Eadgith is surprised in her bed

Lady Eadgith opened her eyes. Where was she? The bedding smelled like tansy, but it was so much finer than what she knew… But of course, this was Lord Hwala’s new castle. She had found him – and soon she would see Leofric. Her heart contracted painfully. Just then she could almost wish he had died at Hastings. There would have been no dishonor in that.

She turned over in the bed. It had taken her so long to fall asleep, thinking about what all of this meant, and now, by making the effort to remember where she was, she had brought the rest to mind.

She could not see the color of the sky through the blue and green glass of Sigefrith’s pretty windows. She couldn’t tell how much longer she would have to wait.

Suddenly she realized why she had awoken.

There was someone in the room. She heard nothing – no sound that she could identify as coming from another. But her body felt the presence of another body.

She sat up and peered into the darkness. The blue and green glass let enough light into the room to allow her to make out a still and solitary figure standing before the open door.

“Sigefrith?” she said. He was perhaps a little taller than her son, and certainly broader. It must have been her cousin. Had something happened? Why had he come to her – to her bed – in the night?

“No,” the man said. “It is I.”

Her heart pained her again. “Already?” She clutched the blankets – frightened, she realized. After nearly nine years, he was little better than a stranger to her. “The lamp, the lamp,” she stuttered, trying to remember how the room was arranged.

“I shall light it. Where is it?”

“Beside me here,” she said, remembering.

He came and felt around the little table at the bedside. He was tall and massive – a man. Her son was still so slender, and even he was so rarely home. She had forgotten what a man looked like in the dark, or what he felt like – this mighty presence hanging over her like a stormcloud. But what did he want now? Surely he wouldn’t try – but he smelled like wine.

“Look at me,” he commanded once the lamp had been lit.

“I cannot,” she said, looking away.

“Have you lost your sight then?”

“I never thought to see your face again,” she murmured. “Nor, I believe, did you think to see mine.”

“I meant to write to you.”

“So Sigefrith told me. I was not difficult to find, you know. I was living at Halsfield all this time.”

“I know. Look at me.”

“Look at my hands instead,” she said, holding her dry and callused palms up before her. “Did you ever think to see your wife scrubbing floors?”

“Look at me when you speak to me.”

She turned and looked at him.

“Did you ever think to see your husband quarrying stone?” he asked. “Did you ever think to see the scars of lashes across your husband’s back?”

“Did I ever think to see a Moor in my husband’s bed? Did I ever think to hear of him calling his mistress Lady? Did I ever – ”

He silenced her with a slap across the mouth. “Leave her out of this.”

“You haven’t changed, Leofric,” she said, trembling. “Your wine, your mistresses, and your fists.”

“Nor have you! Your mouth!”

“I have said nothing untrue. It is your shame that angers you.”

“I’m ashamed of nothing! She is my wife, by the law of the Danes.”

“What is that to me? Do you think I care about your concubine? Do you think I cared about the others? I expected you to treat me with the respect a man owes his wife, and you always did. You did not put them before me, but I find that has changed. You act as if you thought me dead, and you never bothered to learn whether I lived! You have forsaken me.”

“I did mean to find you…”

“You are ashamed that you did not. And if you are not…!”

“Eadgith, listen – ”

“Sigefrith did more for me than you did. And even he could have done more. Look at my hands!” she insisted, thrusting them before his face again. “And I had to go begging to a Norman – go into Sigefrith’s own hall, begging to a Norman dog – after our barn burned! And this after I refused to marry his son!”

“Why didn’t you go to Denmark as Sigefrith asked?”

“Eadgith was ill at that time, and I could not move her. And afterwards, when I saw I was able to stay at Halsfield, I meant to wait – I didn’t think that the Norman king would reign long. But when I heard that Sigefrith had died at Ely, I sent our son with the rest of my coin to our cousin Gytha’s husband, Haakon, the Norseman. And after that…” She waved her callused hand. “We worked. Did you ever think to see your daughter milk a goat?” she asked, glaring up at him again.

