Matilda is unwell

“Oh, my, Maire!” Matilda laughed as she came in with her bag of embroidery beneath her arm. “Aren’t you looking like a raven among these fair birds?”

Maire sat in her hall with Lady Eadgith, Lady Hilda, and Lady Estrid arrayed around her, and she did indeed look dark by comparison.

“You’re here now, though, to caw with her,” Hilda smirked.

“My hair is dark, but my skin is as every bit as fair as yours,” Matilda said, slightly ruffled.

“I don’t know. You spend so much time on horseback,” Hilda sniffed. “One gets so brown in the sun.” She snipped her thread neatly with a click of her little scissors.

“I only go out in the morning,” Matilda said between kisses to fair and tawny cheeks.

“I prefer to do my riding at night,” Hilda snickered.

Matilda laughed appreciatively, while Estrid and Maire blushed and smiled slyly at one another, and Lady Eadgith scowled disapprovingly at her daughter-​​in-​​law.

“Well, ladies,” Matilda said as she dropped herself down onto a cushion. “I’m beginning a new dress for Gwynn. What say the rest of you?”

“I’m only making a nightgown,” Hilda grumbled. “I’m still wearing the gowns I wore when I was carrying Dora, and I am beginning to despair of ever fitting in the old ones again. I shall be as squat as a toad by the time I’m twenty.”

“I am making this for the new hall,” Estrid said, unfurling a long, crimson banner that she had begun embroidering with golden stars. She blushed with all the shy pride of a very new and very young bride.

“Wise indeed,” Matilda nodded. “Red is just the thing for warming a dark room.”

“Brede wanted it deep blue, like the sky, but, so, I thought it would be too gloomy.”

“I agree, but you might make one in blue as a canopy for your bed. Just like sleeping out-​​of-​​doors.”

“Or riding,” Hilda said.

Matilda giggled. “But are you looking up at it then?”

“Well, then, when being ridden,” Hilda shrugged.

“Hilda!” Lady Eadgith scolded.

“Oh, Mother, we’re all married here. Even you.”

“I’m making this,” Maire said, intending to dispel the imminent argument between Hilda and her mother-​​in-​​law. She held up a tiny dress, blushing still more deeply than Estrid had.

Matilda dropped her sewing into her lap and stared. “Oh, Maire,” she said, almost sorrowfully. “I didn’t know.”

“Everyone will know very soon,” Maire smiled. “My cousin Egelric has already noticed my waist.”

“That means nothing,” Hilda said. “There’s not a man keeps a closer eye on women’s bodies than ‘your cousin Egelric’.”

“Hilda!” Lady Eadgith cried. “And how would you know?”

“Because I often catch him at it, and like to tease him. He even looks at you, Mother, at least the top half of you.”

“Hilda!”

“I don’t believe he looks at ladies, though,” Estrid said.

“Doesn’t he?” Hilda laughed. “He doesn’t leer at ladies, but you may be certain he looks at us. I don’t blame him. Aren’t you delicious, all of you? I may be only a squat toad, but Estrid here is as supple as a reed, and all the men wonder what they can bend her ’round; Mother is as handsome as a goddess even if she is covered with freckles; and Maire is a great slinky cat, and the men do like to watch her walk. And Matilda is a scrumptious little dumpling, isn’t she?” she giggled. “They simply want to gobble her up in one bite. ‘Your cousin Egelric’ especially.”

“Oh, Hilda,” Estrid scolded, shaking her head and wondering what ‘supple’ meant. “It is too bad Edris can’t come. You are never so bad when she is here.”

“She’s practically a nun,” Hilda grumbled.

“Oh, she isn’t either,” her mother-​​in-​​law said. “It isn’t her fault she had to wait so long to be married.”

“No, and I suppose she’s enjoying it now,” she laughed. “It’s so funny to see the way Cenwulf dotes over her, as if he had only just discovered he’s had a wife for the last three years. ‘I often wondered who was stealing the blankets at night…’” she rumbled, mocking the Earl’s deep voice and grave demeanor.

