Matilda offers to help

Alred looked up from his letter with a smile. “Good morning, my beauty.”

“I’m not disturbing you, am I, Alred?” Matilda asked shyly.

“Impossible.”

“To whom are you writing?”

“I’m answering your cousins’ letter, my dear,” he said, rising. “And I’m telling them just what I think of them for waiting around in Ireland while their king is fighting to regain his kingdom.”

“Oh, Alred, you can’t do that!” she smiled.

“I know you won’t let me send it once you have read it. But it shall have done me good to write it. Now, never mind your cowardly cousins, tell me how that young acrobat is this morning?”

“He’s quiet today. I think he wore himself out last night.”

“Still think it’s a boy, do you?”

“It must be. Even Yware was never this wild.”

“It could be another young Matilda, you know.”

She laughed. “I hope not, for your sake! Oh, the merry dance I led my father!”

“How I should have liked to have known you then!”

“Think you would have tamed me?”

“I’ve only had ten years so far and haven’t made much progress. Another fifteen or twenty more might have helped.”

“You shall have them, but I don’t think it will be enough.”

“Nor ten times twenty.”

“Alred, did I hear you coughing just now?”

“Ach, Matilda, I was certain you would ask me that.”

“Don’t you think you are working too hard?”

“You can blame Sigefrith for taking Egelric away from me. God help him if he doesn’t bring him back.”

“I do blame Sigefrith. You and Cenwulf can’t handle everything alone. You don’t even have Theobald to help.”

He shrugged. “‘C’est la vie,’ as our friend William would say. What would you have me do, Matilda?”

“Let me help you.”

“You?” he sniffed.

“I managed well enough when you and Sigefrith were at Ely.”

“You had Egelric, though. Anyway – what am I saying? It’s out of the question. I’ll not have you working in your condition. You need to be resting.”

“And I’ll not have you working in your condition!”

“My condition? This again? Matilda – I have been ‘dying’ for the past two years. It’s simply a habit. You and Sigefrith and all the rest of you need to realize that. I look like hell, but I’m perfectly fit. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you! I hear you coughing all night long! You think I don’t, but I do!”

“And? Nothing ever comes of it – I’m still here, and still working. Whereas you – !”

“Me?” she cried.

“Look at you! The bigger your belly gets, the smaller you get! You need to be in your bed, resting. And you come down here and tell me – what? You want to be out there walking behind a plough?”

“Don’t be absurd! I could ride out and look over – ”

“Ride? Absolutely not! Absolutely not! I shall not have you on a horse! You may write to your cousin if you wish to help me, but no more shall you do! That is my command. And, clever as you think yourself, don’t you dare go out without my knowledge. If you want to kill your own damned fool self, you may do as you please, but you shall not harm our child.”

She turned away, stung. “You don’t think I would?” she said softly.

“I know you wouldn’t mean to, dear,” he grumbled, “but damned if I don’t have to remind you sometimes that you’re not a man.”

She tried not to laugh, but he was just too funny.

“Come upstairs before dinner and prove it to me,” she whispered and slipped out the door.