Alred had been looking for any of his groomsmen, and he thought he might find at least some of them together, but he had not expected to find all three in the guards’ dining hall, accompanied by Leofric. But he thought he should have known: it was the closest room to the buttery.
“What are you rascals all doing down here?” he asked, though it seemed apparent.
Dunstan walked into the tilemaker’s studio through the open door, but he stopped short when he saw that the tilemaker was not there—and a girl was. She sat on a mat on the floor, her back to him, and she was surrounded by tiles whose decoration was in various states of completion.
Dunstan tried backing slowly outside again, but the girl must have heard him, for she lifted her head suddenly and cried, “Oh! Good morning!”
Brede found Eirik where he had expected: in the kitchen, hunched over a table shoveling bread and cheese into his mouth.
“Well, at least I can find you this morning,” Brede sighed.
There was a light in the room, like the creeping flush of dawn, or like the glow of a dim or distant candle. Synne was still deep in sleep, and somehow she knew it was not time to wake.
Even if it had been, waking was often the hardest thing Synne did all day. The only thing harder than waking was waiting for the news whenever she heard that Sigefrith had had a letter from the north or from the Isles. When she blew out her candle at night, it was with an unspoken wish that the dawn would never come.
“Good morning, ladies,” Alred smiled.
“Good morning, Alred.” The Queen held up her hand to be kissed. “I apologize for receiving you in my bedchamber.”
Dunstan came charging through the door in his eagerness to be off and away from the hall-running, bed-jumping, arm-pulling, ear-shouting annoyance that was the Old Man. He would leave Eadwyn to deal with him, or to take him to play with Haakon if he could not be borne. Dunstan and Bertie had a pleasant ride ahead of them, and the opportunity to do very little at all and call it business.
He came through the door in such a hurry that he did not have time to stop or turn around when the door at the opposite end of the corridor opened and he saw who was coming towards him, doubtlessly in search of him.
“Mama!”
Lady Leila was too stunned at first to react. And then she laughed.
Eadgith did not believe she should be expected to be a queen on that morning. She did not believe even a great lady could be expected to be a great lady on such a morning.
The Earl did not seem to believe it either, for he had allowed her to retire to her room with Prince Drage, and he had not even pronounced the words “the people.” Instead, he had taken Prince Caedwulf out, and so “the people” would be reminded that there was a fine young man ready to be king if the worst were to happen.
There was nothing more that could be done for Sigefrith.
He had always refused to be bled, and no one dared impose that procedure on the King when he was in no condition to consent to it. They had applied cold towels and hot bandages at intervals, but it had been done more to reassure Lady Eadgith that something was being done. Leofric and Alred had seen plenty of head injuries in their time. They knew that they could only wait, pray that he would wake, and hope that he would be himself when he did.
Sir Sigefrith had suggested that she fill a basket with golden flowers and set it on her hearth, but Lady Iylaine was not satisfied with the effect. She thought that there must be something men did not understand about fire if they thought it could be replaced with flowers. There was something airy about the nature of flowers that was not at all like the fiery nature of fire.
Holly branches might serve, perhaps, or the flaming orange of maple leaves in the autumn. If she must have flowers, then she thought she could bear to look at clumps of gorse. But Malcolm had not had the time to walk to the flame-cleared meadow that was the old Selle farm, and which was all golden now with gorse and broom. He had not understood why the masses of buttercups and yellow flag from the yard were not an acceptable substitute. And she could not make him understand. Nor did she understand.
“Stinking Mother! I’d forgotten once again that the sun and moon and stars revolve around your cock!”
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