Cenwulf speaks

Cenwulf had heard a woman’s voice cooing to the baby as he came down the hall, but he had thought it was the nurse. Behind the door, however, he found Baldwin with Edris.

It was the first night the four of them – he, Baldwin, Edris, and Brandt – would spend at his castle. Raedwald had already confided Edris to Brandt and gone off to Ireland as he had originally planned.

It was an awkward situation, but Cenwulf could not impose upon Sigefrith any longer. The Queen was in a dreadful state. Githa had coaxed her into eating again, for her baby’s sake, and she had even allowed herself to be fed meat, as Brandt had assured her that her penance need not and must not extend to her child. But she still refused to speak, she still refused to look anyone in the face, and she still lay or sat limply wherever one placed her, her only signs of life being the nervous movements of her hands over her beads, and an occasional half-​​stifled, silent sob.

Alred had invited the three of them to Nothelm, but Cenwulf had declined. Matilda herself was in no condition to receive visitors, and furthermore he knew it would only be postponing the inevitable. He had told Brandt he would speak with her, and he meant to, though so far he carefully avoided any occasion for the two of them to meet alone.

He had thought she did as well, but she was now in his bedroom with Baldwin, where he was bound to come as soon as he returned from his visit to Eadgith. He had even extended the visit beyond what was polite, for he had hoped she would already be asleep by the time he returned. He thought the women must keep early hours in a convent.

But here she was.

“Cousin,” she said nervously, apparently too afraid even to turn to him. “I thought I would see you ride in.”

“I ride in from the south; these are the north windows,” he explained quietly.

“Oh, I get so lost and turned about in your castle. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be here when you returned. It’s very bad of me…”

“Don’t apologize, Edris,” he said gently. “You seem to have been having an agreeable chat with Baldwin.”

“He didn’t want to sleep, nor did I. Did we, Baldwin?”

“But it’s time for you to go to bed now, isn’t it, son?”

Baldwin grinned shyly at him.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” she began again.

“Don’t apologize, please. It will be good for the boy to talk to someone besides his father for a change. He won’t be much fun for conversations if all he ever does is repeat everything I’ve ever told him.”

“I believe he’s his own little man,” she said. “May I put him down?”

“Please.”

She pulled off the baby’s dress and laid him in his cradle, but Cenwulf was surprised to see him reach up to her face to beg a kiss, which she promptly gave.

“He likes you very well,” he said.

“I am glad.”

Cenwulf stared at her uneasily. That was precisely all he could find to say. Now what was he to do? And there was the great bed beside them, silently reminding them… or him, at least. His bedroom did seem like the worst possible place to have this conversation. He would put it off for another day…

“I know nothing about babies,” she blurted, cutting him off in his intention to say good night. “I’ve never had babies around me. My father had no other children, and I have been at the convent… I don’t know why my aunt sent me,” she laughed nervously.

This was dreadful. What was he supposed to say now? ‘Perhaps your aunt had other ideas?’

“Nevertheless, you seem to have won his heart already,” he said after a sudden inspiration. Thankfully, it appeared to be true.

“Your friend Githa has been telling me so many things. But she says the only way to learn about babies is by doing.”

“He’s a tough little boy. He won’t mind if you practice on him.”

“Will you keep the nurse on, though? I may have questions…”

“Certainly. In any case, you will wish to go out sometimes and visit our friends.”

“Your friends are all very kind.”

“You have not found us at one of our better moments. I’m afraid the Queen is not at all herself, and the Duchess is unwell. That makes both Sigefrith and Alred less than their usual charming characters as well.”

“Your Alred must be unbearably charming most of the time if he is not his usual charming character now,” she smiled.

“Oh, Alred has a way with women that I sorely lack.” Now, why had he said that?

She looked down at the floor, unable to find a reply, no doubt. She was not the type to say, “Oh, but I find you unbearably charming as well…”

He was about to say good night when she interrupted him again.

“I’m afraid I’m not at all charming. I hope they will come to like me. I don’t know anything about… about being with people. I don’t know any more about people than I do babies!” she laughed. “I have been away since I was scarcely more than a girl. I don’t know how to make conversation, or tell jokes, or pay pretty compliments… I can only say what I think, without thinking, and sometimes that is the wrong thing.”

She was very careful in her speech to talk as they did in England, but she sometimes let slip a word of her own high Saxon, and she had a way of pronouncing her th’s as d’s and t’s in some words that was rather pretty somehow.

