Ethelwyn comes into the crowded room

Haakon, constrained neither by any deep-​​seated code of etiquette nor by the self-​​consciousness of finding himself in another’s house, was far louder than Lord Cynewulf, although later.

“Mouse! Wyn! Look who’s here! Wyn! I mean Ethelwyn-​​Wyn! Oh!”

Ethelwyn would already have been mortified enough by his own great quantities of these two things that Haakon lacked, but he was further paralyzed by the realization that he was surrounded not only by every one of the King’s knights but also the King’s eldest daughter and the Crown Prince himself.

Furthermore Ethelwyn was wearing precisely the sort of costume he would wear to go about manorial business, and he had been in such a hurry that morning to get to work that he had not even shaved. Of course he could have changed his clothing and quickly shaved before setting out that evening, but then everyone would have guessed what his so-​​called “business” was – and that he could not have borne.

He had not even thought of his hair since he had neared the gatehouse!

And now there he stood, all eyes upon him, unexpected and uninvited, looking like a sloppier version of his everyday self. He was beginning to think that the acute humiliation of turning tail and running would have been preferable to the slow agony of this situation.

An eternity seemed to have passed, but in truth Lady Wynflaed was on her way across the room to him at once. Gracious as ever, she was saying, “Ethelwyn! How wonderful you could come. We never thought you would make it all this way on such a busy day!” Quite as if she had invited him and despaired of seeing him!

“I didn’t… that’s not…” he began.

But Mouse, though she had a little farther to walk, had struck out at the same time as her sister and was even then before him.

“You’re just in time to eat,” Wynflaed was saying, “so don’t apologize for being late. Excuse me, you two, but I had better hurry before my husband steals one of the legs off my goose.”

“Or both!” Heafoc added.

“Or both,” she agreed, and dragged Heafoc away with her.

“You remembered my birthday!” Mouse cried softly, with a smile so wide and so shy that her eyes had squinted up into dark lines beneath fringes of dark lashes.

“In fact, no,” Ethelwyn blurted. “I only came to pass a message to Sir Malcolm from his lady, and… I had some… business… Some misunderstanding with the… the guard… I don’t mean to intrude…”

“Oh!”

The dark lines began to glisten, though the smile was, if anything, wider. Ethelwyn knew all too well that this was no paradox.

He also would have known, even without those eyes and that smile, that he had just said the worst possible thing. If it had been anyone else – indeed, if any other lady had believed he had remembered her birthday when in fact he had quite forgotten – then the gentleman in him would not have hesitated to lie: “Naturally! How could I forget?”

Instead, the fool in him had lied, lied to the one girl whose birthday he most certainly had not forgotten, lied because he could not admit before this crowded room that he had worked like seven furies on one of the busiest days of the year and then ridden over an hour in the dark and in the cold, all to wish this girl a happy birthday.

The fool in him had lied because the fool in him could not admit that he was, in fact, something of a fool where this girl was concerned. He would not have minded this crowd seeing him chase a wild-​​haired maid up a ladder, but he could not bear them knowing that he had come all this way merely to say two kind words to a lady he scarcely knew. This was the paradox.

“I think Sir Malcolm is right over here,” she was saying.

She was already turning away, and even if he could have borne making himself look like an even greater idiot by admitting the truth, the moment had passed. He tottered after her, but he only saw her back: the back of her head with its silky hair the exact color of his own but made of a finer, smoother material; the back of her neck; her back and her shoulders that seemed so small and delicate compared to a man’s that the only reasonable thing for a man to do was to lay his hands on them.

And Sir Sigefrith was even then turning towards them, and he called out, “Wyn! You’re just in time to grab a leg if you hurry – ”

Mouse was saying softly, “No, he’s only here to have a word with Sir Malcolm.”

“What?” But little Lady Wynflaed snagged Sir Sigefrith too and dragged him away as she had Heafoc a moment before.

“A word with me?” Sir Malcolm asked.

“I believe Ethelwyn has a message for you,” Mouse said.

“From my father?”

“No…” Ethelwyn began, and he tried to explain to Malcolm what Mother Curran had said about not being “chatty” and taking a “lie-​​down”, but he was distracted by the sight of Mouse’s back drawing away from him, and this time he could not follow.

He was aware, after he finished his speech, that he must have made things appear worse than they were, for Sir Malcolm turned at once to take his leave of Mouse.

“But it’s not so very urgent as that!” Ethelwyn gasped.

“You can’t expect me to lounge around at a party when my Baby isn’t feeling well?” Malcolm laughed.

“But it isn’t…”

Ethelwyn could not tell Malcolm that it was nothing, for otherwise everyone would wonder why he had bothered interrupting the party with this message at all. He was beginning to think that if Sir Sigefrith had had a moat, he would have simply gone to jump into it: even that would have been preferable to the disaster he was making of this entire situation. If nothing else, it would have cooled off his cheeks.

Ethelwyn had followed Malcolm as he went towards Mouse, but Mouse herself accompanied Malcolm as he went to say goodbye to Lady Wynflaed, and she walked around Ethelwyn as if he were not there. That, he thought, counted for at least two people who wished he were not.

But he realized that only a knave would go away from a party – even a party that he had merely interrupted – without taking his leave of the lady in whose honor the party had been given. Somehow he would have to speak to her, and somehow in the few moments normally allotted to leave-​​taking he would have to make up for every idiocy he had committed since he had come in.

He set off across the room with his eyes on his goal, but Lady Wynflaed waylaid him.

“Don’t tell me you’re leaving too!” she said.

“I – can’t – ”

“The least you can do after depriving us of Sir Malcolm is to replace him with yourself,” she smiled.

“I shouldn’t – ”

“I know you have far to ride, but won’t you at least stay to eat with us?”

“I already ate!” he gasped, pleased to have at least one reasonable excuse.

“Oh, no! Well, if I knew how to force gentlemen to eat I would have an easier time with Haakon and his peas, but sadly I haven’t learned that skill yet.”

“It is generally impossible when they are young, and unnecessary when they are older,” Ethelwyn said, recovering a little of his poise now that he was talking to a lady who was not Mouse.

“You must be backwards then. Your mother must have had an easy time with you, but you make it difficult for your friends. Well, if you are certain you will not stay to eat, perhaps you will have the time to do me a small favor?”

“Of course, if I may.”

“Mouse has been saying she wants to step out for a moment for some air, and my husband was to take her, but I can’t get him to take his eyes off my goose long enough to do it.”

“Oh?” Sir Sigefrith laughed, but his laugh was abruptly silenced at the faint sound of a lady’s slipper smacking up against a man’s boot. Heafoc and Haakon were too far away, however, for their giggles to be so easily silenced.

Mouse herself appeared to be wondering when she had ever expressed a need for air, and Ethelwyn wondered whether one of her own slippers – and were they red? – would have shot out to administer the same sort of correction to her sister had they stood a little closer together.

“Would you?” Lady Wynflaed smiled at him.

With the possible exception of five-​​year-​​old Dora, Ethelwyn thought that everyone in the room saw straight through Lady Wynflaed’s flimsy ruse. If they went out together, they would leave behind them nothing but knowing smiles, if not outright laughter.

But it would be an opportunity to correct his mistakes if he were clever enough to make use of it. He did not think himself clever enough to make up for everything he had said within the few murmured banalities that accompanied a polite farewell. This would be his only opportunity.

“The way you put it, as a ‘favor to you’,” Ethelwyn said with a bow to Lady Wynflaed, “makes it sound as if it would be a courtesy to relieve you of your sister’s company, and I will not allow it to be implied burdensome. I shall only do it if it would be a favor to her.”