Sir Sigefrith makes an ass of himself

Sir Sigefrith sat quietly beside his wife and watched the crowd. In one respect he was well content – he loved his family, he loved his friends, and he loved it when they all gathered together, especially when there was something in particular to celebrate.

He was also happy that Hilda had kissed the back of his hand and begged him to stay with her when he had offered to go up in place of poor Estrid to make certain that Haakon was eating his meat. It was so rare that his wife was affectionate with him in public unless she wanted something, and tonight it seemed she only wanted his company.

On the other hand, he was waiting to meet young Malcolm’s father, and he felt a dread he couldn’t quite explain. Whenever the man had come to visit in the past, Sigefrith himself had always been away, so he had no idea to what extent Colban resembled his cousin Malcolm, and whether he would be able to hide the effect a resemblance might have on him.

Physically, even from this distance, he could see that they were quite different. Malcolm was tall and lean as a rangy cat; and although Colban seemed shorter, comparison with the heights of the men standing next to him showed that it was rather an illusion due to the breadth of his shoulders and chest. Also, Malcolm had a quiet, catlike grace about him that could allow him to pass unnoticed when he so chose, while Colban, it seemed, preferred to plow his way through a crowd by force of intimidation, like a mighty and dauntless dog.

But it was a dog that had some wolf in him, Sigefrith thought in alarm as Colban was introduced to him by Alred. He had seemed friendly enough at the first, but his eyebrows had arched suddenly after a moment’s contemplation of Sigefrith’s face, and Sigefrith had the distinct impression that he would have seen hackles rising if the man had, in fact, been a dog – and possibly bared teeth. Were his thoughts so easily read?

Somehow the four of them – for Estrid had not yet returned, and Eirik had disappeared almost immediately upon their arrival – made it through the formalities, and Alred led Colban off again, for Egelric and his daughter had at last arrived, to Alred’s apparent relief.

Sigefrith sank back into his chair almost as wearily as his pregnant wife.

“Now you know from whence Malcolm gets his ghoulish yellow eyes,” she muttered to him in Norse.

“Now Hilda, they aren’t so ghoulish,” he said. “Nor are they really yellow. But it’s true they are unnerving…”

“Is that why you’re sweating like a fish?”

“Am I?” He dabbed at his forehead and stared at his damp fingers. What was the matter with him? Was it so hard for him to pretend that he didn’t know Malcolm? Why did he have to be such an idiot trapped among all these clever men?

He had only just begun to relax when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder, and heard a voice with a familiar burr inquire, “Would you do me the honor of allowing me a word with you, sir?” The voice was polite enough, but the pressure of the hand said plainly, “Come with me or this hand shall next be at your throat.”

“Of course,” Sigefrith said in a voice that suddenly made him sound thirteen again.

He followed Colban outside onto the small cloister, all new and gleaming and golden here in the torchlight by the door, and blue and shadowy across the court, beneath the slowly dimming cobalt sky. A lone cricket somewhere within chirped tenor to the rolling chant of the cricket chorus beyond the walls. All the chatter and music of the great hall had been shut out, and Sigefrith felt as alone as the tiny minstrel.

Colban went to stand by the torch and impatiently waved him over. Sigefrith joined him, his head spinning. Had Malcolm written to Colban about him? Had he done something wrong? Was it about the boy?

Colban stared intently at him, but seemed unable to meet his eyes. Sigefrith busied himself with mental preparation for a fight. Colban was more heavily-​​built than he and perhaps stronger, but he looked to be at least forty. Sigefrith knew he was the quicker man, so long as he wasn’t taken by surprise. Neither had his sword, but Sigefrith had no idea with what other sorts of blades the man was armed. He knew that young Malcolm always carried at least two knives, one of which was itself nearly a short sword.

Colban fixed his eyes on his own then, and Sigefrith felt that a hand was slowly being lifted to his throat. A quick glance showed him that it was empty. His own hand began a gradual rise to the short knife at his belt.

“Where did you get this?” Colban asked him suddenly and dropped his gaze to Sigefrith’s throat.

Sigefrith gasped. The amulet! The man hadn’t been unable to meet his eyes – he had been staring at the amulet! Sigefrith had quite forgotten about any danger it might represent – he never removed it, and had been wearing it for so long without comment from others that it seemed a part of his own body now.

“You will allow me to examine it?” Colban asked in a gruff but polite voice.

Sigefrith’s arm fell limp against his side. The man didn’t want to fight with him, but he was calling upon him to do something he did less well: lie.

“Oh, well, I don’t know whether Sigefrith told you I spent some time with the Scots a few years ago,” he began as Colban took the medallion between his fingers and examined it closely. “One of them gave it to me, you know.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“Oh, only a friend I met. A man from the north named – ” Good Lord! What was the name he had given Egelric when he had asked about it? “Hmm, I don’t seem to remember his name,” he chuckled. “He was from the north, though. Far, far in the north.”

