Egelric found the door to his lord’s study cracked open, and he saw the emerald light of the green glass lamp within. He knocked.
“What now?” Alred called. “My elbow?”
“Pardon me?” Egelric laughed as he pushed the door open.
“Squire! I thought you were Gwynn. Come in and have a chair.” He pushed his letter aside and dragged his own chair around to the front of his table. “I wasn’t thinking to see you until tomorrow.”
“You call the poor girl Elbow, now? I had to let the men off early, so I decided to come home this evening. The stonelayers have been working more quickly than the stonecutters. Last month it was the opposite problem.”
“You’ll manage.”
“I daresay,” Egelric sighed.
“Papa!” a tiny voice called from the doorway. Egelric leaned forward to see little Gwynn grinning behind the door.
“Oh oh!” Alred said.
“Papa, finger!” She toddled into the room, holding out her hand. “Oh!” she gasped when she saw Egelric.
“Good evening, my wee lady,” he said.
Gwynn popped her finger into her mouth.
“Still afraid of my beard?” Egelric asked, rubbing his chin.
“She prefers Papa’s scratchy cheek. Come here, precious, and show Papa where his finger is.”
She came forward and pointed at his hand, then squealed and ran out of the room.
“She’s been doing this all evening,” Alred explained. “Someone, somewhere in this castle seems to be cataloging her little body, and she is keeping me updated.”
Egelric smiled fondly. “It’s been a long while since Baby was interested in where her Da’s nose was located.”
“In her place, I should be happy to forget! In your place too, old man.”
Egelric laughed and then sighed.
“You won’t be going back until after the new moon, I trust?” Alred asked.
“That’s right.”
“Sigefrith meant to watch with us, but now I don’t know whether he will.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t you go to see him before you came to me? Shame on you, Egelric! Though I’m honored.”
“I did try to see him first, no offense to Your Grace, but they told me he was out riding with the Princess—in the dark. Does that make sense?”
“It does, in fact. They didn’t tell you the baby was sick?”
“Who—the Princess Emma?”
“She has the cough that Gwynn and Yware had last year. Remember that?”
“I do.” The memory of that dreadful sound made him shiver even now.
“Papa, shin!” Gwynn ran in and slapped her hand on her father’s leg.
“Shin! My, my! This is becoming elaborate. Who is feeding you this vocabulary, child?”
Gwynn laughed and ran away.
“So that’s why he’s out riding with her?” Egelric asked. “I didn’t realize they meant the baby.”
“Oh, but you know Brit. It wouldn’t surprise me if she were riding behind. I told them that it was simply the fresh air she needed, but since Matilda and I got our two into it by taking them out riding, Maud insisted that he follow our prescription to the letter.”
“I am surprised she allowed him to take the baby on a horse. I had thought that was categorically forbidden.”
“I believe she would try anything, just now,” Alred sighed. “That damned fool Leofric casually reminded Sigefrith—while Maud was in the room—that it was just such a cough that had killed Sigefrith’s two baby sisters. Jupiter! that man doesn’t have the sense God gave a weevil. Sigefrith had obviously neglected to mention this sad fact to Maud, so she spent the rest of that morning shut up with the priest, and since then she’s been fasting and praying and gazing at that baby with such eyes that even I feel sorry for her.”
“She does love her children.”
“Papa, knockle!” Gwynn had returned, holding up her fist.
“Knuckle, sweetheart,” Alred said. “Come here and show me where my knuckle is.”
“Knockle!” she repeated, patting the back of his hand with her little palm.
“Knuckle.”
Gwynn giggled and ran away.
“The one good thing that has come out of it,” Alred continued, “is that Sigefrith hasn’t had a drop since the baby fell ill. Which is odd, because, as I recall, I spent that week in a stupor, when it was mine that were coughing. Anything to get that sound out of my ears,” he muttered, remembering.
Egelric shrugged uncomfortably. “How is she now?”
“I believe she’s turned. She breathes well during the day. It’s only at night that the fever returns and she coughs and wheezes. At first I did feel that I was lying to poor Sigefrith when I told her she would soon mend, for my children never made the dreadful whistling sound she did when she breathed. But she doesn’t any longer, either. I trust she will soon be quite better, but perhaps not before the moon. And I doubt we shall get Sigefrith away from her until then.”
“Are you certain it’s wise for either of you to be there?”
“I believe we should have fifty of us there. If she returns, we simply must capture her.”
“I doubt she will come if we are too many.”
“I know, I know,” Alred sighed. “But I, at least, insist on being there. I have a few things to say to her. And I think it would be most edifying for her to see that she couldn’t kill me after all.”
Egelric frowned. “I can’t help but think this is my battle.”
“I don’t see why. You have been the interlocutor so far, but it could simply be because you put yourself in their path. And because they didn’t kill you the first time.”
“But why can’t they?”
“Papa, ee-wobe!”
“Jupiter! Do I have one of those?” Alred asked.
“Ee-wobe!” Gwynn insisted, reaching up towards his face. Alred leaned down to her and she grabbed him by the ear. “Ee-wobe!”
“Earlobe, you little sprite!” he laughed. “It’s your Mama telling you these words, isn’t it? Your Mama does love earlobes. Go ask Mama what else she wants me to kiss later,” he said as the girl ran off.
