| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
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| « November | January » | |||||
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| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |
One bitterly cold December night, Ethelmund Ashdown found himself busier than usual. Githa had been feeling ill, she said, so she had gone to bed immediately after dinner. Her little face seemed whiter than usual, but she begged him not to worry.
He hadn’t time to worry, anyway. If he tried to calm the fussy Kyneburga, then Colburga would sit and cry. If he tried to play with Colburga, then Kyneburga would wail.
November came in with a drizzle of rain, and as the days passed the drizzle continued until the river was turbid and the lower fields were covered by shallow lakes. It had become a delight for Egelric to come home in the evening, dripping and muddy, to find his immaculate wife and daughter radiantly happy in the warm firelight.
Elfleda had become something of her old self again since the baby came. She spoke and behaved quite normally, as long as one did not contest her firm belief that the child was her own baby, and had always been her own baby. She still showed her husband no particular affection, but she conversed with him pleasantly enough, and for the first time in years she seemed to take an interest in what he had seen and done and thought that day.
Alwy Hogge rolled over and threw his arm over his sleeping wife—only his wife wasn’t there.
He sat up and stared at the empty pillow. Alwy didn’t like this. Lately Gunnie had been having trouble sleeping. She didn’t want to go to bed, and when she did, she would often just get up again once he fell asleep.
Egelric Wodehead stayed at home that first day that Elfleda had her elf baby. He pretended to read, but in truth he watched the two of them at play.
Elfleda couldn’t get enough of the little girl, and the child seemed to adore her. The sight of the two of them so happy together should have warmed his heart, but he was anxious about too many things. On the one hand he hoped the elves would come quickly and reclaim their child before word got out among the peasants; on the other, he was afraid of what Elfleda would do to him or to herself if the baby disappeared again. If only they had been allowed to keep their own child, he thought for the hundredth time that day, how different his life would have been.
After Egelric had fed the baby a bit of warm milk, he saw that he would have to bathe her. Her face and hair and hands were filthy from the night she had spent in the forest, and he thought that perhaps a warm bath would put her to sleep. He was terrified at the possibility that he would put her in her cradle and she would just start to cry.
Egelric had never bathed a baby before, and this one didn’t seem to enjoy it very much.
Egelric stood abruptly at the sound of footsteps in the woods. The Duke and Ethelmund Ashdown were coming around the house and—and Ethelmund was holding the child.
“What does this mean?” Egelric asked hoarsely.
The farmers thought the autumn came too soon that year, and though the harvest left by the storm was meager, they worked as hard as ever, trying to make the most of the little they would have.
Egelric Wodehead worked from dawn until the dark that came a little earlier each day, riding alongside the Duke as he went from field to field, directing the hands, and teaching Alred what he knew about the business of farming. He was steward now in all but name, and often slept at the keep after spending the evening going over the next day’s plans with his lord.
He still went home to Elfleda from time to time, but he had workers of his own now to mind his farm, and so he went more out of a sense of duty to her than any practical reason.
Days after the star of ill omen had faded from the night sky, Queen Maud—attended only by the Duchess, for Countess Colburga was nearing her time as well—had been delivered of a baby girl. Almost immediately the new mother was out of bed and delighted to be fussing over the little princess and Prince Caedwulf, whom she had scarcely seen in the last month.
Sigefrith meanwhile, though smitten by the new daughter who so closely resembled her beloved mother, was out among the people again, and the very sight of him—so full of happiness that even his horse kicked and danced for joy—seemed to settle the discontent that had arisen during the reign of the strange star. Some people even said that Sigefrith himself had been able to beat back whatever forces were working against him, and they idolized him all the more for it.
There was one thing that troubled Maud, however, and that was the discord between Duke Alred and Githa Selle. They simply avoided each other at any cost. When the Countess had invited her friends to visit the newborn Lady Margarethe, Githa had refused to come when she learned that Alred would be there, and as it happened Alred never came because he feared that Githa would be there.
Cenwulf and Alred stood idly in the great hall. A servant had lit torches for them and had gone to fetch the king, but some time had passed and no one had come.
Alred cleared his throat. “Egelric tells me some people have been saying that the reason no one has seen the king lately is that he is dead, and we are hiding it.”
Egelric wasn’t the only one to have noticed the new sign in the heavens. The next day a few peasants spread the word, and the following night everyone had stared up at the light and muttered predictions of doom and destruction.
None doubted the significance of the apparition, all remembering the result of the last such omen. Such lights were said to be signs of the death of kings and the destruction of kingdoms.
In Lothere castle, King Sigefrith was sick with worry, but not over the danger to his own head. Exhausted by her terror of the thunder, Maud had taken to her bed during the storm and had not risen since. Her belly was enormous, but the rest of her seemed to be melting away. Sigefrith spent the long, hot days sitting at her bedside, watching her face as she slept, an increasingly haggard look on his own. He had no other concerns and would not meet with the Earl.
“You see, if I put a gun on the mantel in the first act, I always manage to fire it by the fifty-third act.”
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