Lord Leofric returns

“Praise God!” Theobald cried and leapt from the bench. “He’s here!”

“Have the Father join us, please,” Egelric said to the man that had opened the great door for Leofric and his wife.

“Well, what is it?” Leofric asked. “Eadie? My grandchildren? Leia? Your man wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Your daughter and grandchildren are well,” Egelric said after he had bowed to the two of them. “We have had – ”

“Where have you been?” Theobald barked. “We sent for you before dawn!”

Leofric stepped forward to put himself between Theobald and his wife. The Baron did not seem to be quite himself.

“I came at once,” Leofric said evenly. He turned to Eadgith and murmured, “Go see Leia and go to Eadie and Drage. If anything has happened to any of them, come back to me at once. Otherwise I want you to lie down in our room until I come for you.”

She nodded and went out with unusual docility. He could see by her face that Theobald had frightened her, and he was annoyed.

“It’s scarcely more than two hours on a fast horse!” Theobald cried.

“Theobald…” Egelric murmured.

“I wasn’t at Raegiming,” Leofric snapped.

“What?” Theobald moaned. “I knew it! I knew it! God help me!”

“Son of a serpent! What in God’s n – ” Leofric stopped in mid-​​blasphemy as Father Brandt came into the hall. “Father,” he greeted him with a nod. “Wait – ” he said to Egelric. “What does he have to do with this?”

“Where were you?” Theobald cried. It seemed almost an accusation. “Where did you go?”

“That is not your affair!” Leofric roared, out of temper at last.

“You told me you were going to Raegiming!”

“And so I did! And then I took my wife to my lodge. Now, I suppose you want to know what we did there?”

“Which lodge?”

“Which – son of a serpent! The one to the east.”

“Over the hill! Over the hill! Out of the valley!”

“Egelric!” Leofric pleaded.

“Theobald…” Egelric soothed.

With some difficulty, Egelric and the priest convinced Theobald to retire to his room, and the remaining three met in the privacy of a small room off the cloister.

The only matter on which they all agreed was that they wished the King were there.

It was a strange story they told Leofric, and he didn’t believe the half of it.

What was clear was that Theobald was not himself. The only thing he claimed to remember was trying to chase a bat out of his room. If that was true, than he had been in some other mind when he had led several of the guards into the crypt below the court. Those men all agreed that Theobald had touched the sphere that floated over the stone table, and they also all agreed that before he did, there had been a statue on the empty pedestal that stood in the water.

Also during that night Father Aelfden had visited Father Brandt at his home, and in the morning when he went to open the church, Father Brandt had found him lying in the nave in a sleep from which he could not be woken, and the altar profaned.

Leofric had already suspected for some time that the priest was simply insane, and he thought he had perhaps done the work in the church himself. Perhaps the Lord had struck him down at last.

Egelric was troubled by the coincidence of the new moon and believed that the elves had something to do with it, or else the woman who he claimed was hunting the elves. Theobald, he pointed out, was supposed to be the grandson of that woman’s grandson – if one chose to believe such stories, which Leofric did not – and Egelric claimed he had seen her turn herself into a bat.

Father Brandt did not believe much of the guards’ story, but he was inclined to believe that there was an unholy force at work. He did not think that Father Aelfden was himself responsible for the damage in the church, but had rather been attempting to prevent it.

And Theobald himself blamed the entire business on the curse that was supposed to hang over the valley. He had realized too late that if Leofric left the valley and left him in charge of the King’s affairs while he was away, then he was doing precisely what the elves had forbidden.

Leofric thought it absurd: his keep was not truly in the valley, anyway, but high up in the foothills. Furthermore, even if he had left the valley by crossing over the crest of the hills and going to the eastern lodge, the Queen was still at the castle, and one could not say that Theobald had been “ruling” over the valley as long as Eadie was there. Even little Princess Emma had precedence over the Baron.

As far as Leofric could tell, nothing truly grave had happened at all, and he was rather annoyed that he had been called back so soon. He had had but one night with Eadgith at the lodge.

So the church had been profaned – any man could do that if he dared. So Theobald had lost his senses and ordered a few nervous guards to open the dreary crypt beneath the court – any sufficiently superstitious and frightened man could imagine seeing a statue where there was none.

The only real damage seemed to be to Father Aelfden, and that didn’t even come as a surprise, considering the way he abused himself. Leofric thought he would not regret the priest in any event. He much preferred the winking indulgence of the merry Father Brandt and the pragmatism of his own priest.

“What did you think I could do about any of this?” Leofric grumbled when they had finished.

Egelric and Father Brandt both looked surprised at the question. He realized then that they both felt the lack of a lord. They needed a man above them. They needed a man in his right mind to tell them what to do. Indeed, that was why he had availed himself of Theobald’s presence to make a visit to his own home.

Leofric turned to leave, too annoyed to stand any more of their superstitions. “Son of a serpent! God help us if Sigefrith doesn’t come home. I certainly don’t want the charge of you all!” He paused in the doorway. “Send Theobald to me if he ever stops raving.” They both looked at him with the eyes of children who fear they are about to be abandoned by a parent. “And send for me if there is any trouble. I’m here! I’m here! God help you all.”