Leofric and Alred see a ghost

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman,” Gwynn’s father called, but softly.

Lady Lili pressed her hands against the strings of her harp to quiet their last notes. “Good afternoon, gentleman and lady,” she giggled.

Egelric’s only greeting was another slow snore.

“How do you like that?” her father cried in mock outrage. “You stop playing, and he keeps singing!”

He and Lili laughed, but Gwynn hadn’t even the heart to smile. This was what she had to look forward to.

“We were only trying to get the baby to sleep,” Lili said, “but I think my magical harp works indiscriminately and puts everyone to sleep.”

“I don’t know about that, Lili,” her father said between two snores. “It appears that your magical harp has a perverse nature.”

“Why?”

“I could swear that baby just winked at me.”

“What?” Lili gasped.

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear. She’s only flirting with me.”

Lili rose from her harp and shook out her skirts. “I knew that! I simply can’t believe she’s awake. She’s never quiet for so long when she’s awake.”

“That simply means she’s plotting something. How are you two beauties doing today, otherwise?” her father asked before kissing Lili’s hand.

Gwynn slipped past them and went to look at the baby – and its father.

“All morning we were saying how lonely we were, with Lathir and Stein gone. But now everyone is arriving.” Lili tipped back her head and groaned. “Oh, but Alred!”

“Oh, but what?”

“I shall invite you to supper, but I fear you won’t stay. Leofric just showed up here not half an hour ago. Egelric hasn’t even seen him yet.”

“Well, there’s always hope Egelric will toss him out on his hind end when he wakes.” Her father laughed softly, but she knew it forced. “Has he been bad recently?”

“Not here. He fought with Eadgith about something.”

“He’s been lurking around his son’s house this past week. I thought he only wanted a dose of grandchildren. Though I suppose it must be a salutary medicine for any ailment, even unto fighting about ‘something’ with one’s wife. Not that I am in a hurry to have any of my own,” he added for Gwynn’s benefit.

Nor did Gwynn feel a great haste to give him any.

She tried not to believe in Lathir’s charm, but the disappointment of her dream was such that she supposed it must have been true. Otherwise she should have had one of her usual fairy tale dreams, and then – even if the charm were false – she would at least have a violet-​​eyed knight to dream of for a few years.

Instead of this.

By the time she reached a marriageable age, this man would be nearly fifty. His beard was already growing gray over his chin. Nor did the abandon of sleep make him look any younger – his cheeks sagged, his mouth drooped, and his eyes sank into beds of wrinkles. It seemed almost ludicrous to her that the fresh little baby sprawled across his lap was his – except when she looked closely at the baby’s face and saw it was his own.

She had that to look forward to, as well. If she had babies with him, the girls would look like him, and the boys would look even more like him. She could scarcely imagine how she could stand to be married to that nose, but it seemed almost a curse to think that her children would have it too.

And then there was the man himself: hot tempered and stubborn – even a little wicked. He was actually proud that the chapel in his castle had never been used for a Mass.

Egelric had never been a fatherlike figure to her, as Sigefrith and Cenwulf were. As a child she was supposed to have been afraid of his beard, and even today he liked to tease her with it and come leering after her in search of a kiss. He never took it – the game appeared to be in making her squeal and run away – but she was beginning to be frightened of him again in truth.

When she had been quite small, her mother had told her that she mustn’t allow him to kiss her unless she or her father were near. She hadn’t understood or cared then, but now that she was a young woman that warning had returned to mind.

She also realized that her father did not let Egelric take her out alone as Sigefrith and Cenwulf did. There was something different about Egelric… although that something different might have been precisely the thing that would make it possible for him to marry her someday.

“Where are Cat and Flann?” she asked suddenly, interrupting her father and Lili.

“Ah… Flann and Mouse and Wyn took the boys out,” Lili said. “Cat’s in her room, I suppose. She’s too much alone lately, if you ask me.”

“Gwynn is about to take care of that,” her father laughed as Gwynn headed for the stairs.

If Cat was alone, so much the better. Cat was the only one who knew of her dream. She did not suppose Cat could ever consider a girl of twelve to be her best friend, but it was enough that Cat was willing to be considered the best friend of a twelve-​​year-​​old. It was a great relief to have someone to whom she could tell her secrets who did not sleep on the pillow next to her father’s.

Once she was out of the hall and away from witnesses, Gwynn permitted herself to skip up the stairs in a rather unladylike manner. But she had to creep again once she reached the gallery so that her father would not hear her coltish cantering instead of a big girl’s stately tread. He would not have disapproved, but he would surely have teased.

She pushed open the door and stepped into Cat’s room without knocking, for she believed that best friends did not need to knock. She would shortly wish she had.

Through the first blank, uncomprehending instant she was paralyzed from head to toe, and only her eyes still functioned. Her eyes told her that Leofric was attacking Cat on the bed.

But after a moment her mind understood that Cat was not being attacked. Her head scarcely brushed the pillow, for she hung from the arms she had wrapped around Leofric’s broad shoulders, and she was kissing him as much as she was being kissed.

Then Gwynn’s ears told her that the door had closed itself behind her with a click.

Leofric looked up and dropped Cat back onto the bed.

“Jesus Christ!” His voice was as shrill as a boy’s, and his face livid, as if he had seen a ghost.

“Gwynn!” Cat’s voice was not fearful but had rather the mournful hopelessness of one who looks upon a friend who has passed beyond reach.

Then Leofric was simply angry. “Don’t you knock, girl?”

Gwynn did not know what to say or do. She was embarrassed, though she had not been the one caught doing wrong. Her eyes filled with tears, though she did not yet understand that she was sad.

Cat lay down again and stretched an arm back behind her head towards Gwynn. She was whimpering like a tiny child, softly sobbing behind a closed mouth. Gwynn could almost imagine the bed to be a raft drifting away while she stood helpless on the shore.

She was feeling very much like a tiny child herself, and not the big girl she tried to be. She turned and ran – galloping along the gallery like a little girl, and down the stairs, and across the hall, and into her startled Papa’s arms.

“Ach, du lieber!” Lili cried. “Has something happened to Cat?”

“She’s in on her bed,” Gwynn blubbered, “and Leofric’s with her, and they were kissing, and they were on the bed!”

“Leofric!” Lili wailed.

Egelric snorted and opened his eyes. “Who?”

“Leofric!”

“What?”

“Leofric’s in Cat’s bed!”

Egelric lifted his feet from the pile of pillows and planted them on the floor with a slam of his hard-​​soled boots that must have sounded all the way up to that bedroom overlooking the hall.

Gwynn’s father released her so that he could turn to him.

“Old man…”

Gwynn was not ready to stand on her own. “Papa!” she whined like a six-​​year-​​old. “First my mother! And now my best friend! And next whom?”

Her father too suddenly had the white face of a man who has seen a ghost. The arm he lay lightly across her shoulders was shaking.

Then Gwynn understood what he had seen, and what Leofric had seen as well. Everyone said she looked so much like her mother.

“Take me home!” she sobbed. She had to get away from these men who could not be trusted with her.

“I beg your pardon, old man,” her father said in a voice that shook like his arm. “I know we just arrived, but we can’t stay.”

“He shall not stay here,” Egelric said.

“I supposed not, but Cat is… not the…”

“I understand,” Egelric murmured. “I have daughters too.”