Ethelmund gives Gunnilda an idea

Gunnilda laughed. Ethelmund had a knack for imitating his neighbors, and he had just been to market, where he had ample opportunity to observe them.

Lately he had been going to Nothelm market rather than up the hill to Bernwald, and so he was able to imitate the neighbors she knew. This exchange between the egg woman and the toothless cheese woman had been too funny, and true enough to life that she scarcely missed going to market herself any more.

She was only sorry that Bertie had not been around to hear it, as she was whenever she heard something funny or interesting – and then she remembered that Bertie was not terribly fond of Ethelmund Ashdown.

“Won’t you sit down, Ethelmund?” she asked when she had recovered from her laughter. “Your throat must be real dry from walking up the hill, if not from croaking like the toothless cheese woman.”

“I thank you, but I never knew that applying a chair to my behind would do much to wet my throat.” He winked at Bedwig, who laughed. Bedwig loved Ethelmund.

“I mean sit down and I’ll pour you a drink!”

“Ohhhhh,” he said, as if he had only then understood.

Of course it was a joke. It was odd to be around a man who not only understood her jokes but who made jokes of his own. With Alwy, she had grown so accustomed to offering her jokes up to the empty air that the fact that he never understood or laughed had almost become part of the jokes to her.

They had also served as wry acknowledgement to herself that she lived on a plane above Alwy, at least in her mind, and if she could not love him as she thought she ought to love her husband, she thought this superiority had been some consolation. But Ethelmund’s wit and cleverness unnerved her: his mind was not as keen as Egelric’s, say, but there were times when she suspected he was more clever than she.

“Did you get her?” she asked as she began to pour, hoping to get her mind off Alwy and the many differences between this man and Alwy.

“I got her!” he beamed. “And such a price! Even if she loses her foal, she’ll be worth more than what I paid.”

“You’ll be sorry you didn’t get her for yourself.”

“Now, what would I do with a lady’s horse?”

“Give her to Colburga.”

“Mistress Colburga already has a horse. It’s your turn to get one, and about time, even if you can’t ride her until next summer.”

“I don’t know but I guess old Cherry is good enough for me.”

“Old Cherry has a longer beard than I do. And you need a pretty little horse, not a tall, gangly thing like Cherry. Let Beddy ride her – he’s gangly enough. And let me see about the beard,” he teased and tried to grab Bedwig’s chin. Bedwig laughed and squirmed away. It was true Bedwig loved Ethelmund.

“Oh, Ethelmund,” she sighed as she sat. “I don’t know what I would do without you for some things.”

Gunnilda had always overseen many things on her farm, but she had learned that there were some things a woman simply could not do. Bargaining for livestock was one of them.

Then there were other things that she had not even guessed at, and which Alwy had apparently always done so quietly that she had never known they had to be done. Managing the hands was one of those. There were some who could apparently take orders from a simple man more easily than from a woman.

And yet some of those problems had vanished, too, in the last months. Egelric might have smiled his wolfish smile and offered up the blasphemous suggestion that it had been due to the workings of the Holy Ghost upon her farm. So he would have done if he himself had been responsible for the changes. But these days she would have been scarcely more surprised to meet the Holy Ghost on her farm than Egelric. Sir Egelric, rather. He was on a plane so far above her now that his head was lost among the clouds.

She opened her mouth to say something – anything that would take her mind off of Alwy, Egelric, and Ethelmund, and the differences among the three men.

But Ethelmund spoke first. “Now, I thank you for mentioning that,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

Gunnilda’s eyes went wide. She had just slipped into a trap of her own making.

“Beddy,” Ethelmund said solemnly, “would you and Gytha kindly go play outside so I can talk to your mother?”

“What about our candy?” Bedwig asked.

“Beddy!” Gunnilda gasped.

Ethelmund only chuckled and turned out his pockets. “I thank you for mentioning that, too,” he said to the children. “I had almost forgotten.”

Once Bedwig and Gytha had gone away with mouths already full of sticky candy, Ethelmund said to her, “I’m glad to know you find me a help to you, Gunnilda, but sometimes I find it difficult to be of as much help as I like, living so far away. And I don’t like the idea of you and the children up here at night without a man. And – ”

“But we have William,” Gunnilda protested feebly.

Ethelmund blinked at her. “William is a dog.”

“I know…”

Ethelmund went on. “And I’m certain Wynnie has told you that my wife’s nephew Leofwine expects to be knighted in the autumn, and then he will have his own house, and his mother and sister and brother will be going to live with him there. Then my children will be down at my house all day without a woman.”

“But you have Colburga…”

“Colburga is nearly fifteen and will soon be married. And, Gunnilda, even if it were not necessary, don’t you suppose I should like to have you there?” He searched out her hand beneath the table and brought it up to hold it in his own. “I hope this doesn’t come as an unwelcome surprise,” he said.

“Well, noooo…” she said and laughed nervously.

Certainly it was what everyone expected. Even if Ethelmund had only been once to her house, all of the gossips would have been talking. As it was, he came nearly every day to be certain she needed nothing, or to render certain services she could not handle alone, or even only to fetch his children home.

It was what everyone expected, and what everyone wanted. It seemed the most desirable thing: both had been recently widowed, and while Gunnilda had not been born of his class, she had risen high enough to aspire to marry a gentleman farmer such as Ethelmund. Ethelmund had young children in need of a mother, and Gunnilda was young enough yet to have more children for him. And everyone said her farm was too big for a single woman to manage.

Only the Duke seemed unhappy with the idea. He said nothing against it, but he always snorted with an apparent impatience when he learned that Ethelmund had just come or Ethelmund was expected. She would have liked to have thought that it was for Egelric’s sake… but Egelric was married. If she thought of Egelric, it was almost like hoping for his wife’s death. That would be a grave sin, and would certainly not be rewarded, neither on earth nor in the hereafter.

“A welcome surprise, perhaps?” he smiled.

“Well… a surprise!” she finally said.

“Have I been so discreet?”

“Well… I don’t know but I guess I’ve just been so stupid.”

He laughed. He squeezed her hand with the assurance of a man who thought it already his, or who was confident in his abilities to win it. She saw there would be no cringing and whining and begging for kisses on the part of this man. He would take what was his.

“When were you thinking?” she murmured.

“After Hildegith leaves, and after the heaviest of the harvest is past. After Holyrood Day, perhaps.”

Alwy would have been dead over a year by then. She could make no objection on those grounds. She could make no objection on any grounds. She had slipped into a trap of the world’s making. She would have to make the best of it. Ethelmund Ashdown was not a bad man.

“You’ll give me a little time to think?” she croaked.

“Of course I shall, if you’re surprised. And we can talk about how we will manage with your farms and mine, and the workshop, and the houses, and so on.”

She nodded. “I just need a little time.”

“That’s fine.”

She already knew what she would say. She simply needed a little time to get used to the idea, and to bury certain others forever.