Lady Gwynn giggled to herself as her little brother pushed open the great door and entered into the Queen’s sitting room. Hetty had recently confided to her that Cynewulf walked with his father’s straight-backed swagger, but since he bid fair to become a rather tall man, Cynewulf risked becoming an intimidating personage—if he did not overdo it to the point of being a little ridiculous.
Gwynn certainly found him ridiculous already, with his gallant manners and his supposed interest in “the ladies,” but especially now with his funny hair that stuck up and stuck down and stuck left and stuck the other way.
But it was his hair that had gained them admittance to the Queen’s private chambers, so Gwynn was not complaining. Her own father had twice been turned away in the past week, and she had not seen her friends Britamund and Emma in some time.
Gwynn stood by, smiling at him and winking at the princesses, as he bowed deeply to his Queen and then proceeded to the kissing of the royal hands and the paying of the handsome compliments.
Finally he had descended down the ranks to the level of dukes’ daughters, and he turned back to her and asked, “Will you have a seat, sister?”
“Yes, thank you, brother,” she smirked and allowed him to help her into a chair.
“I was told you wished to show me your hair,” the Queen said with a smile of sad amusement.
Cynewulf bowed. “Your Majesty is correct. You must forgive me for inviting myself here. You see, I cut it a week or two ago, but you are the last lady who has not seen it, and I wanted to show it to you so that I could be done with all of the touching of my head and the sighing and the crying.”
“Will I want to cry after I touch it?” the Queen smiled. “Just now I don’t want to cry. I think it looks very cute.”
“Oh, no!” Gwynn laughed. “That was the wrong thing to say!”
The Queen giggled. “Was I supposed to be devastated?”
Gwynn sat behind her brother, so she could only imagine his look of long-suffering.
She explained, “He cut off his curls because he was tired of people telling him he was cute.”
“The problem,” Britamund said, “is that it was a very cute thing to do.”
“It was an act of desperation,” Cynewulf sighed. “No one understands.”
“He doesn’t know what he has to do to stop being cute,” Gwynn said.
“Perhaps when Hetty’s baby comes, it will be cuter than you,” Emma said. “Babies almost always are cuter than anything.”
Gwynn saw Britamund trying to send Emma a warning glance behind the Queen’s head, but Emma was not looking. Even Gwynn knew better than to talk about babies in front of the Queen.
“That’s what I’m hoping,” Cynewulf said. “But look how cute Bruni is, and that doesn’t stop people from playing with my hair and patting my cheeks.”
“But Bruni is a girl,” Emma said. “If your father and Hetty have a little boy, then its cuteness will be directly in competition with yours, and it will win.”
“That’s probably true,” Cynewulf said, and then he, at least, seemed to notice the Queen’s growing distress. “But, Your Majesty,” he said quickly, “even if you don’t think it’s cute, I brought you one of my curls. Just for you! I don’t suppose you will care to have some of my hair, even if you do love me at least a little. But I thought it would be a way to do you honor, because you are the only lady besides Hetty who shall have one.”
“That is an honor indeed,” the Queen smiled, “and I do love you, at least a little, so I shall be pleased to keep it.”
“And now you may touch my head for the last time, and then that will be over and done with!”
“Very well.” The Queen reached out and patted his hair with both hands. “At least until it grows back. But, you know, my little boy has curly hair too, so if I feel the need to tousle a curly head, I only have to go to him.”
“That’s so,” Cynewulf agreed. “You’ve never been very interested in my head since Drage was born. Perhaps Hetty’s baby will have curly hair too, and then I shall be in the clear.”
“Let’s hope,” the Queen said.
“Now, Your Majesty,” he confided, “I hope you will not be angry at me, but I must admit to you that giving you my curl was only a pretends.”
“You mean a pretence,” Britamund corrected.
“That’s what I said,” Cynewulf sniffed.
Emma looked at Gwynn, and they laughed silently over his pique.
“What I mean is,” he continued, “I wanted to ask you a question, and I hope you will answer it, because it is important.”
“I shall if I can,” the Queen said.
“Thank you. The question is: What did His Majesty do?”
“Do… about what?”
“What did he do that was bad?”
“What do you mean?”
“Because when I cut my hair and I told my father that Hetty would forgive him, His Majesty started to cry, and he said that you forgive him but he didn’t even know what he did, and he didn’t cut his hair. And I want to know so I can tell him, because it’s my fault he cried.”
A heavy log cracked in the fire as if to punctuate his speech, but there were no other sounds for a painful while.
Gwynn was horrified. Her brother had not told her that this gift of his hair was only a “pretends.” If he had, she would have not only corrected his English but also told him that it was not the sort of question one could ask on another’s behalf—certainly not when the other was a grown man with a grown wife in the midst of a great sorrow. She was so surprised he had not previously asked her father or Hetty that she wondered whether Cynewulf himself did not suspect that he would be forbidden from asking it if he did.
“Sometimes,” Cynewulf said, “my father says he will spank me even if he doesn’t know what I did, because he is certain I must have done something. But I always know what I did. So I think His Majesty is sad because he doesn’t know why you forgive him, and he is afraid if he asks you then he will accidentally tell you some other bad things he did that you didn’t even know about yet. Because sometimes I do that.”
“I think His Majesty knows,” the Queen murmured.
“Then why did he tell my father he did not?”
“I don’t know…”
“Do you know why you forgive him?”
“Of course. But…”
“Old Man,” Gwynn interrupted. “I think this is not your affair.”
“But she should tell him why,” he protested, “if he doesn’t know. What if he didn’t know it was bad? Then he won’t know he is supposed to confess it.”
“Old Man…” Gwynn groaned.
“I shall tell him,” the Queen said. “Then he will know.”
“That’s all right then. But I hope you will tell him soon, because I think I never saw the King cry before. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with that if one has the habit of crying, but he does not, so I think it is not a good idea for him.”
The Queen pinched her lips between her teeth as if she meant to prevent her own self from crying, but she nodded.
“Because the King is my friend, even though I am just a boy. And even though he calls me a cute young runt instead of an ugly old man,” he sighed.
Chapters
Oh good. The Queen ought to know. She was making him so very unhappy...