#young odda x mildrith

[aethelredism]

8 - Young Odda x Mildrith

Her son takes a fever late in the night.

By morning, he is dead.

It is often thus with babes, the women tell her. They sicken so quickly.

Yes, she hears the whispers from the corner, but to catch a fever and die all in one night? That’s witch’s work. Pagan’s work. His father’s doing, no doubt.

Someone—she doesn’t know who—sends for Odda. Her Odda. Not her Odda, he does not belong to her, no more than she to him, but. Her Odda. He ducks beneath the lintel and looks at her as he has always looked at her, and the tears that burn Mildrith’s lips taste bitter and sweet.

It is Odda who digs the grave and carries her son to his resting place, a quiet place by the water that she has always liked. She does not think she will like it anymore, but it means more than she can say to watch Odda gently pack the earth around the little body, as though he were tucking him in for bed.

When he gets to his feet, she takes his dirt-covered hand in hers.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

She can feel him aching to criticize her husband, to call attention to his absence at this moment, but he does not, and she loves him all the more for the effort it costs him. He presses his palm against hers, his fingers linking with hers. “Come home with me, Mildrith,” he says softly.

Home. This is not her home. Not anymore. In some ways, perhaps it never was. Home has always been with Odda. Her Odda.

“Yes,” she says. “Take me home with you.”