Sir Sigefrith learns what kind of man he is

“Hilda.”

Hilda only glanced up from her sewing. “Back so soon?” she sighed, as if it annoyed her that her husband had not left her alone longer.

“Put that down,” Sigefrith said. “I want to talk to you.”

“Shhh! I’m counting.”

“Put it down.”

“Oh!” She hurled her embroidery onto the bench beside her. “Now I shall have to start over. What do you want, Sigefrith?” She stood and glowered at him.

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“To my study.”

“Why?”

“Come with me!” he commanded. He turned and walked out of the room, fearful of what he would have to do if she did not follow.

She followed.

“Sit down,” he said after he had closed the door behind her, and he waved his hand at the bench across from his desk.

“What?” she gasped. “Am I one of your tenants come to beg an audience with my lord and master?”

“It would do you some good to be reminded who is your lord and master!”

“Oh, and you’re the man to do it, I’m certain!” she laughed.

“Sit down, I said! Sit down! I want that desk between you and me!”

“Why, oh why? Afraid you’ll hit me if you don’t?” she tittered. “Oh, dear, oh, dear. And his sword hanging on the wall, too! Alas, my pretty head!”

“Sit down!”

She stopped laughing and dropped onto the bench. “What?” she growled. “What lies has Estrid been telling you?”

Sigefrith thumped down onto his chair. “I didn’t even see Estrid.”

“What then?”

“I saw Eirik and Brede. It appears that you… had something to do with their…” He waved his hand as if the right word could be wafted towards him. “…their romances…”

Hilda snorted and laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Sigefrith snapped, infuriated by her laughter beyond his initial anger at her deeds.

“Why—the idea of those two shambling beasts having romances!”

“Well—whatever you call it! Didn’t you help Brede see Estrid? And didn’t you help Eirik see Sigi?”

“Are you telling me those two imbeciles are only just realizing…?” She laughed convulsively. “Three years later!”

“Damn it, Hilda! It isn’t funny!” Sigefrith picked up his heavy iron ruler and slammed it down on his desk in an attempt to relieve his growing desire to slap her.

“Oh, Sigefrith!” she spluttered. “Don’t you see the irony in it? Each of them will allow himself any depravity with another man’s sister, but his own is a sacred idol…”

“As she should be! Hilda, how could you? Our family! Our friends!”

“Oh, please!” she snapped, her laughter falling off as suddenly as if it had been part of an act. “I only did them the favors they asked me, each of them! Each of them was happy with the service rendered! Who am I to judge the propriety of their—”

“You should be as good a judge as any! You! An older woman! A married woman! We trusted you!”

“Who, we? Who, we?”

“I don’t know! I! Brede! Eirik! Sigefrith! Everybody!”

“Oh!” she scoffed.

“Eirik, Brede, I don’t know… but what about Sigi? Hilda! She was only a little girl! You knew what Eirik was!”

“Sigi!” Hilda snapped her fingers scornfully. “I was about to say they all got what they deserved, but you remind me that she got much more than she deserved. Sigi indeed! That puling little slut! She should thank me—and Brede should too! He never could have got a husband like Eirik for her, if she hadn’t trapped him the way she did!”

“Perhaps she was inspired by your success!” Sigefrith said before he could consider his words.

“My success?” Hilda cried, and then she threw back her head and laughed again. “Good Lord! My success! The girl should have taken it as a warning! Be careful to whom you open your legs, or you’ll find yourself yoked for life to a two-​penny halfwit!”

“Hilda!” Sigefrith wailed. The wound was deep.

Hilda laughed again and rose from the bench. She had clearly decided that she had won.

“I should have let Eirik have me when he wanted me,” she said thoughtfully as she strolled up to the side of his desk. “He did, you know. It was what my father wanted, after all. Then I should have had both my dowry and a real man for a husband…”

Sigefrith leapt from his chair, nearly knocking it back into the fire.

If the desk had been between them, as he had desired, perhaps he would only have shouted at her. Standing where she was, she was directly in his path. He had only to stand, and she was before him. Her arms were in his hands. She was only a step or two away from the wall, and he rose suddenly enough to shove her into it.

“What kind of a man?” he growled. He did not recognize his own voice, not quite…

“A real man,” she laughed, but her laugh was nervous. He had startled her.

“What do you call a real man?”

“I don’t know! Since I never had one.”

“My father, for instance?” That was it. It was his father’s voice he was hearing.

“I don’t know! Why don’t you invite him, and I shall try him out a few times and see?” Her laugh was growing impudent again, but now her eyes showed her fear. He was frightening her.

She shivered in pain as he squeezed his hands still tighter around her arms. He felt an ache in his own arms that he thought could only be satisfied if he pierced her flesh with his fingers. Was such a thing possible? But he did not know how to stop himself.

“Bitch,” he whispered, as if he were practicing a new word in a strange language.

She swallowed and laughed again, wildly.

“Bitch,” he repeated.

He leaned against her, crushing her body against the wall with his body, crushing her arms in the grip of his hands. There was the same sort of satisfaction in it as in crushing a flea between one’s fingernails: that satisfying crack of the little shell, and the spurt of blood—even if one knew it for one’s own blood and not the flea’s.

A thin, triumphant smile spread across her frightened face as she found the words to say to him. “Don’t you see the irony, Sigefrith?” she murmured. “You will permit yourself any brutality with Haakon’s mother, but your own is a sacred idol!”

He released her at once. He was too horrified even to fling her away, but only released her and took a step backwards. He dared not even breathe. He held his hands out before him as if he were frightened they would turn on him next.

Hilda watched him warily as she tried to creep around him. He backed into the corner between his desk and the fire, thinking that she wanted to flee out the door. He would not stand in her way.

It was not the door she sought, but he was so shocked at what he had done, so frightened of himself, that he paid too little attention to her. He did not have the presence of mind to duck when she snatched up the heavy iron ruler and hurled it at his head.