Elfleda finds a baby

The farmers thought the autumn came too soon that year, and though the harvest left by the storm was meager, they worked as hard as ever, trying to make the most of the little they would have.

Egelric Wodehead worked from dawn until the dark that came a little earlier each day, riding alongside the Duke as he went from field to field, directing the hands, and teaching Alred what he knew about the business of farming. He was steward now in all but name, and often slept at the keep after spending the evening going over the next day’s plans with his lord.

He still went home to Elfleda from time to time, but he had workers of his own now to mind his farm, and so he went more out of a sense of duty to her than any practical reason.

Since the storm, Elfleda let him alone for the most part. All that concerned him was that she keep up the house and feed the hands. For all he knew she was sleeping with one or more of them, but he no longer cared. He expected he would learn about it at the same time as everyone else, when her belly would grow too big to hide.

One night in mid-​October, however, even he felt like celebrating: that evening after dark they had burned the stalks piled in the fields—since childhood one of his favorite rites of autumn.

He had stood at the edge of the forest with the Duke and the other men, all equals for an hour or two in the ruddy firelight as they drank the new cider and watched the peasant children run from stack to stack with their torches, leaping among the flames like grubby devils. The Duke had admitted that there must be a few advantages to growing up in a thatched hut.

But after a few hours of rediscovered boyhood, Egelric had felt the old sorrow return to its roost and close its talons over his claw-​worn heart. There was no point in staying any longer. All the delight had gone out of him, and so he had said good night to his friends and turned towards home.

Egelric could still smell the smoke on his clothes and in his hair as he walked up to his farm, and he wished he were both himself and a woman so he could snuggle up next to himself and breathe it in. Elfleda never could stand the smell and would have made him bathe before taking him into her bed, but what say had she now? He would stink and like it. She could sleep on the floor if she didn’t. He chuckled grimly to himself as he opened the door.

But the house was dark and the fire cold. “Damn her!”

He was about to go to the keep instead, but then he thought he had better find out where she was. She might hate him, but she didn’t make a habit of absenting herself in the evening—at least not without banking the fire and putting supper on the back of the stove.

He would just take a look around the back of the house and then go ask at—at the Ashdowns’.

Sure enough, he found her under the birches at the edge of the forest, where she had liked to stroll before he cleverly built a fence across her path. But—what the devil was she doing over there? His blood ran cold as he made out a small child on the ground before her. Oh God, was it Wynnie Hogge?

He began to run, but as he drew near he saw that the child was fair-​haired. So it couldn’t be Wynnie, and he couldn’t think of any blond children of that size from the neighboring families. Had she gotten into a peasant’s hut?

“Elfleda,” he barked, “what is the meaning of this? Where did you get that child?”

Elfleda continued cooing at the baby.

“Damn you, woman, answer me!”

“Don’t talk that way before Baby,” she scolded gently as she stood and turned to him.

“Where did you get that baby?” he repeated, growing furious with her as she looked at him with the same vacant, dreamy-​eyed expression she had worn when she had stolen away with Wynnie Hogge.

“It’s my baby,” she said. “It’s our baby. Don’t you remember? You don’t recognize her?”

“Leda—our baby was a boy! And he had dark hair! And he—and he died! Don’t talk nonsense, where did you get this baby?”

“In the woods. I found her. She’s no one’s baby, so she’s my baby,” Elfleda said proudly.

Egelric’s shoulders slumped. “She must have wandered off from someone’s yard. You can’t keep her, Leda. Let me see her,” he sighed as he kneeled before the tiny girl.

But when he came close enough to see her clearly he gasped, “Dear God in Heaven! What is it? The child has pointed ears!”

The little creature drew back from his shout as suddenly as he drew back from the sight.

“It’s a demon! My God, woman, what have you done?”

Egelric leapt to his feet, and Elfleda swung the baby up into her arms.

“A demon! Pooh! Dada says you’re a demon child,” she giggled. “Well, what does he know, the big silly man?”

The girl grinned, showing off a row of perfectly normal, un-​pointed teeth.

“Let’s go in and have some nice warm milk,” she said. “Egelric, won’t you go get Baby’s cradle down from the loft?”

“Leda! Don’t you dare take it in the house!” he ordered.

She turned to him with a confused smile. All of the bitterness had gone out of her face and been replaced with a gentle glow. She looked like a girl again herself. He hadn’t realized how hard she had grown.

“And you aren’t putting it—that—that creature into my son’s cradle!” he added, choking off a sob.

“You don’t have a son, dear,” she reminded gently. “You have a daughter.”

He followed her into the dark house, at wit’s end.

“Dada will make us a fire, darling, and fetch us some milk from the barn.”

Egelric did make a fire, grateful to have something to do for a few minutes while he tried to figure out what to do next. The child was uncanny.

When he turned back to Elfleda, she and the baby were staring adoringly at one another.

