Hilda wakes in her bed

Hilda tried to open her eyes but only rolled over and groaned instead. What an idea! Making the sun shine in the morning! Putting a window in her bedroom!

She very nearly cursed God for having created Light on the first day, but then she remembered some of the things she had said last night, before she had drunk herself into calmness, and she thought she ought not to make matters worse.

Some of the things had been quite blasphemous, she realized now, and she had even frightened herself with the viciousness of her maledictions. It was one thing to pretend to cast spells when one was a little girl, as she and Estrid had used to do, but even the same childish chants seemed to ripple with power in the mouth of a grown woman when the curses were called down upon the head of a grown man.

She enjoyed being malicious for the fun it gave her in watching others squirm, but she did not want to be an evil woman. She decided she would ask for an appropriate penance for attempted witchcraft the next time she went to confess.

And then she would giggle about it with Estrid. It was a shame she didn’t dare tell Estrid the target of her curses. She would probably think it was Sigefrith, which was a little unfair to Sigefrith, but Leofric… she didn’t dare tell…

Hilda rolled onto her back again and groaned a second time. Her body hurt beyond what the wine could have done to her. She had not realized that Leofric had brutalized her to such an extent. She felt as if he had lain upon her and crushed her for a while.

Indeed, as soon as she tried to sit up and became aware of her aching, sticky thighs, she wondered whether he had not done so after all, after she had fallen asleep, or rather passed out, as it seemed. She had not even put on a nightgown… unless it had been removed from her body.

She shuddered with revulsion. Surely he had provided sufficient proof of his ability to do as he threatened the night before. He had not needed to come back to make good on his threats. Surely not when she was in no position to defend herself – nor even to bite and scratch and kick, as he claimed to like! Her face twisted again with hatred for him. She scarcely regretted the curses any longer.

And then she thought of her husband. Such an act was not like him – he was not real man enough to force his lawful wife to lie with him, but nor did she think him coward enough to wait until she was unconscious. Unless his father had put him up to it.

She dressed and went down to the hall, sneering with disdain for Sigefrith and hatred for his odious father. But she had to calm herself when she came in, for her brother was there with Sigefrith, along with Stein, and, most importantly, her eldest two children.

“Good morning, Mama!” Dora cried, delighted to have been the first to see her mother come in.

“Good morning, Dora, everyone,” she said, trying to smile in reply to their smiles. The three men rose, and even Haakon remembered to stand after a cough from his father… his father whose grin was the widest of all. That was like Sigefrith! As if nothing had happened!

Perhaps Leofric had come back for her during the night after all. In any case, he was not here at breakfast.

“Good morning, my Hilda,” Sigefrith said as he helped her to sit. “You must have been sleepy today.”

She resisted the urge to mock him.

“Mama, guess what I dreamed last night!” Haakon cried.

“Listen to this, Hilda,” Sigefrith laughed.

“We’ll talk about that later, Haakon,” she muttered. “Mama is feeling sick today.”

“Oh, Hilda!” Sigefrith cooed with that hateful, ludicrous expression of concern he always wore whenever anyone had a cough or a sniffle or a bruise. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know, Sigefrith,” she said, trying to keep the edge off her voice. “Why don’t you tell me what happened last night?”

“What… last night?” he asked, suddenly pale.

So it had been Sigefrith after all. Well, at least he was her husband and had the right. That didn’t mean she would despise him any less for it.

“Where did you sleep last night, Sigefrith?” she growled. She could not help but growl.

“I… slept in the spare bed,” he murmured with an anxious glance at Stein.

It was rather funny, after all, to see him forced to choose between admitting to her that he had slept with her while she was unconscious, or admitting before Stein that he no longer slept with her at all.

She snickered. At least he had lost that idiotic grin. At least she had the fun of watching him squirm.