“You must tell me if I do or say something wrong, cousin,” she said. “But I must try, for elsewise I shall say nothing and be very dull, and then no one will like me at all.”

“I believe everyone likes you very well,” he said, happy to be able to assure her of this. “I have heard nothing but compliments regarding you.”

“They would say so, because they are so kind.”

“Edris, if they didn’t like you, I should know it. Our little court is not like what you know at Engern or at Paderborn. We are only outlaws here, and mind our manners little,” he smiled. “They will prefer you if you come as you are, and do not try to pay pretty compliments or make careful conversation.”

“Then I shall be happy here. It was very kind of my aunt to send me here where is my cousin Brandt, whom I know, and my cousin you, whom I knew once, a little.”

She would remind him of the letters.

“I don’t remember what I wrote to you,” he chuckled nervously, “but I am certain that little of it is still true today.”

“No? You are much as I imagined you.”

So she had imagined him. Oh – of course she had! What else would a young girl do upon her betrothal to a man she had never met? What else would a young woman do, imprisoned in a convent, but imagine the only man she had ever come close to knowing?

“Certainly, few of the facts I wrote are still true. My home is in the hands of Normans now, as is Sigefrith’s, and we are here in a forgotten corner of the isle – indeed, we are in Scotland now. And I am fifteen years older, and have not had – ” He was about to say that he had not had a happy life, but that was not quite true. “I have had a number of sorrows,” he corrected.

“I know,” she said softly, compassion shining in her green eyes – olive-​​green like Brandt’s, he noted, not blue-​​green like Colburga’s and Baldwin’s. “As for me…” she said, “I don’t know. Am I as you imagined me?”

“No.”

“Oh,” she said, and it seemed to trouble her.

“It is to your advantage that I find you are not,” he offered.

“How am I different?” she asked.

How could he explain? “You are more…”

“More is better than less,” she smiled.

More colorful? More alive? More complicated? More real? “I’m afraid I cannot explain. I would only say something foolish. But I assure you that I have been pleasantly surprised.”

She smiled again.

“I feel as if I only ever saw the shadow cast by the person, and now I see the person,” he blurted. “There,” he blushed. “Now I have said something foolish.”

“You did warn me,” she noted wryly. “But I don’t think it is foolish. I think it is an interesting thing to say, and I shall consider it. But I believe I cast the same shadow I always did. I have scarcely lived at all, so perhaps I have not changed. I am simply fifteen years older.”

“Brandt said that it was not too late for you to have a happy life,” he said, again without thinking.

She lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “I never said I was unhappy. But Brandt is very kind. He has always been so kind to me. And he loves you very much, and your son. And he loved his sister, too.”

“As did I.”

“I know.”

He rushed ahead, having entirely given up on thinking. “I cannot offer you that, Edris.”

“I know.” She did not hesitate. It meant she understood.

“I can offer you all the rest of what I have. You have seen that it is not much, for all I am called an Earl here. I never was a wealthy man, as Sigefrith and Alred are. I only have a lot of very good land. Nor is our safety here assured, so I cannot promise you that you shall keep even the land. All I can truly offer you is my name and my sword, but those are good. You shall share everything that is mine… and Baldwin! Of course, Baldwin… and you may have children of your own if you desire…” She glanced quickly at the bed, and he wished she hadn’t, for it caused him to falter.

“You are very kind,” she said suddenly, her eyes wet. “I can offer you nothing at all. I know nothing of babies, nothing of men, nothing of running a household. I know nothing but how to pray and how to sing and how to make a garden grow. I don’t know why my aunt sent me.”

“You lack nothing that cannot be learned,” he said, taking her hands. “We must trust that the Baroness knew what she was about. She always does.”

“You are very kind,” she repeated.

“I must ask you to wait a while. It is a difficult time here – the Queen is ill, Matilda is ill, Eadgith is troubled, Leofric is away… it is an unfortunate moment for a wedding.”

She nodded.

“Perhaps, if all goes well, we might think of Christmas time?”

She nodded again.

“Perhaps it will be easier between us, now that we have said these things?”

“Yes,” she nodded firmly, her hands resting easily in his.

“Good. Now, this baby has been watching us all the while, much to my embarrassment, and he won’t go to sleep until I do. Perhaps you would like to sleep yourself? Or be alone to think?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” he said, and this time she did not interrupt him. “Good night, Edris.”

“Good night, Cenwulf,” she said as she walked to the door. It was the first time she had called him by his name.