“What now, Eadgith?” Leofric asked in a warning growl. He was not yet angry, for she was permitted to disturb him in his study for emergencies, but he wanted to remind her that it had better be an emergency.
“I want to talk to you, Leofric.” Her voice was throaty from emotion. That could only mean that she was outraged over something or other, since she wasn’t likely to show up in his study for reasons of passion.
Leofric did not want to turn his eyes from her eyes, so he snapped his fingers behind his head. “You,” he said to his steward, “you go out and make certain the horses are being saddled. And you, runt, go out in the corridor and wait for me there.”
As Cedric and the steward went out through opposite doors, he watched the glittering of her eyes and the quivering of her nostrils and chin. She was ready for battle, and his heart began to thunder in his chest to prepare him.
Once the doors had closed, he whispered, “What?”
“What do you suppose your daughter just said in front of me? And Judith?”
“I cannot imagine.”
“She said – she – ”
Leofric smiled. “Say it, Eadgith.”
“It is nothing I can repeat!”
Leofric grinned at her. “Son of a serpent! Spit it out already! The Lord God has better things to do than to strike down sour old biddies like you for the occasional second-hand oath.”
“She said – ” Her face contorted as if she were chewing on something distasteful, and she muttered, “‘Bless my balls.’ And she took the name of the Lord in vain! Twice!”
Leofric threw back his head and laughed.
“It is not funny!”
“It is hilarious! In front of Judith you said? God in heaven! Why did I have to miss that? What did Judith say?”
“Leofric!” Her throaty voice had gone shrill. “It is not funny!”
“Eadgith!” He tried to lay a hand on her shoulder in the hope that it would make her laugh with him, but she shrugged it off.
“This is what you get for letting her do whatever she pleases and laughing at her misbehavior!”
“Well, it’s funny!”
“It is not funny!” she shrieked. “It is humiliating! In front of Judith! What would you say if Mae said such a thing? Or Eadie?”
“Well now…” he chuckled awkwardly.
“It’s only Leia who gets special treatment! Only Leia! She could bring you Mae’s head on a platter, and you would only compliment her talent for carving!”
“Now, listen here!” he shouted. “I love all my babies!”
“You listen! ‘Bless my balls,’ that was just what Matilda used to say, wasn’t it? You don’t say that, do you? You taught her that! Didn’t you?”
“Well, now, we always found it rather cunning of Matilda…” He tried to laugh, but his guilty conscience was sticking in his throat.
“That’s right! You band of vulgar men found it ‘rather cunning’ the way she ran around, falling out of her dress and spilling wine all down the front of herself and puking over the battlements and swearing like a foot soldier and bouncing in your laps!”
“Well, now – ”
“It was vulgar! Vulgar! Atrocious! Is that what you want your daughter to be?”
“You shall not insult that woman, and least of all when she’s dead!”
“You’re trying to make her into Matilda, that’s what you’re doing! Dressing her in red and teaching her to swear like her mother and taking her everywhere with you! You’re trying to make a second Matilda out of her to love, since you didn’t get enough of the first! I shan’t be surprised if I find you in her bed when she’s a little older!”
Leofric’s guilty conscience was blasted loose by a wordless roar. His right hand smashed into her face, and his left hand caught her arm to prevent her from falling. Once she was standing again, he grabbed a fistful of her hair to hold her head inches from his own.
“You vicious, self-righteous little viper,” he growled. “You froth at the mouth because a little girl says, ‘bless my balls,’ and then you come in here and accuse me of the vilest intentions under the sun, the vilest crime ever invented…”
Leofric stopped to pant into her livid face, trying to collect his thoughts. He had never been so close to killing her. He was entirely sober, and yet he could almost do it. That she could think of anyone hurting his baby… that she could think he would hurt his baby…
“If you ever so much as hint at that idea again, woman, I shall surely kill you. I swear it. You shall see how nicely I can carve! I shall slit you open still alive, and wrap your bowels around my arm, and feed your own black heart to you still beating – Jesus Christ!” he wailed.
It seemed to him that the guilty conscience he had coughed up was standing beside him, looking up at him with his own eyes, but young and innocent and sorrowful. Every sin he had ever committed was staring him in the face – every lie he had ever told, every girl he had ever seduced, every man he had ever slain. Leofric’s black heart thudded wildly against his ribs – surely the Lord God had decided to strike him down at last!
Then he understood that it was only his son Cedric.
“How long have you been there, boy?” he cried, shivering with relief.
Cedric did not answer.
Leofric released Eadgith’s hair and took a step away from her. “You don’t know what she said to me,” he muttered.
“I didn’t mean it, Leof,” she whispered.
But Cedric said nothing.
Leofric could not bear it. “Come with me, runt,” he growled and pushed past him to the door.
“Don’t hurt him!” Eadgith whimpered.
“I shan’t hurt him! Son of a serpent!”
Cedric followed silently. Eadgith tottered after him, whining like a kicked dog, just as she always did whenever he tried to flee her for her own good.
It was a long walk to the far end of the castle, and Leofric needed it. His knees trembled if he stood still, and a flight of stairs was an honest excuse for breathing so heavily, and if he thought of his children the entire way then he thought he might feel human again at the end of it.
Raegan made the announcement. “Papa!”
All of his blackness seemed to melt away. Here were all of his babies but the two oldest and the one long-dead.
“Come up, my pigeons! You five are going to your mother’s!”
“Today?” Aefen gasped, instantly delirious with joy.
“Right now!”
“Awwww!” Leia whined. “I want to go somewhere too!”
“So you shall, my dove! You and I are going to your – ”
He was about to say “your brother’s,” but he did not think he could face Sigefrith while his mind still roiled with thoughts of holding his mother’s still-beating heart in his hand. Then he remembered the one friend he could count on when he was feeling more like a beast than a man.
“Your friend Egelric’s castle!”
“Oh, Papa!” she beamed. “Just you and me?”
“You and I, Leia. And you shall see your little sweethearts Wulf and Gils again!”
“Oh, Papa!”
“Now, before we go, do you remember what to do if a young boy asks you to play some games that involve taking off your clothes?”
“I remember!” she laughed. “I kick him in the nuts!”
“That’s my girl!”
And let's just hope that the worst parts of his father's nature are left out of his genetic code.
Lothere I was just about to say all this stuff about Leofric until I read that last line "I kick him in the nuts!”. But that made me lagh so hard I stopped being angry. Eadie did cross the line though but Leofric didn't have to do that.
Chapters
Now that was seriously intense. OK, Eadgith really went too far, but the beginning of what she said was spot-on. I can't believe she would even think of something like that to accuse him.
Poor Cedric. Seeing and hearing that. And he doesn't say a thing. He just quietly watches and then follows through the castle. Makes you really wonder what's going on inside his head. Still water and all that.