Eirik has no news

“Someone’s at the door!” Dyrne squealed.

Eirik heard two pairs of little shoes come thumping across the flagstones of the hall, but he was surprised to find that it was not Dyrne and Daeglan, but Dyrne and his own son.

“Papa!” Olaf grinned, and then he shrieked, “Papa!” as he remembered that he had not seen his Papa in six weeks.

“Olaf! Olaf!” Eirik echoed and scooped him up.

There were Olaf and Dyrne, and in the corner was Daeglan, staring at something only he could see, but looking as well as he ever did. There were Synne and Sigrid on the bench. Sigrid was wearing a new gown, but it was dark, and from the way she sat he could not be certain, not quite certain…

And Estrid and her baby were nowhere to be seen.

Eirik’s courage was such that it only permitted direct, frontal assaults. A wiser Eirik would have gone to his friend Sigefrith to ask him how his wife fared, and his sister, and his child and nieces and nephew. Sigefrith would have known how to soften the blow, and Eirik would have had time to grow accustomed to the idea of the tragedy before facing the people involved. But Eirik’s courage did not allow for flanking tactics. He could only charge in and demand the news.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said gaily and bowed with his son in his arms, as if he had only gone out for a short ride. Sigrid and Synne were both smiling. That was an excellent sign.

Synne replied with a hearty “Good afternoon!” and a laugh, but Sigrid’s smile trembled and she only murmured his name.

“Where’s my sister?” he asked.

“She’s upstairs feeding the baby,” Synne said.

“Oh, that’s fine!” Eirik said, laughing in relief. “And my brother Brede?”

“Brede and Selwyn are at the river.”

“So, that’s fine, too! And everybody?”

“The King and everyone returned soon after you left. But everyone is well.”

“That’s fine! I go see him later with my letters.” He could not stop staring at Sigrid’s belly, though Olaf was chattering at him, and Dyrne was trying to climb his long legs. If his wife would only move her arms! What was she hiding?

“Dyrne!” Synne groaned and got up to pull the little girl off of him. “You can play with Uncle Eirik later. He wants to see his own boy first.”

“But ladies first!” Dyrne protested.

“Ladies do not insist when gentlemen are being ungentlemanly,” Synne instructed.

Eirik smiled, but he watched his wife as she began to stand. It was a slow, ungainly process, and when at last she stood, the swell of her stomach was obvious. Eirik laughed again in relief and put his son down. “Mamas first, always,” he said.

Sigrid smiled as shyly as a bride – or as shyly as a bride ought to smile, he thought, for he had seen her only sullen on her wedding day.

“So, Siri, I see you are looking a little pale,” he said in Norse, for he thought there was no finer language for speaking to a woman. “But a little happy, too? Here in the corners, here and here?” he asked and touched her face gently in a few places.

She nodded and smiled on.

“And here too? And over here?” He patted her belly. It was firm and round and full.

“He’s not always happy,” she laughed softly, as if she did not want to disturb the baby. Perhaps he was sleeping! Eirik smiled at the very idea.

“Sometimes he gets angry and kicks you?” he asked.

“And punches me.”

“That’s fine. That’s a son of mine. If he starts composing poetry in there, then I shall be worried.”

She laughed again, and at last he embraced her. He had been looking forward to this all along the journey back, first on the ship and then the long ride on horseback. He had already gone back and forth between the valley and the Isles several times that summer. It was a great bother, especially for his men, but he was finding it difficult to stay away from his family, and all the more so now that they were all united in the same place. And to think he had once meant to leave Sigrid in Nidaros with his uncle!

He laid a hand on the small of her back and pulled her belly tightly against his. To think that he had once kicked the walls in rage and called down curses on her head because he had been told she was expecting a child! It was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and not only because Olaf was as fine a son as a man could desire.

It was true that it had meant that he could not marry the wealthy daughter of his father’s friend, but he was already a rich man in his own right, for his father had had no other sons.

And there were greater riches than silver and ships, he thought. It was a man’s wife that made a man’s sons for him. The other girl had been tall and spindly, with the uncertain health of pale horses and pale women, and all the glow and fire of an overcast day. 

The day he had seen her and Sigrid side-​​by-​​side, he had begun to understand what a treasure he possessed in this small, solid woman with her chestnut hair, her velvety skin, her dark brows, and her full lips. He was beginning to think that he would even be pleased to have a daughter out of her, for such daughters would be riches in themselves. He could forge strong alliances out of other men’s desire for lips such as these.

He had been looking forward to these lips even before he had set out on the journey back. Now all he wanted was to take her upstairs and enjoy them. He wanted to take off her bothersome gown and look at her, and touch her with his hands, and press her small, solid body all along the length of his own. And to think that there were men who could not bear to lie with their pregnant wives! He thought he had never desired her more.

But there was Synne, watching them with Dyrne in her arms. Synne was not usually so indiscreet. He knew she must want something, and he thought he knew what it was.

“And how are you, Synn?” he asked, in English again.

“I’m well, thank you. But, Eirik…”

“What?” he asked wearily and let go of his wife’s hands.

Synne set Dyrne carefully on the floor, as if she was afraid he would tell her something that would cause her to drop the little girl.

“Did you hear anything?” Synne asked in a tiny voice.

He sighed. “Don’t you get a letter yet?”

“No.”

“I didn’t hear anything, Synn. I asked…”

He was sorry he did not have good news for her, and he was angry at himself for not knowing how to express it, so he grew impatient and annoyed with her instead.

“You know, Synn,” he snapped, “I can’t ask everybody, ‘Do you see my friend Murchad, nephew of Enna?’ I already have problems because of this Raedwald and his friends.”

“I know,” she said softly.

“So, I do what I can. I try to find out, but I don’t find nothing.”

She nodded.

“But, so, I think if they capture somewhere Murchad and Diarmait, nephews of Enna, everybody is talking about that. So, if I don’t hear nothing, it means nobody did see him.”

“That’s so.”

“And, so, what I think is this: I think Murchad he get to Ireland safe and nobody see him, but then he try to write a letter and he can’t get it out because we are too many Norsemen in the sea. That’s what I think.”

“That’s probably what happened,” Synne agreed.

“So, I don’t have news for you, but I think it is good if I hear nothing. Don’t you think?”

“I’m certain you’re right.”

“So!” he smiled in relief. That was taken care of.

He stepped over Olaf and returned to his wife. “I think you are looking tired and pale, Siri,” he murmured in Norse, as close as he would ever get to poetry. “And I am tired from my long trip. And so I shall take Olaf a while and see my sister, and you shall go to our room and tell your maid to undress you. And then we shall sleep away the afternoon, and wake up hungry for supper. What do you think?”

Sigrid looked up at him and smiled, blushing as a bride ought to blush – or so he thought, for on her wedding night he had only seen her cry.