CHAPTER 26Torfrida, my daughter, was awake when I went to her, alternately gurgling and imperious as she made her many demands for cuddles, toys, food and freedom to stagger about the nursery. She had just started to walk, and the novelty clearly pleased her as she came at me with her funny, uneven weave. Laughing, I caught her in my arms.
“Guess who is here?”
“She knows,” said Sigrid the nurse, and I frowned, wanting to have been the bearer of such news myself. But Sigrid was nodding to the cot, and when I looked I saw a carved, wooden horse standing up on the mattress. It was curiously life-like, yet all its points and edges were blunt and rounded. I knew the work; I knew the style. I had one just like it, only with sharper edges.
He had been here already. Last night, before he had co
