The Bewitched Viking

  Adam commented, "I think you are a good skald," and Tykir could have kissed the young lout.

  At the same time, if he hadn't thought it before, Tykir did now. I am going mad.

  Tykir rode his horse a good part of the morning till he and his steed were both exhausted, sweeping low with a specially designed basket scoop to rake the sands for loose amber. Then he plagued his amber workers in their sheds along the shores as they sorted and polished the raw amber.

  Some days they brought in hunks of amber as big as a man's head, especially after a storm had churned up the ocean's bottom, but most often they were small pieces. It was luck that determined their hauls for the day, not the workers' misdeeds, and he had no right to take his mood out on them.

  Adam and Bolthor had kept up with him in the amber harvesting, in fact, relishing the outdoor exercise as they galloped along the foam of the low tide. But finally, the two confronted him at the end of the day.

  "Tykir, this has to stop," Adam declared. They were seated at a table in his lodging, sipping at huge goblets ale. "You are driving yourself too hard, not to mention your workers. Have you looked in a mirror lately? You have dark shadows under your eyes. Your face and frame are becoming gaunt."

  "Since when have you cared about my appearance?"

  "I care about you," Adam said gravely.

  "And so do I," Bolthor added gruffly.

  "I do not want you to care," Tykir roared, slamming his fist on the table, then softened his voice. "I do not want anyone to care."

  "Be that as it may, Bolthor and I have been talking, and we think you should go to Northumbria and bring Alinor back."

  Tykir gaped at them. "Bring her back? To where?"

  Adam and Bolthor shrugged.

  "Here," Adam offered.

  "Or Dragonstead," Bolthor recommended.

  "Anywhere you are," Adam and Bolthor urged as one.

  "And if she does not want to come? Are you suggesting I take her captive again?"

  "The idea has merit," was Adam's opinion. "Have l told you about the sheik who captured—"

  "A hundred times, at least," Tykir said dryly.

  "Nay, I do not think kidnapping would be necessary this time," Bolthor opined.

  "I am not going after Alinor," Tykir asserted firmly, "She made her decision, and it was final." Besides, heart-pain he endured now would be naught compared how he would feel if she rejected him again. 'Twas hard to reinforce his old defenses. A man could not be hurt if he did not care. Everyone leaves... eventually. It was fact of his life.

  "But she didn't have all the facts," Adam argued. "If you—"

  Tykir put up a hand, barring further debate. "I will not go after Alinor, but you are correct. I cannot go on this way. I have made a decision."

  Both men looked at him expectantly.

  "I am going back to Dragonstead."

  Two sennights later, in mid-May, Tykir was arriving back at Dragonstead.

  It was the right decision to have come back, Tykir realized as he gazed about him at the verdant paradise that was his home. Home, he repeated to himself. Yea, that's what it was. He'd been denying it for years, denying himself the pleasure of it in its best seasons. Alinor had been correct in that, at least. He'd been a fool to stay away from Dragonstead.

  As his longship turned a bend in the fjord, the valley and lake in all their springtime splendor came into full view. And something else, too.

  Tykir came instantly alert. There was a dragonship tied to the bollards of his wharf. He drew his sword from its sheath. Adam and Bolthor, at his side, did likewise.

  "Is that not Rurik's vessel?" Bolthor questioned, squinting, as they came closer.

  "But I thought he was headed for Scotland," Adam said.

  "And who are all those people about?" Tykir murmured. There were men and women up near the lake. And sheep, even a curly horned ram... nay, he must be mistaken about the curly horns. It was probably an illusion of the bright sunlight. But it was Beast who was chasing some mangy sheepdog that resembled... but, nay, that was impossible. And look there. Children. Lots of children.

  "Oh, good Lord! Is that Eirik and Eadyth?"

  "And Selik and Rain. She must have had the baby," Adam added, noting her flat stomach. "I should have made for the Arab lands when I had a chance. They will be cajoling me to come back to Northumbria, where I belong."

  Soon, his longship was anchored and tied to the wharf, and Tykir was surrounded by his family.

  "What are you doing here?" Tykir asked Eirik.

