Red Ranulf hadn’t been emitting a lemon scent when they’d met that morning, but then they’d been outside in the cold, and Ranulf had been heavily clothed. Cnut would have to keep an eye on both men.
“And you are clean-shaven, too. Was it lice, or fleas?” a young squire, Atli by name, called out. By the looks of him, he probably had more than a few of both crawling over his dirty body.
Vikings valued cleanliness. And he had a steam bathhouse for winter bathing. What was going on here in his keep during the short time he’d been gone? Why was no one bathing?
On questioning Finn, he learned there was a problem with the bathing house where hot springs provided warm bathing. A clog was preventing dirty water from escaping.
Atli’s friend, Tostig, jabbed Atli in the arm with an elbow. “Lackwit. Ye don’t ask the master a question like that.”
“Why not?”
“No lice or fleas,” Cnut answered. “I saw a Viking one time who styled his hair this way, and I liked it.” As simple as that. Of course it was on a television show, which they would not understand.
“What Viking?” someone demanded to know. It was the blacksmith Ogot.
“Um . . . Ragnar Lothbrok.”
“That peacock!” remarked the graybeard Vestar, who’d sold his sword for many a king in his time. “Ragnar would wear peacock feathers in his hair if he could find one of those pretty birds. I saw him one time with three gold loops in one ear. No doubt he walked with a tilt to one side.”
Everyone laughed.
“Do the women like it? That is the important question,” commented Thorkel Long-Limbs, who fashioned himself an expert in the sex arts, even worse than Cnut’s brother Ivak. Thorkel was one of his hersirs, whom he’d already asked to take over Jor Snaggle-Tooth’s job as chief hersir over all the Hoggstead housecarls.
“I have no idea,” Cnut said.
But no one believed him. They probably suspected him of withholding some secret to sexual attraction. Like that would have done him any good in the past one thousand, one hundred and sixty-six years of celibacy! Or near celibacy. Not that they knew that.
“Why are your two teeth so pointy? I don’t recall them being so pointy before. Oh!” Atli gasped. “Did your captors torture you by filing your teeth?”
Cnut pressed his lips together to hide the fangs, which were recessed, but still . . . yes, pointy. But then he thought, I never said anything about being captured. Did I? Well, let them think that, rather than try to explain.
“Why do your braies have metal over your man parts? I noticed when we went to the privy. Is it like armor?” still another man asked. “A codpiece?”
“A mighty thin codpiece, if you ask me,” Ranulf hooted. “Mayhap for a man with a needle cock. Ha, ha, ha.”
Zippers? How do I explain zippers? And is Ranulf implying . . . ? Hmm. Mayhap Finn is right about Ranulf and Igor.
“I like those little bone decorations on his shert,” Ulf the Archer commented. “Methinks my Helga could make some for me from antlers.”
Buttons now. Please. This is way off subject. “Listen, everyone, the situation here at Hoggstead is dire,” he proclaimed, as if they didn’t already know that. “Here is what we’re going to do. It’s too late in the season, and the fjords too frozen, to go to any of the market towns to replenish our supplies. So, Gorm, you will take one of the wagon sledges and head east on the frozen fjord. Stop at every estate or farmstead along the way until your wagon is full of foodstuff. Anything and everything that is edible, from oats to meat. And ale or mead, as well. You will use this to pay for the goods.” He lifted one of the sacks of gold and silver coins that lay before him.
He saw several eyes widen at his being willing to part with his precious wealth. That was the old Cnut, they would soon learn, although he had to admit it hurt to part with so much. He’d liked collecting so much wealth. Truth be told, he still did. Once a glutton, always a glutton? He hoped not.
Gorm nodded. “Many are as bad off as we are with the famine, though. I cannot guarantee results.”
“Just keep going ’til you fill the wagon, even if it’s only a little here and there. Take as long as you need, but hurry, if you can.”
Gorm nodded again.
“And you, Farle,” Cnut said, raising another bag of coins, “you will do the same with a sledge to the west.”
“I hear Jarl Rolfsson had a fair harvest,” Farle informed him. “I will try there first.”
“Arnstein and Ingolf, you will start ice fishing. That spot beyond the cliffs has been good in the past. And Olaf and Gudrik, travel as far as the ocean and see what fish or seabirds you can catch.”
He could see that his men were pleased with his plans so far. They were good men, not the lazy oafs they’d apparently been of late. They just needed leadership.
