Sigefrith finds Alred
“Hmmph! That’s quite a beard you’ve grown, there, Dunstan,” Sigefrith said sarcastically as he came in.
“Why, thank you, Beebee,” Alred said with a faint smile. “Thank you for reminding me I need to shave, that is,” he added, rubbing his chin.
“I shall be honest and say I am damned surprised to find you here. Every time I come, Dunstan tells me I just missed you. However, I believe he has been lying to his king. You wouldn’t have ordered him to do so, would you?”
“Certainly not. I have been here for at least an hour every day, so he might have been telling the truth.”
“Nonetheless, Egelric tells me you have been spending an absurd amount of time with him lately. Or his wife, rather.”
Alred hung his head and sighed in weariness. “You don’t understand, Sigefrith. She’s… she’s restful. Do you have any idea how rare and wonderful such a person is?”
“I suppose I do, since I married such a person.”
“Oh,” Alred said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Perhaps she will be someday when she has grown out of her shyness.”
Sigefrith frowned slightly, annoyed that Alred should find Egelric’s elf wife so superior to Eadgith in any way. Was her shyness still such a problem?
“I’m pleased that you have been getting your rest, Alred, but don’t you suppose it’s time Dunstan had a little rest as well? You’ve left him holding the reins, and even Apollo’s bodily son couldn’t drive his chariot unaided.”
“He’s done remarkably well, wouldn’t you say?” Alred asked, waving at the neat piles of books and papers on the table before him.
“He has done very well for a boy his age.”
“It would appear,” Alred said bitterly, “that all the boy needed to allow him to shine was to be rid of me.”
“He’s too young.”
“You were eleven when your father died, and I was not quite ten. Dunstan is twelve.”
“And his father is not dead.”
“That is perhaps, as I said, all he needs.”
“Don’t start with that. You know you don’t mean it.”
“Don’t I?”
“No, you don’t. You are too honorable and too Christian a man. What is more, even if Dunstan doesn’t need you—and with that I do not agree—your other children still do. When do you mean to bring them home, Alred? I’m delighted to have them, but don’t you suppose they should be home?”
“Are you certain they would be better off spending their days with me?”
“I think so. More importantly, you would be better off. If Yware wasn’t making you laugh, he would at least keep you busy trying to prevent him from getting into too much trouble. And Gwynn and Meggie have been storing up so many kisses for you they have begun to overflow onto me and Eadie and her brother and even some of the household pets. And the Old Man is simply his old giggly self.”
Alred gave a choking laugh and rested his forehead on his hand. “It reminds me of what Matilda said to me once. When she was expecting Margaret. She said she would leave me Dunstan to watch over me and worry over me, and Yware to make me laugh, and Gwynn to love me. And she didn’t know what Margaret would do for me… besides… kick me…”
He pressed his thumbs into the corners of his eyes as if to stop the tears at the source. Sigefrith sat quietly.
“And she told me… what her father said to her… when he died. He said: ‘May you have a happy’—” He choked and sobbed.
Sigefrith moved to rise, but Alred waved one hand to bid him sit, and he laid his head down in the other. Sigefrith sat and watched his shoulders tremble, but Alred was learning to ride out these waves of grief, and he soon lifted his head again.
“Very well, old man,” he murmured. “Let them come if they will. I want to get them before the girls have descended from kissing the household pets to kissing the household pests.”
“I did see Gwynn eyeing a rat rather oddly the other day,” Sigefrith smiled gently.
“But, first, you must answer one question for me.”
“What’s that?”
“You never mentioned the baby. Did it live?”
Sigefrith rubbed his hands over his knees awkwardly and tried to read Alred’s face. This question was easy enough to answer—but the next?
“She’s well, so far as I know. She was a little ill for a few days, a while back now, but she… I suppose she’s well now.”
“I lied. I have another question for you.”
“What?”
“Do you think I am a monster for not wanting to see it?”
“A monster?”
“Theobald loves Maud, for all she was the cause of her mother’s death. And you know what Matilda was to her father. I tell myself I ought to adore it all the more, but I can’t. I don’t even want to see it. Do you think I’m some sort of monster?”
“Of course not. Every man is different…”
“You don’t think it will die, will it?”
Sigefrith shrugged uncomfortably. “It would seem she doesn’t intend to. She could always fall ill.”
“Perhaps I could love it if Matilda had. I don’t think she did.”
Sigefrith sighed.
“Do Leofric and Leila truly intend to keep it?” Alred asked.
“I—”
“I suppose I should go see it. Even if you don’t think me a monster, I’m certain a few others do, beginning with Leofric, who seems to see every baby girl as proof of God’s enduring love for the world, and for him in particular. Couldn’t we convince him that she’s actually some long-lost granddaughter of his?” His half-smile made it seem only a half-joke.
“I don’t know…”
“What does she look like, anyway? I don’t even know. Does she look too much like Matilda?”
“Not terribly much, I’m told,” Sigefrith said slowly. “It would seem she will have her eyes. I’m not much use for spotting resemblances in babies.”
“Ah,” Alred said. “Of course. Listen, old man, why don’t we…”
Sigefrith smiled in relief. “Why don’t we ride to my humble lodgings and fetch your runts home before Gwynn and Meggie start kissing the frogs in the moat?”
“And lose a chance to gain a handsome prince?”
“The only time I’ve ever seen a handsome prince in that moat is when your son threw mine into it.”
“I hope Caedwulf returned the favor.”
“It’s the only way Yware ever learns anything! Though he has primarily learned how to run faster.”
“That’s the only reason I survived to the age of twenty,” Alred smiled fondly.
That smile was fair to see. His children were what he needed, Sigefrith thought, so long as he didn’t think too much of the child that wasn’t his.