“I believe our cousin Sigefrith had something to do with it,” Lady Eadgith said sagely. “Eadie says he gave Cenwulf a little talk that day that shamed him thoroughly.”

“I’m tempted to hit my head and see what Sigefrith does for me,” Hilda said.

“Your husband dotes over you already!” Estrid said.

“Not since Dora came. She’s the only lady he loves now. I don’t believe he would notice me even if I did fall and crack my head,” Hilda laughed.

“I don’t believe you should laugh about it,” Estrid said. “It could have been grave.”

“It might yet be,” Lady Eadgith said ominously.

“Is she worried about her baby?” Maire asked.

“She said she bled a little.”

“Oh!”

“Cenwulf won’t even let her go down the stairs, much less ride a horse.”

“I don’t blame him,” Maire murmured, and she halted her needle for a moment, for the delicate embroidery wavered before her teary eyes. She often wondered what would have happened if she and Aengus hadn’t ridden so far and so fast in a winter storm while she was already heavy with Muirenn. She thought Aengus wondered too, although he never said so to her, for he had forbidden her to ride ever since she had told him her little secret. But he needn’t have…

“Perhaps not a horse,” Hilda snickered, “but I suppose she does some riding, to see the pink of her cheeks when he comes into the room.”

“Oh, Hilda!” Lady Eadgith cried in exasperation. “Must you always be so vulgar?”

“No, I needn’t always be, but someone must if Matilda intends to simply sit there and sulk all afternoon. What’s the matter, Matilda? Are you sore because I called you a little dumpling? You know, many men like a tiny woman. It makes them feel bigger in every way,” she laughed.

“How would you know?” Estrid asked. “You’re so tall!”

“Why, let’s suppose your brother told me!”

“Oh, Eirik!” Estrid smiled. “It scarcely matters to him. All women are tiny next to him.”

“In every way!” Hilda cackled.

“Did he tell you that too?”

“I’m only guessing, my dear. He never mentioned it. But anyway, that doesn’t prevent them from liking little women. Eirik can rest his chin on the top of Sigi’s head, for instance. And look at my father-​​in-​​law. He’s a great, tall man, too, and look at how little Leila is. She’s not much more than a mouthful herself. Mother is no taller, I think, but she makes at least two bites.”

Maire cast an anxious glance at Lady Eadgith, but she only sewed placidly on. She did not admit the existence of Leila by even a look or gesture.

“Luckily Sigefrith is at least as tall as I,” Hilda said, “though if I continue getting fatter I shall soon be wider. It is difficult for us tall women to find a husband, isn’t it, my dear?” she asked Estrid. “Though I suppose we managed well enough.”

“I think it may be harder for the little men to find a wife,” Estrid said.

“That’s so!” Hilda laughed. “It was a lucky day for Alred when he found you, wasn’t it, Matilda? A lucky day for you, too! If you had married a great beast of a man such as my father-​​in-​​law, he would have simply split you up the middle.”

“Hilda!” Lady Eadgith gasped in horror.

“Oh!” Hilda giggled behind her hand. “Now I’ve gone too far! I’ve even made Matilda blush!”

Maire did not think that Matilda was merely blushing. “Are you unwell?” she asked. “You’ve scarcely touched your sewing.”

“I may be,” Matilda murmured.

“Would you like to lie down?”

“I may well.” She laid aside the green bodice she had been embroidering and rose slowly to her feet, as if she were half-​​asleep.

“Let me take you to a bed,” Maire said and stood as well.

“Will you send for Alred to fetch me home?” Matilda quavered.

“Aengus will be happy to take you.”

“I want Alred, please.”

“Certainly,” Maire said.

Maire went out behind Matilda, who shuffled along like a doddering old woman. Estrid and Eadgith looked at one another in discomfort, but Hilda’s cold blue eyes were fixed on Matilda’s back until she had gone.