Egelric goes out into the light

A pall of snow lay over the shores of the lake now, but snow alone could not hush the pines. All through the night they sighed as deeply they always did, through all the year, through all the years.

There was nothing else on the lakeshore that the snow could have hushed. No animals came to the water’s edge now, for the edges of the lake were frozen. Indeed, this arm of the lake was frozen from shore to shore. Egelric wondered how far out the ice extended on the great lake that lay beyond this inlet.

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Edris is frightened

“Good evening, Edris,” Cenwulf said as he came to sit beside her. “How was your day?” he asked, as he always did. And as he always did, he took her hand in his, and then seemed to forget about it entirely.

“It was a very pleasant day, wasn’t it, Baldwin?” She had fallen into the habit of deferring to Baldwin in all things. It made it easier to talk to her husband if she could talk through the baby.

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Matilda asks Alred about Egelric

“Where’s that young patriarch?” Alred asked as he came into the bedroom and walked up to the cradle.

“He’s already sleeping, Alred. Don’t wake him,” Matilda said from the bed.

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Eadgith asks a favor

Sigefrith groaned inwardly when he heard Eadgith’s voice following her knock. At least he had taught her to knock.

“Enter!” he called.

She hesitated in the doorway, watching his face. He gave her a weary smile, and she relaxed.

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Maud is surprised by her son

Sigefrith pushed open the door to the nursery, and Colban, forgetting for a moment the coldness his mother had shown him lately, ran inside.

Maud was sitting with Lady Eadgith and her daughter, and Sigefrith smiled to see them there, for it seemed that he was interrupting a real conversation between the three of them. It was only lately that she had been speaking relatively normally with other people than her husband.

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Four drink and three make merry

“When’s the last time we did this, gents?” Alred asked with a sigh of satisfaction after draining another cup.

“The last time I did this, it was my own wedding,” Theobald smiled, remembering.

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Sigefrith tells Eadgith of another letter

“Have you had a letter from Sigefrith?” Eadgith asked as soon as she sat down.

“No, I haven’t,” the King said, “but he had better be with Haakon as we speak or I am in debt to a Norseman, and my father will be turning in his grave.”

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Alred again ponders the words of Isaiah

“What are you reading, Alred?”

Alred looked up from his book and smiled. Matilda was looking a little tired, a little troubled, but far better than she had been in the last weeks of her pregnancy. And her tiny baby lay upon her shoulder—she was as possessive of little Cynewulf as he had been of baby Margaret.

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Maud explains

Sigefrith stood beside the bed and watched his wife sleep. Her loosened hair was draped over the pillows, and though she wore her night clothes, she lay atop the blankets, and the bed was still still made. She had fallen asleep waiting for him.

She no longer liked to go to bed without him. Sigefrith didn’t know whether to be touched or saddened. Was she afraid to sleep alone after what she had experienced? Of course, that had happened outside in a garden, but certainly the idea of being in a bed might be troubling to her…

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Edris meets the Queen

“Maud,” Sigefrith said softly—far more softly than he ever spoke to his children. “Here are some friends to visit you. Here’s Cenwulf, and he has brought his cousin Edris to meet you.”

Maud lifted her face to him and broke into a radiant, empty smile. She was so beautiful—and so blank!

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