Egelric leaves a knife

It was not long before Gunnilda heard the pounding of hooves coming up the path through the woods, and then there was the pounding of his feet on the steps, and then he was there, and she was safe.

“Where’s Alwy?” Egelric asked at once, but Gunnilda could only sob and throw her arms around him.

“Hush now,” he said more gently, holding her. “Where’s Alwy? What’s happened?”

“There was a man – ” she stammered, “and Alwy – and the wolves – and he took the knife – and I don’t know!”

“Come in, come in,” he said, trying to unwind her arms from around his neck, but he finally was obliged to pick her up as he did Iylaine and simply carry her inside.

“Tell me, Gunnilda. I need to know.”

Gunnilda told him then about the man she had seen, and how Alwy had run into the woods after him carrying only his knife.

“There were no wolves?”

“I never seen any, but what if they’re out there tonight, and Alwy’s all alone? Oh, my poor Alwy!” she wailed.

“I shall find Alwy, Gunnilda. His dogs will find him. What about you? What do you have here? Knives?”

He turned away and rapidly looked over her kitchen knives, shaking his head. “These are for cutting or cleaving.” He pulled a great knife, long as her forearm, from his belt. “This has two edges,” he began.

Gunnilda gasped. “Oh no, I can’t!”

“You can. Now listen! We haven’t time. This has two edges. You can slash or stab.” He pressed the knife in her hand, and wrapped her fingers around it when she refused to hold it. “Damn you, woman! Listen to me!” he thundered. 

She suddenly recognized the knife as the dreadful, unwieldy thing he had given her to cut the cord when Finn was born, as had been done for him, as had been done for his mother, as had been done for as long as there had been this ancient knife. Strange as it had seemed to her, she had not questioned him then, and she would not question him now. Her fingers closed around the long hilt, and she listened.

“You hold it like this. You can either slash upwards like this, with the back of your hand,” he said, bringing her hand and the knife up to his throat, “and slice the neck. Or you just stab at his stomach. If you must, simply swing at him any way you can, but don’t let go of the knife, hear?”

“Oh, Egelric, I can’t!” she whispered.

“You can if you must. Now keep the children in their rooms and don’t open again unless it’s someone you know. I must go.”

“No, don’t go!” she begged.

“Who will look for Alwy if I do not? I shall send a man up here as soon as I can. Now be brave, meanwhile. I know you are.” He patted her cheek and then moved for the door.

“Oh, Egelric!” she wailed.

“I trust you, Gunnilda,” he said from the doorway, his voice and eyes darkly serious.

Gunnilda remembered that she was watching over his daughter as well as her own children. She nodded.

Through her kitchen window she watched him mount his horse and canter back down the hill and into the woods. 

And then she lit a candle and sat, and through the night she brooded over the heavy, fire-​​rimmed knife that lay upon the table, ponderous as a dead and uncleaned fish, a fish of cast and cooling iron.