The Viking Takes a Knight

  “Wear a big apron,” he advised.

  She gave him one of her looks that told him what he could do with his advice.

  “By the by, here is the first of my arrha gifts to you.” He took her right hand and slipped the heavy gold band with the embossed hawk onto the third finger. “After the wedding ceremony, you move this to your left hand. That will be a sign of your coming obedience to me.”

  “Hah!” she said, “I will keep this beautiful ring, but let us just say that instead of obedience I will give you good counsel. Besides, I have a gift for you, too.” She opened a fabric-wrapped bundle she’d been carrying and handed him a soft leather half-boot.”

  “One boot?” He raised his brows at her.

  “Yea, I will slap you over the head with it during the wedding ceremony as a sign of my authority. Then on our wedding night I will put the other shoe on my side of the bed as a sign of my authority.” She grinned at him.

  “Hah!” He grinned, too. “Let us agree that neither will have authority over the other.” Except in certain matters where I demand to be in charge.

  She nodded hesitantly, not sure he was serious.

  But they were wasting time when they could be having near-sex, something he’d become proficient at these past sennights. He pulled her down beside him on a bench facing a back garden…a magnificent garden, thanks to Drifa’s talent with plants. She’d already dug up dozens of rosebushes for him to take back to Northumbria once they got through this bloody wedding. “All those plants Drifa dug up for me will be dead afore I manage to get back home,” he griped.

  “’Tis your fault it is taking so long,” Ingrith said.

  “How so?” he asked and at the same time lifted her up to straddle his lap.

  “Ooh, I do not know about this,” she said on a groan, even as she wiggled her rump to get more comfortable.

  “I do,” he said, then changed the subject, not wanting to talk about whether they should or should not be enjoying a bit of sexsport, bit being the key word. “I had to agree to wait until my mother and stepfather could come, if that is what you refer to. My mother would never forgive me if I got married without her. Then they decided to stop off at the monastery for Father Elwinus. Wasn’t it nice of him to get a special dispensation to come to Norselands to administer the rites?”

  “Very nice,” she said, but he wasn’t sure if she was remarking on Father Elwinus or the fact that he’d bared his cock and rucked up her gunna so that he was riding her moist folds. Not inside; he’d made a promise, after all. You could say it was a non-tup. And Ingrith…by the saints!…With a talent only she could pull off, she kept talking while he was channel thrusting. “And your stepsisters and their husbands. Do not forget them.”

  “Do not be so fussy, Ingrith. Your sisters and their husbands came, too. And every bloody Viking in the Norselands is here, as well. Aaaah, that is the way. Twist from side to side. Just like that. Bloody hell! Where did you learn that?”

  “Vikings do love a feast. Father expects five hundred in all,” she said, ignoring what he was doing down below and blathering on about wedding preparations.

  “Well, I am not going to wear that red tunic my mother made for me. I will tell you that right now.”

  “You have to. It matches the trim on my wedding garments.”

  “There are roses on the tunic, Ingrith. Gold embroidered roses! Men do not wear flowers.”

  “Would you rather it were bees?”

  “Hell, nay!”

  “Roses, then. Please,” she begged.

  “What will you do for me if I agree?”

  “How about this?” And the witch did something with the muscles between her legs that had him peaking instantly. Not that she wasn’t matching him in peaking. They were both panting and moaning their ecstasy within seconds.

  “Well?” she asked when their breathing returned to normal and her head rested on his shoulders. She still straddled his lap.

  “If you do that another time or five, I would wear anything you asked, even a gunna.”

  She laughed and kissed his neck.

  “What was that?” he asked, straightening to glance downward.

  “What?”

  “Your belly moved.”

  “Oh, that! I think that was little Ingrith.”

  “Or little John.”

  She put a hand over his hand on her stomach, and they stared at each other with wonder. Whoever would have thought the two of them would reach this point?

  “Have I told you lately that I adore you?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

  “Not nearly enough,” she said, swiping at the tears that rimmed her eyes. She did a lot of that lately due to the pregnancy, that and piss a lot. He’d learned not to remark about either. “Did I tell you that, if it’s a boy, Father wants to gift him a longship?”

  “And if it’s a girl…”

  “A longship, too. I insisted on equal treatment.”

  He laughed. God, how he enjoyed his soon-to-be bride. “Let us go finalize this wedding afore they keep adding more festivities and inviting more people,” he said, helping her off his lap, then standing. “At this rate we’ll be here ’til Christmas, and I want our child to be born at Hawk’s Lair.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  They were party animals before party animals were invented…

  John had never seen anything like it in all his thirty-one years. He’d attended many a wild feast in the past, but this wedding of his to a Norse princess boggled the senses.

  Good thing it was a balmy autumn day, because he didn’t know what they would have done with the five hundred or more guests standing about the fields normally used for military exercises. Today, there was an enormous tent with an unusual trellis, which had been built by Ingrith’s sister Breanne and decorated profusely with roses by Drifa.

