Dark Viking

  Seeing her staring at a pile of ropes cut to various lengths with odd knots and a large number of candles, Sigge explained. “They are used for casting circles when performing a spell or a meeting of the coven.”

  Coven? Oh, boy! That means there are more witches.

  Rita and Sigge slid onto the bench behind the table while the two sisters bustled about. “Would you like a soothing herb drink or a bowl of chicken broth?”

  Rita figured she was safer with the chicken broth and said so. While a sort of green tea was poured into small wooden cups for Sigge, Kraka, and Grima, a wooden bowl and wooden spoon were placed in front of Rita. In the bowl was a hearty broth containing small slivers of what she hoped was chicken, leaves of parsley, bits of onion, and tiny carrots.

  Rita was about to pick up her spoon when Sigge elbowed her to indicate she must wait. The three women linked hands and bowed their heads, chanting in some strange language. Occasionally, Rita recognized a word and figured this was just some Norse variation on saying grace.

  When they were done, Rita dipped her spoon into the broth, took a sip from her spoon, then another. “This is really good.”

  The ladies smiled at her, recognizing that she’d been expecting just the opposite.

  “What’s in it?” she asked Kraka.

  “That tough old rooster Harry; some wild garlic, onion, and mushrooms; carrots from my garden; parsley; and various herbs.”

  “Have you ever put spaetzles in?” During the on-again, off-again periods of her mother’s debilitating depression after her father’s departure for greener fields, as in younger, more voluptuous women, Rita had become quite a good cook, even as a child. Oh, nothing gourmet. Mostly nourishing soups, which were cheap and hearty.

  The sisters stared at her with interest.

  “Do you have flour and eggs?”

  “Yea,” Kraka said. “Oat flour and fresh eggs.”

  “Well, I suppose oat flour would do. You just mix a beaten egg with enough flour to be the consistency of wet dough . . . not dry enough for bread or noodles.”

  They didn’t seem to understand what she was saying.

  “Would you like me to show you?”

  They nodded, trusting souls that they were, and Rita was soon dropping little dough balls the size of dimes into the bubbling broth, where they doubled in size. A short time later, all of them took small amounts in their bowls for testing.

  “This is wonderful,” Kraka declared, apparently as surprised at her cooking skills as she had been at theirs.

  “What did you call them?” Grima wanted to know. “Spit-cells?”

  Rita laughed. “Close enough.”

  “Tell us about yourself,” Kraka encouraged.

  Rita told them her life story, starting with her early years with a mother devastated over a divorce, her various occupations, and why she’d joined WEALS.

  They listened attentively, but she could tell they didn’t understand. How could they?

  “The thing is, and I know you will find this hard to believe, but I come from the year two thousand and ten.”

  Rita expected scoffs of disbelief, but the two witches, instead, looked at each other and smiled.

  “It worked!” Sigge beamed at her aunts. “You actually managed to channel a person through time to help us at Norstead.”

  Kraka and Grima nodded their heads and gave each other a medieval version of high fives, clapping both palms against each other.

  “Uh, you’re supposed to say there’s no such thing as time travel,” Rita pointed out.

  Kraka shrugged her shoulders. “Who is to say what is possible when the gods are involved?”

  “So now the gods brought me here? I thought witches were supposed to be pagans. Good heavens! You’re not Satan worshippers, are you?” That’s all she would need, the devil being involved in her life.

  Grima stiffened with affront. “We have naught to do with Lucifer and his minions.” She pointed to the amulets around her and her sister’s necks, as well as the birthmark on Sigge’s neck. “Notice that the pentacle stands upright, the point of one star northernmost. In evil witches and those who worship the fallen angel, there are two points of the star northernmost, and the single point aimed downward.”

  Kraka reached across the table and patted Rita’s hand. “You are forgiven for misreading us, child. Many people make the same mistake.”

  “Betimes I overreact,” Grima said, no longer insulted.

  “Truth to tell,” Sigge elaborated, “we consider ourselves Christian Norse witches.”