“My baby…”

“Your baby! Your baby! Your baby is twelve now. Your baby scarcely remembers you. Your baby has grown nearly to womanhood without a father, and if not for Matilda, no doubt she would have married a Norman to save her mother from the poverty in which we lived!”

“Eadgith, listen – ”

“But forget about me! I don’t care about me! And I don’t care about your Moorish wench or your two little black babies – though I shall slap the next person who calls her Lady in my hearing. All that matters to me now is my children. And when they learn that you have been a free man for years – when they learn that you were in Denmark even while Sigefrith was staying in Skodburg with Haakon – Leofric, if you had simply asked, you would surely have found someone who could at least tell you where your son was!”

“How is he?”

“Oh, you shall soon see that for yourself. Your son is well, and strong, and brave, and loves and honors his mother. I don’t know how Eadgith will react, but I do not think your son will be pleased to see you after all. Not when he learns how close you came to him, and never troubled yourself to find him. Not when he learns that his mother has been grubbing around like a house slave for two years while you have been hopping from court to court with your little Moor, decking her in silks and jewels, no doubt.”

“I told you, leave her out of this!”

“She’s in the middle of this!” Eadgith cried, stumbling away from him. “If you had not had her and her babies, perhaps you would have cared to find me and mine!”

“Your face still gets hideously red and blotchy when you’re angry, Eadgith.”

“And yours still gets red when you drink, Leofric.”

He laughed cruelly. “Son of a serpent! I believe we have picked up right in the middle of the argument we never finished the last time I saw your red and blotchy face, woman!”

“You will observe that the bruises you gave me that night have since faded.”

“Shall I reapply them?”

“I don’t doubt you will, sooner or later. But not tonight. I don’t know why you came to see me now, Leofric. Sigefrith said you wouldn’t come until tomorrow. The better to hit me, I suppose? In the night, no one will hear me cry?”

“I don’t intend to hit you, Eadgith,” he sighed.

“And after you do, you always say you never intended to. But do you know, I don’t believe I’m afraid of you any longer. My cousin Sigefrith is as much a man as you are now – indeed, your difference in age is now to his advantage. Nor do I believe he has the same blind adoration for you he had when he was sixteen. If he sees a bruise on me, I believe he would render it unto you tenfold.”

“You should have married Sigefrith, then.”

“Perhaps I should have.”

“He never would have, though. Have you seen his wife? That’s how he likes his women: cool and beautiful, not hot-​​headed and red and blotchy. Sigefrith was wise enough not to take a wife among his cousins, and then he was able to marry the woman he would otherwise have made his mistress.”

“It didn’t stop you.”

He raised his fists briefly, and Eadgith cringed away.

She was still frightened of him – she knew that her cousin Sigefrith would repay him tenfold in the morning, but in the meantime he could hurt. Then she had another idea. “What will your son say when he sees the bruises? He isn’t six any longer. He won’t believe Mama fell.”

Leofric dropped his arms and turned away.

“I shall leave you the pleasure of explaining matters to your children,” she said. “I don’t see why I should have to suffer that. I suggest you tell them separately. Eadgith has a certain longing for her father, and a deep heart. She may forgive you. But Sigefrith will never forgive how you have forsaken and dishonored his mother. If he were a little older I should advise you to go armed.”

Leofric turned back to her, his eyes almost pleading, but did not reply.

Eadgith saw she had the advantage just then. It was her chance to get rid of him. “Please leave me. You have no right to enter my bedchamber, whatever the law might say.”

His eyes flared, and she saw that she had overreached. He had been drinking, after all.

“I shall see you in the morning,” she said with icy politeness. “If you have further questions for me before you meet with the children, I shall oblige you. Or afterwards. But in the morning. Good night, Leofric.”

He glared at her, but left without a word.

After he was gone, she took the lock and fastened the door from the inside.