For all his loneliness, Malcolm had not wasted his afternoon—he had had the chance to think over a number of subjects that he had been waiting to consider when next he had a good, long moment in which to consider them.
Meanwhile he had called to his cousin three times—the first time, only to reassure himself that she was still there; the second, to ask her when she was coming; and the third, to tell her he would like to go home.
Iylaine hurried up the wooded hill, her head high, as if she had somewhere she wanted to be that had nothing to do with Malcolm. She had met him right at the gate when he had come riding in after dinner, and she had been in such a haste to be off that she had boiled with impatience as he unsaddled Druid and put him out to graze.
Now Malcolm strode along beside her in a sullen silence that seemed to trouble her not at all. He knew that she only wanted him there to permit her to leave the castle, and he thought that, at ten, she lacked the tact to hide it.
“Good morning, Baby,” Malcolm said cheerily, hoping to evoke a similar sentiment in his cousin.
“Good morning, Malcolm,” she replied with a sweet smile, but wearily, as always, and did not rise.
“Sigefrith!” Aengus cried happily as he came in, but Sigefrith thought he looked more weary than even the father of a newborn had any right to be.
“Well, meatwit,” Sigefrith said as he embraced him, “I am come to congratulate you, as you are obviously too proud now to come and be congratulated.”
“What about Maire?” Matilda asked. “Have any of you been asked to wait on her?”
“Not I,” Eadgith’s mother said.
Egelric hurried up through the woods towards the downs, and as he went he whipped viciously at the naked bushes with a length of twine that he had picked up along the way. He was going to see the redhead, and the old man be damned. She was the only one he thought bold enough to hold her own against him tonight.
The trees began to thin, and now he climbed towards the dim blue light of the open sky. He began to see shadows that lay more heavily over the shadow that surrounded him, cast by a moon that was waxing full.
Gunnilda folded her towel and laid it away with a sigh too weary even for any hint of satisfaction. She brushed off her dress and smoothed her hair—exhausted as she was, the habit was by now too firmly ingrained to be neglected—and then sat at the table, folded her arms across her chest, and closed her eyes. Only for a moment, she promised herself. But she had earned it.
Aelfie was expecting another baby in the summer. She hadn’t yet grown heavy with it, but when Aelfie had complained that she felt one of her “spells” coming on, Gunnilda had sent her home and done her work in her place.
Lord Baldwin pushed the door to his Papa’s study slightly open and peeked through the crack. His Papa was writing at his table, but he was alone.
“Enter!” Malcolm called from his bed, and he snapped his book shut. A visitor! Were it Lady Hilda herself, he thought he would be grateful for the distraction.
“Hail, young potlicker!” the King called as he entered.
“Creepy, stinky, withered, rasputin-like, interfering, little crawling critters up the spine, vague stink that you can’t locate, demon-employing, angel-enslaving, creepy, creepy, creep! Keep your hands off the saint!”
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