Alred will still

“I love you two ninnies,” Alred whispered.

“We love you, too!” Britamund squeaked, too stunned to give anything more than the automatic reply. Then she understood the import of the occasion and squealed, “Dunstan!”

Alred hushed her harshly: “Shhh!”

Britamund gasped and stood perfectly still but for the shaking of her hands, as if the merest annoyance could have sent him back to that unreachable country—as if by beginning to wake he was coming closer to death than he ever had. This was too much responsibility for her.

“Water, please…” he whispered hoarsely.

That was something even she could handle, and she rushed to fill a cup.

He carefully, awkwardly drank all she brought him, and the sight of this once robust man lipping at the cup like a toddler smote Britamund’s fond heart, steeling it still further against Hetty and her folly.

“Forgive my abrupt greeting,” he croaked once the cup was dry. “I did not want my first word to be a plea for water.”

“But—that’s—perfectly all right!” she whispered.

He patted her cheek limply and then attempted to push himself up to sit. He had only lifted his shoulders off the bed when the blankets slid low enough to reveal his bare torso. There were scars enough there from battles long since lost or won, but his wounded flank was clear.

“Jupiter!” he breathed. “I thought I…”

“You—did,” Britamund said quickly. “Paul and his friends healed you.”

He let his shoulders fall back against the headboard. “Jupiter… I remember what I did, but somehow I don’t remember doing it…”

“It’s—not important…” Britamund whispered. She glanced back at Dunstan, desperate for some assistance—for someone who would either rejoice with her or tell her to run for a nurse or for the King or for anyone…

“How is the poor boy?” Alred smiled fondly. “Up all night?”

“Up every night and every day, almost,” Britamund sighed. “He’ll sleep three days straight himself after this.”

“Three days?” Alred winced.

Britamund winced in reply. “It’s almost Thursday morn…”

He lifted his head away from the wood only to let it fall back with a thud. “Jupiter,” he said flatly.

Britamund felt the rising horror of disbelieved prophecies beginning to come true. In the last days her father had begun so many ominous phrases with “If he lives, he’ll never again…”

“How is Hetty?” he asked. Before she could reply he turned his head and looked at her keenly. “Where is Hetty?”

“She’s here, she’s here,” Britamund reassured him. “She’s sleeping. She…” She paused to take a deep breath, reminding herself not to judge, as Dunstan had reminded her for days. “…isn’t speaking. But I am certain she will be grateful to learn you are awake.”

Alred’s nose twitched, but instead of rubbing it briskly as he often did when perplexed, he only lifted a hand and gave it a clumsy swipe.

“Well in mind? Well in body?” he muttered. He looked keenly at Britamund again and asked, “How’s the baby?” Then he held his breath.

“Very well, as far as we can tell such things…”

He nodded and sighed. Then his face softened beneath her gaze like ice melting into honey. “How are you, my beauty?” he smiled. “Three days?”

“We are well—only very worried about you, you silly man.”

“I meant you, you—lovely you.” He smiled still more tenderly at her and stroked her cheek with such gentleness that his abuse of his nose could only have been intentional. “Tell me I haven’t upset you.”

“Of course you upset me!” she gasped.

“But you are well in mind and body,” he asked wistfully, “in spite of my folly?”

The eyes he turned on her were still tender, but they were also vague and sadly wise, as if he were staring through her—or down inside of her…

“Yes…” she ventured shyly.

“That’s worth waking up for,” he nodded. “I would have done it sooner had I known it had been three days. I would have awoken…” He paused and wrinkled up his face in concentration. “I think it was this afternoon? There was light in the window. Your father and Eadie were here.”

“It could have been.”

“Oh! I simply couldn’t do it, my dear,” he sighed in exaggerated weariness. “There was Eadie, talking on and on about Stephan’s… digestive difficulties…”

“That was this afternoon, then,” Britamund giggled. “Stephan was sick today.”

“That’s it, then.” He lifted his eyes mournfully. “And your father was sitting there, bored to tears, trying to pick his nose when she wasn’t looking.” He shook his head sadly. “I simply couldn’t do it, Brit. I could not let it be known that the first word I heard upon waking from the sleep of death was ‘diarrhea.’”

Between the absurdity of his speech and the woeful gravity of his face, Britamund was forced to smash her face into the blankets to muffle the sound of her wild laughter. Whatever else “he would never again” do, it seemed Alred would still know how to make his friends laugh.

“Begging your pardon, my dear,” he said, patting her head gently. “But you must grant I am only repeating what a lady said. Only six-​year-​old boys and grown mothers are capable of holding forth for long minutes on such indelicate subjects. Though I am told grandparents are at least willing to lend an ear.”

He turned a shrewd gaze on her again.

“It would be more to the point if they lent a hand,” she retorted, but she felt her traitorous blush warming her cheeks. “Are you attempting to pry a secret out of me, sir?”

“Is there a secret stuck in you?” he smiled indulgently. “I think it is bound to free itself sooner or later.”

“And I think you were awake more than just this afternoon,” she scolded. “I already told you a secret when you were sleeping. I thought it might wake you up.”

“Ah! You told me?”

She leaned close and whispered, “I whispered it to you.”

“Ah…” He leaned back against the bed and looked up at the ceiling. “In the summer, you said?”

“Yes,” she giggled. “You did hear me!”

“Perhaps I did…”

“But don’t tell Dunstan,” she pleaded. “He wants to tell you himself.”

He ignored this and asked thoughtfully, “A boy or a girl, did you say?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. What would you like?”

“A girl,” he said immediately.

“A girl, then. But don’t you want an heir straightaway?”

“A girl this time, my beauty.”

He lifted her hand and pressed it against his cheek, as gently as he had touched her own, but he lifted away his hand so carefully that it seemed he intended to find out whether hers would stay.

When he saw that it would, he said, “Please. Have a pretty little girl.”