Darkness Descending

“Aye, it is.” Leofsig’s nod was somber. “She’s got no use for Kaunians, and she’s got no use for anybody who has a use for them. She’s a sweet girl a lot of ways, powers above know”--he remembered the wonderful feel of her hand on him-- “but we already have too many in our family we don’t trust with our secrets.”

“Not everyone would put his brother ahead of the girl who might become his wife.” Hestan inclined his head. “You pay me a compliment by making me think I may possibly have done something right in raising you.”

“I don’t know about that,” Leofsig answered with a shrug. “I do know there are plenty of girls out there, and I’ve only got one brother.” He wondered where the girls he talked about were. Forthwegian girls of good family in Gromheort were mostly spoken for, as Felgilde had been for all practical purposes. Some Kaunian girls of good family were selling themselves on the streets these days, the Algarvians having prevented them from feeding themselves any other way. Leofsig sometimes found himself horrified and tempted at the same time.

His father sighed. “Now I’m going to have to tell Elfsig we can’t proclaim a formal engagement, and I’m going to have to make up some kind of reason to explain why we can’t.”

“I’m sorry, Father,” Leofsig said. “Believe me, I didn’t want things to turn out this way.” If he could have married Felgilde, he could have taken her to bed with no scandal attaching to either one of them. He envied his younger brother, who hadn’t let scandal--double scandal, since his lover was a Kaunian--get in his way.

“I do believe you. I remember what I was like when I was your age,” Hestan said with a reminiscent chuckle. Leofsig tried to imagine his father as a randy young man. He had little luck. Hestan went on, “But you have nothing to be sorry for--nothing that has anything to do with me, anyhow. I already told you, I’m proud of you.”

He stroked his beard, his eyes far away as he thought. Leofsig noted with a small start how gray his father’s beard was getting, even if Hestan’s hair stayed mostly dark. That graying had all come since the war: one more evil to blame on it.

“Well, what will we do?” Hestan murmured.

“I’ll come up with something,” Leofsig said.

His father shook his head. “No, don’t you worry about a thing. Your mother and I will take care of it, one way or another. We’ll keep Elfsig sweet, or not too sour, one way or another, too.”

“Tell him I picked up a disease in a soldiers’ brothel,” Leofsig suggested.

“That’s what the Algarvians spend a lot of time complaining about,” Hestan replied with a snort. “Of course, since they’re the only ones who use their brothels, they never ask who gave the girls the diseases in the first place.” With another snort, he added, “No, I think we’ll find something else to say to the man who won’t end up being your father-in-law.”

“But what?” Leofsig was less inclined to worry or brood than his father or his brother, but saying good-bye to the girl he’d thought himself likely to marry wasn’t going to be easy.

“Your mother and I will come up with something that will serve,” his father said firmly, “so don’t you trouble yourself about it. If you see Felgilde on the street, don’t let on that anything is wrong.”

“All right.” Leofsig didn’t know how good an actor he was, either. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out. Then he yawned. He wouldn’t worry about it, not till he got up in the morning. “Thank you, Father,” he said as he pushed back his chair and got up from the table.

“Don’t thank me yet, not when I haven’t done anything,” Hestan answered. “But I do think we’ll be able to take care of this without too much trouble.”

When Hestan stumbled out to the kitchen the next morning to eat porridge for breakfast and take along the bread and oil and onions and cheese his mother and sister had packed for his midday meal, he found his mother kneading dough for the day’s baking. Making bread from scratch was cheaper than buying it ready-baked; Elfryth and Conberge had been doing more and more of it since the redheads occupied Gromheort. The dough wasn’t quite the right color--it would have barley flour in it as well as wheat. At least it didn’t have peas or lentils ground up with it, as it would have when things were hungriest the winter before.

“I think your father and I have found something to keep Felgilde’s family from being too disappointed when we break off our arrangement,” Elfryth said. “It will probably cost a little cash, but what is cash for except greasing the wheels every now and then?”

“You’ve already spent a lot on me,” Leofsig said around a mouthful of barley porridge. He gulped the rough wine his mother had poured for him. “How many palms did you have to grease after I broke out of the captives’ camp?”

“That doesn’t matter,” his mother said. “Besides, almost all the people we paid off then are gone now. As far as the Algarvian constables here these days know, you’re right as rain.”