  There had to be at least two oxymorons in there.

  “Many of the old witches were pagan, before the Druids and wizards wielded magic and such,” Kraka explained. “And we do give homage to the Norse goddess Asatru, as well as the Christian One-God. In fact, ’tis our belief that many of the Norse and Christian gods are one and the same.”

  “Okay, now that’s a stretch.” Rita folded her arms over her chest and stared at each of them in turn. “Let’s start over here. You say that I time-traveled here by some astral projection. Why?”

  “Because you are needed to bring light where there has been darkness.” Kraka stared at her hopefully, wanting Rita to accept what she was saying.

  Rita rolled her eyes.

  Sigge put her arm over Rita’s shoulder and squeezed. “I was but a child when the pall first came to settle over Norstead.”

  Kraka nodded with sadness wrinkling her face more than usual. “First, the jarl Eric and his wife died. Then their son Jorund’s wife and two twin daughters died. One by one, the sons and their children left Norstead, never to be heard of again, except for Katla, who married a prince of Norsemandy. Katla had many children, including the younger sons Thorfinn and Steven.”

  “Everyone thought the dark pall would lift when Thorfinn wed and bred a babe on his wife, Luta,” Grima interrupted her sister. “But Luta was ne’er happy here, and she ran away with a passing trader, taking the babe, the light of Thorfinn’s life. Neither was ever found and were presumed dead.”

  “I was old enough to understand then,” Sigge said, shaking her head dolefully. “Those were the darkest times when Jarl Thorfinn raged and wept, then searched and searched in vain for his lost son. His wife he cared not a whit for, but the babe was his reason for living. Then he, too, was killed, and Steven became jarl.”

  Well, not quite killed.

  “Still the pall lingers,” Kraka concluded. “Can you not see why Norstead needs a light to lead the master and his followers to a new and better life?”

  “Yes, I can see that, but the light is not me.”

  The three women just stared at her, as if she was too thickheaded to understand.

  “Hey, I just thought of something. If you guys are responsible for getting me here, can you send me back?”

  “Why would you want to go back?” Sigge asked.

  “Um, for starters, cars, airplanes, telephones, toilet paper, tampons, indoor plumbing, electricity, computers.” She saw that her words meant nothing to these ladies, so she tried a different tack. “Listen, I’m just an ordinary lady, both in appearance and background. Yeah, I’ve had some far-out jobs, but still I’m nothing special. Certainly not some character destined to change history in a medieval Viking fortress.” She smiled at them.

  No one smiled in return.

  “When we did the circle spells exhorting a champion for Norstead, we did not know what to expect,” Kraka related. “Male or female, it mattered not to us, though a female would do the most good. We expected to conjure a person of our time to come to Norstead. Mayhap from another country, but ne’er did we expect a time traveler. Not that we are not pleased by the notion. Truly, our names will go down in the sagas as the greatest witches ever known.”

  “What is it you’re trying to say?”

  “My sister is trying to say that we could do another circle spell trying to send you back,” Grima explained, “but we could not guarantee where it would send you. Back
to Roman times? For all we know, you could land in a gladiator ring with the lions.”

  “Only if Russell Crowe is there to protect me.” Jeesh! My brain is splintering apart here if I can joke about being in a confined space with hungry lions.

  “A crow to protect you? What crow?” Sigge wanted to know.

  But Grima was on a roll. “Or you might project forward two years or two decades or two centuries. I doubt we have the skills to control the process to that extent.”

  “How about if you did this circle thingee near the spot where I arrived here, by the joining of the North Sea with Ericsfjord?”

  Kraka shrugged and looked to her sister, who also shrugged.

  “This is just peachy,” she concluded. “I’ve heard of ‘lost in space’ but ‘lost in time’? Okay, here’s another thought. Suppose I reconcile myself to being stuck here. No, no, don’t get bent out of shape over my choice of words. If I’m not able to leave this time period, how can I be sure I wouldn’t suddenly bop back one day? That’s a question Steven put to me, by the way.”