  "Well, that is some welcome, brother! Can we not come to visit Dragonstead when the inclination calls?"

  "When I am not here?" Tykir inquired, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  "Have you been ill, Tykir?" Rain's healing instincts leapt to the forefront. "You are much too thin, and there are bags under your eyes, and your pallor is—"

  "I am fine." He laughed whilst she prodded and probed him with a forefinger here and there. She even lifted his eyelids—to check his eyeballs, he presumed.

  "For shame, Adam!" Rain said then, hugging him tightly as she spoke, then passing him on to Selik, his adopted father. Both Rain and Selik were tall as a tree. Adam would no doubt have bruises on his ribs when they were done with him. "What kind of healer are you becoming that you would let Tykir waste away so?" Rain continued to berate her "son."

  "Methinks Adam would be a better healer if he were back in Northumbria... " Selik started to say.

  And everyone finished for him, "... where he belongs."

  Adam groaned.

  They all moved up toward the keep, after Tykir instructed his seamen about the chores to finish up before heading for a cup of cool mead in their own homes or in the castle's great hall.

  "Who do all those children belong to?" Tykir grumbled, an arm looped around the shoulders of Eadyth and Rain, on either side of him. Everywhere he looked there were children, of all ages, from babes barely out of swaddling clothes toddling along in front of maidservants, to youthlings with first beards and young girls in first bloom.

  "Me," Eadyth, Rain, Eirik and Selik answered as one... then beamed with pride, as if begetting were some great feat.

  "I thought the same thing you're thinking about the number of whelps when I ran into your family on the street in Jorvik," Rurik confided, coming up to them with two twin boys hanging on to each of his ankles, like puppies, and another little girl sitting on his shoulders, tugging on his hair.

  "Rurik!" Tykir exclaimed. "I thought you went to Scotland. But, nay, I see you still have your blue mark; so I guess you never made it that far." He stared at him in puzzlement. "What are you doing here?"

  "Trapped," was Rurik's only response as he spun on his heels and hobbled away with his human cargo.

  Tykir shook his head slowly, totally confused.

  "What you need is a cup of mead," Eirik said, and everyone agreed. They all exchanged the oddest looks with each other as they nodded in agreement. Bolthor, Adam and Rurik were grinning like lackwits as Selik whispered something in their ears.

  Something very strange was amiss at Dragonstead.

  But first he would have a cup of mead to clear his head.

  Tykir shrugged off Eadyth and Rain, who were clinging to him like a long-lost swain, and began to walk through the bailey toward the keep door. Once he glanced back over his shoulder, then looked again. "Good Lord, the bunch of you are following after me like a herd of ducklings after a goose."

  "Quack, quack!" Eirik opined.

  "Do not be laying any eggs," Selik advised him. "Or nothing else."

  "Some people are so immature," Tykir remarked, then, "Phew! What is that stink in here?" He was about to enter the great hall when the stench assailed his nostrils. 'Has Rapp of the Big Wind been hereabouts?"

  "Nay, it's the gammelost," Eadyth announced gaily from behind him. He could hear giggles and male guffaws is well, but he had no time for wondering about their behavior. He was too busy staring at the most wonderful sight i
n the world.

  "Alinor!"

  She looked up, and the joy he saw there made his heart leap. All the pain of the past few sennights melted away. Mayhap he'd been wrong. Mayhap everyone didn't leave him after all. "What are you doing here?"

  Her face fell.

  Had his voice been sharp or less than welcoming? Oh, God, he wanted to say the right thing, but he couldn't think. He could only feel, and what he felt was the most intense happiness and relief.

  "Eating gammelost."

  "Huh?"

  "You asked me what I was doing here, and I told you. I'm eating gammelost."

  "Willingly? No one is torturing you?"

  "Notice that I am not amused by your jest." She put another hunk of cheese into her mouth. Cheese with a golden syrup on top, which she licked off her fingers.

  "You are eating gammelost with honey?" He gagged at the prospect.

  "Yea, and horseradish, too." She glared at him, as if waiting for him to laugh at her. He forced himself not to laugh. "Would you like some?" she asked softly.