“Who gave it to him?”

“Hmm! I don’t know. He never said. Didn’t talk much, that one,” he babbled on as Colban flipped up the amulet to examine its underside, which brought his scowling face uncomfortably close to Sigefrith’s throat. He thought again of wolves. “I didn’t stay with him for very long,” he assured him. “I scarcely remember him, really.”

Colban dropped the amulet and reared back his head to look down on him with fury gleaming in his gold-​​brown eyes. “This belongs to my brother Malcolm.”

“Oh, no, no,” Sigefrith laughed awkwardly. He could feel that he was sweating, as Hilda would say, like a fish. “His name wasn’t Malcolm, of that I am certain. And he was – he had red hair, and – ”

“This belongs to my brother Malcolm,” Colban repeated in a steely voice. “It was his father’s, and he wore it as a boy. He would be chewing on it when he was bored, and it still bears the marks of – ” He stopped and took a few ragged breaths before saying calmly, “ – his teeth.”

Sigefrith gaped at him and shook his head slowly, like a fish.

“I recommend that you make an effort to remember your ‘friend,’ if indeed such a red-​​haired Northerner ever existed,” he said in a voice that was cold with menace now. “Either you killed my brother, or your ‘friend’ did. Malcolm would no give this to anyone. It was his father’s.”

“I don’t remember the man,” Sigefrith squeaked. Damn his idiotic self! Better that they fight and get it over with – there at least he had a chance.

“Tell me all you know,” he hissed, and suddenly Sigefrith felt a knife at his throat. Colban was quicker than he had imagined.

“I can’t,” he whispered, afraid to move his throat enough to speak aloud.

“Why not?”

“It isn’t mine to tell,” he said, and got the blade of his own knife tight up against the man’s belly. It wasn’t enough – he had been too surprised, and too slow.

“Is it yours enough to take to your own grave?” Colban threatened. “He was my dearest friend, and twice my cousin, and my brother, and my son!”

“Gog!” the King barked from the doorway. “What in the name of Christ’s bloody wounds is this?”

“He knows who killed my brother!” Colban snarled.

“No, he doesn’t,” the King said evenly. “I do. Come here.”

“You?” Colban stumbled backwards, his eyes wide with shock and something resembling panic. The cricket paused in its song.

“Now put the knives away,” Sigefrith said as he joined them beneath the torch. “What makes you think Sigefrith knows anything about it?”

“He has Malcolm’s amulet on his neck, that he had from his father.” But he stared at the King as if at a phantom.

“You God damned halfwit!” the King cried, turning on Sigefrith. “You never told me this!”

“What does this mean?” Colban asked.

The King sighed. “You’ve done it now, runt. You may beg Magog’s pardon for being such an idiot as to flaunt this trinket beneath the nose of a man who believes him dead.”

“What does this mean?” Colban begged, white to the lips.

“He’s alive, Gog,” the King said gently. “Or he was recently. We had a letter from him… when was it, Sigefrith?”

“I don’t remember…” Sigefrith muttered.

“Damn you for an idiot! What do you have in that pretty head of yours, anyway? It was last winter… I mean, winter before last. Early 1077 I believe. He was in Brittany at the time, with a broken leg.”

“He was alive last year,” Colban whispered to himself. “Praise God! With a broken leg! God bless him!” he began to laugh to himself as if delirious.

And as if he had been waiting for that signal, the lone cricket began chirping merrily again.

“Sigefrith was with him for a while back in – what was it?” the King asked himself. “Three years ago. When Maud had her – her accident. And Magog accompanied him to Nidaros, and then sailed on from there to Brittany. That is, in fact, all we know.”

“It is three years since I heard he was alive,” Colban said softly, still stunned. And then he gave the King an anguished look. “And you never told me!”

“I’m sorry, Gog. It has aggrieved me more than you know. But Malcolm did not wish you to know. He wanted no one to know. I don’t know why. He might be in trouble.”

“But I would have helped him!” Colban cried, and Sigefrith thought the big man looked to be on the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry. I can’t explain to you. It is a joy for me to be the one to tell you he may still live, but I must ask you to consider that he does not wish anyone else to know, and he may have good reason for it.”

Colban nodded and turned his face slowly away into the shadows of the court.

“Come on, you ninnyhammer,” the King said, grabbing Sigefrith by the arm and dragging him away from the wall against which he leaned in exhaustion. “Let’s you and I go back to our ladies and try not to make such God damned asses of ourselves in the future, shall we? If I am ever in need of a spy, or even a mildly discreet messenger, remind me not to send you.”