Estrid has one ally

Brede was humming softly to himself when he came into the bedroom. He had the look of a man who had been enjoying himself all evening, and who was still glowing with a lingering pleasure.

Estrid had not spent a pleasant evening, and she scowled at him from the bed.

“Hallo, Puss!” he said. “Waiting for me?”

“Yes.”

“That’s sweet.” Still humming obliviously, Brede sat in the chair and began to unlace his boots.

“At the castle so late?” she asked after a while.

“I told Selwyn to stop by and tell you I should dine there. Didn’t he?” He looked up at her, and his brow finally furrowed in concern. “Say, Puss… you don’t have one of your sick headaches, do you?”

“No.”

“Oh! That’s fine.” He turned his attention back to his boots.

Estrid’s nose flared in repressed fury. How dense men could be! She could lie seething with rage on her bed, and he could sit humming at his boots. She wondered how long it would take him to figure it out. He probably wouldn’t notice anything was the matter until he tried to touch her and she shoved him off. It was the only thing the men understood!

After he had removed his boots, he stood and inspected his beard in the mirror, scratched his shaggy head, and began undressing.

Her cat jumped down to the floor to sniff at the empty boots and then twine himself about Brede’s legs, growling a greeting.

“Hallo, mutt,” Brede said. He shooed the cat away with a bare foot, but Hundr returned to rub himself against his master, purring audibly now. Traitor!

Brede widened his stance and let the cat fawn over his feet while he removed his tunic and shirt. Estrid saw she would have to speak up. It was hard to be angry at him when he was naked.

“Brede,” she said coolly.

He called back an absent “What?” and then laughed at the cat’s enthusiastic caresses. “You mongrel! Go dig up a bone or something! Go on!”

“Brede, You’re not paying attention to me.”

“I’m sorry, Puss,” he said contritely, but still grinning. “What is it?”

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Well, ask.” He looked down again, this time to untie the knot that held up his trousers.

“Do you want to have more children?”

He laughed. “That wasn’t precisely what I was thinking just now, but it’s as good an excuse as any. Damn these knots!”

“Brede! Be serious!”

“What? Of course I do. There.” He untied his knot at last, but he looked up at her suddenly and smiled. “Trying to tell me something?”

“No, no,” she grumbled, and was hurt when he looked disappointed and went back to undressing.

“So! You do!” she cried. “You do, don’t you? Want more sons!”

“Well, of course I do. More sons, and more daughters, too—why not? Don’t you? Say…” He let his arms fall and gave her a suspicious frown. “You’re not going to be like Hilda, are you, and complain about bearing children? I think it unbecoming of a wife.”

“No! I only want to know why.”

“Why what?”

“Why you want more sons! Is it because Daeg isn’t good enough?” She sat up quickly as he slipped his legs out of the last of his clothing. Now he was naked, and she thought he would be coming for her.

Instead he froze. “Good enough? What man wants only one son and one daughter? Your father would have had more if he had lived.”

“Ah! But there was nothing wrong with my father’s first son!”

She waited for him to tell her that there was nothing wrong with theirs either, but he did not. Instead his head drooped, his hair fell over his face, his shoulders sagged—his entire body went limp, with just enough rigidity in his spine and knees to keep him standing. He looked as if he had been slain by a sentence.

They had never spoken of this thing before, and suddenly she was frightened that it had just made an enemy of him. She saw too late he was her best hope for an ally.

“Brede…” she quavered, close to tears.

He let himself sink slowly onto the bed beside her. For a moment, he sat with his back to her. He looked so tired, so forlorn. And he had been so merry when he had come in. She had done this to him, and she could not remember why.

“There’s nothing wrong with Daeglan,” he sighed.

He lowered himself down beside her and pulled her head onto his chest. The rumbling of his voice beneath her ear seemed to come straight from his heart.

“It’s only because he has a twin as a comparison,” he said. “Without clever Dyr to make him look dull, you would only think him a little boy who takes his time about growing up.”

He gently dragged his nails up and down her back, making her arch against him like the cat.

“Do you think?” she asked, hoping to hear more.

“He does everything Dyr does, only a few weeks or a few months later. Doesn’t he?”

Estrid lifted her head, the better to stare off into fair vistas that Hilda’s cruel words had cloaked in shadow for a while.

“That’s true,” she agreed. “And so, he is a big, strong boy. Bigger than all the boys his age.”

“And boys are always stupider than girls anyway. You ought to know that better than anyone,” he teased. “Especially when they become men. So who has been filling your head with nonsense about Daeg?”

“Hilda.”

“I thought so,” he sighed.