Egelric sees another sign

Egelric could still hear Gunnilda running after him. She had stopped calling his name, perhaps seeing that she needed all of her strength to keep up with him in her heavy skirts. And still she was falling behind.

Egelric slowed to a jog, and then stopped in a clearing, where the snow lay less deep.

He couldn’t allow her to follow him so deep into the woods. She would never catch up with him, and once she had lost sight of him, who knew whether she would be able to find her way home again on this moonless night? Perhaps this is how she was to have been killed. He would not allow it, curse or no.

He heard her come stumbling up behind him, and she stood a moment catching her breath before panting, “Egelric, please, don’t go.”

She seemed afraid to approach him—she was afraid of him! He turned to her, but could not bring himself to look into her face.

“Don’t go, Egelric,” she repeated, close to tears. “We been so worried. We don’t want to lose you.”

He thought it would be better if they did, but he said nothing.

“We been looking all over for you. Alwy has been all over the forest with the dogs, and the Duke rode out with his men all day. We thought—they thought maybe you was dead.”

It was that voice again—not the voice of the shrill and snappish housewife he knew. He would not look at her.

“Egelric,” she said after while, “why did you come back?”

The question was unexpected.

“Why did you go to see Wecta’s grave?”

Egelric wondered. Did he know?

“Looking for a sign, I think…” he murmured to himself, “Or… I think it was to see whether it was real, or whether a dream. But it is real. And so I must go.”

Gunnilda winced. “No, Egelric,” she said softly, moving imperceptibly closer to him. “That was real, but so is the rest. All the good you do is real, too. And your family. And your friends. Look at ordinary old me—I’m not the stuff of dreams, am I?” she laughed.

He looked at her at last, but so mournfully she turned her face away. “I don’t know what you are,” he said. “You’re not part of this nightmare.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand you,” she said painfully, “but I think I understand that.”

“Come with me,” he whispered impulsively.

She looked up. “I didn’t hear?”

Good God, what was he saying? What if she had heard? But her eyes shone innocently at him. “It was nothing,” he told her.

“Won’t you come home, Egelric?” she asked, her face brightening as if she had put the subject of dreams aside. “You can stay with Alwy and me if you’re not ready to see anyone else tonight. He’ll be so happy to see you, and so will Bertie and Wynna. And I’m sure Bertie will demonstrate his pig noises for you.”

Egelric smiled slightly.

“We all missed you,” she added softly.

“You came out in the snow for me,” he said, bemused. “They all looked for me, and yet you were the one to find me. It is a sign?” Then he reached out and pinched the coarse wool of her sleeve. “You must be cold.”

“And you!” she laughed, laying a hand on his shoulder.

But when she felt the cold of his skin beneath his shirt, she cried out in alarm. “Oh! You’re like ice—you’re so cold! Where have you been sleeping? Where have you been? Where have you been? We thought you was dead!” Her voice broke, and her little chin trembled as if she would cry.

He couldn’t bear it. He caught her in his arms and pulled her against him. She was warm! …and real.

Her body stiffened in surprise, but soon she relaxed and laid her head against him. “You’re so cold,” she repeated.

But too soon she lifted her head and looked up at him with tear-​filled eyes. “You’ll come home now, won’t you?”

“If you wish it.”

“You’ll come home to Elfleda and your little girl, won’t you?”

“If you wish it.”

“Don’t ask me to decide for you.”

He thought for a moment and then asked, “What will happen to you?”

“To me?”

“I could not live if you were hurt because of me.”

“Because of you?” she repeated. She smiled slightly, but her eyes showed her to be on the verge of tears.

“Because of the curse.”

“Oh, the curse!” She gave a little laugh. “Egelric, there is no curse. Now—look in my eyes—” She took his chin firmly in her hand and turned his face back to hers. “I tell you there is no curse. Tragedies happen here on earth. It is you who look too hard for signs.”

He shook his head sadly. “Everything has gone wrong since we came here.”

“Everything?”

He didn’t answer at first. He looked into her dark eyes until her hand fell away from his face.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

“In the dark,” she laughed.

“In the starlight,” he corrected.

She looked up at the sky behind him and smiled.

She took a step to the side, and the shadow of his head fell over her face. “Now?” she asked.

“In shadow beautiful still.”

“Egelric,” she said wistfully, “you who look for signs: look at the sky behind you.”

He turned and looked up to where Venus hung just above the pines, bright as a beacon. “The evening star.”

“Yes, the evening star,” she said, her voice soft and full of wonder. “Egelric, my mother said that once in your lifetime you may see your shadow cast by the evening star—for it must be a moonless night, and there must be snow—and in the year that follows, your life’s greatest gift will come to you.”

They gazed up at the star through a sparkling mist of snowflakes lifted from the trees by a gust of wind. “Is that not a sign?” she asked.

Egelric weighed the evil star of the summer against this bright star of winter. It had taken Gunnilda to reveal the meaning of this omen to him—and it was on her own face that he had seen his shadow. He wondered what it would mean for him—and for her? Perhaps a year was not too long to wait. He would go home.