Sir Sigefrith was momentarily shaken when he opened his bedroom door and saw Hilda’s red eyes and Estrid’s accusing face, but he was comforted when his oldest son threw himself at his legs and squealed, “Papa’s home!”
“Yes, Papa’s home!” he said as he swung Haakon up and kissed his fat cheeks.
“I shall leave you to Papa,” Estrid said and patted Hilda on the belly.
“Oh, get out,” Hilda grumbled.
“What is it, ladies?” Sigefrith asked uneasily. He was glad to have a good, solid chunk of young manhood in his arms before such a display of feminine ill-will.
“Only a little nothing,” Estrid smirked as she went out.
“What is it, Hilda?”
“Oh, don’t start by speaking English to me,” she snapped in Norse.
“What have I done?” he asked again in her language.
“At least you are wise enough to assume that you’re the cause of my problems,” she huffed as she took a spot on the bed closer to the fire.
“Well, what have I done?”
“Papa!” Haakon interrupted.
“Hush, Haakon,” he whispered.
“Papa!”
“Oh, take him out of here,” Hilda said. “He’s been whining all afternoon.”
“Papa!” Haakon began tugging on the amulet he wore.
“Quit it, Haakon. What am I supposed to do with him?” he asked Hilda.
“Can’t you take him to Eadgith?”
“She’s busy sewing. She’s watching Siggy anyway.”
“Oh, so you’ve already gone to see her before you ever come to see me!”
“Hilda…” he sighed and took Haakon out. He left him with Eadgith, promising he wouldn’t be long, and then returned to his wife.
“Now, what is it?” he asked her. “What have I done now?”
“The same thing you did the first time, the same thing you did the second time…” she said, rolling her eyes.
“But not the third time?”
“This is the third time,” she glared.
“What did I do?”
“‘What did I do?’” she simpered. “What a halfwit! You’ve got another baby on me, is what you’ve done!”
“I have?” He went to sit on the bed next to her, but she leapt up at once.
“Yes, you have!”
“But Siggy is still a baby…”
“And Haakon was still a baby when you got Siggy on me. So – most women get a couple of years between babies, but not I!”
“I mean, are you certain?”
“I suppose I am.”
Sigefrith took a deep breath and let it out again slowly. “Thank God that we can provide for the children He sends us.”
“What?” Hilda shrieked. “That’s all you have to say? ‘Thank God!’”
“I only mean that I have seen not a few children today whose fathers can scarcely feed them, and I am thankful that I am not one of those fathers.”
“I would have been thankful enough if you and God had spared me this baby, and I could have spared the food it would have eaten to the peasant children!”
“But, Hilda – ”
“But, Sigefrith! I’m sixteen years old and I am on my third baby! With you for a husband, I shall have six of them by the time I’m twenty, and be all fat and red and ugly!”
“Not you, Hilda,” he said, and he tried to put his arms around her, but she squirmed away. “You could never be ugly, starting out as pretty as you are.”
“Oh! What a gallant you are!” she said sarcastically.
“But think, Hilda,” he pleaded. “Perhaps it will be a little girl. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“Better a girl than another lumpish boy, I suppose, but better no baby at all than a girl.”
“That won’t do, Hilda.”
“‘That won’t do, Hilda,’” she repeated, mocking him. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself! We all know you’re a man now, you needn’t prove it over and over again!”
“But of course I didn’t mean it to happen…”
“No, but you’ve only to look at me and it happens, so I suppose after this one comes I shall have to start sleeping alone.”
“That won’t help if it suffices for me to look at you,” he said, unable to resist the opportunity to tease.
“Oh, you!” she shrieked and stomped her foot. “And I know who else will be pleased! Your mother, that’s who! Oh, won’t she be happy to learn that I shall be suffering in my bed for months now, and she can play mistress here again? She likes nothing better than to see me out of the way! Perhaps she will get her fondest wish and I shall simply die at the end of it!”
“Hilda!” Sigefrith barked. “Will you insult my mother?”
“I don’t see why not! She insults me.”
“She doesn’t! I don’t believe it! My mother is a lady.”
“And so I’m not?”
“You’re not acting a lady now! Pardon me, Hilda, but I left Haakon with Eadie, and I shan’t stick her with him all afternoon if it’s only to hear this sort of nonsense.”
“Oh, that’s right!” she cried as he went out. “Go be with a real lady! Isn’t she fine? Thinks she’s a queen already!”
Sigefrith, for the first time, slammed the door on his wife.
Chapters
Hey, it takes two to tango, sister! Sheesh! She definitely needs to grow up some! I can understand some of her viewpoint, but she is lucky to have a man that cares for her and takes his responsibilities seriously.