  Standing behind him were his witnesses…an ungodly number. Eirik, Hamr, Rafn, Bolthor, his two brothers-by-marriage, his Uncle Tykir. Not to be surpassed were Ingrith’s witnesses. Her four sisters, including Vana, holding week-old baby Baldr, his mother, his Aunt Alinor, and Bolthor’s wife, Katherine. Hamr had wanted to bring Joanna, but fortunately had the good sense not to do so in the end.

  They’d already been wed according to Christian rites by his uncle, Father Elwinus, early that morning, but now would come the elaborate Norse wedding ceremony. When he’d asked the monk if he objected to their exchanging vows in both religions, Elwinus had shrugged. “As long as there are no pagan blood sacrifices.”

  Well, there would definitely be no sacrifices per se, but a huge number of animals had already been sacrificed for the feast to come. Twelve boars, ten red deer, fifty chickens, twenty rabbits, and enough fish to fill a fjord. Even a black bear had given its life for the benefit of their wedding. Ingrith had been in kitchen heaven for days now, supervising all the various dishes.

  But wait, everyone was turning around. Ingrith had left the castle and was now heading toward them on her father’s arm. And what a beautiful sight she was!

  A lump formed in his throat, and he could scarce breathe.

  Mine, he thought, and his heart truly overflowed with the joy of that knowledge.

  She wore a gauzy white linen gunna, ankle length in front and trailing in pleats behind. The rounded neck and wrists had crimson silk bands embroidered with gold-thread roses. Over that was the traditional Norse apron, except this one was a sumptuous crimson, edged with white bands with gold roses. On her head was an enormous headdress made of woven straw, silver mesh, ribands, and lace. Her golden hair was loose today, but would be worn up in future, except in her husband’s bed. He liked the idea of that.

  The crimson of Ingrith’s garments matched his crimson tunic…and, yea, he had agreed to wear it, and it was crimson, not mere red, he’d been corrected repeatedly. It, too, was edged with bands of embroidered roses. Who ever heard of a man wearing flowers? But no one would listen to his protests, except Rafn, who couldn’t stop smirking. Oh, well,
John did want to please Ingrith. At least his slim breeches and boots were black, and the only other adornments were a gold-linked belt.

  As they got closer, he smiled at Ingrith, and she smiled back, nervously. Hah! She should put a hand to his thumping heart.

  He linked his fingers with hers, and they both turned to face her father, who would act as law-speaker and a minister of sorts today. The old man looked magnificent in royal blue with enough jewels adorning his beard and side braids to sink a ship.

  King Thorvald raised his arms high and said, “Hear ye, gods and One-God, friends and family. Come join us today in witness to the wedding of John of Hawk’s Lair, Lord Gravely, and Princess Ingrith of Stoneheim.”

  On a table in front of them was a goblet of red wine, a bowl of barley seeds, an amber-studded knife, a silver cord, a hammer similar to that of Thor’s Mjollnir, and a round stone the size of a fist. John had rehearsed his part in the ceremony to come.

  First, John took the cup in hand and took a sip of the heady brew, stating in his own revised version of the Norse rite, “From this nectar may Ingrith and I be filled with wisdom from the heavenly well of knowledge so that we may deal well with each other in the future.”

  He placed the cup at her lips so she would drink from the same spot. After drinking, she said, “From this nectar may we be filled with the wisdom of the gods and may John recognize that betimes I have the greater knowledge.”

  The crowd laughed. Her father frowned. And John pinched her buttock.

  After that, the king took a handful of the seeds and tossed some on her shoulders, some on his, and the rest over his shoulder, praying, “Freyja, goddess of fertility, bless this union with sons and prosperity.”

  “Fertility!” John murmured. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  And she murmured with chagrin, “How about daughters?”

  Her father murmured, “Both of you, shut your teeth, lest I tell you otherwise.”

  Ingrith gifted John with a new sword then, on the tip of which was a gold wedding band. He gave his sword to her as well, in keeping for their firstborn son.

  John took her hand then so that both of their wrists were exposed upward. The king took the knife and speedily made a shallow slit in both their wrists, which he bound together, wrist to wrist, with the silver cord.

  At the king’s nod, John began to repeat his vows, “As my blood melds with yours today, Ingrith, so too shall my seed.” Under his breath, he whispered for her ears only, “Methinks my seed has already done enough melding, don’t you?”

  She squeezed his hand hard and whispered, “Behave.”

  He continued with his vow, “With this mingling of our blood, I pledge thee my troth…”

  It was her turn to repeat the vow, and she did so with a clear voice. “With this mingling of our blood, I pledge thee my troth.”

  “From the beginning of time to the end of time…”

  “From the beginning of time to the end of time…,” she repeated.

  “…let it be known that I, John of Hawk’s Lair, give my heart to thee, Ingrith of Stoneheim.”

  And she said, “…let it be known that I, Ingrith of Stoneheim, give my heart to thee, John of Hawk’s Lair.”

  John took the hammer then and lifted it high, bringing it down to crush the stone. “Like Thor, the god of thunder and his mighty hammer Mjollnir, I will protect my wife from all peril. Her foe will be my foe. She is now under my shield.”

  “And he’s under mine, too,” Ingrith quickly added, although it wasn’t part of the rites as told to John earlier.

