Matilda Sees What She Should Not

After her meeting with Elfleda, the Duchess couldn’t prevent herself from wondering over what the woman had said. Alred had told her that Elfleda was becoming strange and possibly not quite right in the head… but on the other hand, Alred himself had been behaving strangely lately. Or—

No, it was hard to say. She had been so sick before the baby came, and so tired and busy afterwards, that she felt as if she had hardly seen him. He crept quietly into bed at night and kissed her chastely before rolling over and falling asleep… not that that was unusual, considering her condition, but it gave her little to hang her self-​assurance on.

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Elfleda Says Too Much

The Wodehead farm was on the road that led from the King’s castle to the main crossroads. At the crossroads, the road led south to the domain of the Duke of Nothelm and north to Bernwald Castle and the Earl’s lands, which stretched as far as the hills opposite the Baron’s keep on the other side of the valley.

From her house, Elfleda could only look out onto the church just down the road or towards Lothere Castle, but the crossroads were hidden by a tall stand of trees behind the Hogge farm. However, the Hogge farm was located right on the crossroads, and from there Elfleda could see all of the comings-​and-​goings between the three castles.

Thus Elfleda had been spending the morning these past few weeks with Gunnilda Hogge. Gunnilda and Elfleda had been best friends in happier days, and Gunnilda was a simple enough woman to overlook the complicated features of Elfleda’s personality. And she was a busy woman as well, with the house and the farm and two youngsters running around—she was happy to see Elfleda coming because Elfleda was a guest who didn’t mind helping out with the chores while she chatted. And Elfleda had never mocked her for marrying a simple-​minded man, even before they came to Lothere.

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Mysterious Maud

Queen Maud woke from her nap as the sound of her husband’s voice rang up from the hall below. From the lemony sunlight that slanted in through the new glass windows she could see that it was still early in the afternoon. Sigefrith rarely made it home before nightfall in the winter, as he spent his days riding over his little kingdom with Cenwulf, inspecting and planning until it was too dark to see.

Planning! Maud had never known anyone with a mind as busy as Sigefrith’s. He already had enough plans for several lifetimes. He was eager for the baby prince to grow up so he could bring him on his rides and fill the boy’s head with the plans that would have to be executed in Caedwulf’s lifetime.

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Alred's Morning Ritual

Alred glowed with pride that morning as his little son ran up to say goodbye. The young Sir Alred that was had never cared about titles or territories except as something he was bound by honor to serve in battle, as his father and ancestors had always done. A knight never expects to live long. But the sight of that little boy trotting up to him reminded him, as it always did, of the urgency of building something that would live beyond him, and even beyond his son. Ah, he would make sure his great-​grandsons would talk of him around the fire: the legendary first Duke of Nothelm, and the legacy he had left them.

Alred whistled merrily as he went down the stairs. He avoided Matilda that morning—this second baby had left her cross and anxious, and he preferred to let her rest. But then she had never been a gentle woman, this haughty daughter of the old kings of Wessex—indeed, he often thought it too bad she had not been born a man. She herself said that had she been, the bastard William would not be sitting so easily on his London throne. If Colburga was a battle axe, Matilda was a poison-​tipped dagger. Alred thought himself lucky that she was on his side.

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Elfleda Gets Out

For reasons she never made clear to herself or anyone else, Elfleda quietly showed up at the priest’s house the next morning as the workers were bringing in the chairs and table. Perhaps her curiosity was aroused by her husband’s disappearance the night before, although she had heard him making his breakfast in the morning as she lay still in bed.

Egelric saw her strolling around the front of the house and left the workmen to greet her. He politely asked her if she would like to see the inside and gave her the briefest of tours, then asked her if she would like to sit at the table the workers had just put in place. She sat, and Egelric busied himself building a fire on the hearth. He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t stir. At last he straightened and looked at her. She was staring fixedly into the fire. “I’ll be outside if you need anything,” he said dully, and left.

Elfleda watched the fire. She liked to imagine she saw shapes in the flames. She used to play that game with clouds as a girl, but she liked fire better now. It changed so rapidly—you were never sure of anything before it slipped away again.

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Egelric Comes In From the Cold

Egelric Wodehead lay in bed one evening, half-​reading, half-​dreaming. The house for the priest was nearly finished. They would be moving in the furniture tomorrow or the next day. He had designed and overseen the construction of the entire house himself. He was rightfully proud, as it was snug and comfortable, and he had planned ahead how it could be enlarged in the future.

For a while he dreamt of what it would be like to have been a priest himself. There would have been no Elfleda, of course, but somehow… he would not have known the happiness of the first months of the marriage, but neither would he have known the sadness of those early miscarriages, or the sorrow of the birth of the dead baby boy who was big enough to mourn as a person, and to name—Cuthgils, after his long-​dead father. Would they have met in Paradise? he mused. Did he know that his grandson had been born free? The lad would be about the same age as little Wynna now. Walking and babbling like Wynna? It was hard to believe.

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Githa Gets a Shock

Alred didn’t go to the Selle farm the day after his baby’s birth, nor the day after, nor the day after. Githa understood, of course, and in truth was somewhat relieved. If it had been impossible for her to tell him he needn’t remove his leggings the first day, it was even more impossible each following day, and so she had said nothing, and thus had another woman’s husband stood nearly naked in her house every morning for two weeks while she rubbed ointment on his back. Of course she had told Theobald about the ointment—he had been there with her in her mother’s house when she had asked for the recipe and given the reason—but she hadn’t mentioned that she had been applying it. And this too seemed more impossible to tell every day.

And so she was happy to think that the need for the telling may have passed, and she sang brightly as she cleaned up after breakfast, and laughed aloud as she watched Athelis “helping” her father lace up his boots.

“It’s so sunny today, and almost warm—I think I’ll take a bath before I take Baby up to see the Countess,” she said to Theobald as she helped him into his heavy, fur-​lined coat.

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News from Nothelm

For two weeks Duke Alred went every morning to the Selle farm, where Githa waited with her pot of ointment. She watched as his face grew grimmer every day, and the jokes faded out of his conversation. The Duchess had not yet reached the date on which the wise woman had told her to expect her baby, but she had grown positively ill, refusing to eat and suffering no matter which position she lay in.

Then, one gray morning, he did not come. Githa looked out frequently to see who might be coming up the road, but there were only the serfs and farmers going to Bernwald castle or to her own barns.

That night, as Theobald bustled in from the cold, he called out, “All the torches lit at Nothelm.” He swept up Athelis and danced a step with her before turning to Githa to ask, “Wonder if that means good or ill?”

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Alred Asks a Favor of Githa

Young Lord Dunstan had awoken early and had been howling for attention in his room. Alred had decided he would let his wife rest, with the baby’s birth just weeks away now, and gone to his son.

But as he carried little Dunstan to the kitchen for breakfast, the old pain struck him hard across the chest, and he nearly dropped the boy. With the last of his strength, he sat Dunstan on the floor and then leaned hard against the wall, his mouth open but unable to breathe. Dunstan watched his father, wondering whether this were some kind of new game.

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Egelric's New Interest

Egelric and his men had finished putting the new roof on the church, but in addition to the work he was doing for the Duke, he was also overseeing the construction of the house the workers were building for the new priest—whoever he might be.

Egelric thought he had found a new sort of happiness for himself. All the joy had gone out of his marriage, but Elfleda was a good housekeeper, always had dinner on the table when he came home, and didn’t complain when he spent the evening with Alwy or at Nothelm Keep.

His work, on the other hand, was no longer just something to escape to, it had become something to look forward to.

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