Egelric learns of Iylaine's dream

“That’s a stiff wind out there, Gunnilda,” Egelric said as he came into his house. “I don’t know how you ladies manage with your skirts.”

Gunnilda laughed. “And yours is shorter than ours!”

“I know it!” Egelric said ruefully. “Let me see that wee baby—is he awake?”

It was a real pleasure to come home to a warm house, a pretty woman, a fat and happy baby—or it would be, if they were his.

“I’ll be real sorry when your cousins go away,” she said. “I’m beginning to like the look of you as a Scot.”

“I don’t frighten you any longer?”

“No, I guess it’s the same man under them clothes.”

“If you had been outside with me a moment ago, you would have seen what’s under these clothes!” he laughed. Oh, it wouldn’t hurt to pretend for a few minutes.

“You’ve been drinking!” she scolded.

“I was a guest at the castle,” Egelric reminded her. “The King obtains excellent wine, I know not how.”

“You won’t want to be trying our new cider then,” she sniffed.

“Gunnilda, your new cider is not to be missed. I expect to have the honor of inspecting it.”

“Oh, you will,” she smiled.

“How’s that Baby of mine?”

“She’s real good. I made her stay in bed—she wanted to sit by the fire and wait for you.”

“No more fires for her! I don’t know how to thank you for giving up your day to sit with her.”

“No need to thank me! I just sat here real quiet all day with her and the baby, and did some sewing and some thinking. Things I never have time to do, what! It was a real treat for me. I imagine Alwy will be real happy to see me come home, though. He’s not used to minding them kids all day.”

Egelric smiled. “I shall thank him, then, instead. What did you think about?”

“Oh, foolish things—I’m not clever like you. But I never can think about even foolish things without getting interrupted halfway through every thought. Beddy’s still real good—he just interrupts every few hours to be changed or fed. There was just that Baby with her ‘Gunnie, I want to know’ every little while, but she did sleep a lot today. I hope she don’t keep you up all night.”

“It would take a herd of Babies to keep me up tonight.”

Egelric heard a sweet little voice calling from the bedroom, “Da, can I come?”

“Only if you’re awake!” he called back. “You better take this boy,” he said, handing the baby back to its mother. “I think I’m about to be attacked.”

Iylaine came running from the bedroom and threw herself at his neck. “Now we’re all home!” she cried happily.

“I’m not yet!” Gunnilda said. “I still got to go home in the wind.”

“Can’t you stay?” Iylaine asked, disappointed. “Just this once?”

“Now, you little goose, where would I sleep? In the stable, and put Bedwig in the manger?”

“You could sleep in our bed, there’s room, it’s real big!” Iylaine offered.

“Pish!” she said, but she blushed. “Don’t your Da snore?”

“Sometimes, but you just got to kick him when he does, and he stops.”

“Baby, that’s enough of that,” Egelric said, feeling that he was very likely blushing himself.

“That’s right, I got to go home and rescue Alwy from that tribe of heathens I left him with.”

“Gunnilda, before you go, I want to treat you to tomorrow’s gossip tonight and give you an advance on the rest of the biddies.”

“Oh, I’m listening! Real castle gossip you got for me?”

“Straight from the King himself. Our Theobald is Baron now! There was a fire up at Thorhold last night and his brothers were killed. That makes him Baron. Never saw that coming, I would wager.”

“You see, Gunnie!” Iylaine cried. “That bad Baron is dead! I told you he was in hell!”

“Iylaine!” Egelric was aghast. “What does this mean?”

“Egelric, she—” Gunnilda began, but Baby was willing to explain for herself.

“I saw him in the fire, in a burning place, and he was burnt up! And I said to Gunnie, he must be in hell! And Gunnie said he can’t be because he isn’t dead, but he is dead, because he was bad!”

“What is this?” Egelric cried, a great fear entering into him.

“Egelric, this morning—Baby, you hush! This morning, when she woke up, she told me what she just said—that she saw the Baron that was, Gifmund, in a fire, and she asked me if it was—if it was hell. And I told her he couldn’t be in that place because he was alive, and she insisted she saw him. Well, what she just said.”

“Baby, you never saw such a thing,” Egelric said softly.

“I did so! I’m not a liar!”

“No, Baby, but you just dreamed the thing. You heard what I said to His Grace about how the Baron was bad, and you had a dream, that’s all.”

“But I saw him in the fire!” she protested.

“Baby,” he said, laying a hand on her head, “it was a dream. Your Da knows. Now you give Gunnilda a kiss and get back into bed. I’ll be there in a short while.”

After she was gone, Egelric turned to the fire and held his throbbing head in his hands.

“What does this mean?” he asked again.

“Maybe she can see things,” Gunnilda suggested timidly, “like Elfleda did sometimes—like when she saw you wasn’t dead when you went away that one time.”

“Elfleda wasn’t her mother.”

“No, but wasn’t Elfleda’s grandmother an elf?”

“Her grandmother’s grandmother. So she said.”

“Well?”

“I don’t want this, Gunnilda. I don’t want this. You don’t know what the people were saying about her today—if they ever hear about this…!”

“They won’t hear about this,” she said. “We’ll just keep it between us, and make sure Baby don’t talk about it. She won’t if she knows she mustn’t.”

Egelric stared at her. He didn’t know what to say—he just wanted to look at her, look at a good and safe person for a while.

“And what else?” she said soothingly, patting his arm with her free hand as if he were a child. “You just go in there and get undressed and go to bed like your girl. You’ve had too much excitement and too much wine for one day.”

“Won’t you sing me a lullaby?” he asked, trying to tease, but meaning it too much to laugh.

“I don’t sing as good as your Baby—I bet she’ll sing you one if you ask.”

Egelric envied her children—they could lay their heads on her breast and tell her their troubles. He couldn’t touch her, and he couldn’t tell her half the things that troubled him.

“You’re right, Gunnilda. I’m just tired and cranky, like a three-​year-​old. I daresay I shall feel like a thirty-​year-​old again tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.”

“Thirty-​two,” she reminded him.

“Thank God I have you to keep me honest,” he laughed.