He cursed the God who had taken his dark-​haired son from him, and along with him the sweet-​faced, gentle girl he had married and who had been reborn before his eyes, with this—this unholy creature in her arms to make a mockery of his little boy.

He went out, slamming the door, furious—and afraid. He would go see the Duke. He didn’t know what else to do.

But the Duke was not returned from the fields, and so Egelric could only leave a message begging him to come to the farm at once. Egelric dared not go back into the house, and so he paced anxiously outside, looking up the path through the woods towards Nothelm.

At last the Duke arrived, walking quickly, for he knew that Egelric would not have called him to the farm for nothing.

“What is it, Egelric? I came as soon as I could.”

“I think Your Grace will need to see what Elfleda has done, or you will not believe me.”

Alred thought with grim amusement that he could believe almost anything of Elfleda Wodehead, but he willingly followed Egelric into the house.

Egelric strode over to the fire without a word, leaving Alred to take in what was to be seen.

Alred looked for the catastrophe. At first, he thought, “Elfleda has a baby.” Then he thought, “Elfleda has a blond baby that doesn’t seem likely to be Egelric’s.” Then he thought, “Elfleda was never pregnant.” And then he saw the ears. “Jupiter, it’s an elf child!” He whistled.

Elfleda gave him a canny look.

Egelric turned round. “An elf?”

“What else? In God’s name, Elfleda, where did you—how did you find an elf child?”

Elfleda only smiled to herself and hummed.

“Elves aren’t real!” Egelric protested.

“How do you know? What do you think it is, then?”

“I don’t know—a demon?”

“You think demons are real and elves are not?”

Egelric threw up his arms in an exasperated shrug.

Alred said, “Everyone knows someone who knew someone who had a grandmother who was a foundling.”

Egelric froze, then turned his head slowly to look at Elfelda over his shoulder.

“Leda, your grandmother used to say that her grandmother was a foundling.”

Elfleda sniffed and shrugged without looking round.

“Anyway,” Egelric said, turning back to the Duke, “those are only stories.”

“If someone’s grandmother was a foundling,” Alred reasoned, “someone’s grandmother’s parents had to find her one day.”

Alred seemed to be taking it easily, so Egelric began to relax. “What do we do with it then?”

“It’s like fox kits and baby squirrels, I suppose. You must take it back to the forest where you found it, so the elf mother can find it again.”

Elfleda’s head whipped around. “No!”

Alred stared mildly at Elfleda, one brow raised, until she turned back to the baby. Then he stepped closer to Egelric and whispered, “You keep her here, I’ll go get some help. When we get back, we’ll take the baby out and you’ll hold Elfleda.”

Egelric nodded and Alred began to move toward the door. Elfleda eyed him narrowly. Alred considered that she was the one who looked like a demon.

After he had gone, Elfleda relaxed and began playing with the baby again. Egelric stood in the corner and watched her with sad eyes. He would try to remember what she looked like, for he thought he would never see her smile like this again.

At last Alred returned with Theobald Selle and Ethelmund Ashdown. Elfleda began to sense what was brewing and clutched the baby to her breast, pacing the room and eyeing the men anxiously. They all watched her, wondering how best to separate the two.

Finally Egelric had an idea. “Leda, darling, let me hold Baby while you go warm some milk.”

Elfleda hesitated, circling him and bouncing the child in her arms.

“Leda, dearest, she must be hungry. Here, darling, come to Dada and Mama will make you some nice milk before bed.” He held out his arms to the baby, smiling.

Elfleda hesitated a moment longer and then, faintly smiling, handed the child to him and turned into the kitchen. Egelric watched her go, wondering briefly whether he was doing the right thing.

But Alred was quick to act and had already taken the little girl from his arms. “You need Theobald to stay and help you hold her?” he whispered.

Egelric shook his head. “No, go,” he said hoarsely.

At once, the three of them left with the baby. Elfleda heard the door slam behind them and shrieked, whereupon began the longest night of Egelric’s life.

Elfleda ran in from the kitchen, but he was waiting for her behind the door and grabbed her as she passed. He wrestled her, screaming, to the bedroom and threw her on the bed, where he thought she was least likely to hurt herself. He then lay down upon her and pinned her arms, and he held her there for hours as she screamed and moaned and spit and kicked and clawed and bit at him, until her voice was a ragged whisper and her lips were torn and bleeding.

She lay panting for a while longer, her red eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling until at last they fell closed, and her body went limp. Still he held her, fearing she was pretending, then wondering whether she might not in fact be dead. He felt for her heartbeat and found it slow but steady.

He rolled off her and sat on the edge of the bed, his whole body shaking. All at once he jumped up, stumbled outside and vomited. Then he limped over to sit down on the step and held his head in his hands as he sobbed in exhaustion. He noticed he could still smell the smoke from the bonfires on his clothes, and the odor made him lean over and vomit again.

At last he sat quietly, spent and aching in all his limbs, and stared blankly at his trembling hands as the night sky paled into dawn. He had never hated himself more.