Hilda and Estrid give their opinions

“Good afternoon, ladies,” Brede said as he came into the house, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

Lady Hilda was looking around the dusty, cluttered room with a faint sneer. He supposed she was comparing it to her own fine house.

But it was unfair, he thought – her house had been built for her from the ground up, and over the course of a year, while he was trying to make a pleasant habitation out of a gloomy old barn that had been as ill-​​used by the serfs who had dwelled in it recently as the cows who had been stabled there some years before – and that within the space of a few weeks, not to say as rapidly as possible, since he had no idea when his brother and sisters would arrive.

But worse than Lady Hilda’s sneer was Estrid’s look of interested appraisal. He knew she saw herself in it already, and the thought made him distinctly uncomfortable.

“Good afternoon, Sir Cousin,” Hilda said with the slight tone of mockery she always reserved for communication with him.

“Please don’t call me sir yet,” Brede corrected.

“We came to see your house,” she said as she strolled between the barrels. “Is it true it used to be a barn?”

“It was built for that, but you see it’s rather fine for a barn now.”

She curled her pretty lip and said, “Rather.”

Estrid only hung her head.

“I am told the cherry orchards will be yours now,” Hilda said, swinging herself around to face him.

“They are.”

“How lovely,” she purred. “If you open the barn doors in the spring you will see the trees in flower.”

“You can see them now.” But he thought she had only said it to have an opportunity to mention the barn doors.

“Better than a garden,” she said with her air of condescension. “Quite fortunate, really. Estrid simply adores cherries.”

“You’re both welcome to them,” he said coldly.

“I doubt Estrid will like to share.”

“Oh, Hilda,” Estrid muttered.

“Yes, dear. I know I am one too many. I shall leave you two and get out of this gloom before I wilt.”

Estrid lowered her head again until Hilda had sauntered out.

Brede waited, wondering whether it was better to speak first of something inconsequential, or wait for her to speak, if she dared. It was the first time they had been alone together since Sigefrith had announced his imminent promotion.

He was now grateful that he had been wary enough to avoid making her any promises – it would have been easy to offer what he thought he would not have for years in exchange for something he might have from her right away. But he did not doubt that she had her own ideas.

“Were you busy?” she asked finally.

Happy that she had offered him an opportunity to escape, he said, “Yes, rather. I’m so busy these days, I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing half the time. With the building and the ploughing and the sowing and the harrowing…”

“It is funny to hear you speak of such things,” she giggled.

“I feel as if I am suddenly someone else,” he admitted with a sigh. “And I don’t know how the someone else ever managed it.”

“You will manage it.”

“I must.”

“When do your brother and sisters come?”

“I don’t know. Soon. My uncle wrote they would leave in the spring, and it’s quite spring now.”

“I shall like to meet them.”

He shrugged again.

“Will you show me your house?” she asked suddenly, looking up at him.

“There’s only this room and the other smaller one. It’s dark in there; there isn’t even a bracket for a torch yet. Come see.”

He led her to the doorway, and they stood in the gloom that was barely relieved by the northern light from the open barn door on the wall behind them.

“I suppose we shall sleep in here for now,” he said. “It will be some time before I can turn my attention to the house. There’s too much work to be done on the barns and the kitchens and so on, and Sigefrith still has all of the stonemasons busy at the castle. Not terribly cozy, is it?” he sighed, hoping she would be quite discouraged by the prospect.

“I suppose it could be made so. Are your sisters clever with their needle?”

“I suppose so.”

“They might make hangings for the walls and rugs for the floor,” she suggested.

“I suppose they will.”

He waited for her to make some comment about a woman’s touch, in general, but she did not. Instead she said, “I suppose you will be happy to see them again.”

“Of course. But I think it will be difficult,” he mused. “I shall see them without my mother, and I think it is only then that I shall realize that she is truly gone.”

“I think it was so for Eirik,” she said softly. “When I go to Tryggvason to live with him and our aunt, and he see me the first time without our mother.”

Brede only grunted. It was difficult for him to imagine any human emotion in the shambling beast that was Eirik.

“But I tell you something. It is easy for you now, and difficult for you when they come, but so it will be difficult for them now and easy for them when they come. I know. Now they have no mother, and they know she is gone, but soon they will have you, and they won’t feel so alone.”

“But they have one another now.”

“That is so, but it is not the same. An older brother is something good to have. But you must take care of them, and be like father and mother.”

“I shall make a silly-​​looking mother,” he chuckled, and immediately regretted it, as he expected she would propose herself for the task.

But she did not. “No matter. They will like to have someone take care of them again. I think this is why Sigefrith put you here.”

“Oh, you do?”

“I think. Not for you, but for them.”

“Did he tell you so?”

“No, it is what I think. I think you will make a good knight, but, so, it was not necessary to do now. I think he think of how they feel, how they will like to come and stay with him and he be like a father to them. I think he want you for that. But it would not be so unless you have your house and are lord in it; at the castle you would only be four children all together.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said after a while.

“It doesn’t mean I think you won’t be a good knight,” she smiled. “And, so, perhaps you like to spend a few more years playing with swords and hawks and horses before you think about planting and harrowing. Now you must be a man.”

“I suppose I don’t mind…” he said.

He expected her to observe that a man needed a wife, but she did not. “So, a busy man, too!” she laughed. “I forgot you have work now, you don’t have time to waste with me. And Hilda will ride home and leave me here if I don’t come soon, so I leave you to your work. I see you at supper some time when we come.”

“That’s right,” he said, and now that she was leaving she seemed so adorably inoffensive that he pulled her close and kissed her. “Behave yourself,” he said.

“I shall!” she promised.