Sigefrith surveys his fragile kingdom

King Sigefrith knew how to clench his jaw and smile at the same time. It was a useful skill when he could permit himself no visible manifestation of his displeasure.

At the moment, he had to keep smiling for the sake of the maids and servants he passed, who were falling all over themselves in their delight at seeing their king again. There was no doubt the servants loved him.

There was no doubt his children loved him, either. Drage had danced and stomped and blown his little horn until his chubby face was red. As for his daughters, it was fortunate he had only two of them at that height, for he had but one neck, and with Britamund’s cheek pressed against one side of it and Emma’s mouth covering the other with kisses, a third neck-​​high Princess could not have greeted him properly.

His homecoming had been almost everything he could have desired. Unfortunately, what had lacked had sufficed to spoil all the rest of it: his wife had not even bothered to come down to the hall to meet him.

If the Queen would not come down to greet the King, then the King would go up to meet the Queen. However, the greeting he planned to administer would not at all be the same.

As he walked, he told himself he should have expected this. It was the natural evolution of their relation. And yet, when he had left, she had seemed almost genuinely sorry to see him go. Was it only because it meant an entire month without a husband in her bed?

He, eternal optimist, had chosen to believe that there had been a special sweetness in her farewell to him, and he had hoped that a month without him would remind her of what he had once been to her.

On the contrary, it seemed to have caused her to forget.

Well, he told himself, he would show her now what he would be to her henceforth, and he did not think the lesson would be one so easily forgotten.

Still smiling mildly over his clenched teeth, he threw open the door, and one of his long strides sufficed to carry him well into the room.

She was not reclining – nor repining, as he sometimes said – on the bed; neither was she hiding behind the curtain. To his surprise she stood very nearly before the door, as if she had been awaiting him.

Her hand had been resting on one of the handles of the tall chest, but she dropped it when he entered and stood now straight and proud like the little queen he had always wanted her to be.

And yet there was something so incongruous about the sight of her that he did not know what to say to her. He was bewildered – and then he noticed that her hair was long and loose, only brushed back from the sides and pinned behind her head, such as she had worn it when she was still a maiden. He had not seen it so since the day before their wedding.

Not until he saw her did he realize that he too had almost forgotten what she had been to him then.

He was not the man who was so in command of himself that he could smile even while he raged inside. Before her he was only a child, and like an unhappy child he dropped his eyes and pouted his lips and whimpered, “Why didn’t you come to see me?”

That was it – that was the greeting he gave her, after planning out a lesson so harsh that it would have stayed with her as long as he and she lived. It would be no wonder, he thought, if she didn’t respect him.

“But, Sigefrith!” She reached up to stroke her hand over his hair and cheek, as she did to comfort Drage when he was sad. He thought she must have been holding onto the handle of the chest when he had come in to steady her hand, for it was trembling noticeably now. “I wanted to meet you alone.”

“You make me think you don’t want to meet me at all,” he mumbled.

“I have been hoping every day that it would be the day when you would come home. I have been so…” She lifted her hand away from his face and held it and her other together, shaking, shaking, as if she held between them a pair of dice that she was about to cast.

Could it be that she had missed him after all? He pulled her close enough that her shaking hands were pressed between her breasts, held tight enough against his chest and hers that they no longer shook.

“Unhappy?” he suggested. If he was not mistaken, her eyes were preparing to cry.

“No!” She gave a little, choking laugh. “Happy! And I wanted to be happy with you.”

If she could tell him she was happy, and if her happiness depended neither on his presence nor on his absence, then there could only be one explanation.

“Do you mean…?”

“Yes!”

There was no trace of victory in her voice this time. She knew now that happiness was never truly won. It could be lost, certainly, but like any kingdom, it could only be held. Sometimes one had to struggle and fight to keep it, sometimes as long as one lived.

“Do you see?” she smiled through her first tears. “You guessed at once! How could I have met you in the hall?”

Sometimes one never truly held it at all.

“But, honey, are you certain?”

“I was already beginning to suspect when you left, Sigefrith. But you’ve been away for a month, and so now I’m almost quite certain! And I’ve been a little queasy in the mornings…”

“How lovely!” Finally he could laugh, though he felt more bewildered than ever.

“Isn’t it?” she sighed happily. “And I’ve only told Wyn so far, and we think it will be for Candlemas.”

“That’s… fine…”

“And don’t tell anyone–especially not Sigefrith – but she thinks she will be having another baby too… right at the same time! Wouldn’t it be amazing if they were born on the same day?”

“Amazing,” he agreed.

“I feel so good about this, Sigefrith,” she sighed. She stood on her toes and hugged him so tightly that he began to feel very good about it, too. She had not been so affectionate with him in nearly an entire year. “I feel so good and humble and happy.”

“I’m very glad.”

And yet he was a little disappointed, too. He had hoped at first that she was about to tell him that she had missed him. He would have liked to have learned that her happiness depended on his presence and his absence.

Perhaps she had missed him, but that seemed almost forgotten. Instead, she had only told him that she had wanted to be happy with him. Certainly, that was a fine thing.

However, it did not seem she had ever wanted to be unhappy with him, and that was the essential thing. Even he, eternal optimist, knew how unsteady the crown of happiness could be. How many times had he already picked it up and shoved it back down over his head, battered and dusty as it was from falling off even so many times but one?

He would have to hold on to it, struggle and fight to keep it for the both of them, for as long as he and she lived. Still, even he, eternal optimist, was beginning to learn to fear the worst. He knew that her happiness was not truly in his hands.