Gunnilda saw Alwy’s fair head come bobbing up the stairs, and she had the door open before he had even laid his hand on the latch. Without a word, he lifted her up and carried her to the fireside, pressing his cold face against her warm neck.
“What happened, Alwy?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
It was not long before Gunnilda heard the pounding of hooves coming up the path through the woods, and then there was the pounding of his feet on the steps, and then he was there, and she was safe.
“Where’s Alwy?” Egelric asked at once, but Gunnilda could only sob and throw her arms around him.
“Mama’s coming, Mama’s coming,” Gunnilda murmured as she shuffled into the bedroom. She had just put Bedwig down for the night and the lad had seemed tired enough, but he was awake and whimpering frantically now. Perhaps a pin was sticking him, she thought.
It was only their third night in the new house, and so it was still a pleasant surprise to open the bedroom door and step into the blue dimness of a moonless spring evening, while the night itself was held at bay behind the brilliant glass of her tall windows.
“Here she comes!” Matilda sang out as Sigefrith walked quietly into the hall, carrying his tiny daughter on one arm.
“What, no herald to announce Her Royal Highness?” Cenwulf smiled.
“I thought I would find you up here when there was no one home,” Egelric chuckled as Gunnilda came down the steps of her new house to greet him. “Alwy told me he told you.”
“I’m so glad to see you, Egelric!” she said. “Tell me it’s true! I just can’t believe someone hasn’t been playing a trick on poor Alwy.”
“Alwy Hogge, where have you been?” Gunnilda cried when her husband came in.
“Hallo, Gunnie,” Alwy smiled sheepishly.
Alred smiled faintly despite his sour mood when he came into the bedroom. Matilda was lying fully dressed on the bed, atop the blankets, but fast asleep. But Margaret too slept soundly in her cradle, and so he let the baby lie and went to stretch out next to his wife.
Alred glared at the line he had just written into the journal. He didn’t like the line noting his daughter’s birth to be followed immediately by news of this nature.
“We shall find some good news to write after,” he said softly to the baby who lay on his lap and who gripped one of his fingers in each of her tiny hands. “Perhaps we shall christen my little lady soon enough. What do you say, Margaret? Shall we ask the fair Gunnie Hogge to be your godmother?” He smiled as he remembered the end to the long, dark night he had spent in the chapel.
Githa sighed and let her sewing fall into her lap. She had only just had a chance to get off her feet, and now there was someone at the door.
“Baby, would you get the door? Maybe it’s just Gunnilda or your Da come to fetch you and Wynnie home again.”
“Colburga, dear,” Cenwulf began gently, finding his wife still awake when he returned home. “Sigefrith had a letter from Theobald this evening. Githa sends her love to everyone, especially you, she said. She can’t come visit just now because she—” Should he tell her?
Colburga stood in her nightgown, staring down into her baby daughter’s cradle.
“Come, wife, and be shedding no tears. I told you you would be sorry.”
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