  “The master wanted to know if you would stay?” Sigge asked with a hopeful smile at her aunts.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she tried to say.

  But Grima was already answering her question. “I do not think it happens that way. I believe there would have to be a concerted effort on your part, or ours, or both, to send you away.”

  With that grim news, Rita settled into a silent snit and spent the rest of the afternoon in a tour of the witches’ retreat. First, there were the talking trees, which were, not surprisingly, silent in her presence, but Grima claimed were nigh singing a welcome to her. Okaaay! Next, they walked a short distance to an eerie cave where many of the ingredients for their potions could be found. Think bats. The cave was also a cool place for storing perishable food products. The stream’s bed contained many oddly colored and shaped stones . . . tears of the goddesses, she was told. Giving equal opportunity to the Christian religion, Kraka pointed out the dogwood trees . . . supposedly the wood used to build Christ’s cross . . . on which drops of blood could be seen on the cross-shaped flowers. The streambed also offered an unending supply of leeches. Yeech!

  Then there was the seeing pool, where Kraka and Grima claimed they could see the future amongst the ripples. All Rita saw was water, clear and cool, which she cupped into her hands and drank greedily, only to glance up and see the others staring at her in horror. “What? Is it poison or something?”

  “Not poison. Just another sign,” Sigge told her.

  “A sign of what?”

  “A sign that you are the one.”

  She groaned. “Not that again.”

  “Only the chosen drink from the well of knowledge.” Grima beamed at her.

  Rita hated to break the news, but she didn’t feel any smarter or chosen. In fact, all she felt was really, really hot, baking in the summer sun. “I’ll tell you one thing. If I’m stuck here, I’m going to invent deodorant.” At the sisters’ urging, she explained.

  “You think people here smell? Dost not know how fastidious the Vikings are about cleanliness? They bathe every Saturday night.” Kraka was personally affronted, Rita could tell.

  “You . . . anyone . . . could shower . . . or bathe . . . every day, but the normal person perspires in the heat or from physical labor. Sweat is a fact of life, but deodorant is a necessity.”

  “And body odor is a bad thing?” Grima asked.

  “Are you kidding? BO is a major pee-you.” She pinched her nose with a thumb and forefinger. “Although I guess you could get accustomed to it.”

  The three women were skeptical but encouraged her to experiment if she wanted. The sisters took her to their herb garden and loaded her up with sage, lavender, and thyme, along with various oils, rose petals, pine needles and cones. They even took her to a witch hazel tree . . . yes, there really was a tree with that name . . . where she obtained leaves, bark, and roots. She was pretty sure witch hazel was an ingredient in some homeopathic remedies.

  By the end of the day, Rita’s head was buzzing with all that she had seen and heard that day. All she could think about was Steven and how she wanted to be back at the castle to discuss all these alarming ideas with him. Why, she wasn’t sure. He probably had no better idea than she did on how she could escape from this time warp. Still, she was convinced her being here was linked to him.

  Unfortunately, it was evening before she got back to Norstead. Muddy, sweaty, and bone-tired, she wanted nothing more than to sink down into a bed and sleep for a week. Maybe when she woke up, the nightmare would be over. But she couldn’t go to bed as filthy as she was, so she headed for the woman’s bathhouse, which would surely be empty this time of night. She asked Sigge to find her a clean garment.

  She was already washed when Sigge returned carrying a plain, well-worn muslin gown, the type that would be worn by a servant, or maybe it was a nightgown. No matter! Even if she had to put it on over the same panties and wear boots with no socks or stockings, she was at least clean.

  “I am returning to my aunts’ house for a few days,” Sigge told her.

  “Huh? Tonight?”

  Sigge nodded. “I must needs help them prepare goods to sell in their tent at the Althing. Will you be all right without me for a few days?”

  Rita had to smile at that. Hadn’t she been on her own for the most part all her life? “Sure.”

