Lili is confronted

Egelric regretted agreeing to Eirik’s demand as soon as the door was opened and, over the top of Lili’s head, he saw what she was seeing.

He saw how it must appear to her: the three tall men in the dim room, their grim faces, and the sword laid out behind them on the table.

Eirik had claimed to want the utmost privacy for this conversation, and once Egelric had heard a bit of what he had to tell, he was determined to prevent Lady Hedwige or the gossipy servants from overhearing it. Thus, rather than meeting in the sunny hall, he had sent his steward out of the dark-​​paneled, windowless room where the business of the manor was transacted, and brought Eirik, the King, and the Earl there.

He had been determined enough to offer Eirik his privacy that he had not considered how the scene would appear to Lili. Even a man with nothing on his conscience might have been excused for believing himself on the threshold of his own execution if he were shown what waited behind this door.

She turned away at once in panic, but she ran into the fourth tall man, whose face Egelric could not see. He feared it was looking grim as well, and he tried to soften it for her, but she turned back to the room again.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered. “I have a baby…”

Egelric nearly groaned. He had been expecting something like this – he was fairly certain that she had missed her cycle entirely in the last month, and it was only her good appetite and unfailing cheerfulness in the mornings that made him wonder.

But he would not have chosen to learn of it under these circumstances, as she seemed to be pleading for her life on behalf of her child, and it made him feel very cruel. Nor would he have chosen to have learned of it before these three grim-​​faced men, though the news did at least provoke a wry half-​​smile on the part of Sigefrith, and Cenwulf conceded a lifted eyebrow. Only Eirik seemed unmoved.

“No one shall hurt you, Lili,” Egelric promised, and then he said it again in Gaelic, with an apology added for good measure, thinking that she might be reassured to hear him speaking a language only they two understood. He hoped it would make her feel she had an ally.

And still the glance she gave him as he nudged her into the room appeared frightened. He did not think her conscience was clear.

“Du lieber Gott!” she gasped when she had taken a closer look at the sword. She turned again away from the men, but Egelric stood between her and the door, and he had just pulled it closed.

“Recognize it?” Eirik asked savagely.

Egelric laid his hands on her waist. Now he was determined that she would not be upset any more than necessary. If the King had not been before him, he would have taken her away at once.

But the hands seemed to calm her. “I think it is Friedrich’s sword.”

“That’s right,” Eirik growled. “Friedrich’s sword. I would have brought you his head, but in this warm weather, I think you recognize the sword better by the time I get it here.”

Egelric could feel her body flinch as if she had been hit. “Is he even dead?” she quavered.

“Yes! Yes! And I have to kill him myself to prove my loyalty! Do you hear?”

“Oh, poor Hetty,” she murmured, and then she turned in panic to Egelric. “Don’t tell her! Her baby!”

“Whisht, Lili. We shan’t tell her,” he whispered.

“I have to kill him myself!” Eirik cried and pounded on the paneled wall with his fist. “I have to cut the head off a living man! I did! Because you don’t tell me – ”

“Eirik!” Egelric barked, feeling his wife begin to tremble.

“I know he have this wife and baby here! And he cry and beg for his life! And I have to kill him because of you!”

“Eirik!” This time it was Sigefrith who spoke, and his voice was the voice of a king. Eirik quieted, and Cenwulf lifted the sword off the table and laid it aside.

“What did she do?” Egelric asked. He had not been expecting anything like this.

“She don’t tell me what he want to do, this Friedrich and this Raedwald. If she tell me, this man he want to kill Whitehand, so, I don’t let him escape. But no. She don’t tell me. And they go back to kill Whitehand, and everyone say: it is Eirik son of Olaf son of Tryggve who let this man go back to Whitehand. So! Thank you, lady!”

“Did you know they meant to do this?” Sigefrith asked her.

“I want to speak to my husband,” Lili murmured.

“No!” Eirik cried. “This time you speak to me. You tell me, who sent these men?”

“To my husband,” she whispered and shrank back against Egelric’s body.

“She shall talk to me,” Egelric said. “You frighten her.”

“I frighten her?” Eirik laughed. “I frighten her? I say nothing. You want to see how to frighten her? I tell her how it is to hold a man’s head in one’s hand! But perhaps she know already!”

“Eirik…” the King warned, but he also gave Egelric a slight nod, and that was all the dismissal Egelric needed.