Wynflaed gets up

Sigefrith was sleeping soundly, as evidenced by the way he breathed in through his nose and out through his lips. Wynflaed had not yet identified the mechanism responsible for this behavior; she could not emulate it if she tried. She had to assume that it was a talent granted to men alone.

She still found it strange to wake next to a sleeping man after all of the nights they had spent in the little cabin, each trying to keep the other awake when all either had wanted was to collapse onto the pillows and sleep side-​by-​side.

But these days she was grateful to find him asleep, and one of her greatest fears was that she wake him with her illness. He was a busy man and needed his sleep, but if he woke and found her missing he would invariably get up and come to her. And so sometimes she would lie through the night quaking with her pain and not even daring to toss and turn. Anyway, she knew that tossing and turning would not help. There was only sitting in a chair.

If he was breathing in through his nose and out through his lips, though, she thought it would be safe to get up. She could get up and sit until he came to her, and then she would return to bed no matter how she felt. She hoped he would give her some time.

It was on nights like these that she most missed her old home. She longed to return to her mother’s kitchen table and sit up with a lamp for company. The kitchen was homelike and familiar, and there she would not be disturbed by anyone except her loving family.

There was no room in this fine house where she felt so comfortable. Even in her own bedchamber she might be disturbed by a maid. Even at night there were servants everywhere who might or not be sleeping. Worse, Lady Ragnhild’s brother Eirik was here, and he went in and out at odd hours of the night like an enormous blond cat. One of her greatest fears was that she would meet him alone.

The safest place for her was the gallery overlooking the chapel. She had only to walk past the doors to the children’s rooms and she was there. No one came to the gallery at night: even if a devout servant had a prayer to say, he or she would go directly to the chapel below. The gallery was reserved for the family alone, and it was the last place on earth where one could expect to meet Eirik son of Haakon at night.

She told herself that the chapel should have been a comforting place. She should have felt safer here, wrapped in the loving-​kindness of God. Indeed, she loved to come here for Mass, when the candles were lit and the morning light streamed in slanting rays through the clouds of incense, tinted golden by the colored glass of the great window. But at night it seemed a very gloomy, desolate place to her. It seemed empty even of God.

Her greatest fear, above all others, was that she would not live long enough to bear her child. She had not spoken this fear to any except God, and so she found little comfort here where God was not.

In the last month or two her pain had been with her every day, whereas in the past it might have struck her only once or twice a week. Now an ache nagged her constantly, and nearly every afternoon she carried around a burning agony in her chest in addition to the heavy, squirming child in her belly. And every night the visitor returned, except it seemed to be crushing her as well as burning her, and at times even breathing was difficult unless she was sitting up.

She was sorry now she had not asked her mother for more details about her symptoms before the black lump had begun growing beneath her skin. Wynflaed’s breast and side were still smooth and clear, but she was beginning to fear that her lump must be growing on the inside of her. She was tired all the time, and light-​headed, and so often in pain.

She was not yet as sick as her mother had been before she died, but she still had two months to wait for her baby to come, and she did not know whether she would make it. At times she was so miserable she was not certain she could bear to live that long. If she did, it would be for love of Sigefrith and his child.

“There you are!” Sigefrith said softly. She could hear on his voice that he was smiling.

Wynflaed’s head snapped up. She had not even heard the door open. She thought perhaps she had been dozing.

“I am beginning to think I can be as bad as I like, with such a devout little wife to redeem me,” he said. Nevertheless he kneeled and crossed himself before coming to sit beside her.

“You should be sleeping, Sigefrith,” she scolded.

“When I’m ninety-​and-​nine and on my deathbed, I’m certain I shan’t say to myself ‘I wish I had slept that night instead of sitting up with my wife.’ Besides, it’s good practice. I shall be doing a lot of waking up in the middle of the night in a couple of months.”

“Then you should sleep now,” she insisted. “Ow!” Her baby had just given her a sharp kick to the diaphragm, as if he had recognized his father’s voice.

“What was that?” he asked eagerly.

“The baby just kicked me.”

“Which one?”

“Oh, Sigefrith, no!” she moaned.

Sigefrith gleefully laughed. His father had recently made the pronouncement that Wynflaed was having twins. Because he had once done so himself, he considered himself an absolute authority, and there was no saying him nay.

“You had better not let my father hear you,” Sigefrith warned, “or he’ll take the one you don’t want.” Such had been Leofric’s threat when Wynflaed had insisted that she was not having twins.

“It’s easy for you to laugh,” she complained. “You don’t have to carry them.”

“You carry them for nine months, and then I carry them for years afterwards, even when they get big and sit on my shoulders and pound on my head, as Dora does.”

“You like it,” she giggled.

“I like it until she starts trying to steer me by tugging on my hair like reins.”

“You like that, too.”

“It’s true, but don’t tell Dora. What about you, Wyn? Can I coax you back onto a saddle again?”

With some help she maneuvered herself onto his lap, though awkwardly enough that she understood why even ladies who disregarded the danger nevertheless did not ride when they were as heavily pregnant as she.

But Sigefrith had already purchased two pretty palfreys for her, a merlin, and a little white owl, and he was looking forward to next spring when he would teach her to ride like a lady and hunt with her birds. The thought only reminded her that she might not see the next spring, and she shivered a little and clung to him, though she was more unhappy for him than for herself.

“Which one kicked you that time?” he asked, but gently enough that she suspected he knew it had not been the baby to hurt her, and he began to stroke his hand slowly up and down her side.

“The one your father can keep,” she said, trying to laugh.

“Oh, dear! I hope it isn’t the girl.”

“You think you will have one of each?”

“I think it would be a fine thing to have a lady and a looby in one go.”

“What if they are both boys?”

“Hmm,” he mused. “That would be trouble. Then loobies would outnumber ladies in this family, four to three.”

“But aren’t you a ninny… what does Sigefrith call you?”

“A lot of things! Ninnyhammer, you mean?”

“That’s it,” she laughed, though it hurt her.

“Ninnyhammer is nothing but an honorary title usually granted to the Crown Prince of Loobies.”

“Does that make your father the King of Loobies?”

“I shall tell him you said so the next time I see him,” he laughed.

“Oh, no! Sigefrith!”

“What? He loves you. I always have to check his pockets when he leaves to make certain he’s not trying to sneak off with you.”

She shook her head and squeezed him again. It was something to be surrounded by the loving-​kindness of men such as these. There was more comfort to be found in Sigefrith’s strong arms and in his gentle hands than in an empty chapel. Perhaps this was the way the Lord did His good work upon the world.

And yet there was her pain that chased her out of his bed and into the chapel, and her pain that would be waiting there for her when he took her back to his bed. At times she thought that this was the way the Lord meted out His punishment for her sins.