“Andor, Gismund, Njal, and Sven, you and I will pick five men each to form hunting parties. Choose the best archers. I know, I know, it is difficult to find game this time of year, but needs must. We will go in five different directions. Two of you can take the dogs.” Hoggstead had a number of prime elkhounds that were good for hunting, the ones that had been banished from the hall his first night back. “First one to kill a deer gets a silver coin. A wild boar, two silver coins. And a bear, please God, merits gold, I would think.”
There was much laughter and clapping.
“And what do I get if I catch me a whale?” one man called out.
“A bucket of ale,” Cnut quipped. The only way any of the Vikings were able to catch a whale in their longboats, which were often smaller than the sea mammals, was if the animal washed up on shore. They should be so lucky now!
Cnut glanced at one elderly warrior, who had seen at least fifty winters, and said, “Aslak, you ever had a talent for setting snares. Dost think it’s too late to catch us some rabbits, or possum, or quail, or grouse?”
Aslak tossed his long gray beard over one shoulder and boasted, “Not for me!”
“Let us all set forth at first light on the morrow, and may God be with us,” Cnut declared.
The others did not catch his reference to a single god, but Finn did, and he frowned. Cnut wasn’t sure how his Vikings would react to his conversion. His conversion hardly mattered at the moment, considering the desperate circumstances, though a multitude of prayers wouldn’t hurt.
You can say that again, he thought he heard a voice in his head say.
Michael? he immediately inquired of the saint who had been ominously absent of late. What’s up with this time-travel business? And why did you send Andrea back here with me?
His head was as silent as a hollow melon.
But then Finn said, “Your lips are moving. Are you talking to yourself?”
“Would seem so. Guess I lost a bit of my mind as well as half my weight while I was gone.”
Cnut went with Finn then down to the village where he attempted to assure his serfs and cotters that he planned to help them. The people were angry and bitter. No surprise there. But also hesitantly hopeful.
“Why should we believe you?” one young man asked.
“Because I give you my word. Because you have no choice.”
It took him hours before he talked with all the villagers and farmers, sometimes in groups, sometimes individually. Starting tomorrow, each person who came up to the castle would be handed an allotment of food per person, only a daily amount at first because of the scarcity, and it would be plain fare, he told them, but filling.
Several women carrying babies began to weep.
Which made him feel lower than a snake’s belly.
“And one cup of milk per child and breeding mother,” he added.
Finn was looking at him with alarm now. Generosity was fine, according to his steward, but he was perhaps going too far.
It was very late when he and Finn arrived back at the castle. They handed their horses over to a stable boy and made their way through the back door of the keep, into the empty kitchen. Empty ex
cept for Girda, who snored loudly from her pallet by the fire, and several youthlings, girls and boys both, who slept on the stone floor, lured no doubt by the hearths where embers still threw off heat. Dinner was over long ago, of course, so he and Finn grabbed a circle of manchet bread and a hunk of meat each, to be washed down with water, though Finn offered to go unlock the private larder where he’d hidden the ale.
A tremendous hunger and thirst gnawed at his stomach and dried his throat, as fierce as the old days. Was he destined to gluttony again? Would he blow up like a fat balloon, again?
Not if I can help it, he vowed.
Cnut was cold and bone-weary by the time he made his way up the stairs to his bedchamber, where he was greeted with a warm fire, a very clean room without any rushes, and a woman under his bed furs. He didn’t need to uncover her to know who it was.
The room smelled of sweet coconut.
And he was hit with yet another temptation, more powerful than that for food or drink. Blood drained from his head and heat sizzled across his skin from his scalp to the tips of his fingers and the ends of his curled toes. Between his legs, his balls shifted and his staff seemed to yawn and stretch and come to life. If cocks could smile, his was doing a happy dance of anticipation. He moaned, and, suddenly weak, sank down into a chair.
He was no longer tired. He was energized, as if he’d just mainlined Red Bull. Or testosterone. Like he needed any more of that!
What to do? What to do?
He hesitated, but only for a moment, before standing and shucking out of his clothing. He was going to sleep in his own bed, but not before taking care of business. Taking his cock in hand, he stroked himself. Up, down. Slow, then fast. He knew just how to bring himself to completion. He’d done it more times than he could count over the centuries. Was it a sin? Yes, but not nearly as sinful as what his body really wanted. The whole time he watched Andrea. Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke. Only her face showed above the bed furs, but he had a good imagination for what lay underneath. Soft skin, small breasts, a curvy ass, long legs. Faster, faster, faster. In all, it probably took only two minutes before he climaxed with a long groan of pleasure/pain. Was it good for him? Hell, no! But it satisfied him for the moment.
