Sigefrith sees an unfamilar face

Maud lay exhausted on her bed, but her heart leapt. A son! A son! If only she could tell Malcolm!

In the dim light and in her fatigue she hadn’t been able to clearly see how much he resembled his father. Anyway, newborns were so red and wrinkled and button-​​nosed that it was already remarkable enough that he looked like anything. The one thing she could recognize was his mouth, for she had kissed those lips a thousand times before he was born.

She turned her head when Sigefrith came back into the room with the baby.

Poor Sigefrith, she thought suddenly. He thought it was his son. Somehow she hadn’t imagined that he would be so proud – as if he should have been able to sense that he had had nothing to do with the child.

“I can’t believe how big he is for an eight-​​month baby,” Colburga was saying. Damn her! “Do you remember how tiny Gwynn was?”

“Ah, I remember that night,” Sigefrith said. “Poor Alred! And his poor nose! Look at this boy with his funny nose. It looks like he already broke it once.” Damn him too!

“Whose nose is that?” Colburga asked, peering down her own pretty nose at the baby.

Sigefrith held up the boy and inspected his red face closely.

“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s not much to look at yet. But you know, Colburga, I never really knew my mother. And of course I have never seen Maud’s parents.”

“That’s true. Brinstan looks more like his old grandfather than he does Theobald. Theobald has a look of his mother.”

“What about his eyes? Hazel like mine or dark like Maud’s?”

“Oh, they’ll be dark. They’re already darker than yours.”

Maud sighed and closed her eyes. Let them try to pick apart her baby. They would never guess.