Colban stopped just outside the door to the kitchens. There was a light—somebody else was already there. He waited, listening, for he did not want to run across the Queen. But the person did not move or speak, and so he risked a look.
“Oh, Sigefrith!” he said when he saw who it was. The King, still dressed, late as it was, stood holding a cup.
“At last!” Sigefrith cried, embracing his friend. “I don’t know what to do with myself all day without you to tell me what to do every morning.”
“I saw the stag in the court—it doesn’t seem that you have been entirely idle,” Cenwulf said.
Father Brandt stopped in the door of the barn, confused. The crucifix had been nearly finished when he had last stopped by, and now the Lord had been transformed back into a lump of wood protuding from a rough cross.
“Young Ethelmund, is it a miracle I see before me? Hast found a spell to make the dead wood grow again?”
Ethelmund hummed happily as he dabbed paint on the Lord’s knees. The painting was his favorite part of toymaking. Of course this was no toy, but it was satisfying all the same to see the bare wood transformed by color.
He would finish the painting today and the crucifix would be ready as soon as the paint had dried. He was already planning the big one for the church—he had never tried to carve a life-sized face, but he was looking forward to the challenge.
Maud stalked angrily in her garden, casting pained glances at the yellowed and fading flowers that swooned at her feet. How she hated the autumn! The garden was a more mournful place than even the dreary hall, but she had to get outside into the air. It was still early, before breakfast, and the fallen leaves were slick with dew, but she had fled the castle, leaving baby Colban with a nurse.
Malcolm had not come again. He had told her he would not, that last night, but she had not believed him. He had not come, and yet when she saw him at dinner or throughout the day, he wore such a pained look, and so scrupulously avoided her eyes, that she knew he was longing for her. But he had not come!
Malcolm stood a long while outside the door, listening to Maud talking softly to the baby. He was sorry he could not understand what she was saying.
He was in no hurry to enter, though he knew that he took a risk standing in the hall, even in the dark. The sooner he entered, the sooner it would be over. He had promised Colban this would be the last time he went to her—it was the condition on which all Colban’s aid hung, and Egelric’s, and Alred’s. He would not even have a home if he defied his cousin again.
“That’s a stiff wind out there, Gunnilda,” Egelric said as he came into his house. “I don’t know how you ladies manage with your skirts.”
Gunnilda laughed. “And yours is shorter than ours!”
Sigefrith threw open the door to the nursery, and Maud sat up with a start.
“What does this mean?” he barked.
Maud twisted her fingers in annoyance. She didn’t like Alred, but he was preferable as a dinner guest to that pompous Cenwulf. Alred was especially welcome when Sigefrith put him across from Malcolm as he always did last year—he gave Malcolm a chance to shine. But Alred would not come tonight, and so it was Cenwulf in his place, droning on about wars long over, and which Malcolm had never seen.
At least Colban wasn’t bothering her tonight. He sat quietly, or listened to the others, or spoke softly in Gaelic to his son.
Theobald sat in the twilit barn—or hid, rather. He knew it would be time for supper soon; he knew Githa would be looking for him, but he couldn’t face anyone just then. He still had visions of his nightmare in his head.
His men had quickly perceived that morning that the master was not to be disturbed. And Theobald had wandered aimlessly all through the day, peeking in apple barrels and scratching the wooly backs of the sheep and kicking at hayricks, unable to concentrate on anything useful.
“Oh I could write 10,000 words about Vash. But I fear that all 10,000 of them would just be the word ‘phowar’.”
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