Cenwulf and Alred meet

Egelric wasn’t the only one to have noticed the new sign in the heavens. The next day a few peasants spread the word, and the following night everyone had stared up at the light and muttered predictions of doom and destruction.

None doubted the significance of the apparition, all remembering the result of the last such omen. Such lights were said to be signs of the death of kings and the destruction of kingdoms.

In Lothere castle, King Sigefrith was sick with worry, but not over the danger to his own head. Exhausted by her terror of the thunder, Maud had taken to her bed during the storm and had not risen since. Her belly was enormous, but the rest of her seemed to be melting away. Sigefrith spent the long, hot days sitting at her bedside, watching her face as she slept, an increasingly haggard look on his own. He had no other concerns and would not meet with the Earl.

Cenwulf met Duke Alred on his way back from the castle one sweltering August afternoon.

“How goes it in Nothelm?”

Alred shook his head. “We’ve planted wheat but it doesn’t look as if it will amount to much come harvesttime. And we’ve found out the peasants have been feeding the grain that was dampened by the storm to the pigs, and it’s killed a lot of them. It looks all right at first glance but it’s far gone to the mildew. It’s lucky they haven’t been eating it themselves.”

“Lucky indeed! Mine have been. We’ve already had a few very sick, but no deaths, praise be to God. How are they talking?”

“From what Goodman Wodehead tells me, there’s a lot of grumbling about curses and such rot. This evil star isn’t helping matters. Thank the gods it’s fading.”

Cenwulf sighed mightily. “Bad, very bad.”

“I don’t know anything about this, Cenwulf: I’m just a soldier; I’m not a farmer and I’m not a lord either – what do I know about managing men and the land? Thank God for Matilda, and thank God for her uncle the Earl, who let her watch him rule.”

“I haven’t been able to get it through Sigefrith’s head,” Cenwulf said.

“How’s Maud?”

“Not well. Don’t tell Matilda this, but I’ve seen Colburga shaking her head.”

Alred thought back to his own wife’s difficult pregnancies, and how she had so recently told him that she was expecting again. “I can’t blame him.”

“I can,” Cenwulf said, frustrated to the edge of anger. “Is he a king or is he a husband? Maud could die, and all this will still be out here waiting for him to step up and rule! You and I are out all day riding up and down the valley trying to piece this kingdom back together, and he’s sitting up in his bedroom watching his wife die! A fine king!”

Alred sighed. They were both exhausted. “Let’s go to the castle tonight and try to talk to him, both of us.”

Cenwulf grunted. “I doubt it will help, but we’ll try.”