  “It is done!” the king yelled, and a loud cheer resounded through the crowd.

  John kissed Ingrith then. Hungrily. And he didn’t care who was watching.

  “You are mine,” he said.

  “And you are mine,” she said back.

  Now, came the good part. The feasting. But first the brudh hlaup, or bride running. Ingrith had already lifted the hem of her gown and was running toward the keep. He soon caught up and overtook her and laid his sword at the threshold. If she stepped over the sword, it would indicate that she accepted her new status as his wife. He leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded over his chest, ankles crossed, grinning at her lazily.

  Would she balk, or would she yield?

  She pretended to hesitate, then jumped over into his arms. He twirled her around with happiness, burying his face in her scented neck. The headdress fell to the floor, but they could not care. They were joined now. One. Forever.

  “I love you,” he said, drawing back to look at her.

  “I love you, too,” she said, tears of happiness running down her cheeks.

  Much later after innumerable toasts, good food and drink, dancing, and music, Bolthor stood. He of course had a poem to celebrate the festivities. At first, he had wanted to write a mansongr, a special kind of love poem, but John and Ingrith had both objected. Instead, they got his ode to their particular wedding.

  Once was a Saxon lad

  Thought he was a bit mad.

  Came a Viking miss

  Soon learned what was amiss.

  He fought, he did rail,

  He drank too much ale.

  But alas and alack

  He eventually did crack.

  Because who can deny

  That when it comes to a woman’s thigh

  And a Viking one at that

  A Saxon man’s good intentions go splat.

  The moral of this saga is:

  When a Viking woman wants a man,

  He is hers.

  But more important,

  What she does not know is that

  He intended to have her all along.

  On a blustery winter day in Northumbria, almost four months later, a baby was born at Hawk’s Lair, following a ten-hour labor. It was a black-haired, blue-eyed girling, as her father had predicted. He wept when he first held the baby in his arms, warm from Ingrith’s womb.

  They named her Rose.

  READER LETTER

  Dear Reader:

  Hey, four princesses down and one more to go! What did you think of Ingrith’s story? And how about John of Hawk’s Lair? His story was a long time coming.

  I’ve said before and will repeat…you’ve gotta love a Viking. And I especially do because I have Viking in my blood, all the way back to my many-times-removed great-grandfather, Rolf the Ganger, first duke of Normandy (Norsemandy), in the tenth century.

  My own grandfather was named Magnus.

  I hope you were not put off by the birth-control issue in this book. Believe me, men were trying to prevent conception way back before the time of Christ. Heck, cavemen might even have tried it. I know this is true because I was sitting at a writers’ conference one time when the woman next to me asked what I was writing. Flippantly, I told her that my book was about a modern woman going back in time to help Viking women make homemade condoms. This very conservative-looking woman just looked at me and said, “Oh? And have you been to the condom museum?” Turns out she was the curator of an honest-to-God condom museum in Canada. Later, she sent me posters of the history of birth control and condoms. My son who opened that particular mail tube was amused, telling me, “My mother won’t let me listen to heavy metal music, and yet she has heavy rubber posters!”

  Keep in mind that The Viking Takes a Knight is a sequel of sorts to a loosely linked series (stand-alone books that can be read out of order). Most recently, there was Viking in Love, Breanne’s story. But before that there were The Reluctant Viking, The Outlaw Viking, The Tarnished Lady, The Bewitched Viking, The Blue Viking, My Fair Viking (Tyra’s story), and A Tale of Two Vikings. These books should be back in print soon, if they are not already available.

  Please visit my website at www.sandrahill.net for news of old and upcoming books, genealogy charts, videos, freebies, and other good stuff. I’d love to know your views of my books and what you’d like to see next.

  As always, I wish you smiles in your reading
.

  Sandra Hill

  GLOSSARY

  Arrha—a series of gifts given by the bridegroom to the bride; money or valuable things given to seal any contract.

  Asgard—home of the gods.

  Braies—slim pants worn by men.

  Brudh gumarind—the bridegroom’s ride.

  Brudh hlaup—the bride running.

  Brynja—chain-mail shirt.

  Burh (or burgh)—fortresses or fortified towns built in strategic locations throughout Britain, first ordered by King Alfred, circa a.d. 871. Eventually they became known as towns. The name burh became burgh, then bury, then borough. So, any modern town with that suffix usually means it was an original fortified town dating back a thousand years.

  Castellan—one who oversees a castle in the absence of the castle’s lord.

  Companaticum—“that which goes with bread,” which usually meant whatever was in the stockpot of thick broth always simmering in the huge kitchen cauldron. Usually with chunks of meat. Unfortunately, not cleaned out for long periods of time.

  Coppergate—a busy, prosperous section of tenth-century York (known then as Jorvik or Eoforic) where merchants and craftsmen set up their stalls for trading.

  Drukkin (or drukkinn)—drunk, in Old Norse.

  Ealdorman—a royal official who presided over shire courts and carried out royal commands within his domain. Comparable to later earls.

  Ell—a measure, usually of cloth, equaling 45 inches.