“You’re home early, lazy boy,” Iylaine laughed, pretending to scold.
Malcolm had found her lounging on the slope of the hill behind the house, her body all dappled with golden light. It was amazing that the slanting rays of the low sun could find their way to her through the trees, but he understood their determination when he considered their goal.
“There’s not much to do when the King and the Prince are away,” he said, “at least not in the slow time before Lammas.”
Malcolm kissed her and then stretched himself out on the grass beside her. He was sure enough of her now that he did not feel a need to keep a hand on her at all times, and for that very reason he rather enjoyed lying beside her now and not touching her. There would be time enough to touch her later that night.
“It’s still a while before supper,” she said. “Mother Curran just got here.”
“I was hoping to get home early enough to catch you in your little nest, my wee hen.”
“My nest?” she squeaked.
Malcolm chuckled. “Your little nest of blankets in the turtle room. Did you think I didn’t know about that?”
“How did you know?” she asked softly.
“Mother Curran told me.”
Iylaine was silent for a while, and so he sat up and asked, “You don’t like that I know?”
“I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“Frighten me? Why would it frighten me? Baby?”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered. “I simply like to sleep in there.”
“I don’t mind, Babe. Mother Curran told me you’ve been making nests in the turtle room, and then she puts the blankets away every day, and you build it up again the next day, just like a mama hen. Or just like a mama turtle, perhaps I should say.”
She laughed: another of the sudden, striking fits of exuberance she experienced these days. “Turtles don’t make nests! What an idea! Anyway, I’m not a turtle, you stupid boy. Do I have a shell?”
“No. But if not a mama turtle, then perhaps a turtle mama.”
“What’s the difference?” she giggled.
“Well, a mama turtle is a turtle, and a turtle mama simply has turtle babies.”
Iylaine did not reply. Indeed, she was so still he had to watch her carefully to see her breathe.
“Baby?” he asked gently. “Why do you suppose you’ve been wanting to make nests in the turtle room lately?”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered.
“Tell me, Babe. I think you must have asked yourself the question.”
“I think it’s because I’m sick.”
“Sick?” he gasped.
“I never truly got well, Malcolm,” she said mournfully. “I only want to sleep instead of talk or sew. And somehow I like to sleep in the turtle room, not on the bed. I feel tired all the time and hungry all the time, and then I eat too much and I feel sick all day.”
“But—Baby! I always used to have to count every bite you put into your mouth just to make you eat!”
“Now I’m sick the opposite way,” she whined like a child.
“But—Baby!” Finally he could not help but laugh. “Look at you! Your father says you haven’t been so fat since you were four. And look at your face! Not a shadow to be seen. I didn’t know you when you were just a baby Baby, but I am certain I’ve never seen you so healthy in the nine years I’ve known you.”
“But I feel sick.”
“Baby, have you not even considered the possibility that you feel sick because you are soon to be a turtle mama, if not a mama turtle?”
He laughed, but he felt suddenly sick himself as he waited for her reply. She could tell him she was certain she was not, and then he would have to figure out what these strange symptoms meant.
“Do you think?” she whispered as if stunned. Apparently she had not considered the possibility. “But isn’t my belly supposed to get big?”
“It will in a few months. Don’t you even know how babies are made, silly girl?”
Suddenly she laughed out loud. “I know because you told me!”
“I did?”
“When we were little. And it wasn’t even what I asked you!”
Malcolm smiled. “What did you ask me?”
“I asked you what rape was. Don’t you remember? In the stable? And then you figured out I could hear very well, because I told you I had overheard the Duke talking.”
Malcolm laughed with her. “Now I remember! I hope I wasn’t your only source of information, Babe. The devil only knows what nonsense I told you.”
“You said it was done as the animals do, but in the dark,” she giggled.
“Oh, no!” he laughed.
“And I don’t remember what else, but I decided it wasn’t for me.”
“Poor Baby! How brave you were to marry me! But didn’t Gunnilda talk to you before the wedding?”
“Aye, but I don’t think she knows very much about it either,” she said confidingly. “She said it was rather dreadful, but I had to do it if I wanted any babies, and also because you were my husband and I had to do what you liked.”
“Oh, no!” Malcolm finally fell back onto the grass beside her, the easier to laugh.
“But I knew it must not have been so dreadful, because I can hear what goes on in that castle, and I think at least some of the people like it.”
“Baby, you’re too funny today. I hope you like it!”
“I suppose so. Unless you simply haven’t reached the dreadful parts yet?” she asked wickedly.
“God help me!” he laughed.
“But, Malcolm?” she asked softly after a moment, and all the jest had gone out of her voice.
“Aye?” Malcolm sat up again and stared down at her.
“Do you think it’s so?”
“About the turtle?”
“Do you think I’m not sick?”
“Don’t you know, Babe? Didn’t Gunnilda tell you about that?”
“But I don’t think I’m like the other girls. And I don’t think she knows about elves.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because the other girls have their lady days every month, and I don’t.”
“That’s probably normal for an elf,” he said.
Iylaine sat up suddenly and bowed her head into the light.
In the last few months she had lost her wildest extremes of shrieking fury and somber despair, but the gentler moods she had now were fleeting and constantly changing. Her face had become like an April sky: brilliant and shining one moment, clouded over the next, and occasionally slipping into drizzles of slow tears. Just then her face was like one of those rare showers of misty rain falling through sheaves of sunlight.
“I don’t know anything about being an elf,” she said softly.
“I think you’ll find it comes naturally, Baby.”
She thought about this for a while, and then she turned to him and said, “I don’t know anything about being a mama to turtles or to—anything.”
“You will manage, Baby mine.”
“But what if it cries?”
“It had better! At least often enough so we don’t forget it’s there.”
“But, Malcolm!” she gasped. “If I am a turtle mama, then you will be a turtle papa! Did you think of that?”
“Of course I…” he said at once, and then he took a moment to consider the question. Naturally the idea pleased him in the abstract, but he had been so busy wondering whether Iylaine knew and what she thought that he had not asked himself what he thought.
Iylaine stood gracefully to bend over him, laughing like a rill. “You never did! Stupid boy!”
“I did so!” he protested.
“Too late!” she laughed. “I wish you could see the look on your face! I think you are now becoming what young Sigefrith would call a looby.”
“I am not!”
“You’ll find it comes naturally, Malcolm!” She pulled him to his feet, giggling. “And you’ll start grumbling in the morning, and falling asleep in your chair after dinner, and asking everybody whether they ate their peas.”
“I shall not! Everybody may eat their peas in this house, or not,” he proclaimed, “each according to his desire.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then,” she laughed. “You’re not a looby at all.”
“If that’s all it takes…”
“Speaking of peas, let’s go steal a snack from Mother Curran. I’m hungry.”
“If you have the habit of stealing snacks before supper, Lady Baby, then it’s no wonder you’re getting fatter.”
“I always eat all my supper though, don’t I, sir?” she asked. “Even my peas.”
“And that’s what will make you fatter!”
“Do you think I am getting fatter?” she asked hopefully. “Perhaps I’m not sick any longer at all.”
“Everyone says you are, and everyone likes to see it. Mother Curran told me that it is either because you are very happy or because you are expecting a wee turtle.”
“Perhaps both!” she laughed, and her April face was like rainbows.
Chapters
You all are going to get worried if I keep writing happy chapters for Malcolm and Iylaine. Actually I wrote this chapter mainly to serve as a counterpoint to the next, and also to show what Iylaine has been thinking.
This is not to say that nothing bad will happen to them, but I don't want you to think this chapter is some kind of hint of darker days to come.