  “M’lady, I must forewarn you. I passed Elof on his way to the garderobe. He told me the master was in a fury over your disappearance. Did you not tell him where you were going?”

  “Ooops!” Technically, she owed nothing to Steven, but she supposed it would have been polite to tell him where she was going. Truthfully, though, she had expected to be gone only a few hours.

  “The master thinks you have gone back to . . . to wherever you came from.”

  So it was with trepidation that she walked through the mostly quiet keep, approaching her bedchamber. The few people she passed, men dicing or sitting about drinking ale, stared at her in the oddest way. Geirfinn shook his head at her, as if he pitied her.

  Rita wasn’t afraid. Fear had never played a big part in her life. Danger was just another name for obstacles to be mastered.

  Still, with a sense of foreboding, the fine hairs stood out on the back of her neck. She knew . . . she just knew . . . she was about to be thrust headlong into another major turning point in her life. As if time travel wasn’t enough!

  Chapter 10

  Should he wring her neck or swive her silly? . . .

  Steven’s moods swung from hurt to rage like a pendulum, and it had been the same way since early this afternoon when he had discovered that Rita was missing, and no one knew where she had gone.

  “Bloody damn woman. I should have lopped off her head when I first saw her in a fish garment.

  “But she makes me smile.

  “Hah! I could bring a jester to Norstead, if humor is what I want.

  “I am bored, and she is . . . was different.

  “What about her connection to Thorfinn?

  “Bloody damn woman!”

  Suddenly he realized that he was talking to himself! Son of a troll! Pitiful, that is what he was. Mooning over a fish woman who might or might not be from the future.

  He had searched the keep and immediate surroundings, to no avail. When asked if he wanted troops to ride to the far reaches of his estate, even onto Amberstead, he had snarled, “Search be damned! If the woman wants to be gone so bad, then so be it!”

  Still, the emptiness crushed him. How could that be? Over a woman he had known only a few weeks? One who was bizarre to say the least?

  He now knew how Thorfinn must have felt when he lost his precious babe. Not that Rita was precious to him, but he suspected she could have been, given time. And that was untenable. No person, especially not a mere woman, would ever dig their claws into his heart. He was not like his brother. Yea, best that she was gone.

  On the
other hand, his people at Norstead believed that Rita was some kind of light . . . well, they would just have to look for another flame to burn off his blues. That is what the wench had accused him of . . . having the blues. Well, now he really had the blues. And it was all her fault.

  Worse, he no longer had the leverage of a hostage exchange with Brodir . . . Rita for Disa . . . which he had promised his hersirs that he would at least consider. Another reason why it was good that she was gone.

  The humiliation was something else. He would have to live with the rumors for days, even unto the Althing, where men from far and wide would be hearing about the sea woman who had come to Norstead and left, rejecting its master.

  Tonight, after trying to get drukkinn on ale and mead, and only succeeding in turning bitter and foul-tempered, Oslac had suggested he go sleep afore he found himself in the midst of a brawl of his own creation. Steven had actually liked the sound of that. Hitting something would have its own rewards.

  Finding another woman to share his bed furs was not even a possibility for him in his present frame of mind. In truth, his stomach roiled biliously at the idea.

  But he had taken Oslac’s advice nonetheless. To bed he had gone . . . hours ago.

  Sitting on the side of the bed, elbows on knees, chin braced in his hands, he pondered his dismal state. Mayhap he needed to marry, after all. Mayhap King Olaf’s daughter wouldn’t be so bad, especially if he taught her to hold her tongue on occasion. Isrid did not strike him as a woman with wanton ways. In fact, she’d nigh bolted any time he got close to her. He could tell her that excess talking caused excess lust in men, that he would want to tup day and night. That should shut her up. And she was beautiful. They would make beautiful children. Oh, gods! I think I am going to hurl the contents of my stomach.

  He heard someone in the hall. Without raising his head, he turned to the right and watched as the door handle turned. If it was Oslac come to offer him more lectures, he might very well have to dump his good friend off the nearest parapet.