Anson is surprised

Anson’s wife was a quiet, unimaginative young lady who scarcely ever surprised him. He often found her somewhat tedious, in fact, but now he told himself that if she were to make a habit of surprising him in this manner, he would rather have his quiet, unimaginative Wynna back.

“What do you call this?” he asked.

“It’s a baby, silly!” her sister-​​in-​​law Lady Anna laughed. “Acts like he never saw one before!”

He nodded grimly at Anna’s belly. “Well, I see it isn’t yours.”

Every time he saw her lately, Anson told himself – and later told Wynna – that he would never let his six-​​months-​​pregnant wife walk so far and back again merely for a visit. But it seemed that Bertie’s wife did whatever Bertie’s wife pleased.

“Noooo… But I wonder if it’s yours?” she giggled.

So, she felt like teasing.

“Well, let me see…” Anson narrowed his eyes into a sharp-​​edged glare. “Wynnie wasn’t expecting one, so I guess you must be calling me an adulterer.”

Anna gave one last reflexive giggle. “No, I didn’t mean that…”

“Whose is it, Wynnie?” he frowned. “I’ll not have you minding babies for the farmhands.”

Now that Anna had been silenced, Wynna could speak.

“Well, I don’t know, but I guess it’s nobody’s,” she said hesitantly. “We found it on the back step.”

“What?” Anson cried. “God Almighty! Someone left a baby here? Let me see it. How old is it?”

“I don’t know but I guess six months or so. Isn’t he a cutie?”

“Oh, Wynnie! I bet I know whose baby that is. That’s Sir Aengus’s baby.”

“It is not!” Anna gasped. “Aengus’s baby hasn’t even been born yet! Bertie would have told me.”

“His elf baby,” Anson groaned. “I guess Bertie never told you that.”

“An elf baby!” Anna shrieked and leapt back. “Heavens! I can’t believe you’re touching it!”

“Oh, pish!” Wynna cried in a rare burst of her mother’s spirit. “Acts like he’s going to bite her head off with his two little bitty teeth! I guess I practically grew up with an elf girl, didn’t I?”

“I guess you didn’t like her all that much though,” Anna sniffed. “Bertie says.”

“Well who would? Prancing around like a lady long before Sir Malcolm ever made her one.”

Anson did not like to contradict his wife in front of Anna, but this occasion was too good to miss.

“Now, Wynnie, I won’t let you say it.”

Wynna gasped. “I guess you never liked her at all!”

“I didn’t like her, but I respected her all the same. She always was a lady. A knight can’t turn a girl into lady if she isn’t one already, just by marrying her. No more than a lady stops being a lady if she marries a groom’s son, say.”

He concluded this speech with a wink for his wife, who caught the compliment and smiled. Anson saw he had managed to send a subtle barb Anna’s way and simultaneously please Wynna. He paused a moment to admire his own cleverness – but then he remembered the baby.

“But what about this baby?” he asked Wynna.

“We already told you,” Anna said. “We found him on the back step, all wrapped up in a piece of leather, looking like he just wanted to cry, but he didn’t dare, poor little man!”

“Well, I don’t like that one bit.” Anson permitted himself to growl, since he was not replying to his wife. “That means we had elves around the house today. It was elves who stole him yesterday.”

“What?” Anna gasped and clapped her hand to her chest – probably, Anson thought, to draw attention to it.

“One of Aengus’s men was out to the barn this morning and told me. I told him we never saw anything. Wish I knowed the kid was in here. Why didn’t you tell me, Wynnie?”

“Well…” Wynna flushed and began to stammer. “I – I – ”

“Oh, let her be, Anson,” Anna said. “She was going to show you when you came in for dinner. Two hours more or less doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I don’t know, but I guess it does to this poor baby,” Wynna murmured. “He must miss his mama something terrible. I thought he was no one’s,” she said, a little regretfully.

“Someone had to have him,” Anna said. “He didn’t survive six months eating berries in the woods.” She giggled and looked to Anson.

“Elves had him!” Anson scowled. “I don’t like this one bit.”

Only a month before and less than two miles away, a thirteen-​​year-​​old girl had been raped by an elf behind her father’s own barn. Yesterday an elf had raped this baby’s mother despite the presence of Sir Aengus – a knight – and stolen the child away. Today an elf had been no farther away than Anson’s own back step, and his wife and his little son had been inside the house. Anson was not even a knight.

Anson’s first sixteen years of life had been rough, and there was little in the way of difficulties, disappointments, or abuse that could ruffle him. The one feeling he could not bear was helplessness.

“I guess now I got to take him back,” he grumbled. “That’s my afternoon gone.”

“Why don’t you take him to my house?” Anna suggested. “Bertie can take him back.”

“What if Bertie’s out looking?”

“Then you must take him there,” Anna said. “For if Bertie’s not here to fetch me, you must take me there. You can’t leave me to walk home alone when there are elves around.”

Bertie’s house was only a mile away, but he knew she would dawdle and stretch it out to two or three. He could not see a way out of her snare, however. He wanted to get the half-​​elf baby out of his house as soon as possible in case the elves changed their mind, but he could not send his lady home with one of his farmhands.

Anson gave her the blackest scowl he dared.

She returned a slight, victorious smile.