Leofric is called to order

Leofric looked up from the fire as the King and the Princess were announced.

Ever since he had been told of their approach, he had been desperately trying to think of something to say to Sigefrith. But he could not decide what to say until he knew what Sigefrith meant to say – or why Sigefrith had come at all. His exile had lasted long enough that he had expected it to last a good deal longer.

Britamund smiled frankly up at him, as she always did, but Sigefrith glowered for a moment. Then he laughed as if he could not help himself.

“Damn, Leofric, I meant to be angry at you, but I look at you and I remember how many times my stepmother sent you to call me to order for some escapade of mine, and you came in to find me with what must have been precisely the same look on my face as the look you are wearing now.”

Leofric relaxed. “Are you come to pay me back for all those times?”

“Not at all. Brit wanted to see Eadgith, and I momentarily forgot you were here too. Is she here?”

“She’s up with Leila and the babies. Shall we go see them? You can meet Liss. She’s nearly as beautiful as her mother.”

“I should like to have a word with you first, all the same.”

“May I go?” Britamund asked.

“Do you remember your way, or shall I call a page?” Leofric asked her.

“I remember. I want to surprise Eadgith. May I go?”

“Go ahead, Princess,” her father said, and she ran to the stairs.

“Between my daughter’s fascination with your daughter and my son’s fascination with your son…” Sigefrith laughed.

“My children are fascinating people. But they have it from their father. I remember your fascination with me, when we were young,” Leofric grinned. “And even now! You know you missed me, runt.”

“I suppose I did, and so it grieved me that I could not bear to see you.”

Leofric’s smile faded.

“I have already spoken to Eadgith. I did not find her to be as deep in the wrong as you. Her greatest crime seems to be in wishing you dead, and if I were in her place, I am not certain I would not do the same. You will admit that her situation is difficult. You demand her fidelity and you offer nothing in return.”

“I – It is not only I who demand it, but God and the law!”

“I know it. I am not proposing you allow Eadgith to take a lover. I only wish you would admit her situation is difficult to bear, and not make it worse by taunting her with it. First of all.”

“Oh, there’s more?” Leofric grumbled.

“Indeed. Secondly, I wish you would stop bickering over your children. Sigefrith has, perhaps, the advantage of disliking you enormously, and you cannot blame that entirely on his mother’s influence, but rather on his love for his mother and his respect for ladies in general. But you make life miserable for Eadgith, you know.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t you? If you have ever spoken of her mother in her hearing, I can’t believe it has not been something cruel. And her mother is as bad, constantly criticizing you and – worse than that, for she has not earned it – Leila, of whom, I believe, your daughter has begun to grow quite fond.”

“What does she say about Leila?” Leofric asked, bristling.

“That is beside the point. The point is that each of you attempts to make the girl feel guilty – when you are not criticizing her outright – for loving the other, when it is precisely in so doing – in loving you with all of your great faults – that she is at her most sublime.”

“I haven’t said a word about her mother since we have returned,” Leofric muttered.

“Very good. I fear that her mother was quite furious with her when she came home for… for Maud… and she found out that Eadgith had attended your daughter’s birth. It may be that Eadgith won’t wish to return to her brother’s for some time after the treatment she received there, for which I have also lectured her mother. So I hope you will take care of her.”

“I certainly shall. I knew she would be happier here if only she could come to love Leila. Hilda is not the sort of girl I should like around my baby in any event.”

“Nevertheless I am sore at her mother for depriving the rest of us of her presence.”

“You know where to find her, runt.”

“The proof is that I am standing here. But before I allow myself the pleasure of greeting her, there is one more thing I should like to say.”

“Say it.”

“About me and your wife, and about the implication – which is unbearable to me – that Eadgith would find reason to rejoice in the death of my wife…”

“Ah, that,” Leofric muttered.

“Whatever may be her feelings for me – and I did not discuss them with her – such a thing as you proposed is out of the question. For a great many reasons, which are not your affair. I have told you already to stay away from Eadgith, I have told you already to stop fighting over your children, I have told you already to stop speaking of Eadgith in your daughter’s presence – and here I find myself telling you all of these same things again. But I shall tell you this now – if I ever again find myself in the position of needing to tell you a second time that what you proposed between Eadgith and me is out of the question – and especially if it is because of something you said to her–then it is likely you shall never hear it, for I shall not wish to speak to you again for a very, very long time, and you and I are both getting old. Understood?”

Leofric nodded.

“Now,” Sigefrith said, relaxing into a smile, “let us go up and see your lovely wife and our beautiful daughters.”