Sir Sigefrith offers to help

Wynflaed had meant to come rushing through the door in her eagerness to return to the grateful warmth of the kitchen. Oh, she was cold! Her bones ached with it, her head was dizzy with it, her feet were soaked and chilled, her fingers were numb—

But she stopped in the open doorway when she saw what awaited her inside. There was her little mother, smiling, turned away from her fire—and there was Sigefrith sitting at the table next to Heafoc, smiling up at her too. For a moment she was only aware of those two smiles and of the drop that was about to fall most ingloriously from the tip of her nose. She sniffed, and two other little heads at the table turned to her.

“Look who’s here, Wynnie!” her mother cried softly and quite unnecessarily.

“Good afternoon, Wyn,” Sigefrith said gently. He then looked at the boys seated across from him and said, “Here’s Heaf’s sister Wynnie come to greet you.”

The little boy with the dark, curly hair was already climbing down from his chair. Her body rocked with a sudden dizziness as she wondered whether this were Sigefrith’s son. The boy wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and then bowed smartly before her and kissed her hand with lips that still bore a trace of stickiness. It was only then that Wynflaed noticed the plates of half-​eaten jam and bread on the table.

“I’m the Old Man,” the small boy announced and grinned up at her. “I’m delighted to meet you.”

“I beg your pardon?” Wynflaed breathed. Surely she was dreaming. She was asleep on her feet—she felt so dizzy…

“Can you believe it, Wynnie?” her mother laughed. “This is the Duke’s youngest son, whom they call the Old Man! This angel!”

Wynflaed tried to smile. The boy put his heels together and bowed again, and then he took her hand and led her inside before going to close the door behind her. It was only then that she noticed the pile of little cloaks in the corner.

Heafoc continued his placid eating, but the other little boy squirmed and twisted in his chair and looked up at her shyly with bright blue eyes.

“Go on, runt,” Sigefrith coaxed softly. “This is my son, Haakon,” he said to Wynflaed. There was a solemnity in his voice that she could not decipher. It was something more than pride.

The little boy hopped down from his chair and came to stand before her. He was a handsome child, and his smile wavered between an eagerness to please and a fear he would not.

“Kiss her hand!” the Duke’s son hissed, and Haakon seized it and kissed it with a mouth that still bore all its stickiness.

“You see I am not as talented at raising young gentleman as is His Grace,” Sigefrith laughed.

“I would have remembered!” Haakon protested.

“You always remember too late, so it doesn’t count,” the Old Man grumbled. “May I take your cloak?” he asked Wynflaed. “Will you be seated?”

Wynflaed finally laughed. This tiny gentleman offering to take her cloak and help her to a chair! In her own house! He did seem an old man in a child’s body.

“Is she your little mother too?” Haakon asked.

“Yes! I’m Heaf’s big sister.”

“I had a little mother, too,” the Old Man confided. “But she went to heaven.” He turned to the little mother and said sternly, “She is an angel, and you may say so. But I am not an angel. I am only the Old Man.”

“Yes, my lord!” her little mother laughed.

“That will do. However, I prefer to be called Old Man.”

Sigefrith was at Wynflaed’s side by this time, though she had not seen him rise. “I shall take your cloak, since these runts are too short to reach even your shoulders.”

He laid his hands on those same shoulders, though he made no move to take her cloak, but only held her there. Her body felt so frail between his two big hands. The heat of the kitchen was too much for her after the cold of the barns. She was growing dizzy again.

Heafoc had by now finished his bread and jam, and he looked up at her and announced, “We’re going sledding!”

“That’s right!” Sigefrith laughed, and now he pulled Wynflaed’s cloak down her arms. “These two runts wanted to go out in honor of the first good snow of the winter, and it occurred to me that your father may have built his house at the top of the very best sledding hill for miles around.”

“It is, it is,” Heafoc assured him. “Just wait! Hurry up and finish your snack so we can go!” he said to the other boys.

“Oh, little mother,” Wynflaed scolded as she realized what their little snack meant. “Don’t tell me you went down to get the jam?”

“What do you suppose?” Sigefrith asked. “With two-​and-​a-​half gentlemen here to do it for her?”

“And he cut the bread and spread the jam all by himself!” her little mother laughed.

“She didn’t believe I could!” Sigefrith complained. “I don’t know whether she thought me too fine or too incompetent for the arduous task of slicing bread.”

He laid his hands on Wynflaed’s shoulders again, though now he had not even a reason. She could feel the gentle pressure of every one of his fingers on her arms. The rest of her body felt as if it were melting away in the heat of the fire.

“I thought you knights only knew how to cut bread with swords,” her mother said, giggling like a girl.

“No, no, we only use our swords to butter it.”

Her mother laughed, but she held her elbow pressed tightly against her side to ease the pain of it. Wynflaed wondered whether Sigefrith noticed.

He seemed to notice something after a moment, for he gave her arms a squeeze and began pushing her gently towards a chair.

“Let’s sit you down,” he said, “and I shall demonstrate the courtly art of slicing bread with a bread knife.”

“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled.

“Yes, you are,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” her mother agreed. “You scarcely ate at dinner.”

“Oh, little mother,” she sighed and sat. It often hurt her to eat, but she could not say so to her mother.

“You may have jam,” Heafoc said gravely.

“It’s good jam,” Haakon added.

“Very clever of you to say so, runt,” Sigefrith said, “since you know she made it.”

Haakon blushed, and Wynflaed smiled at him. She did not think he was trying to be clever. He was simply a little boy with an appreciation for good jam.

“One slice or two?” Sigefrith asked as he took the knife.

“One,” she said.

“Two,” he and her mother said—and laughed—in unison.

“No, please,” she said weakly to Sigefrith, and her small hand came up to tap at his arm like the pleading paw of a kitten.

His laughter faded and he looked down at her. A crease appeared between his eyebrows, such as she had seen when he had first looked into her little mother’s face after his three months’ absence. She looked down at her hands, frightened at what it would mean if she revealed her own illness to him.

He leaned his head close to hers and murmured, “Don’t worry, Wynsome. I shall cut you a second slice, and if you can’t finish it, only slip it to me and I shall help you. I shan’t tell your little mother.”

She looked up in time to see him wink.