Kuntigern considers his creation

Kuntigern, as a silversmith, was a man accustomed to the transmutation of coarse, common materials into finer things, given a steady source of heat and sufficient time.

He could conceive of the transformations that turned a scrawny chicken and a leathery pink hunk of smoked pork, a few starchy raw vegetables, and a handful of salt and herbs into a savory stew, with tender chunks of meat bobbing in a golden broth. But even he had not foreseen the effect of today’s particular proportions of salt and spice and herbs. Occasionally he surprised himself with something sublime.

“A new recipe,” he announced after sipping a taste of broth from a silver spoon. “I think I would make a good grandmother.”

A familiar knock sounded at the front door, and he brushed off his knees and stood. It would be the baker from across the street, bringing him his bread. Just in time, he thought. One taste of that stew and he was famished.

“Stand back!” he warned at the door.

“I’m back!” he heard outside.

He was especially cautious when women called, but with one well-​aimed thump of his fist he freed the sticking door from its frame and was able to open it as politely as any castle doorman.

“Takes a knack,” Cuthburh said admiringly.

“So, this way I don’t have to buy a lock.”

Kuntigern winked at her, and Cuthburh laughed with her head thrown back, making the most of her eye-​catching bosom. Cuthburh’s husband was a locksmith, and Kuntigern did, in fact, have good locks for both his doors. But for purposes of flirtation he was not above pretending he did not.

“Good Lord!” Cuthburh gasped when she had stopped laughing. She stuck her nose past his shoulder to take a deep breath. “What are you simmering in there, honeybun? Smells better than what my man’ll be having!”

Kuntigern planted his hands on his hips and took a ludicrously imposing stance, which also served to block her path through the door. He was well aware of the eye-​catching power of his own chest.

“All this, and I can cook, too!” he cooed.

Cuthburh shook all over with laughter, well aware of the charm of her shaking.

“When are you going to pick out a wife, already?” she asked. “So’s I can start being green with envy?”

She stepped closer, cocked her hip at him, and smiled up at him through slightly parted lips. She could not have more obviously invited an invitation without flatly making an invitation herself. But the closer she came, the colder she made him. She made him feel how he would have felt afterwards: not satisfied, merely spent. And full of shame, too, for being untrue.

Kuntigern took the loaf from the crook of her arm and stepped back to block the doorway with his body. He said the thing he had been about to say before she made eyes at him: “It is so hard to pick only one!”

But that was a lie. He stepped back through the door.

“Needing anything for supper?” she asked, unwilling to let him escape. “I’m thinking of making them currant pies you like.”

“Not tonight, no.”

“I can accidentally dent a few and bring ’em over, free of charge. Be a shame to throw ’em to the pigs!”

“Not a shame for the pigs! Good day, dearie!”

“Well, if you ever get bored of silversmithin’, you can always reopen a tavern down here with that cooking of yours. Just an idea!”

“So, if I do, you can make the pies. Good day!”

“Good day!” she called through the cracked door. Then Kuntigern pulled it shut and yanked it tight. Bad doors made good locks.

He rubbed his forehead and carried his bread through his shop, back to the little table for one where he took his meals.

“Why are folks always trying to bring me pies?” he wondered aloud.

The thought of pies reminded him of Wulsy, and the thought of Wulsy made him look out the window at the horse being walked up and down before the stable.

And then he asked God to bless his friend Wulsy, for that horse’s ass belonged to Estrid’s gray gelding.

Kuntigern dropped the loaf upon the table and leaned over it as far as he could reach. He craned his neck trying to spot Estrid outside. She was not there; and the boy walking the horse appeared bored with the task, and the horse did not appear to be winded.

Where was she?

Kuntigern stood up and folded his arms tightly across his chest. He was cold and he was hot, and his heartbeat was rapid with a rising excitement. Was she coming here? Was she only visiting one of the other shops, looking to buy a comb or a ribbon?

Or was she at the chapel?

Kuntigern dashed for the door, and halfway there he staggered to a stop and turned back to grab a shirt. He left his stew pot steaming on the hearth. He had been famished, but now he could not have swallowed a bite.

He opened his front door with greatest caution, just in case the most precious woman in the world should be outside on the step.

She was not. He peeked around the corner, but Cuthburh had already returned home and would not think he was coming after her.

Kuntigern jogged up the steps to the street and looked up and down. It was the dinner hour, and no one was about. One startled cat lifted its head and stared at him, motionless but for its switching tail, and then returned to sniffing about in the weeds.

But where was Estrid?

He walked up the street, trying to look like a man on business, but he scanned the stable out of the corner of his eye as he passed. It was definitely her horse, but no bolt of turquoise blue was there beside it to stop his heart.

She had to be at the chapel. Once past the stable, and after one last look up the street and down, he lost his battle with himself and ran.

He was panting when he reached the little church, and after the door swung shut behind him he was blinded by the darkness. At first, his eyes wide open to gather what light he could, he saw only the golden halos of candles burning across the aisle. The turquoise cloak appeared slowly enough that the sight did not stop his heart.

And then he saw her face turned towards him, a white oval whose expression he could not read. Before his eyes adjusted, she turned it modestly away.

