The Philistine draws nigh to meet David

In the eight or ten strides it had taken to arrive at the end of the passage, Alred had told himself that he would have to prepare himself – he would have to be strong for Hetty, whatever was wrong with the baby.

He had tried to think of all of the afflictions he had ever seen on children, tried to combine them all in his mind into something impossibly grotesque so that whatever awaited him behind the ominous door would seem a relief.

But his mind was arrested by the memory of a child that had been born to one of his maids years before – a monster with one head, two faces, three arms, and four legs – and he thought he could not…

But the child in Maire’s arms had not a visible flaw.

Alred was astounded. The baby was not only well-​​formed but even, he fancied, a remarkably handsome child, with fair skin, dark hair and dark, slanted eyes.

The boy too seemed astounded, for he stopped his mewling when his father came in and stared up at him in surprise.

“Disappointed?” Alred asked him. “It’s the beard, isn’t it?”

“I don’t…” Maire murmured. “I only held him on my shoulder to free my hand…”

Maire and Gunnilda were staring at one another with blank faces and wide eyes, and Mother Duna was chattering to herself in Welsh. Hetty was hooting hysterically upon the bed – he could not tell whether she was laughing, crying, or both – and Hattie was attempting to calm her in two languages.

Alred was beginning to think that men were ordinarily excluded from the birthing room merely to prevent them from seeing how daft ladies could become. And they had always mocked him for blubbering into his wine when the time came to wait and wait and wait!

“Did you see that, young buck?” he asked the baby. “I made it in! And the heavens did not crumble down around our ears, did they? That does it! I hereby declare that I shall be present to see my own children come forth henceforth, and so forth.”

“I don’t…” Gunnilda mumbled.

“Neither do I,” Maire smiled dazedly. “His little hand touched the cross I wear…”

“Baby’s first attempted robbery!” Alred cooed.

Gunnilda began to giggle an hysterical, straight-​​faced accompaniment to Hetty’s gibbering.

Alred leaned over to attempt to steal a first kiss from his little brigand, but the baby let out a hearty wail.

“Damn! It’s the beard. I knew it. Listen, son. You will look like this someday yourself, so get used to it. Has Hetty seen him yet?” he asked Maire.

“Alred!” Hetty sobbed.

“I shall be with you forthwith, my beauty,” he called, and then he paused to smile to himself out of sheer, dizzying happiness. It was the first time he had managed to call his new wife by that name, and it had slipped out so easily that he thought the words would never stand between them again. He felt as if another dark cloud had crossed over his horizon.

“May I take him to her?” he asked Maire.

“I… don’t see why not…” she said and allowed him to take the baby from her arms.

There was nothing wrong with the boy at all! He was as warm and twitchy and squinty-​​eyed as newborn babies were supposed to be, pink-​​cheeked and round – positively rotund in fact. Alred laughed in glee.

“Why – Hetty!” he gasped when he finally turned his eyes from his son to his wife. “You’re not even dressed! Is that why you ladies are all looking at me as if I were a duck in a henhouse?”

Maire’s giggle was joined to Gunnilda’s.

“Because, ladies, if you think I am seeing something I haven’t seen before, you and I and your mothers need to have a talk about how this little Bethlehemite was made.”

“Alred!” Hetty scolded.

“Hetty, dear Hetty, wait until you see what a giant-​​killer we have made! Now, listen closely, son,” he said gravely to the sober-​​eyed baby. “We might as well get started with these lessons now. This person who is about to hold you is a lady, which you can tell by virtue of the fact that she has no beard. And in this family we treat ladies with respect. That means… well, for now that means you must act as if you like her better than me, which you already seem to be doing.”

Indeed the baby was beginning to twitch and squint most vehemently, and he appeared to be working up the courage to lift up his voice again in song.

“I know, I know,” Alred sighed. “The beard. And David said: ‘The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine!’”

“Alred!” Hetty laughed. She too, who had been so strangely pale when he had first looked at her, was growing fair and rosy.

“Here he is, my beauty,” he said to his wife as he nestled the baby in the crook of her arm. “I have the honor of introducing you to my new friend David. Never fear – I am far too short for the boy ever to mistake me for a giant and try to slay me.”

“Ach, Alred!” she scolded, but with her baby snuggled against her bare skin, she finally looked truly well, truly happy.

“I do not know whence came your inspiration to name him David, but I must thank you a thousand times, my dear. I think I shall not have had so much fun with my Bible since Egelric came home with God and My God in his train.”

His wife was already too lost in adoration of her baby to pay his nonsense much attention, which was quite as it should have been, he thought. But he could not resist one last tease.

“And it’s a good thing, too, for otherwise I don’t know how I could forgive this boy for coming eight months after our wedding and making his father look like a dishonorable man.”