“My lady! My lady!”
Edris shrieked and sat up.
“My lady! You must rise!”
“Is it morning?”
Her maid was dressed, though her hair was still in the ponytails she wore for sleep. And the lit candle was so bright that it must have been dark beyond the windows.
“You must rise! His lordship is home! The Earl!”
Edris howled, “Cenwulf!” and threw back the blankets.
Hilda gasped in dismay. “No, my lady… Lord Baldwin. Your son…”
Edris’s grief was flooded over by this joy. “Baldwin!”
Hilda smiled again and said eagerly, “In the chapel! Hurry! Your gown!”
“Forget my gown!” Edris stumbled out of bed and squeezed her struggling maid. “Get my cloak! Where is he? In the chapel? Praise God! They brought him home!”
“If you would—if you would release me, my lady…”
Edris flung Hilda away and lifted her clasped hands in thanks to God. “They brought him home! How is he?” she begged.
“I didn’t see him,” Hilda said as she wrapped her in her cloak. “I was just told to fetch you. And it isn’t Sir Baldwin and the others who brought him home—it’s Sir Raedwald, your ladyship’s brother.”
“Raedwald!” Edris gasped.
“I guess that’s why he came at night,” Hilda giggled nervously.
Edris hesitated. Should she risk having another victim in order to have a witness? She would let Hilda decide. “Will you come with me?”
“Will I?” Hilda grinned. “Didn’t I miss that boy too? His lordship, I mean…”
Edris was already running.
“Baldwin!”
She cried his name even before she had located his head amid the rows of pews.
“Mama!”
The young Earl had been consuming a plate of cold chicken in the front row, but he set it aside and threw his arms around Edris’s neck. He did not hesitate to put his greasy hands in her hair, and she did not hesitate to kiss his greasy face. She would have covered him in kisses if he had been covered in slime.
“I wanted to come up and surprise thee,” he said softly, “but He made me wait here.” Somehow she heard the capital H even on his voice.
“It’s no matter,” she whispered. “And thou wilt have eaten in chapel, and mightest hold that over Father Brandt all his days.”
He giggled and rubbed his face into her cloak. “Mama!” he moaned.
She would have liked to have taken him to the kitchen for a proper meal, and taken him up to show his brother and sisters, and undressed him and put him to bed—all at once!—but she felt that she had first to do something about her brother.
“Was thine uncle good to thee?” she asked softly.
“Yes…”
Raedwald was standing behind the altar, as grave as a priest and as direful as a demon.
“I am the boy’s cousin,” her brother reminded her coldly.
“Even so…” she murmured. “I thank thee for bringing him home to me. I love him as a son.”
“For the love of thee, sister.”
She had never known her brother to display real affection for anyone in his life. To hear him speak of his love for her was like hearing a malediction cast upon her name.
“It… it is dangerous for thee here,” she said. “Many knights are here, for the King’s daughter was married this day. And… and the husband of the King’s cousin is even here. Eirik…”
As she spoke, he strolled slowly to the opposite end of the altar, dragging his fingertip across the surface as he went.
“I know that, sister,” he said when he reached the end. “Sea Star and Iron Bear are lying at Hwitsands. The captain of my ship did not even want to put in, for fear of losing his cargo.”
His lip curled into a sinister sneer, though whether at the cargo, at the captain, or at Eirik and his ships, she did not know.
“Wouldn’t it be a shame if Sea Star were to spring a leak on her journey home?” he chuckled.
“Raedwald!” she gasped. “No!”
“No! No! Of course not, Edris! Is that what thou thinkest of thy brother? Already men I have never met, all up and down these two coasts, think me an assassin—all on the word of that mean pirate!”
“I don’t know…” she whimpered.
“Already I have had to color my hair and powder my face to hide my name! And it’s few men who have eyes as green as the sea!”
“But if thou art not what he says…”
“Tell thy King he is in my debt! Even have I restored his Earl to him. And tell him too to watch whom he befriends more closely than those he makes his enemies. Brass-Dog is—or soon will be—a traitor to Whitehand, who made him. What will he not do to the King of Lothere if the King of Lothere stands in his way?”
“He is married to the King’s cousin, Raedwald…”
“Even so! Whom he took before she was given to him! Like the pirate he is!”
Father Brandt threw open the chancel door and stood glowering at his prodigal cousin.
“I thought I heard me a voice unaccustomed to chapels!”
Brandt’s voice, however, was well-accustomed to chapels, and he made it ring to the roof.
“Uncle Brandt!” Baldwin launched himself at the old priest.
Edris longed to watch their happy reunion, but she dared not take her eyes from her brother. Somehow she felt that he had to be watched by someone at all times.
“I bring thy nephew home to thee, and so am I welcomed,” Raedwald sniffed. “So might I have saved me the trouble.”
“It is a kind and generous act,” Father Brandt said. “But when last thou wert in this castle, hast also left behind some trouble.”
“Both troubles have since married profitably, I have heard. I have spoken to this boy’s father.”
Edris gasped in horror, before she even knew what had horrified her.
Her brother turned to her and snapped, “I was weeks gone when he died.”
“Mama,” Baldwin murmured and sought her hand. Edris pulled him down to sit with her on one of the pews. Brandt was there now to keep an eye on Raedwald.
“Nevertheless,” Brandt said, “I think me there are two or three gentlemen here who would like to have a word with thee.”
“Gentlemen who speak with their swords?” he chuckled. “No, cousin. My head is worth more than thirty marks to me.”
“Even is it now fifty, so I hear,” Brandt said.
“Ah! A wealthy pirate may pay himself the luxury of expensive enemies. No, cousin. I shall be out of this valley before Brass-Dog rises to scratch his fleas, and even shall I be in Ireland before Sea Star sets sail.”
“Wilt not stay at least to tell us how this came to pass?” Father Brandt waved a hand back towards Baldwin. “Hast seen Sir Baldwin and his fellows?”
“I shall not stay, Brandt. This boy will tell you. As much as he knows,” Raedwald smiled.
Baldwin squirmed on Edris’s lap.
“God speed thee, cousin,” Father Brandt said grimly.
“God keep you all.” Raedwald walked around the altar and headed for the door, but he paused in the middle of the aisle as if he had forgotten something, and he turned to say to Brandt: “Cousin, thou knowest I do not do kind and generous acts.”
So do you translate a few sentences from the target language to get an idea of what the grammar of an exact translation might be, or just how grammar is in general for the language?
Chapters
When Edris howled "Cenwulf!" I nearly broke down right there; but luckily her grief was short. Nothing worse then to be happily deluded and have your delusions cruelly thrown away.
The title sounds so silly, I had to laugh, but isn't Raedwald . . . wait, who's Raedwald? What did he do? I've heard the name, but his name in connection to Edris made all the memories fly out of my head. And what's with the 'thee' and 'thou' and 'wilt'? I am proudly fluent in Ye Olde and Contrived to Be Fake English, but usually you don't use it. Why now?