Matilda sees Egelric laugh

Matilda heard the servants beginning to work in the kitchen next to the great hall. It meant it was nearly dawn.

And she had heard nothing from Alred.

She sighed and closed her dry eyes. She had stared and stared at the letters in her book, but they made no sense to her anyway.

Egelric said the elves seemed to come in the darkest hour of the night. That hour was long past. If the elf woman had come, what then? Was she still with them all these hours later? Or had she left the three of them – Sigefrith, Egelric, and Alred – lying unconscious on the floor as she had left Alred the month before?

The waiting was unbearable. Waiting was the hardest thing, and it was the lot of women. If she had been a man–

But there began the dizzying rain of consequences: she would not have loved Alred, she would not have had her children, she would not have been her own self… she might have died at Hastings or Stamford Bridge or on some other, less famous field. She had to be who she was. But she wasn’t sure that it was not easier to be a man.

Alred had promised to send a servant or some peasant with news as soon as he might, if he could not come to her himself. But it would soon be dawn. Had they waited for nothing? Perhaps Alred had killed the woman with the dagger the month before…

Or perhaps she had killed the three of them this month.

She had not begged him not to go – that would have been unworthy of him and her – but she thought that her heart would give out if they did not soon put a stop to this monthly torment. The sort of bravery required to wait on an ordinary husband gone out to an ordinary battle against ordinary men seemed quite ordinary indeed compared to this.

The door opened suddenly, and Egelric rushed in, his face and lips shockingly pale. “Where’s Baby?”

“Egelric!” she cried, tossing her book aside as she leapt from her chair. “Where is he?”

He looked at her closely, as if he had only just realized who she was. “He’s with the King. Where’s Baby?”

“She’s upstairs with Gwynn,” she answered, confused. “Is he hurt?”

“No,” Egelric called as he ran out of the hall again.

Matilda took a few steps after him but stopped near the fire. Alred was unhurt. And nothing could have happened to Iylaine. She was safe in Gwynn’s room, and there were guards.

Egelric returned after a while, calmer now, and he had removed his cloak, and his color had returned. “She’s sleeping with her arm over her wee lady,” he murmured as he joined her next to the fire.

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened. We waited all night.”

“Is it dawn?”

“Near enough.” He hesitated a moment, and then said, “It was peasants that came. A number of peasants, with their torches, and they came to my door… They wanted the King. And they would not have me. I almost wonder, if the King hadn’t been there…” He stopped and shook his head.

“What did they want?” she prompted after a while.

“I don’t know. They wanted the King to come with them. And His Grace. But they would not have me. And suddenly I was afraid for Baby.”

Matilda nodded. “You know they would have to get through me, first.”

He looked at her for the first time since he had come down from Gwynn’s room, and he faintly smiled.

“Were they angry?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I would almost say they were worse than angry. They were frightened and angry.”

“Had they seen the elf?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. How I wish we could have hidden this from them,” he sighed.

“But the groom saw her ears.”

“I know.”

A while later she asked, “Will he come soon, do you think?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps Your Grace should sit down,” he said, looking at her as if he had suddenly remembered she was a woman. “Or sleep?”

“I’ve watched all night. Another hour or two won’t hurt. But I shall sit if you will join me.”

He sat beside her without a word.

She wished he would talk to her. She wished he would forgive her. “Did you hear or see nothing?” she asked.

“Nothing. If I didn’t fear that something dreadful had happened elsewhere, I should have said that we passed a rather enjoyable night.”

“How was Sigefrith?”

“His Majesty was in good spirits.”

Matilda laughed. “I can imagine what you mean by that, you dear, laconic man. Because I know Sigefrith. And because the servants are saying that Maud has let him back into her bed.”

Egelric lifted an eyebrow. “Does Your Grace often gossip with the servants?”

“I have no one else with whom I may gossip,” she smiled. “Not even you.”

His eyebrow joined the other in a scowl. She realized she had said the wrong thing. “Did I ever?” he asked her.

“No, I suppose you aren’t one for gossip,” she admitted in her humblest voice.

“It is an unworthy pastime, at least for one as highborn as Your Grace. And unsuited for one as laconic as I,” he said with evident sarcasm.

“That’s so,” she agreed, but his scowl remained. “You’re quite terrifying when you’re angry, you know.”

“Barking dogs never bite,” he grumbled.

“That’s just it. You don’t bark.”

“I did the last time I spoke with Your Grace.”

“That’s so.” Oh, he wasn’t like Alred at all! What to do with such a man? “Baby was such a sweetheart tonight,” she said suddenly.

He leaned back in his chair, and his eyebrows settled into their customary arch.

“You know, Meg will not sleep unless her Papa has come to sing to her, but Baby went and sat beside her and sang her little songs until Meg was quite soundly asleep.”

“She has a pretty voice,” he murmured.

“Pretty! I should say so! And she talked with Dunstan a while, until he wasn’t afraid for his father any more. She made him and you sound like a pair of lions.”

“‘Men of war, fit for battle, whose faces were like the faces of lions?’” he smiled.

Matilda nodded, impressed. This man was not merely a peasant with the mud scraped off his boots.

“But I wouldn’t say I can handle shield and buckler,” he winked.

“That is what ‘squire’ means, you know.”

“True enough! Do you suppose she believed it, or was she only trying to calm his lordship?”

“A little of both, perhaps. She’s a woman, after all, or soon will be.”

“Ach, not so soon, please.”

“Of course, then she started teasing Yware – she would repeat everything he said in a dreadful, high-​​pitched voice, until the poor boy was in tears. He was too stubborn or too silly to realize that he needed only be silent for a while to spoil her game.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t know how to be.”

“He is talkative, isn’t he?”

“Talkative!” he laughed. “I should say so!”

“So I have contrived to see you laugh, after all,” she said with satisfaction.

“Ah!” he said, his smile fading, “Your Grace reminds me that we may have little reason to laugh today. What did they want, I wonder?” He rubbed his face with his two hands and then stared morosely into the fire.

Matilda thought that she had best leave him sit quietly a while. She had, at least, contrived to see him laugh.