Brede and Eirik have good news

Sir Brede found two grim-​​looking men in his hall. It seemed that Iylaine had not come home. However, they were calm enough that he did not think they had found her body.

“Any news?” he asked softly.

“No news,” Malcolm said after a moment, when Egelric did not reply. “But we heard you had some here.”

“That’s so,” Brede said. “Would you like to see him?”

“That’s why we’re here.”

Brede lifted his head and shouted, “Eirik!” He knew he should have gone quietly or sent a servant, but there was something almost feral about the two men, and he feared they would go slinking away again if he did not watch them closely.

They heard a door off the gallery above being gently closed, and then Eirik came stomping down the passage, shouting as loudly as Brede: “Boy! What are you yelling for? If that baby he wake up, I stuff your head – Egelric!” His voice softened. “You have found something?”

“No,” Malcolm said. “We came to see your baby.”

“Oh! That’s fine. I bring him down.”

Eirik went quietly away, and Brede asked, “Have you two even slept?”

“Did we sleep, Malcolm?” Egelric asked thoughtfully.

“I don’t remember,” Malcolm said.

“Can I offer you a bed?” Brede asked. “Or something to eat?”

“We’re not hungry,” Egelric said.

“Or tired,” Malcolm added.

“Oh,” Brede shrugged.

“How is your sister?” Malcolm asked after a moment, seeming to drag the question out of some depths of studied politeness in him.

“She’s doing well. She’s sleeping. All the ladies are still abed.”

“Not the gentlemen?”

“We slept last night,” Brede said ruefully. “Somehow we got so drunk we passed out on the benches.”

“You were drunk?” Malcolm laughed.

“I learned my lesson last time when Finna came: the only way to tolerate a drunk and worried and pacing Eirik is to get drunk with him.”

“I’m sorry I missed that,” Malcolm said, but he stopped laughing abruptly, as if he had just remembered what he had been doing during that night instead of drinking.

The awkward silence endured until Eirik came in with his new son. “Harald,” he said proudly. “I want to call him Harald for Harald Fairhair, but so, he come and he have brown hair like Sigrid.”

“So he called him Harald for Harald Bluetooth,” Brede said. “There’s still a chance his teeth will turn out to be blue.”

“Shut up, you mongrel,” Eirik snapped.

Malcolm smiled.

“A fine son,” Egelric said.

“So, you want to hold him?” Eirik proposed.

“I had better not,” Egelric said. “I’ve had reins in my hands for so long I don’t think I could hold anything else just now.”

Eirik coughed. Clearly he did not know how best to show off his son before a man whose daughter was missing.

Malcolm came to his aid. “Good morning, Harald Redhair!” he said to the baby. “What do you think of the world so far?”

“So, you want to hold him?” Eirik asked him.

“I don’t think so,” Malcolm smiled. “I never know who is more scared: I or the baby.”

“He don’t bite. He don’t have any teeth of any color.”

“I’m scared anyway.”

“Ah! I always say the same, and look at me now. So, I think someday you have ten or twelve of these, and like it!”

Malcolm smiled briefly, but Brede winced. It was kindly meant, but it was a poor thing to say to a young man who had spent two nights and a day searching for the lost young woman he intended to make the mother of his children.

Brede had never seen Malcolm do such a poor job of hiding his feelings. Perhaps he truly had not slept since Iylaine had disappeared. Perhaps he had simply never had such overwhelming feelings to hide. Brede remembered how he had felt when Estrid had gone away – and he had known that Estrid would be well and safe.

“We should go, Malcolm,” Egelric said quietly. “It looks like rain,” he explained to Brede.

But Brede did not miss the look Egelric and Malcolm exchanged afterwards, as each thought to himself that Iylaine might find herself huddling under a tree somewhere, trying to keep herself dry – or that her body might lie abandoned to the rain in some field, cold beneath the cold October sky.

After they had gone, Eirik said uncomfortably, “So, I think if they come last night, we have to start all over again with the wine.”

“They certainly would sober up a man,” Brede sighed. “I try to tell myself that I need only imagine how I would feel if it were Dyr who was lost. But I can’t imagine.”

“Or Estrid or Sigi.”

“Or Estrid, or Sigi,” Brede agreed.

“Or Olaf or Daeg, or Harald Pinknose here.”

“Or the boys. But I think it would be harder if it were a girl. They’re so…”

“I know.”

“Harald Pinknose, you say?” Brede asked, turning his attention to the squirming baby.

“His nose is already pink.”

“True.”

“So, you want to hold him?”

Brede laughed. “Do you mean to keep asking people until you find someone to take him off your hands?”

“He make a face like I know what it means, so I think Uncle Brede will like to hold him now.”

“Oh, you think!” Brede snorted. “That’s what nurses are for.”

“I don’t take any chances. She might be sleeping. If I ever change one diaper I can never say no again, like you.”

“You still haven’t changed a diaper? And you think you’ll manage to have ten or twelve of these and never change one?”

“That’s what Uncle Brede is for.”