A short time later, as she stood gobbling the cheese down as if it was ambrosia of the gods, Egbert and Hebert approached her with the horses in lead reins. They looked at her, then at each other, then blurted out simultaneously, "Are you with child?"
"Huh?" Alinor said, setting aside the cheese, which suddenly appeared disgusting. "Do not be ridiculous." As she fought off the urge to vomit, or make water, or weep, all at the same time, she stared at Egbert and Hebert as if they were even more demented than usual.
Then she thought, Could I be?
Nay. I am barren. Three husbands have I had and never quickened before.
But what if Tykir's seed were more potent? Or my womb more receptive? What if... oh, praise God!... what if I am carrying Tykir's child?
But she would have known, wouldn't she? Well, actually, she would not. Her monthly fluxes had always been irregular... 'twas why she had reasoned in the past that she could not conceive. Plus, she had told Tykir once when he commented on her weak or nonexistent monthly fluxes that her body was probably affected by the cold, or the change of place, or all that lovemaking.
She felt foolish now, not to have suspected.
Then she put a hand over her stomach and remembered a night—'twas Christ's Eve, less than four short months ago—when Tykir had made tender love to her after gifting her with the magical amber neck ring. Hadn't she felt afterwards that something special had happened? It had.
She burst out with joyous laughter. "Yea, I am pregnant. I have conceived the troll's child. Isn't that the most wonderful news in the world?"
Egbert and Hebert gaped at her with horror and disgust.
"Pregnant? How can we sell... uh, betroth... you to an English nobleman with a heathen whelp in your belly?" Egbert stormed, pulling madly at his mop of red curls.
"And do you say the babe will be a troll?" a terrified Hebert squealed.
"Now you have ruined everything," Egbert wailed.
"Nay, this is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am not barren after all."
"No man will want her now," Hebert told Egbert
" 'Tis true. Tis true. And the Viking would surely come after us for vengeance if he finds out about this," Egbert told Hebert. "If we were to rid her of the babe, or fob it off on some cotter after wedding her to another, that vengeful monster would follow us to the ends of the earth. I know he would."
"Forget about the Viking. I would rip your eyes out with my own fingernails if you dared take my babe from me," Alinor said vehemently, only slightly surprised at how protective she was feeling already toward the seed growing inside her.
"We wipe our hands of you then, ungrateful wench," Hebert spat out. "Never did you appreciate all our efforts on your behalf. Now find your own fate. We care not if it be in a Viking midden or hell."
With that, the two stomped off, already concocting new brainless schemes, leaving Alinor standing in the middle of the busy city. Alone.
She hooted with laughter then, drawing a few curious looks from passersby, but she did not care. For the first time in her life, she was free. She could go to Graycote and be an independent woman. Or she could find herself a husband of her own picking. Or—and her heart skipped a beat—she could make her way back to Dragonstead and wait for Tykir to return.
She did not even hesitate.
Dragonstead it would be.
Rurik was ambling along Coppergate, enjoying the sights, including a Saxon maid with a pair of swishing hips that would make a Norseman blush. Well, some Norsemen. Not him, of course. He was too much a man of the world.
Beast was temporarily sheltered at Gyda's house. He was headed toward the king's garth, where he intended to pay his respects to Eric Bloodaxe, then make his way north to Scotland and a certain mischievous witch. But then he stopped in his tracks when another bloody witch caught his attention.
Lady Alinor! What is she doing here? She is supposed to be off in the Baltic skipping along the beaches, collecting amber with Tykir. Could she perchance be in two places at once, being a witch and all?
Nay, Rurik decided, having long ago accepted that Alinor wasn't a real witch. Just witchly.
She was jabbering away at a tall Norseman with long blond hair and a huge, finely groomed beard. A mercenary, by the looks of him. In fact, Rurik seemed to recall seeing him one time at King Haakon's Vik court on Oslo-fjord. And, oh, holy Thor! Was the woman daft? Now she was jabbing the big Viking in the chest with a finger to make some point whilst she talked his ear off.
