Hilda needs an errand run

“Oh, Eadie, thank heavens,” Hilda sighed as she waddled laboriously into the front hall. “Good evening, Malcolm,” she nodded, and she smiled at Sigefrith before turning back to Eadgith.

Malcolm nodded in return, but he could feel the hair rise on the back of his neck at the very sight of her. Something about her hinted at the weasel circling the henhouse, despite her feigned weariness – or perhaps because of it, as far as he was concerned.

“Eadie,” Hilda continued, “would you be a dear and go up the nursery to see whether my red purse is there? I have looked for it all over at home, but I am quite certain now that I left it here last time I came with Haakon – but I simply can’t bear the idea of climbing those stairs again.”

“Nonsense, Hilda!” Sigefrith beamed. “I should like to know why we have pages around here if we are sending our ladies on errands. We shall go find you a chair at once, and Malcolm here will look for your purse.”

“Oh, but Sigefrith,” Hilda said saucily after the barest flicker of annoyance crossed her face. “A lady’s purse is not something she cares to see in male hands.”

Malcolm knew little enough about what ladies, wives, and mothers might keep in their red purses, but he thought there was more to this story than her bag’s mysterious contents. Indeed, now he would have dearly liked to have gone – and he did not doubt that Hilda knew it.

“Of course not, Sigefrith,” Eadgith said. “Certainly I shall go for you, Hilda. Where is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know – anywhere, somewhere. If it’s there, you won’t miss it.”

“Sigefrith,” Eadgith said, “please take Hilda in to my brother, and I shall rejoin you at once.”

“As my lady commands,” Sigefrith said with a bow.

Malcolm opened his mouth to ask whether he might be excused, but he closed it again, ever so slowly, as Lady Hilda fixed on him a look of pure menace.