Egelric gives Malcolm something to think about

“Oh—” Malcolm gasped as he woke… on the couch in Egelric’s hall. “No!” he finished at the sight of Egelric’s back.

Egelric grunted. “Don’t mind me.”

“We… fell asleep…”

“So I gathered. Don’t mind me, I said. I’m only here to see about the fire.”

Malcolm therefore turned his attention to Iylaine. She still slept, her head resting prettily on her hands, her body curled up against his body.

When he had gone up to bed the night before, Egelric had not left any hints about how late it was or how tired Iylaine must have been, so Malcolm had meant to stay with her as long as he could. He had meant to wake before dawn—before her father rose—and send her up to her room, but the morning was bright already with golden light.

“She looks better already,” Egelric said as he stirred up the fire.

Egelric had not yet turned around. Therefore he must have looked at her before Malcolm awoke, and so he could have been staring at the two of them for any length of time beforehand. As a rule, Malcolm did not like to be watched when he was in no position to watch back, but now he had the additional worry of wondering where his hand had been when Egelric had come along.

“She has some of her color back,” Malcolm agreed.

“Why don’t you tell me how she slept, since you are in a position to know?” Egelric asked dryly.

“She slept well, I think, but she woke up rather often. Frightened. But I told her where she was, and told her she was safe. And she would have me add some wood to the fire, and she would watch that until she fell asleep again.”

In spite of her father’s presence, Malcolm stroked a hand down her side at the thought of her fright. The Lord knew she needed all the tenderness she could get after two weeks spent in a cold, dark prison among elves who did not even speak her language.

“She and her fires,” Egelric sighed.

“She said she didn’t have fire where she was.”

“Did she talk about it?”

“Not much. She only told me about that when she woke me to ask me to put another log on. She said she only had a few candles from time to time.”

“Poor girlie,” Egelric said. “She must have been cold.”

“I think so. She was underground.”

“Did they hurt her?”

“She didn’t say, exactly,” Malcolm said slowly. “But I think she was dreaming that she was being strangled. She would hold her neck and choke…”

Egelric pulled up a chair and sat wearily. “On second thought, Malcolm, I don’t want to know. If she tells you something you think I should know, tell me. But I don’t want to know.”

“Understood.” Malcolm carefully climbed off of the couch and came around to sit beside her head. If Egelric meant to sit and talk a while, Malcolm did not have the impudence to long lie so close to the man’s daughter.

“You can tell me one thing,” Egelric said after Malcolm had settled. “If she has a child nine months from now, is there a chance it will have your nose?”

Malcolm blanched. This was his own unspoken fear, but he had not thought Egelric would have the courage to mention it. “None at all,” he replied.

“That’s good to hear,” Egelric muttered. “I think. I’m sorry to ask you, but if it’s Gils’s father who had her… we know of what he’s capable. Otherwise Gils wouldn’t be here at all. Funny, isn’t it? How one can so hate a man—or elf—and so love his son?”

“Gils is your son.”

“As much as she is my daughter, I suppose,” Egelric said sadly, and they both gazed at her sleeping head for a while. “How old are you, Malcolm?”

“Seventeen in February.”

“Everything under thirty sounds hopelessly young to me,” Egelric sighed. “How old was young Sigefrith?”

“How old was young Sigefrith when?”

“The devil take you and your discretion! I mean when he was married.”

“A year younger than I am now.”

“You were thinking to wait until when?”

“Eighteen.”

Egelric chuckled. “A year sounds like a long time when you’re ‘seventeen in February,’ doesn’t it?”

“Two weeks sounds like an eternity when your girl is lost,” Malcolm countered.

“And a year sounds like a long time when your daughter is the sort who runs away from home. Especially when there are those who wish her ill.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I wonder whether she would be so eager to run away from home if she had a home of her own. She hasn’t had one since I left my little house at Nothelm. And even long before then, she scarcely lived there any more, but with Gunnilda and Alwy instead.”

“That’s so,” Malcolm said warily.

“What do you mean to do? Have you decided yet?”

“About what?”

“Damn you and your discretion, I said! What do you want to do when you’re eighteen, let us say.”

“I don’t know. My father wants me to come home, and Sigefrith wants me to stay here.”

“What does Malcolm want?”

“I want whatever she wants.”

Egelric sighed. “I thought you would say that. I suggest you figure out what Malcolm wants before you ask her what she wants, and think twice if you disagree. A man ought to be happy with his life even if he can’t be happy with his wife.”

Malcolm was wise enough not to protest that he did not intend to be unhappy with Iylaine. Already he often was.

“I believe I want to stay here,” he said. “I can do more for Sigefrith than I could for my father or my brother.”

“And what does Sigefrith intend to do for you?”

“Knight me, of course, and give me land. But he doesn’t want me managing it.”

“He has more important things for you to do.”

“Precisely,” Malcolm grinned proudly.

“But does he want you to live at the castle?”

“I wouldn’t. She wouldn’t,” Malcolm said and stroked Iylaine’s hair.

“I want her to have a house,” Egelric said. “A little house—not a big house like Brede’s or young Sigefrith’s, or—God forbid!—this one.”

“A little house far back in the trees,” Malcolm smiled, “with a brook behind, and poplars outside her bedroom window, and hives for bees. And a fire in every room.”

“Did she tell you all of that?” Egelric asked, surprised.

“Not exactly.”

Malcolm had been obliged to construct Iylaine’s dream house piece by piece out of the little things she sometimes let him overhear, as when she pressed her face against a poplar’s trunk or followed a bee from flower to flower and said to herself some simple phrase beginning with “How I love…”

“Sounds about right, though,” Egelric nodded. “Probably wouldn’t take long to build such a house, would it?”

“Probably not.”

“I had my little house in the trees finished in a couple of months. Of course, I didn’t build in stone.”

“One’s first house needn’t be stone.”

“Very true. Well, you might give her a little time to recover, but you should talk to her about it. And talk to Sigefrith. You understand, don’t you?”

“I think so.”

“It is of particular urgency to me now that you have told me she knows where to find this cave of yours.”

“I understand.”

“And, one more thing, Malcolm,” he said in a low growl. “In the meanwhile, the next time you think it would be a good idea to sleep with my daughter on my couch…”

He paused to give Malcolm a chance to cringe.

“Please remove your boots first,” he said with his most wolfish smile. “Lili doesn’t like to find mud on her cushions.”