Amazingly, the man didn't lop off her head, as any sane man would. Instead, he listened intently and his face got paler and paler at whatever news she was imparting.
Meeting up with her will mean trouble for me, I wager. Should I pretend I haven't seen her and escape? No one will even know. While he pondered his decision, Rurik moved closer, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"I have a child?" the man was asking. "For the love of Freyja! Tell me more, Lady Alinor."
"Yea, Toste, you have a child. His name is Thibaud, and he has seen only four winters. Good thing I overheard the craftsman over there address you by name, or you might never know the glad tidings."
"A son?" Toste said with wonder. "A son?"
Alinor smiled indulgently, apparently no longer angry with the man. "Yea, and a beautiful boy he is, too."
"I have thought of Rachelle many times these past years since we were together in Rouen. But she was married, or so I thought." He shrugged. "And you say the boy lives in Hedeby with his mother? Why, I was in the market town just last year. How could I have missed seeing her?"
No doubt he'd spent his time in an ale house, or visiting the loose women who sold their favors there. That was Rurik's opinion. Leastways, 'twas how he spent his days there.
"I do not think Rachelle goes about much, Toste. You see, before her husband divorced her, he performed a brutal mutilation on her." Alinor explained, and Toste's face grew red with rage.
"That matters not to me," he asserted. "I will go to her and my son forthwith, and make right all she has suffered for being with me. And I will take revenge on her former husband, Arnaud, as well. That I forswear."
Well, there's naught here for me to do, Rurik thought, and was about to creep away, unnoticed.
"Rurik! Is that you?" he heard a male voice call from behind him.
Too late! Trapped!
"Eirik," he groaned aloud, seeing Tykir's brother coming forth. Then he groaned mentally as he noted the rest of Lord Eirik's party. "Lady Eadyth, Selik, Rain... 'tis good to see you again. And all your children." By the gods, these two couples breed like rabbits. They must copulate enough to populate the entire countryside. 'Tis best that Tykir has never wed if his brother and sister and their spouses set such an example. That was what he thought, but what he said with a sweet smile of admiration was, "What nice families you have!"
I "Who is that you are watching over there?" Eirik pointed so that Eadyth would look, too. "Oh, I see, 'tis Lady Alinor. Where is Tykir? I daresay he would not let the witch escape, so he must be about somewhere."
"He is not here, as far as I know," Rurik disclosed. "Last I heard he was on his way to the Baltic."
Alinor glanced up, and Rurik groaned aloud again. He was trapped, good and proper, now.
Everyone was introduced all around, including Toste.
Eadyth embraced Alinor in the way womenfolk often did, as if they were longtime friends. 'Twas their lesser brains that caused them to act so, in Rurik's opinion. Rain embraced her, too, stating, "You are the one that Eadyth has told me about... the one she predicted would capture Tykir's hard heart."
Alinor burst into tears then and was blubbering noisily about a number of nonsensical things, like braids and feathers and lusty trolls and gammelost and cravings and piss and vomit. But only one of them caught his attention. With child.
Rurik threw his hands in the air. Well, that does it! Now I will never get away. The witch will be foisted on me. Everyone will think
me uncaring if I just traipse off without caring for my best friend's babe... and the mother of my best friend's babe... and the sister and brother of my best friend... oh, hell, the whole bloody world. He sighed deeply, though no one was paying attention to him. Everyone was doting on Lady Alinor.
"I know Tykir probably does not want me, even with a babe," Alinor explained on a sniffle, "but my only wish now is to find someone with a longship to take me back to Dragonstead."
Everyone turned to him. Me? Why me? Oh, this is just a wonderful turn of events. I should have followed the maid with the swishing hips when I had a chance.
"Does your face hurt, Rurik?" Rain inquired, turning him from side to side with a firm grip on his chin.
"Nay. Why?"
"Because it's blue."
"Oh, have you not seen Rurik since he turned blue?" Eadyth spoke to Rain, but everyone in the bloody world was listening, including many a passerby. "He got it whilst swiving a witch."
