he thought, but that her eyebrows were knit as if in pain or in worry.
He sat on the floor before her and stroked her hip until she woke. Her eyebrows lifted now in confusion.
“Hmmph! That’s quite a beard you’ve grown, there, Dunstan,” Sigefrith said sarcastically as he came in.
“Why, thank you, Beebee,” Alred said with a faint smile. “Thank you for reminding me I need to shave, that is,” he added, rubbing his chin.
Alred stood in the door of the shed and stared into the empty stall, wishing Egelric were at hand.
He did not doubt his ability to protect Sela and the babies from any danger—at least of the human or natural sorts—but he needed Egelric to translate her gestures to him.
Iylaine braced herself against the stinging cold and ran up the hill to the house.
She had not wanted to take a fine cloak into the cobwebs of the cheese house, and she had no other sort. She had shivered as she turned the cheeses, but it was so much worse out in the February wind. How she hated the cold! How she hated chores!
Dining with the elf was more awkward than Egelric had feared.
He remained scrupulously polite, again revealing that, while he had learned men’s manners at table, he had never yet put them to use. He tolerated Sela’s presence beside him, but he never looked at her, and she kept her eyes down through the entire meal.
“And those angels who kept not their first estate, but left their habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness until Judgment Day.”
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