Wynna Hogge Is Missing

The day of the Earl’s feast came, and the King and the Queen had gone to Nothelm Keep to meet the Duke and his wife so that they could walk there together. On the way, they stopped at the home of Goodman Hogge to leave his little lordship with Gunnilda. She often took care of Dunstan when the Duchess was away or needed a rest, since he and Sigebert were almost the same age and played well together.

The King, who adored babies and wasn’t shy about visiting in peasants’ huts, stepped inside to say hello to little Wynna. Alwy was awfully proud to see the King himself holding his baby girl.

But once Matilda had settled Dunstan in with Sigebert in the “pigpen” that Alwy had made to keep his boy out of trouble, it was time to leave, and Sigefrith gently put Wynna back onto the floor. Wynna was beginning to crawl very well, but she never seemed to get into things like her brother did.

Gunnilda certainly had her hands full that evening with the two boys. They seemed to make trouble better as a team. After dinner they managed to pull a bowl full of strawberries onto the floor and they were alternately rolling in them and eating them when Gunnilda found them. She was in the middle of giving them a bath when the Duchess came in to get her little boy.

Matilda thought that everything her little lord did was brilliant, so she was more proud than angry to find him with strawberries in his hair. Gunnilda was simply relieved that the evening was over and she could go back to having only one troublemaker to take care of.

She was about to call Alwy in from chopping wood so that he could dump the bathwater and give the strawberry mess to the pigs when she realized—if Alwy was out chopping wood, then where was Wynnie? She put Sigebert into his pigpen and asked the Duchess if she could keep an eye on him for a moment.

She looked in the bedroom, under the bed, under the table… But she couldn’t find Wynnie anywhere.

The night had been warm so the door had been open. She ran out into the yard, but there was no sign of Wynna there.

She went around back to where Alwy was chopping wood. “Alwy, where’s Wynnie?” she asked, her heart beginning to pound.

“Well, I don’t know, Gunnie. I was working out here most all day. I thought she was with you.”

Alwy laid down his axe when he saw how white Gunnilda suddenly became.

“She can’t go far, Gunnie,” he said. “Did you look under the bed?”

Gunnilda nodded, trembling. “I already looked all over the house. Oh Alwy—if she got in with the pigs!”

Now Alwy went white. “You stay here, Gunnie,” he said, as he started for the pigpen, afraid of what he might find. He had a particularly mean hog. Gunnilda followed him anyway.

But there was no baby in the pigpen, nor, Alwy noted, any blood.

Gunnilda was whimpering, and Alwy tried as hard as he could to think of what to do now. “Just think, Gunnie: if you was a baby what could crawl, where would you go?”

“To my mother!” Gunnilda sobbed.

Suddenly Alwy had an idea.

He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew where that baby was. He had to keep Gunnilda calm. “Gunnie, you just go take Bertie to the Ashdowns and you tell Ethelmund to come here and help you look around the yard. I’m gonna go get help.”

Gunnilda nodded and went back into the house to get Sigebert.

Alwy went around the house and headed back towards the Wodeheads’, but instead of going up to the house, he went up the hill towards the woods behind the keep. Sometimes when he went to the outhouse late at night, he would see Elfleda Wodehead walking around back there.

The moon was bright, and he could see a figure moving among the trees. As he got closer, he could see that it was Elfleda—and she was holding a baby in her arms.

“Hello, Alwy,” she said.

“Hello, Elfleda. I guess that’s my baby you got there.”

“I don’t know, Alwy. I don’t know that Gunnilda would miss her very much if she were my baby. I’ve had her all evening and I bet Gunnilda didn’t even miss her, did she?”

“Well, I don’t know. She was real busy with his lordship and Bertie, but I guess she’s real fond of Wynnie too.”

“Oh Alwy, a pig farm might be all right for a boy, but it’s no place for a little girl to grow up, is it?”

“Well, I don’t know. Pigs is real clean animals if you let ‘em be.”

“Come, Alwy, we don’t have to tell anybody. You can come and see Wynnie sometimes, and Gunnie will forget about her soon enough, she’ll just have more babies and forget all about her.”

“Well, I don’t know, Elfleda.”

“Alwy, you know I asked you if you would give me a baby, and you wouldn’t, so I took one you already had. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“Well I don’t know, that don’t sound real fair to me.”

Just then Alwy turned as he heard footsteps coming down the hill behind them.

Ethelmund Ashdown had already thought to ask Egelric Wodehead for help finding baby Wynnie. Like Alwy, Egelric thought he knew where the baby might be, but like Alwy, he didn’t tell anyone his suspicions and just headed back towards the woods.

His fears were confirmed when he saw Alwy and Elfleda near the pond.

“Let me talk to her, Alwy,” he said softly. “She’s a little confused right now.”

Alwy nodded. “Did she hit her head too?”

“Something like that,” Egelric said.

Egelric approached his wife. “Elfleda, dearest, you can’t keep that baby.”

“Egelric, dearest, why not? Look at her, she looks just like you.”

Egelric hadn’t seen his wife smile like that in months. Some part of him wished too that it could be so easy. “No, dear, people will recognize Wynnie. And just think of how Gunnilda will feel if you take her baby away from her.”

“She already has one, and she can have others.”

“So could we,” he said, and instantly regretted it.

“Not with you,” she snapped.

“Elfleda, I’ll make you a baby if you just give me back Wynnie,” Alwy said softly.

Egelric choked. “That won’t be necessary, Alwy.”

“I just want my Wynnie back,” he whimpered.

Egelric turned to his wife. “Enough of this, Elfleda,” he growled. “This has gone on long enough. Give me that baby immediately.” Elfleda stared at him. “Immediately,” he repeated.

Elfleda silently handed the baby to her husband.

Egelric put Wynna in her father’s arms. “I’m sorry, Alwy. And please tell Gunnilda I am deeply sorry as well.”

“Well, I don’t know. I guess I’ll just tell Gunnie I found the baby out in the woods. I guess I did, too.”

“Thank you, Alwy. There are some things you understand better than most people.”

“Good night, Elfleda,” Alwy said.

Elfleda just stared at him.

“Come along home, Elfleda,” Egelric said. “Immediately.”

Elfleda followed, looking back at Alwy all the way.