“Finally, I can see you alone,” Ethelmund grumbled as he came into his bedroom. His wife lay on the bed in her nightgown, but she had not yet crawled under the blankets.
She looked up in surprise, as if he had interrupted some engrossing thought.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
“I heard you. It would be something if Hilda started showing up in our bedroom,” she smiled.
“Something! But it wouldn’t surprise me.” He sat on the edge of the bed and began unlacing his boots. “What’s this I hear about Leof?”
“Oh, that,” Githa sighed. “You know how boys are at that age.”
“I don’t know! I’m certain I never got into such mischief!”
“You were too lazy for mischief, Ethelmund.”
“I’m not sorry for that, if this is the result of high energy.”
“Oh, Ethelmund, no one was hurt!”
“Someone could have been! And then where would I be?”
“Could have, but wasn’t, so don’t worry about it.”
“I worry about the next stunt. I’ve been trying to get him into the workshop with me, but he is never around when I’m looking for him.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t want to be a carpenter.”
“What does he want to be? His half-brother got his father’s farm.”
“There’s more land than farmers here in the valley, you know.”
“Then let him get to work on some of it. I was working when I was fifteen.”
“When your father could find you,” Githa cackled.
“The worst I ever did was go fishing!” Ethelmund said as he stood and removed his shirt.
Githa laughed. “A saint, you were – Saint Peter, that is! Anyway, I don’t know that Leof wants to be a farmer, either.”
“Oh, no? And what does his lordship want to be? Archbishop?”
“Well, I don’t know, Ethelmund,” she said thoughtfully. “He’s a tall, strong boy. And he proved today how fast he can run,” she laughed.
“I’m happy you can laugh about it,” he grumbled as he fell back onto the bed beside her.
“So will you, in a few days. But listen. Don’t you suppose a tall, strong, fast boy – a gentleman’s son – has just the makings of a knight?”
“A knight!” Ethelmund sat up again.
“Of course, in the hills a family such as ours does not aspire to such heights. But here…”
“Githa! I’m certain I never thought of such a thing for my own sons!”
“And why not?” she cried. “That Bertie Hogge is set to be a squire before long, and a knight after! And his father was a serf! And so was he too born!”
“Alwy Hogge never strode up to Nothelm Keep and begged them to take him! It was His Grace himself who offered to take him!”
“Well, you know the Earl would never think of it unless it was suggested to him. He hasn’t so much as a page in his castle.”
“And I know the Earl would never stand for the sort of capers that that boy has been performing since he arrived here!”
“If he had something else to occupy his time – ”
“Then let him farm! There’s no shame in that! Or let him come to the workshop with me, and learn a trade. May I put out the candle?”
“Yes,” she said meekly.
“What are you doing, still awake at this hour, in any case?” he grumbled after he had blown out the light. “Waiting for me to put this to me?”
“I was only lying here feeling the baby move,” she murmured.
“Oh!” He fell back against the pillows again. He waited a moment in the dark, and then one of his hands crept out to find hers where they lay folded across her stomach.
“You can’t feel it yet,” she said.
“But you can.”
“I can.”
“It’s all right?”
“It’s all right.”
He smiled to himself and laid his arm arcross her bony little shoulder.
“Will you at least think about it?” she asked after a while.
“About what?”
“About asking the Earl about Leof.”
“If it will make you happy,” he sighed.
Chapters
And who is Leof ?