Leofric stood in the doorway of his son’s study for a moment, struck dumb with surprise. He had been certain that Matilda would not be here—and yet there she was.
“Father!” Sigefrith smiled, and his smile gleamed with uncharacteristic mischief.
“Good day, my darling girls!” Hilda said as the door was opened unto her and she stepped into the dusky hall.
Estrid and Synne looked up from their embroidery and each put on a tight smile.
“Oh, good!” Alred said as Egelric came into the study. “You’re here. That will save Bowdyn a trip.”
Egelric bowed to the King and asked his lord, “You needed me today? I only came to get some flour.”
When she returned home, Githa found her husband sitting at the table eating his supper—and Eadgard on the floor playing with his.
“Eadgard!” she shrieked when she saw the state of the little boy’s shirt.
Egelric had already had his breakfast and seen to the horse’s, he had split and carried in the wood for the day and then some, and all of the other morning chores had been done. Still the sun had not yet risen. He was sleeping poorly these days.
He went to stand in the doorway of the bedroom. The fire burned fretfully. The leaping shadows made the furniture seem to dance in place, with only Sela lying immobile in the center of them. It would take more than moving shadows to make her seem to dance now.
The crystalline snow rattled like handfuls of sand against the window of Malcolm’s bedchamber. Iylaine was warm and dry, but she shivered at the sound, for she knew her father was taking the snow in the face.
Death had seemed like a brooding third presence in the room over the past days. She had thought she fought against it. She had begun to think she had won, for Malcolm was sleeping quietly now, and his head was cool. She had thought that death had gone skulking away in disappointment and that the danger had passed. But if it were even now loping across the snow, following in the tracks of her father’s horse?
“Brede!” Synne chirped as soon as her brother came into the hall.
“Synne!” he replied and strode forward as if he meant to walk past her.
“Good day, Wulsy,” Iylaine could hear Malcolm say down below. She had thought she had recognized the dancing tread of his horse.
“Hallo, Malcolm!” Wulsy said brightly.
As soon as her feet touched the floor of the cave, Iylaine came back to herself. She was cold, alone, nearly blind, and though she remembered how she had come to be here, she did not know where she was. She did not know how she had dared or how she had managed to climb up there and then down here. And, worst of all, she was wet—wet to the point that water dripped from the tip of her nose, which was the mark for her of utter depravity in terms of wetness.
Now she did not know what to do. She could not imagine herself climbing up the way she had come. A faint light came in from above, but it did not reach far. Her ears only told her of innumerable drops of water falling into countless pools of water all around her in the dark—a hideous sound. She could not get dry here.
Iylaine woke in a sweat. She saw that her fire had nearly burned out, but her room was stifling. The air was so hot and heavy that it required an effort to drag it into her lungs. She threw off the blankets and stood, but it scarcely made a difference. The air did not cool her.
She tried to listen with her keen ears, but the stone walls of the windowless room seemed to shut out the world. She tried to smell the danger that was causing her heart to pound, but the air was as stationary as a block and brought her no odors. She could smell only her own sweat, and it was a sweat of… not of fear. It was something she did not recognize. But her heart pounded as if she were afraid.
“We’re always surprised when bad things to happen to good, sweet folk, but most of the time it’s what bad things do.”
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