Alred comes to talk

“Well, what do you think of it?” Sigefrith beamed.

Alred looked around the bare room and nodded. “Warm, well-​lit, adequate room for bride-​chasing… You’re missing the most important thing, though.”

“What?”

“Someplace to put her once you catch her.”

“Oh, you mean furniture!” Sigefrith laughed.

“I mean a bed, but I suppose a chest and a chair or two would be convenient.”

“Someplace to put her gown once I take it off of her,” Sigefrith agreed. “What about the chairs?”

“I shall leave you the fun of finding something amusing to do with the chairs,” Alred said with a faint smile.

“That’s a shame. I’m certain you could teach me a thing or two.”

“Everything I know I learned on my own. I see no reason why you should be given the advantage of my experience.”

“On your own?”

“Well—no!” Alred laughed. “Not alone, anyway.”

Sigefrith turned abruptly and wiped at a bit of colored glass in the window with a fingertip. “Ethelmund is making the furniture now,” he said. “I want it all to be new.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Not personally. But I do.”

“Sometimes I feel as if I am doing wrong,” Sigefrith murmured to the window. He knew Alred would know what he meant without asking.

“I don’t think you are. For what it’s worth, Matilda and I believe that Eadgith is the girl for you, you are the man for her, and the time is right. You weren’t made for brooding, Sigefrith. You were made for doing. And she was made for you.”

Sigefrith turned back to him, rather surprised at the quiet assurance of his words, as well as the bass note of melancholy that underlay them. “Thank you, Alred. It is, in fact, worth much to me.”

“I think that anyone who disagrees does not know you or her or love very well.”

“Cenwulf disagrees.”

“Oh, Cenwulf!” Alred sighed. “Is it he that has made you so gloomy? What has he been saying to you now?”

“Nothing. Only I know he disapproves.”

“He disapproves, he disapproves,” Alred muttered and paced across the floor. “Let me tell you something, Sigefrith,” he said, turning back to his friend. “Something you should tell yourself every time Cenwulf ‘disapproves.’ It’s not of you that he disapproves. He can’t bear to see you in love with Eadgith because he’s in love with his own wife and he doesn’t want to be.”

“He does treat her dreadfully,” Sigefrith admitted after a moment’s reflection.

“If he wants to torture himself, that’s his affair, but he will break her heart for good and all one of these days.”

“I often think he has. Then she comes back another day and tries again.”

“I shall tell you what Matilda and I have worked out between us, given what Edris has told her and Cenwulf me. I believe he has the idea that because it’s a man’s duty to bed his wife, he thinks he might be permitted to enjoy it. So Edris gets the rash idea that perhaps he does care about her.”

“But in the day he turns back into his pillar of stone.”

“Precisely. If you kick a dog all day and caress him all night, he won’t learn anything, he will simply go mad. Damn, Sigefrith! I didn’t come all this way to discuss anyone’s marital troubles.”

“I suspected that. What did you want?”

“I wanted to ask you about your ecclesiastical relation.”

“Oh, Good Lord, what has he said now?”

“What now?” Alred laughed. “What has he been saying?”

“I don’t know all of it, but I have heard that Father Brandt has erupted into fire and brimstone himself a few times these past days.”

“Father Brandt has ruled unchallenged for too long!” Alred said.

“Shall I understand that you are in fact fond of my ascetic cousin?”

“Fond of him? That may be a little strong. But I have not enjoyed such challenging conversation in ever so long. The man is not only a scholar but a genius. You wouldn’t believe the books he has read, and the passages he can quote from them. And he speaks more languages than I! And he has not only read books but written them! And the men with whom he has corresponded!”

“I believe it! I believe it! Good Lord, he can’t open his mouth but a parable or a quotation falls out. Unfortunately, they all seem to be dedicated to the extinction of all fun, in all its forms, wherever it may be found.”

“Oh, that’s true, Sigefrith. Better not ask him about those certain things we’ve been doing with our wives that Father Brandt assured us are necessarily redeemed by the mere sacrament of marriage. It would appear that we are going to hell after all.”

“Damn, Alred! You tell me this two months before my wedding?”

“I told you—don’t ask him about it. If you don’t know…”

“Thank you for the warning.”

“So, what I want to know is this: does he mean to stay?”

“To stay…”

“I nearly asked him, but then I thought that perhaps he hadn’t been invited.”

“Well… I had considered it—before I met him…”

“Sigefrith! Your mother’s own nephew!”

“Alred!” Sigefrith chuckled. “You know it takes more than a bit of grumbling to cause me to dislike anyone. I only feel a little sorry for my poor cousins. I had been worried about leaving those four babies alone in that house together, and wished I had someone older to put in there with them… a nice, old maiden aunt for instance. Instead I have Father Killjoy.”

Alred laughed. “It does seem a little cruel.”

“I don’t believe he’s terribly happy there either. He is, of course, greatly concerned about the salvation of his brother’s offspring, but he is mortified by the luxury of the place.”

“That drafty old barn is luxury? What must he think of your household?”

“A temple of Bacchus, I believe.”

“It is true that I have occasionally found it so,” Alred smiled. “But anyway, I’m not certain he would like to stay at all. I’m not certain I would. The books to which he has access, Sigefrith! Books written by the very hands of saints!”

“Oh, you and your books!”

“I declare, it almost seems worth becoming a priest if it means entry to such a library.”

“Oh, Good Lord! As if you could hold to a vow of chastity longer than you could hold your breath!”

“I’m beginning to believe Matilda has me in training for it,” he muttered, suddenly sullen.

“What’s that?”

“Never mind. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“What what? What’s eating Matilda?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I suppose she is not yet over the baby she lost last year. I hope that’s all it is. She doesn’t want any more children.”

“Neither do you, but it never made you any more priestly.”

“She isn’t nun-​ly at all. She simply comes to bed so revoltingly drunk even I don’t care to touch her. I’m certain that’s why.”

“She has seemed a little… odd lately. Even Leofric no longer cares to flirt with her.”

“You think it’s because something is wrong with Matilda and not with him? You reassure me, Sigefrith,” he said dryly. “I had thought Leofric’s flagging ardor was a sign of the approaching Apocalypse.”

“You haven’t seen Leofric with his daughter-​in-​law recently. He still has ardor enough.”

“It could simply be that he and Matilda have fought again.”

“That’s true. Every once in a while they decide they can’t stand one another.”

“This too shall pass,” he sighed. “But I told you I didn’t come here to discuss anyone’s marital problems, least of all mine.”

“That’s right, you wanted to ask me about Aelfden. If you wish to make a pet of him, you certainly may. I shall ask him to stay. Of course, he may prefer to go back to Lund, though he need not, from what I understand. On the other hand, he does seem to have developed a sort of morbid sense of responsibility for his iniquitous nieces and nephews, God help them all. But I suppose Brede has already had his bit of fun and had better settle down now anyway, and we certainly don’t want his sisters having any such fun at all. As for Selwyn, I was thinking of bringing him in as a page in a month or two.”

“And what about Yware?”

“What about him?”

“Mayhap his papa spoils him a little…”

“So you want to palm him off on me!”

“I don’t know what to do with him,” Alred sighed. “I fear he will hurt his brother one of these days. Dunstan is no match for him, but your lumbering heir has only to swipe at him with his paw if he gets too frisky, and that always settles him.”

“Then my lumbering heir and I shall be only too happy to have him. But young Sigefrith and I together shan’t teach him to fight as well as you would.”

“I don’t want you to teach him to fight! I want you to teach him some manners!”