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?”

Githa paled. Somehow the Duke’s child seemed – almost like her own. Or the Duke was like her own child, or – something.

She quietly set out Theobald’s dinner, and hovered by the window as he ate, Athelis on his knee. 

Theobald eyed his wife, wondering if the worry was good for her. She was expecting a baby of her own in the spring.

“Oh!” she gasped. “The Countess is coming! Oh! I’m in my nightgown! Oh, talk to her, dear, I can’t!” And Githa trotted into the kitchen.

Theobald wiped his mouth and stood to open the door for Colburga.

“Theobald dearest! Where’s darling Githa? Athelis, Kätzchen, you darling!”

“She’s hiding from you.”

“Hiding from me? Oh the silly dear. Tell her I’ve news from Nothelm. Matilda has been delivered of a strong baby boy who howled like a demon the first look he got at his father, clever thing. But the poor girl is too weak to be having these monstrous boys.”

“Will she live?” Theobald asked, meanwhile silently measuring the relative strength of his own little wife.

“Oh, she will, she’s stubborn enough to hang on. But I wish that feather-​​brained husband of hers would figure out that he’s going to kill her one of these days. Heaven knows how that pussycat of a man begets these tigers. Oh, don’t you worry about Githa, you big lumpish oaf, I can see you are. She was plump and pretty as a peach every day she carried this Kätzchen here, and every day afterwards, and she’ll do just fine this time as well. Oh, the men! Darling Athelis, don’t you go getting mixed up with them! Well, I must be getting back to my own babies. Githa, you big silly,” she yelled towards the kitchen, “his little lordship is named Yware, I know you are dying to know in there!”

“Good night, my darlings,” she chimed as Theobald opened the door for her. “Come see us at the castle as soon as ever you can – and bring that delicious baby of yours with you so I can eat her all up!” she added for the fun of making Athelis squeal.

“Two boys,” Githa sighed in wonderment later that evening after Athelis was abed. “Supposing we had a baby boy this time?”

“As long as he is not a big lumpish oaf like me,” Theobald answered, and bit her ever so gently on the tip of her pretty little nose.