Hilda tells of her new pet
“Oh!” Hilda sighed dramatically once she had removed her cloak and sat in Brede’s favorite chair. “I said good morning, but it feels like good midnight in here!”
“The new hall will have windows, you know,” Estrid said smugly. “Yours doesn’t.”
“If we built a new hall, I’m certain it would. But why bother building? We shall have Raegiming some day.”
“There aren’t any windows in that hall, either,” Estrid smiled maliciously.
“Oh, well! Then we shall build another, I’m sure. But no one has a window like the tall one in the chapel there.”
“Saint Margaret’s chapel has a nicer one. And besides, at Raegiming the window is of red glass, and, so, it makes me feel like I sit in Hell when I hear Mass there.”
Hilda laughed. “It’s like my father-in-law to use Mass as a practice for his afterlife!”
Synne laughed with them, even though she had never been to Raegiming, and even though she didn’t particularly like Hilda’s father-in-law. It was well known that Lord Hingwar liked to look at women, and it infuriated Synne that he never looked at her, seemingly proving that she was only a child. At the same time, she thought she would be terrified of the man if he ever did turn his eyes upon her. The things Hilda said about him…
“What?” Synne gasped. Hilda had been talking to her.
“I asked you, doesn’t your brother let you out of the house any more, coz? Or don’t you like to come see me?”
“Hilda,” Estrid scolded.
“What?” Synne asked. “I don’t know. Estrid never wants to go out lately.”
“You went to see Matilda yesterday,” Hilda accused.
“Ask Estrid. I never get to decide when and where we go out,” Synne grumbled.
“Poor dear,” Hilda soothed. “Brede’s a bit of a beast ever since Sigi… But it’s because he loves you, remember that.”
Synne sighed.
“I was simply astonished that you hadn’t come to see my new pet yet,” Hilda smiled slyly.
“Hilda, hush,” Estrid said.
This caught Synne’s attention. “What pet? What kind of pet? A deerhound like Eadie’s?”
She had been begging Brede for a pup like Eadgith’s, but Brede was not fond of dogs. Their father had loved dogs.
“Oh…” Hilda said thoughtfully. “More a mastiff than a hound. A big, hairy sort of dog.”
Estrid scowled.
“Is he still a puppy?” Synne asked eagerly.
“He’s still young yet,” Hilda laughed. “Still gets into trouble. Doesn’t pee on the floor or chew my shoes, however.”
“That’s what Brede always says,” Synne sighed. “Can’t we go see him, Estrid? Or, why don’t you bring him with you some time, Hilda? Is it too far for him to run?”
Hilda laughed and laughed. “Ask Brede if I may, coz, and tell him I promise that he will neither pee on his floor nor chew his shoes.”
“Oh, Hilda, stop!” Estrid said, laughing in spite of herself.
“What? Are you afraid he might pee after all?”
Estrid doubled over with laughter. “I hear he don’t know how to hold his drink so well yet!” she cried.
Synne laughed hesitantly. She did not think she quite understood. Her sister-in-law and her cousin were silly at times, but she did not think that the mere mention of puppy pee was enough to set them off like this.
“That’s no danger in this household!”
“But what if he – if he starts – starts loving Brede’s leg or something?” Estrid choked.
“Good Lord!” Hilda cried. “I shall take him across my lap and spank him till he howls!”
“Don’t tell him, or he’ll do it – just so you will!”
“I don’t think he’ll risk it,” Hilda giggled. “Brede so dislikes dogs!”
“Especially this one!”
“What’s the matter with this one?” Synne asked.
This only sent Hilda and Estrid off into peals of laughter. Synne smiled in confusion.
“Oh, Synn!” Estrid panted. “She don’t have a new dog! It’s a boy, she’s talking about.”
“A boy?”
“Haven’t you heard the Earl got a new squire?” Hilda asked.
“No,” Synne said.
“I suppose I can blame Brede for that!” Hilda cried. “He would rather she didn’t know there was such a thing as boys in the world.”
“Oh, she knows!” Estrid sighed.
“Who?” Synne asked.
“Well,” Hilda said, clearly savoring the opportunity to impart this interesting information, “his name is Leofwine. He’s the nephew or something of that man who made all of the furniture at Raegiming, like what Matilda has in her bedchamber, you know.”
Synne nodded, though she did not care to hear about the furniture.
“So – he’s only a gentleman’s son, but that’s better than your Bertie, isn’t it? And he’s fifteen, I think.”
“Too old for you,” Estrid said.
“Oh, nonsense!” Hilda cried. “How old are you, coz?”
“Thirteen tomorrow!” Synne glared at Estrid.
“Lovely! Let us think, girls… how old were you, Estrid, when you first kissed Brede? And don’t tell me it was your wedding night. Even Synne is not so innocent as that.”
“He wasn’t even here when I turned thirteen,” Estrid scowled.
“You were, however, thirteen, when he arrived,” Hilda said. “And let us think, girls… how old does that make Brede at the time? Why – I do believe he was fifteen!”
Estrid scolded Hilda in Norse.
“That is very impolite, Estrid,” Hilda said haughtily. “Synne, dear, I am, however, not suggesting that you immediately begin kissing the young squire.” She spoke in the elaborate English she liked to employ to fluster Estrid, who was far less talented at languages than she. “I only meant to refute Estrid’s assertion that he is too old for you. On the contrary, I find him too low-born for you, but that is no reason why you mightn’t meet him.”
“Brede is the reason she mightn’t meet him,” Estrid said.
“Brede had better decide!” Hilda snapped. “Let her live her life, or put her in a convent! It’s bad enough to be shut up all the time in this dungeon of a manor with that mad priest you call your uncle!”
“Brede knows what is best for her.”
“What nonsense! Brede is scarcely more than a boy himself. And Brede ought to know that it is possible for a girl to keep her thighs together until she’s married, since you played the trick on him.”
“The trick!”
“Would he have married you if you had given him what he wanted?”
“Brede loves me!” Estrid hissed.
“Wasn’t it you yourself who told me that he would respect you for refusing him?”
“So he did!”
“So! I call it a trick.”
“And I call Haakon a trick! Quite a trick you played on Sigefrith!”
“Ladies!” Synne cried in alarm.
“Sigefrith knew what he was about!”
Estrid shrieked something at Hilda in Norse, to which Hilda replied in kind, and more loudly still.
The rude wooden door of Synne’s uncle’s tiny room swung open. The priest stepped out silently and stood before them, direful as the wrath of God.
Synne had not even known he was there, and she blanched at the thought of what he might have heard, had he been listening.
His rebuke was delivered to the two older girls in Norse, and Synne felt somewhat relieved that he did not seem to be addressing her, for a change. Still, she understood in part, where there was similarity to her own language, and she knew that he knew it. The word “sin” was the same in all of their languages.