"Eadyth!" Eirik remonstrated. "Where have you heard such language?"
"From you." She wiggled her nose at him.
"Men!" Eadyth and Rain exclaimed, sharing a communal look of disgust. Alinor was too busy blubbering still.
"Rurik, do you have a longship here?" Eirik asked
Uh-oh! Blindsided whilst woolgathering. "Yea, but! was going to Scotland for a time."
Everyone stared at him as if he was the most selfish clod in the world. "I suppose I could postpone—"
Eirik had already assumed he would help them and was off on another subject. "The ships that Selik and I own are off being repaired. We have not much need of them, being landlocked as we are these days. Ouch," he said, as Eadyth jabbed him with an elbow. "I wasn't complaining, sweetling," he told her with a reassuring pat on the arm, then he addressed Rurik again. "I suppose the one ship could take us all to Dragonstead?"
"All?" Rurik squeaked out, and his single word was echoed by everyone else in the group. Toste was nodding at everyone and making his escape. Lucky fellow!
"Yea, all. You did not think we would let you go alone, did you? And, of course, Eadyth and I will want to bring our five children. Some of them have never seen Dragonstead."
"And Rain and I will bring at least four of our children and some of the orphans, though our oldest, Mary, and Adam's sister, Adela, could stay with the greater number of the orphans. On the other hand, they want to come, too. Mayhap we could set them all to rowing. Ha, ha, ha. What do you think, heartling?" Selik asked Rain.
Rurik thought he might go mad and wondered if he might have been cursed by Alinor the Witch, after all.
There was no maybe about it, Rurik decided a short tune later when Alinor looked up at him and wheedled, "Rurik?"
'Twas always best for a man to run like the wind when a woman asked something in a wheedling voice, especially when accompanied by the batting of eyelashes. Alinor should know that he was immune to her charms, or lack of charms. Tykir was the only one who thought her winsome. "What?" he snapped.
"Can I bring my sheep with us on your ship?"
"Nay!"
"Please?"
"Nay! Nay! Nay!"
"Ple-eee-ase?"
"Well, mayhap one. Or two. But that's all."
The huge smile she flashed at him then told him he had been bested good and proper. There would be more than two sheep.
Alinor turned to the others then. "Since Rurik is willing to take me back to Dragonstead—"
Hah! Who said aught about "willing"?
"—'tis not necessary for all of you to accompany me."
Well, finally, someone has an intelligent thought here.
Everyone demurred, though. Lackwits, all!
"But why do you all need to come?" Alinor asked.
"Good question," Rurik piped in quickly.
"Do you think we would miss Tykir's wedding?" they all said, except for a slack-jawed Rurik, who thought Tykir might have something to say about that important event, and except for a slack-jawed Alinor, who began to cry again.
Chapter Seventeen
Tykir had been on the Samland Peninsula of the Baltic coast for only three sennights and he was driving everyone as hair-pulling mad as he himself was.
Flesh was melting from his body for lack of appetite, and even when he tried to drink himself senseless as an ale-head, the brew could barely pass over the lump in his throat. Drumming through his brain with an incessant refrain were the selfsame painful thoughts.
Alinor. God, how I miss her!
She must have bewitched me.
But she's not really a witch.
How could she have left me?
How could I have let her go?
I should have told her how I felt.
How do I feel?
Aaarrgh!
He was so racked with confusion over his turbulent emotions that he could not think or work or sleep.
God, I miss her so!
Then Adam arrived to add to the madness. He'd changed his plans, claiming a concern for Tykir's well-being.
By the gods, who named Adam and Bolthor his protectors? Even as he'd strived to hold people at a distance all these years, some seemed to have ignored his signals. He did not need them. He did not need anyone, not even the fickle Alinor. That was what he told himself. What he thought was: I am dying inside.
"I got off my ship at the first watering stop on the way to the Arab lands," Adam told him. The fool, who'd been sleeping on a makeshift pallet in the single bedchamber in his lodging, had heard him rise at dawn. Now he professed a yen to ride alongside him and the amber harvesters on the Baltic shores. That, after being up half the night tumbling half the maids in all the Baltic, no doubt. He'd surely hit the first half the night before.