What had she seen on his face in those unguarded seconds? She had already seen him naked, but this was more frightening still. He had never feared she would scorn his body.

Kuntigern was grateful then that they were in a church. In a church there were rituals he could respect. There were things he could do.

He dipped his fingers in the stoup and stepped out of the entry to genuflect behind a bench. Then he crossed the aisle.

A number of tapers already burned in the lady chapel, and Kuntigern lit another.

He was a silversmith, and not good with words. He cobbled together a sort of prayer, and felt it more than he recited it in his head.

Blessed Mother, look down with compassion on your grieving daughter and console her in her sorrow. And receive her daughter Finna in your arms, and present her as your child to Jesus, that she may share in His eternal kingdom, and be with the Lord forever. Amen.

Then he sat.

Nervously he massaged the palm of his hand with his thumb. He felt his own strength down into his solid bones. He was good with his hands. Not so good with words. Before he could cobble anything together, Estrid spoke.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

Her voice was soft and full of wonder. Kuntigern peeked over his shoulder. Her eyes, too, were wondering and soft.

“Saw your horse out my window,” he said, speaking gruffly to keep his booming voice low. “Thought you might be here.”

Her bench creaked, and his body tensed, scintillating with the possibility that she might move to touch him. But she did not.

Recklessly he sat back and leaned towards her. It would not look entirely innocent if someone chanced to step inside.

“How are you?” he whispered over his shoulder.

Estrid leaned forward. “I’m… here, anyway.”

In spite of her sorrow she spoke with a smile, and it imbued her voice with a delicate irony, a weary wisdom—a tender, womanly depth of feeling that he had never heard on it before. She had been transmuted through sorrow into something sublime.

“It’s been a whole month,” she added wistfully. Through suffering and time.

Kuntigern sat forward and kneaded his rough hands together. “If there’s anything I can do for you…”

“Did you make this for me?” She inclined her head towards the silver candle holder on the table beside her. Every taper was lit.

“For you and your daughter,” he said.

Estrid sighed. “Wulsy said making beautiful things is how you pray.”

Wulsy said that? What in the Devil was Wulsy up to?

“And how you love,” she added shyly.

“That’s because I’m not very good with words, Princess.”

She tilted her head towards the candle holder. “This beautiful thing says a lot without words.”

He rocked forward over his lap, nodding.

Estrid took a sharp breath as if to say something, but she let it out silently. Then she took another and blurted, “I wish you would try saying it in words, though.”

Kuntigern turned his head. After all she had suffered, it was shameful how difficult it was for him to say. The weight of the silver cost him less dearly than this. But he said it, though he did not look at her when he did.

“I love you.”

He heard her inhale deeply, as if his words perfumed the air. “I have missed you so,” she said with a sigh.

Her courtly Norse made even her simplest phrases sound lovely and refined. The best he could do was a gruff, “Me too.”

She lowered her voice and called softly, “I want to see you, but I don’t know when I shall be able. Sophie and I are going to Baldwin’s after dinner, to stay with Ana until she is confined. That could be tonight, or weeks from now.”

“You know where to find me,” he said to her.

He risked a glance at her face. Her pale, silken beauty stunned him as ever, made his stomach clench and his heart beat fast. Nothing made of metal could ever be so fair.

He steadied himself by looking down at his familiar hands. They were strong and sure, but with every passing year they grew rougher with burns and scars. He was slowly being transmuted into an ugly thing, but these hands had already fashioned a greater sum of beauty than was the birthright of any single man.

“I want to see you,” Estrid repeated limply.

“Me too,” he said, too stupid to guess what words she wanted to hear. “But I’ll be there.”

There like a rock, he wanted to say. There like a tree. There like some permanent, immutable, coarsely material thing. He would be there for her, he wanted to say.

Estrid startled him by slipping off her bench and onto her knees behind him. She clasped her hands in prayer, but she whispered, “I want to say something in words, too.”

Kuntigern closed his eyes. He thought she was about to tell him she loved him. And he was suddenly so hungry to hear it, as if he had emptied himself to say it, and now he needed to be filled.

But Estrid whispered, “I am with child.”

Kuntigern stopped kneading his hands together and sat very still. And Estrid finally touched him, first leaning her forehead against his back, and then the entire side of her face, stroking her cheek over his shirt. She sobbed and laughed together and blubbered, “I’m so happy!”

He wanted to get down on the floor with her and hold her. Make her be still—make her pick one emotion and stick with it, at least until he figured out what he felt himself. He felt both hot and cold. Both Yes and No.

Then he chanced to look at his hands, scarred and stained, solid and strong. It occurred to him that deep inside of this woman so dear to him—deeper than he had ever managed to go—tiny, perfect hands of fairy-​like fineness were blooming. Translucent bones were crystallizing; an exquisite face was taking form. Nine months’ annealing in the warm, dark room beneath her heart.

Better than most men, he could conceive of the transformations that could turn his coarse seed into something sublime. He was awed, but not surprised.

He knew that he would pay dearly for this, but the beauty of his creation would go beyond him. He was a craftsman, a Maker. This was how he loved and how he prayed.