Estrid is reassured
Hilda peeked into Estrid’s room with a sly smile.
“Hallo, Puss! Eirik wants to see you. Shall I show him in?”
“Eirik?” Estrid wrinkled her nose. “What does he want?”
“I don’t know. He begged me to come ask you whether he could see you.”
“But – ”
Estrid could not think of a single reason why Hilda’s brother would be eager to see her. It was a pleasure to have him around again, for he reminded her of home. However, they hadn’t much in common, and she usually only saw him when with Brede or Hilda… and now Brede was gone away again…
“All right,” Hilda said when Estrid did not find the words to protest. “He’ll be right along.”
“Hilda! No! Wait!”
She could not call loudly for fear of waking the babies, but Hilda stopped in the doorway.
“I’m in my nightgown, for God’s sake!”
“That’s your own fault, for being so lazy. Anyway, he doesn’t care!”
“No, but I do! You forget he’s – what? Fourteen now? He’s not a child any more!”
“I assure you,” Hilda smirked, “he would be the last man to get excited about seeing you in your nightgown!”
“Well – why?” Estrid asked. Was she already so matronly that a fourteen-year-old boy wouldn’t care to look at her?
Hilda choked. “Well, because he’s already seen you stark naked, for one thing!”
“Never!” Estrid cried, aghast. “When?”
“Many times!”
“No!”
“But, I assure you, he never got excited about it.”
“Oh, but… why not?” Estrid asked, stung again.
Both Hilda and someone in the hall broke down into breathless laughter at last. So he was listening too! Estrid was mortified.
“Leave me alone! Both of you!” she cried as loudly as she dared and hurled a pillow at the door.
“Oh, Kitten!” the other laughed and pushed the door open wide. It was not Hilda’s brother but her own.
“Eirik!” She threw herself at him with the same force she had put behind the pillow. He was so tall! so broad! so solid! so familiar! so hers!
“What a vain little kitten it is!” he laughed. “It doesn’t want young men looking at it, but they had better like what they see if they do!”
“Oh, shut up!”
She closed her eyes and nuzzled his neck as a kitten might. She had forgotten how he smelled, forgotten how tall he was, how strong he was. All of that had been mixed up with Brede in her mind. Now he was coming clear again: her brother.
“Hmm,” Hilda sniffed. “Are you certain you never got excited? Because to look at the two of you…”
“Oh, shut up, Hilda!” Estrid said.
“You’re only jealous,” Eirik added.
“Perhaps!” Hilda laughed. “By God, it’s quite a man you’ve become. But I certainly never nibbled on my Eirik’s ear when he showed up here – and I hadn’t seen him in years.”
“Nobody is nibbling on anybody’s ear. I’m simply whispering to her what a double-hinged hussy I think you are, coz.”
“You have a father and mother,” Estrid said, “and lots of brothers and sisters. I only had Eirik.”
“Her one and only! But it didn’t stop her from jilting me,” he sighed.
“Oh, Eirik! And you left me for Sigi, you know.”
“Sigi! You tell Brede that I shall swap Sigi for you any time he likes, and throw in a ship, a fatted ox, and twenty marks of gold.”
“Make it thirty and he might do it,” Hilda laughed.
“Oh, go away, already!” Estrid snapped.
“I am still not convinced that I needn’t stay to chaperone, but I shall leave you two to your lovemaking and trust you to behave. Simply remember, Eirik, that she had not one but two babies less than four weeks ago, and she is in no shape to be tangling with the likes of you. Forty days is the minimum wait, I insist!”
“Hilda, you’re disgusting!” Estrid groaned.
“There is nothing disgusting about tangling with the likes of such a man!” Hilda said and slapped her cousin on the rear before heading to the door.
“Hussy!” he laughed.
“Mongrel!”
“She’s so bad!” Estrid sighed and hugged him again after Hilda had gone out.
“And you’re so good!” he teased.
“Better than she! Oh, Eirik, I hope you may stay a while! I missed you!”
“I must stay at least until your King returns–and your husband. You tell him about the ship and the fatted ox, Kitten. I mean it.” He kissed her on her forehead, which was just at the level of his lips. “Meantime why don’t you show me these babies that Hilda believes are saving you from being ravished by your own brother?”
“Oh! The darlings! My babies! My children, Eirik! Only think! Your niece and nephew!”
He smiled at her, and she paused a moment to look at him again. Could she have forgotten his smile as well? It was not at all like Brede’s.
“Look!” She grabbed his hand and dragged him to the cradle, and so she felt his arm jerk when he started at the sight of them.
“Aren’t they pretty!” she cried. It was not a question.
“Pretty!” He twined his fingers between hers and squeezed her hand.
“The girl has red hair and the boy blond. That’s Dyrne and that’s Daeglan – it means Secret and Mystery, isn’t it funny? But everyone calls them Dyr and Daeg – Dear and Day, just like in Norse, almost! Brede said he didn’t want Norse names, but he got them anyway.”
“Good for you.”
“Dyr is so saucy when she’s awake. You should see her! She has Brede’s eyes and his dark lashes, and she already knows how to flirt with them.”
“I can imagine.”
“What about Olaf?”
“Oh, he looks like me, I suppose.”
“Eirik – don’t look at me like that!”
“Like how?” He smiled.
“Like – ”
That smile broke her. Such a smile was worse than the expression he had worn before.
“I’m simply used to seeing Olaf, you know,” he explained hurriedly. “He’s so big now.”
He had better said nothing. She had already thought of a number of things he could have been thinking at that moment – he might have simply been missing his own son – or thinking that he had missed her–or any number of things. But he had been thinking that her babies were too small.
“But they’re getting bigger,” she quavered.
He put his arms around her and kissed her forehead again. “And they will continue to do so until they’re looking down on me, I don’t doubt.”
“Yes, you do! You do doubt!”
“But you don’t. That’s all that matters, I think. What do I know? I’m only a big drooling puppy.”
She rubbed her face against his neck. He was so good, and so strong and solid. Such a man could say any sort of nonsense to her and she would believe it. Such a man could bend reality to his will.
“You know them better than anyone, Kitten. And I’ve grown accustomed to my big lump of a baby. You’ll see. Mother always talked about how tiny you were when you were born, remember? And look at you now. There’s scarcely a woman on earth can look you in the eye. They will do very well, so long as you don’t give up. And I won’t let you.”
In the week since Brede had gone away, she had been torturing herself by reflecting over what the others thought of her babies. Brede never doubted, but without him, she was the only one in the world who believed. Alone, she did not think she could believe long.
But Eirik had come – her brother! She had been alone and adrift for a week, but now she felt as if there were a hand on the rudder again – a good hand, solid and strong.