"Like a thorn in my privates, you are, Adam. Go back to snoring and leave off with your nosing in my affairs."
Ignoring his advice, Adam continued to dress... in to ridiculous Arab robes, at that. Tykir would like to see him astride a horse in a good wind. Some of the female amber gatherers would like that, too, he would wager. "Something told me you were going to make a muddle of things with Alinor," Adam continued to blather while he tied robe around the waist of his flowing robe and grabbed I hunk of manchet bread topped with a slice of cold sausage to break his fast.
"Well, something should tell you to just blow away. Mayhap I like being in a muddle."
"I just knew you would need my expert advice in love matters." Adam had an annoying habit of screening out any words he did not want to hear and talking over a person. Apparently, he was screening him this morn because the jabberling went on blithely. "And see, I was right. Here you are. Alone. Smitten. And dying of a broken heart. Methinks I got here just in time."
"Methinks you think too much," Tykir countered, shoving the young know-everything in the arm. He then proceeded to suggest that Adam do something he presumed was physically impossible. But then, one never knew with Adam.
The lackwit just grinned at him and danced away to avoid his second punch. "I could give you advice on how to hold a woman's attention... a sort of reverse bewitching," Adam said, munching on his cold repast.
Tykir slanted him a sideways glance of disgust, then dunked his head in a bowl of water, drying off with a rough linen. "Brrr!" was his only response to Adam—or the quick cleansing.
"Really, Tykir. I know things," Adam continued, waggling his eyebrows. "Things I learned in the Arab lands. Those desert princes have naught to do out on the dunes except count sand particles and chase camels; so, they have become adept at—Hey! Be careful!" Tykir had thrown the wet cloth at him, mussing his hair, which was clubbed back off his too-handsome face.
"It wasn't my lovemaking skills, or lack thereof, which caused Alinor to leave."
Adam seemed to ponder that assertion. "I could have sworn that she loved you... and you know how women are once they are bitten by that particular bug. There is no getting rid of them. What did she say when you told her you loved her?
"Adam! Your i
ntrusiveness passes all bounds. You have no right to ask such personal questions of me."
Adam studied him for a moment, a frown creasing to brow. "Do not tell me that you never told her how you feel. Surely you are not that inept in the love arts."
"How I feel! How I feel!" he exclaimed, pulling at his own hair. "How the hell do I know how I feel?"
Adam's face brightened, as if a candle had been lit be hind his eyeballs. "Ah, there is the rub, then. At last we have arrived at the crux of your problem. Now I will be able to prescribe a solution."
"What problem?" Bolthor asked, coming in, unannounced, to Tykir's rustic longhouse near the Baltic bead "Oh, are we speaking of Tykir's problem? Didst thou tell him of the solution we conjured yestereve over our horns of ale?"
Tykir put his face in his hands.
"I was even inspired to write a poem about it."
Still with his face buried in his hands, Tykir groaned.
"Pride is the downfall
Of many a man.
And a Viking most of all.
Lord of the swordplay he may be.
And sing his weapon does.
But when it comes to the music
That fills his heart,
Pride stands in his way.
Rather than sing of his own true love,
The proud Viking bird goes mute,
And falls on his less-than-feathery arse."
With a cough, Bolthor concluded, "This is the Saga of Tykir the Great, also known as "The Saga of the Proud Viking.' "
"More like, "The Saga of the Viking Who Fell on His Arse,' " Adam muttered under his breath.
Tykir was about to tell Bolthor how awful his poem was and to snarl at him, as he had at Adam, to stay out of his life. But Bolthor stared at him with such obvious need for encouragement that Tykir found himself saying "That was excellent, Bolthor. I really think you are improving."
"Thank you." Bolthor's good eye seemed to fill with tears of appreciation. "I was afeared you would not like it. Even laugh." Then he confessed, "I could not think of a rhyme for arse at the end. In truth, I have a terrible time with rhyming, which is surely a failing in a good skald."