  "Nay, I just ate on the longship" Someone jabbed him in the back and hissed, "Lackbrain."

  "Actually, I might try a bite," he said, but before he sat down he turned on his following and gritted out, "Get out of here! All of you!" He heard muttered oaths and the scurrying of footsteps behind him, followed by the slamming of a door. Then silence, except for the sounds of Alinor's munching.

  She stopped for a moment and put a slap of gammelost on his palm, oozing honey and topped by a dollop of horseradish.

  "I missed you, Alinor," he blurted out. She looked up at him. Was she pleased or just surprised by his blunt words? Mayhap stunned, because she seemed unable to speak.

  "Did you miss me?" he inquired. God, I am pathetic in my need for her. Why doesn't she speak and put me out of my misery? Is her throat clogged with that bloody cheese?

  "Well," she said hesitantly, "I missed Dragonstead."

  "Then why did you leave?"

  "Because you did not ask me to stay, you dunderhead." Now, this was interesting. He cocked his head to the side, studying her. And for the first time he noticed the changes in her. Her face seemed fuller—all that cheese, no doubt—but the skin under her freckles had a certain bloom to it. A lovely hue, actually. Mayhap she had been out in the sun. Yea, that was probably it. And her breasts, were they fuller? But it was hard to tell with the full gunna of green wool she was wearing.

  "Stop staring at me."

  He smiled. "I like staring at you. But, Alinor, I would know this: If I had asked you to stay at Dragonstead, would you have?"

  "I don't know," she wailed, and big fat tears filled her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks.

  "You're crying! Why are you crying?" He started to take her hand in his, but he still held the cheese in his palm.

  "Because that's what I do," she keened. "That, and sleep."

  Sleep? What has sleep to do with aught? This was the most ludicrous conversation he'd ever had in all his life.

  She stood suddenly, pulling her hands from his grasp.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To the garderobe."

  He stood, as well.

  "Where do you think you're going?" she snapped churlishly.

  "With you?"

  "Do not be ridiculous," she chastised him, walking off. Over her shoulder, she added, "I make this visit about fifty times a day. Willst thou accompany me each time, my lord of the privy?"

  "Didst the wench need to slice me with her sharp tongue? All she had to say was she wanted to go alone. Men go to the privy together. Why not men and women?" he muttered to himself as he sat there staring at the loathsome concoction on the palm of his hand. Quickly, he dropped it to the rushes at his feet and scraped the sticky remains against the edge of the table. Beast and Alinor's sheepdog, Beauty, ambled up, sniffed at the cheese, then turned up their noses and ambled away. Smart dogs!

  Soon Alinor returned and sat down across from him with a long sigh.

  He had no idea what the sigh meant... probably some offense he'd inadvertently committed. "Dost thou want more to eat, dearling?" he inquired, trying for a more tender tone and pushing the trencher closer to her.

  She shook her head, shoving the trencher away with repugnance. "I would vomit if I took a bite of that now."

  Who wouldn't? But, oh, she looked so beautiful sitting there with her hands folded in her lap. He wanted to take her into his arms and hug her and kiss her and tell her that he lo—lo—how he cared, but first he wanted to know what the hell was going on.

  "Where are your brothers?"

  She shrugged. "Wessex, I presume."

  "Why are you not with them?"

  She stiffened at that terse question and would have left his clumsy presence if he hadn't leapt over the table and sat beside her on the bench, forcing her to stay. "I can always go to them now," she sobbed. She was back to weeping again.

  "Alinor, you are never leaving again... not Dragonstead... or... or me." There he'd said it... almost.

  "I'm not?"

  "Nay. Now, tell me why you went with your brothers if that was not your desire."

  "Because... oh, Tykir, they killed Karl. Well, leastways, their mercenaries did."

  "Mercenaries? Karl? Dost thou mean the young boy who works for me in Hedeby?"

  She nodded, and the tears kept flowing. Like a waterfall, they were.

  "I'll kill those two, I swear I will."

