Eadgith makes a promise

“I shall receive him in my sitting room,” Eadgith said as calmly as she could, but she could feel the rush of blood to her face. Britamund was watching her curiously.

“Brit,” she said as she rose, “would you kindly help Emmie if her thread runs out before I return?”

“I shall sew very slow,” Emma offered.

“Slow-​​ly,” Britamund corrected. “And you always do anyway.”

“But I’m still little!” Emma whined. “And you always do everything too quick!”

“Quick–ly!”

“Please don’t quarrel, girls,” Eadgith sighed and kissed them both before she went out.

It was a shame her father had to arrive at precisely the hour of the day when she was allowed to be alone with Sigefrith’s daughters, perhaps accompanied by her mother and a friend or two. There were so many rituals and duties in her life that it was a shame to have her pleasures interrupted, although, she admitted to herself, she would rather spend another tedious hour with her steward than go now to meet her father.

She awaited him with her back to the door. She would not have him see what Britamund had seen on her face.

Behind the window she saw a sky darkly gray. The trees in Maud’s garden flung up the white bellies of their leaves before a savage wind. He had risked rain to come to her, but nothing more.

As soon as he came in, she was sorry she had chosen this little room. He was a big man, and more than that, he had a presence that made him seem to fill a far greater space than did his body. When he came into a hall, women blushed and men moved uneasily, unconsciously reassuring themselves of their swords. He was one of those beings – as Matilda had been – who were, in the words of Alred, wider than the whole world. Perhaps it was no wonder…

“My baby,” he murmured.

She turned to him, strangely angry that he would so address her – for she was not the only one!

“You wait until Alred leaves,” she accused, “and Sigefrith, too, and only then do you come to me!”

The soft wistfulness of his face hardened slightly. “You think me a coward, too.”

“No – a coward – no – I don’t know,” she stammered in confusion. She could not stand long against him. She was nothing against such a man.

“But, baby, I thought you might understand,” he pleaded.

“I?” she choked. “Understand?”

“I mean, because I loved her. You understand that.”

“You – ”

Of course she had known that he had. Anything else would have been abominable – and yet, as soon as he spoke, she realized that she had feared all along that he had not. It was, in some way, a relief. And yet…!

“What about Leila?” she gasped.

“Leila…” he sighed. “Baby, that’s not the same thing.”

“Why not?” she cried.

“You know a little about that, don’t you? You know she helped me escape, and you know that if I had left her behind, her father and her brothers would have put her to death. You know that, don’t you?”

Eadgith did not speak. She could not believe any father or any brother could do such a thing – she had tried to imagine her father or her brother killing her–but Sigefrith had assured her it was true. Therefore it was.

“You know I’m fond of little Leila, but it’s not the same thing. You understand that, don’t you? And your mother… your uncles chose your mother for me. I allowed you to marry the man you loved – the man who loved you. I doubt you realize what I did for you,” he said mournfully.

“I do!”

“Who can say what would have happened if my brother had allowed me to choose my wife? Baby? Can you?”

She had no answer for that.

“I knew Matilda before Alred ever did. Did you know that?”

She nodded.

“I might have loved her. I might have won her.”

He dropped onto the bench and stared grimly at the floor. She had no answers for him. She wanted Sigefrith to come, to tell her what was right. What had Sigefrith said to him? What would a great lady do or say? And he was her father!

“I wish you could see your sister,” he murmured. “You would see why I can’t come here. You would see why I can’t give her up. She’s a baby angel. When she smiles at me… It’s not Matilda’s smile, but they are Matilda’s eyes, when she smiled – ”

He put his hand over his face and sobbed once. Eadgith sat beside him in shock. She had not seen him cry since Siggy died.

“Please love her, baby,” he said. His voice trembled like an old man’s. “If Alred kills me – if I die – who will love her? Alred won’t. Leila won’t.”

She had not thought of that.

“Promise me, baby – it is why I came. I am a coward, but… but she isn’t to blame. And you will love her. Won’t you? As only you can. Will you take her? When I die?”

“Don’t say when…” she whimpered.

“Did you think I would live forever?” he smiled sadly. “But I would not care to live at all if not for you–and Leia, and your brother – and Dora and Haakon – and Cedric and Raegan and Liss and the twins – and your baby, and Hilda’s – son of a serpent! You’re right,” he chuckled. “I may never die. I would even miss that ungrateful starveling runt of a son-​​in-​​law of mine.”

She laid a hand on his arm and leaned her body against his. His presence lay over her like a sheltering wing.

“Promise me, baby,” he repeated gravely. “You will take her and love her in spite of what her father did, won’t you?”

She nodded her head, though she did not lift it from his arm. She could feel the warmth and strength of him against her cheek. He couldn’t die. Sigefrith himself could tell her he was mortal, and she would not believe it.

He slipped his arm behind her and pulled her legs up across his lap.

“No woman has ever loved me as you have,” he whispered. “No other woman has ever loved me.”

He held his head close to hers, and she was reminded again how like his eyes were to the eyes of her husband, in color and in love.

“Now, tell me,” he said briskly, and he sat up straighter and patted her knee. “Tell me about your baby. Has she started tickling you yet?”

He smiled, but not with his eyes. Never, Eadgith thought, had her father looked so old. She found she could not speak, though she had often thought of all the things she would like to tell him.

“Poor girl,” he sighed, “this should have been the happiest year of your life, and I’m afraid I have spoiled it for you. I fear that such suffering is the price you pay, my baby, for loving unworthy wretches such as I.”

Her suffering was not so great, she thought. He had not sinned against her. Her suffering was only the sympathy she felt for the others who truly suffered – Leila and Alred; Alred’s children; Sigefrith, who had to hold them all together while holding her father and Alred apart; and even little Leia, though she didn’t know it yet.

And there was her father. Matilda’s death had done to him what the Norman arrow had not. His suffering was on the scale of his presence, or of what he was to her, or of what Matilda had been to him. To her, he and his suffering seemed wider than all the world. Never, she thought, had she loved him more.