Egelric Works at the Church

After Egelric Wodehead had finished clearing the church, the Duke asked him to oversee the workers who would build the new roof. The King had grandiose ideas about building a bell tower and a new chapel, but like the Duke he had come to trust Egelric’s judgement and decided that there would be time enough for further additions in the coming year.

Once again, Egelric spent his days away from his farm, and Elfleda was left to herself most of the time. In truth, after the night she took the Hogges’ baby, he preferred not to be too close to her if he could avoid it. Their evenings together usually ended with a fight.

It was rarely about anything important, which meant it was rarely about what was really troubling their marriage, but Egelric was too tired of resisting her constant attempts to drag him into an argument, and so he argued. The worst was that Elfleda seemed to bring it on in order to have an opportunity to finish him off with some crushingly cruel insult.

Those evenings he would walk down the hill to the Hogge farm and sit with Alwy until the lights went out at his house. He would still have to get into bed with her, but he preferred to wait until she was asleep.

Egelric thought that he had made her understand that it was pointless to steal someone else’s baby: in such a small community, everyone recognized everyone else’s children. What worried him now, thanks to Alwy’s remark that night, was that she would find someone else with whom to have a baby of her own.

But from the church roof, he could easily see the goings-​​on at his farm across the road, and he kept an eye on Elfleda while he was away.

Meanwhile, Elfleda was more lost than ever. Without children to care for, she was able to finish her housework by noon most days, and then the long wait for nightfall would begin.