  She told him the entire story then, and he got angrier by the minute. To think that her brothers would threaten Alinor so, in his very presence practically. To think that they had killed Karl. And to think that Alinor trusted so little in his expertise in protecting himself and those under his shield. But that was a bone he would pick with her later.

  "And then they released me when they found out," she finished.

  He shook his head like a wet dog. So much information she had hurled at him, and still he was baffled. "Found out what?"

  She looked at him through huge green eyes, like pale green emeralds, and waited for him to understand. He recognized the vulnerability in her quivering lips and wringing hands; he shared it. But...

  Suddenly, everything came together in his thick head. The gammelost. The frequent visits to the garderobe. The vomiting. The need for sleep. And the weeping.

  "Are you with child, Alinor?" he asked, and could not believe the words came, unbidden, from his lips.

  She nodded. Oh, God, she nodded.

  "With my babe?" He was incredulous.

  She slapped him on the arm. "Who else's, troll?"

  "Lord, how I love it when you call me troll," he said with a hoot of laughter and pulled her upright into his arms, swinging her around and around with the sheer joy of the moment. "You are carrying my babe!" he kept saying over and over as he hugged her and kissed her wet cheeks and hugged her again.

  "Put me down, you lunkhead," she finally cried out, "or I will be spewing gammelost all over your shoulders."

  He set her on her feet and knelt before her, pressing a palm to her stomach, which was barely a little hillock at this point. But his babe grew there, and tears filled his eyes at the wonder of it.

  "Oh, Tykir!" she said softly, and he hugged her about the hips, laying his cheek against her belly. He imagined he felt a heartbeat there. A fanciful notion, that!

  "Do I take it that you are happy at the prospect of fatherhood?" she asked as he stood once again and stared at her with amazement.

  "Ecstatic! What a talented woman you are, to take my seed into your body and make it grow."

  "Did I have any choice?" she observed drolly.

  That gave him pause. "How do you feel about your pregnancy, Alinor?"

  "Ecstatic," she echoed his word.

  A heavy load lifted from his heart. "Will you be content to live here at Dragonstead?" His breathing stopped as he waited for her reply.

  "Ecstatic." She repeated, never hesitating in her answer.

  He let o
ut a whooshy breath. "You will marry me, of course."

  "Is that a proposal?" She lifted one brow.

  He laughed. "Yea, 'tis. Was I putting the ship afore the ocean?"

  "Something like that." She was smiling, but the smile did not reach her eyes, and Tykir knew he had other words that needed to be spoken.

  He sat down once again on the bench and pulled her onto his lap. "Alinor, all my life everyone leaves me. Nay, do not think to argue with me on this. I have known from a young age that everyone leaves. I learned early on how to survive, though: Do not care. Let no one get too close, not even my family or friends, though they have been nigh pestsome in that regard of late. And it worked for all these fears. Until... "

  She was weeping again. "Have I been pestsome, too?"

  "The most pestsome of all," he informed her, "because try as I might, I could not stop myself from loving you. There. I have finally said it. I love you. Are you happy now?"

  "Yea, I am happy." And she was happy. He could see that by the way she was laughing and crying at the same time.

  So he repeated the words, just to see how they would feel. "I love you." It was easier this time.

  "I love you, too, Tykir." She said the glorious words with a fervency, holding his eyes the entire time, and cupping his face tenderly with one hand.

  "You do?" he choked out. Who knew those words would feel so good, in the telling and the receiving? All these wasted years when he had missed them. Nay, deep inside he suspected he'd been waiting for just the right woman to say them to. Alinor.

  "Yea, I love you, troll that you are. And I will tell you this one time and one time only, so listen well, Viking. I will never leave you. Never."

  He could not speak, so overcome with emotion was he.

  Then elation filled him and he scooped Alinor up into his arms. Life was good. He was home, at Dragonstead. His babe would arrive in a few short months. And...

  He grinned and headed toward the staircase.

  "Tykir! What are you doing?" Alinor said, clinging to his neck as he rushed up the steps, three at a time.

  "I have never made love to the mother of my child afore, Alinor," he told her with a husky growl, slamming the bedchamber door behind him with the kick of one booted foot. "And that is something I intend to remedy right now, heartling."