Leofric furthers his reputation

“The one with the reddish hair is the girl, and the one with the light hair is the boy,” Brede said softly.

“The one with no hair, you mean,” Leofric said.

“It’s there,” his son whispered as he too leaned over the cradle. “It’s simply very light.”

Leofric grunted. Twins were a fine thing in his opinion, but they were often born too small, and these babies heartrendingly so. It would have been cruel to call them runts as he would have done any other baby. It would have been too true.

Alred had said that they looked like Gwynn when she was born, for she too had come too soon. Sigefrith had recalled Gwynn as being far larger and livelier than these two, but Brede and Estrid were not to be told. Leofric thought the little girl might have a chance, but the boy was impossibly small and frail and red, and his skin was so finely transparent that one feared to touch him lest it tear.

“Estrid loves them as they are,” Brede said, “but I’m sorry the girl looks so much like me. I should have liked to have seen her as pretty as her mother.”

“What nonsense,” Leofric snorted. “It wasn’t until you began to grow a beard that I was able to decide whether it was you or Estrid the prettier one.”

“And what did you decide?” Brede smiled.

“Would you find a bearded woman pretty?” Sigefrith asked.

“Beards have their place,” Brede mused.

“It isn’t on the face!” Sigefrith giggled.

“That’s what I was thinking!” Brede laughed softly with him.

Leofric only stared down at the sleeping babies.

Matilda liked to joke about her beard, he was thinking, and had always teased her cousin Magnus that she had a handsomer mustache than he. It was true that her upper lip and the sides of her cheeks were covered in a dark down, though it was like the fuzz on the babies’ heads in that one could only see it if one were very close to her. It was too soft to be felt with fingertips, but it did tickle if one brushed one’s lips across her skin…

“What about names, Father?” Sigefrith asked him suddenly.

“What?”

“Brede doesn’t want to name the boy Sigefrith even though I have assured him it’s a very handsome name – ”

“It is out of the question,” Brede said. “I shan’t have my father thinking he’s named for him.”

“Your father is dead!”

“Perhaps the damned have a window out of Hell? Who knows?”

Sigefrith sighed. “Well, Father, since you are the namesmith around here…”

“I?” Leofric asked.

“You gave Dora the finest little name that ever a girl bore, and I like Raegan and Lissa too, and Aering and Aefen are quite clever names for twins.”

“That’s because Aering is light and Aefen dark.”

“And here one is a red-​​headed girl and the other is a blond boy.”

“Don’t you suppose Brede and Estrid want to name their babies?”

“Brede said he wanted to ask you, didn’t you, Brede?”

“Do you have any ideas?” Brede asked him. “Estrid likes Aefen and Aering, and she’s been having ideas, but I told her no Norse names.”

“Oh, well…” Leofric mumbled.

It was true that he had secretly planned out names for Eadgith’s children, but he had not realized that others thought of him as a namesmith, besides Alred, who often teased him about it as being a sign of latent poetry.

“Most name their first boy for the father’s father and the first girl for the mother’s mother,” Leofric said.

“And I said no Sigefriths and no Norse names. And Estrid would like twin names, like Aefen and Aering.”

“Twin names,” Leofric muttered and leaned over the cradle again.

The babies lay side-​​by-​​side on their stomachs, but the little girl had crept closer to her brother until their foreheads nearly touched, and one of her tiny hands lay just before her mouth as if she were about to whisper him a secret. But the boy’s wrinkled face looked dreadfully wise. Leofric did not think the world held any secrets for him. He already saw beyond.

“Dyrne and Daeglan,” he said.

“Secret and Mystery,” Sigefrith repeated and whistled softly. “You asked for it, Brede.”

“I would have you know that I got these two honestly,” Brede smiled.

“Unlike some?” Sigefrith laughed. “I had to name mine Haakon to please the pater.”

“It looks like she’s whispering something to him,” Leofric explained. “And he looks like he already knows.”

Brede stopped smiling and looked down at his children. His brow was furrowed slightly in the same manner as the little boy’s. Leofric supposed that he too was in the process of growing wise.