Egelric laughed.
“Scandalized, Squire?”
“It doesn’t seem the sort of mission on which I would send my baby daughter.”
“If she can reproduce that sentence at her age, I shall know that Matilda could tell her nothing the devil hasn’t already taught her. What was I saying?”
“I had asked you why you suppose the elves say that they can’t hurt me.”
“Whatever it is you have, Squire, I don’t have it! Jupiter! If every woman could kill men with a slap,” he said, rubbing his cheek, “the human race would have been extinguished long ago. I should hate to be an elf husband, myself. Though I do fear one of my poor boys will make the attempt one of these days,” he winked.
“I believe my young lord has his eye on young Wynna Hogge,” Egelric said, winking brazenly in reply.
“I heard about that!” Alred laughed. “I suppose I was kissing girls at his age, but it does make me feel a bit gloomy to realize that I am old enough to have a son old enough to be kissing girls.”
“I doubt he meant anything by it.”
“If nothing else it shall serve as practice. You might just stop smirking at me now, Squire. Your girl will be kissed by far more boys than my boy will ever kiss girls, if I know what such eyes can do. Let’s hope she likes it, for if she starts slapping them, an entire generation of young men will be wiped out.”
Egelric opened his mouth to reply, but Gwynn ran in and said, “Squire, beard!” while pointing imperiously at his face.
“Is that what your Mama wanted to kiss?” Alred cried.
Gwynn laughed.
“Perhaps that is what she wanted to kiss,” Egelric suggested.
“Beard! Beard!” she commanded.
“Only a little while ago you were terrified by that scruffy thing,” Alred sighed. “Now you want to kiss it. How quickly they do grow up.”
“It is the way of women. Come here, little one. If you won’t kiss it, you may at least show me where it is.”
He bent to allow her to point at his beard, and then she cocked her dark head and said, “Kiss-kiss.”
Alred said, “My, my! Not only a kiss, but a kiss-kiss. You can’t possibly feel sufficiently honored, Squire. Even Papa has to ask nicely for those.”
“That’s because Papa has a beard that scratches.”
“That may very well be. Come here, sprite,” Alred said after she had given Egelric his kiss-kiss. “I want you to go tell your mysterious correspondent that this is called a bouche.” He pointed at his mouth.
“Mouth,” she corrected.
“No, no, let’s call it bouche for now. Can you say that? Bouche.”
“Bouf.”
“No, bouche.”
“Bouche.”
“Good girl. Now go tell! Bouche! Hurry hurry!”
She laughed with excitement and ran off.
“What was that?”
“French. I want to find out whether it’s Matilda behind this anatomy lesson, or one of the boys. If it’s Matilda, she should arrive momentarily to ask me why I am polluting her little girl’s head with that barbarian language. She’s already furious enough that I speak French with little Emma.”
“Isn’t that why you do?”
“That’s precisely why.”
Egelric shook his head. “I don’t see how you have managed to stay married for eleven years.”
“That’s precisely how,” Alred laughed. “Now, what was I saying before we were so charmingly interrupted?”
“I was trying to learn your opinion as to why the elves may not harm me.”
“Seriously, then, old man, I believe it has something to do with your son. Apparently they can’t touch him either.”
Egelric looked down into his lap.
“Don’t fret. You will see him again. Perhaps soon, if we can get more information out of my pale friend.”
“I’ve already missed all of this, with the mouth and the knockles and the kiss-kiss,” he said, waving a hand at the door. “He’s a year older than my wee lady.”
“I doubt he’s too old for the kiss-kiss. I’m sorry, Egelric. But I’m certain you will see him again.”
“Papa, beul!” Gwynn said as she ran back into the room, pink with the exercise and her excitement, and pointing at her little mouth.
“What? Bull?”
“Beul!”
“Is young Malcolm here?” Egelric laughed.
“Malcolm? Jupiter! I forgot about him. He’s been here since Emmie fell ill. Between him and young Sigebert, I’ve been sleeping with one eye open these past nights. Is that Gaelic or what?”
“Sounds like it. Is that Malcolm who told you this new word, my wee lady?”
Gwynn laughed and ran away.
“Damn! I don’t want that scamp so much as thinking about my baby’s mouth. I don’t trust those eyes of his.”
“He isn’t his cousin, you know. Besides, he’s a fair bit older than my wee lady. It’s I should be worried.”
“That’s so. Aren’t you supposed to be marrying your children off to their cousins anyway?”
“Let’s not even think about that yet,” Egelric sighed.
“Speaking of Baby, have you been to see her yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Ah, then, I understand. Want to get the tedious duties out of the way first. Well, if you have nothing to report that can’t wait until the morning, I hereby dismiss you. I shall expect to see you tomorrow after Mass, if Sigefrith doesn’t swipe you away from me first. Shall I send your best wishes to Theobald, here?” he asked, waving a hand at the letter on his table.
“Please,” Egelric said as he rose.
“And shall I kiss my lady for you?”
“You may kiss my lady’s hand.”
“I shall tell her I tried,” Alred shrugged. “Good night, Squire.”
“Good night,” Egelric said, and he went out.
Chapters
Lady Gwynn is such a cutie. I loved my kids at that age.