Leofric gets a surprise
“Gentlemen!” Leofric beamed as he stomped into his hall. “The only more welcome surprise just now would be a good rain! You haven’t waited long, I hope?”
“If we have, Leila has so distracted us with her beauty that we did not see the time pass,” Sigefrith said gallantly.
“Thus you have been taking advantage of my absence to woo my wife.”
“You will soon have cause to wish that was all he meant to do,” Cenwulf observed dryly.
“What other surprise do you have in store for me, runt?” Leofric asked, rubbing his hands together briskly. “May we at least eat first? I’m half-starved. Habibi?”
“I should rather we get this out of the way beforehand,” Sigefrith said.
“Oh?”
“He wants you sober,” Cenwulf said.
“Are you here to help me or to get me killed?” Sigefrith asked him.
“What is this about?” Leofric asked, growing wary. “Habibi?”
“They said nothing about a surprise to me,” Leila said softly.
“What is it?”
“I should like to speak with you alone,” Sigefrith said.
“Alone? Why did you bring along this grim old croaker then?” he asked, waving a hand at Cenwulf.
“In the event I should need a second.”
“A second! Son of a serpent! What’s this about?” he roared.
“Cenwulf and I shall take the children upstairs,” Leila said, rising.
“Not even! I want to get this over with now. Into the chapel with you, runt. March!”
“An excellent idea!” Sigefrith said as he marched. “Surely you won’t bloody your sword before the altar.”
“No, but I may blaspheme, God help me!”
Leofric pulled the heavy door closed behind them and turned on Sigefrith a face that was growing red with preemptive anger – and damp with apprehension.
“What then?”
Sigefrith looked at him for a moment and then began to laugh.
“What is it, you impudent little mongrel?”
“It is only that I never dreamed I should find myself in this position with respect to your disreputable self.”
“Out with it or I shall slap it out of you! You don’t know what manner of terrors are going through my mind!”
“Very well! I am here to ask for your daughter’s hand. For myself, I mean.”
“For – Son of a serpent! Eadgith?”
“Eadgith.”
“You – you! My daughter! Who gave you leave to even think about my daughter?” he roared.
Sigefrith let out a deep sigh. “Let’s get this part over with so we can speak seriously about the matter.”
Leofric turned and stalked up the aisle and then stalked back down it again. “I left her with you for nearly two years! I trusted you with her for nearly two years! What have you done to her?”
“Nothing!”
“What were you doing with her all those times you shut yourself up alone with her in her bedroom? God damn you, Sigefrith! I told Hilda she was nothing but a baby cousin to you!”
“Hilda?”
“Hilda told me you visited my baby in her bedroom – did you not?”
“Well, I – ” Sigefrith stumbled out of the way just in time to avoid a fist to the face.
“Hold!” he barked. “I didn’t touch her! When have you ever known me to treat a lady in such a manner? And one in my own care? And my own cousin?”
“But she’s a baby, Sigefrith!”
“She’s fifteen. My mother was fourteen when she was married.”
“That was forty years ago!”
“And?”
“I don’t know,” Leofric muttered. “I suppose it was different then. Does she know about this?”
“I spoke to her on Midsummer Eve.”
“Oh you spoke to her! Very fine! Now she will hate me for the rest of my days if I refuse you!”
“I hope you won’t.”
“Sigefrith, I had other plans for her!”
“It may be my vanity speaking, but I should like to know what you presumed for her that was better than what I offer.”
“I could have had one of Haakon Raudi’s grandsons for her.”
“A Norseman? For the daughter of Swein Forkbeard? Anyway, Haakon Raudi’s grandsons are as innumerable as the sand which is by the sea shore.”
“As is their wealth.”
“Was the man as wealthy as I?”
“Of course not, runt, but all of your wealth won’t buy your skin if William ever pokes his nose into this corner of the island.”
Sigefrith sighed.
“Sigefrith, God knows I love you, and I have put my faith in you, but this is my daughter. I had thought, if I am to finish my days in prison like Morcar – or even if it is only to be my last thought as I am led to the block – I should have liked to have comforted myself with the knowledge that my daughter was somewhere across the sea, safe and happy with her blue-eyed babies.”
“Leofric, you know I shall use everything I have to defend her – my wits, my wealth, my army, my dying breath. Her fate will be bound up with ours – as it should be, I think. She is our family’s finest flower since the death of my mother. We shan’t send her away. She shall be safe and happy here with us. However, you may have to resign yourself to her babies having hazel eyes instead of blue.”
“Hazel – you!” Leofric held his head in his hands and howled. “Don’t make me think about you touching her! Damn you! I know where you’ve been!”
“That’s because you were there with me,” Sigefrith laughed. “Anyway, I don’t know why you’re screeching. You know I know how to be faithful to my wife. I’m a grown man now, unlike you.”
“And she’s a child! You shan’t have her until she’s sixteen!”
“Sixteen! That’s a year away!”
“And too soon! Why didn’t I say twenty?”
“Oh, Leofric! You’ll kill me!”
“Indeed I shall! You will wait, or I shall kill you!”
“A year,” Sigefrith sighed. “I was thinking… perhaps August…”
“When she is sixteen, and not a day before. And I shall put Hilda on your back! So much as lay one of your fat hands on her knee and I shall separate it from your body forthwith!”
“May I not even kiss her?”
“Son of a serpent!” Leofric cried, his head in his hands again. “It will take me a year merely to grow accustomed to the idea!”