He went over to the washstand, where he splashed cold water on his face, then washed his face and genitals. Then he turned to the bed, still aroused but not voraciously so, his sexual appetite overridden by the aches and exhaustion of the long day.
He could go downstairs and seek an empty pallet, or he could lie here on the hard floor before the fire, but he was so damned weary and muscle-sore from all the riding. Besides, he didn’t want to, dammit! She slept so soundly, she wouldn’t even notice that he shared the bed furs, the bed being wide enough for two people, three if so inclined.
Lifting the bed fur on the far side from the hearth, he slid inside the delicious warmth of the two furs. Fur side up on the bottom, fur side down on the top. These were two large skins, soft and thick, of bears he’d killed himself many years ago, before he’d gotten too heavy to walk or ride on long hunts.
He yawned widely and let himself relax into the furs. There was a body width of space separating him from Andrea. He was safe. He might even be able to escape in the morning before she awakened, without her ever knowing they’d shared a bed.
Turning on his side, away from her, he let his mind wander. There were so many problems to be resolved here at Hoggstead. And so many questions about his role here or in the future. Still more about what to do with his reluctant travel companion. But he settled almost immediately into a deep sleep.
And came instantly awake in the middle of the night.
He was lying flat on his back, arms folded under his head, legs spread, still on his side of the bed. But Andrea had moved. Like a kitten, she was cuddled up against him, her face on his chest, one leg over his thigh, the knee nudging Neverland, or what she would consider Neverland if she were awake, and the palm of one hand resting over his chest.
Couldn’t she hear the loud thumping of his heart? Couldn’t she feel the rhythm of his breathing? Couldn’t she tell that her coconut essence was becoming a sex trigger to him?
Oddly, he could smell mint now, too. His own unique body odor? And he liked the way it blended with the coconut. An odd combination, coconut and mint. But perhaps not so odd. In fact, it felt too right.
He lowered his arms carefully and pulled the bed fur more closely over them both. The fire had died down, and the bedchamber was cool. Then he let his arms envelop her. Just to keep her warm. It was not an embrace. It wasn’t. It wasn’t. The most incredible sense of peace came over him. Had he ever felt peaceful before in his entire pitiful life? He didn’t think so. This was almost . . . heavenly.
He smiled at what Michael would have to say about that.
When a dim dawn light came streaming through the arrow-slit window, he awakened to a loud screeching noise and someone pummeling his arms and chest. “Idiot, idiot, idiot!” Andrea was yelling at him.
He did not care. For the first time in centuries, he had slept like a baby. So he just smiled up at her and said, “Was that as good for you as it was for me?”
As she knelt on the bed in a thin chemise she must have borrowed, her blonde hair rose in tufts of bed-mussed disarray about her face, which was red with fury. Her jaw dropped at his words. “Are you serious?”
She didn’t know whether they had made love or not. Hah! She would know if they had, or Cnut was not a Viking whose sex skills were inborn. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. Let her squirm.
“You didn’t?” she sputtered at him. “Did you?”
Me? Why does she assume I did something? He eased off the bed and stood, bare-arsed naked, with a morning erection that should be embarrassing, but wasn’t, and stretched, deliberately displaying himself, before saying, “I didn’t. You did.” Let her interpret that as she would!
Her jaw dropped and she just stared at him. It was always good to turn a woman speechless. You could say he’d learned that in Viking 101.
A voice in his head said, It’s a sin to tell a lie.
“But not as big a sin as I could have committed,” he countered.
Oh, you of little faith!
“I have faith. I have plenty of faith,” he protested. “If I didn’t have faith that there was some method to this latest antic of yours, I would just succumb to madness.”
He didn’t realize he’d been speaking his thoughts aloud until Andrea remarked, “There’s a method to your madness, all right, and when I discover what it is, I’m going to squash you like a bug. No, not a bug. A big, old, flat-as-a-pancake Peppermint Pattie.”
“Good. At least I’ll be food to stave off someone’s hunger.” He paused. “Will you eat me?”
He really didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Really.
But she didn’t know that. “You are an idiot.”
Chapter 11
FAMINE FARE FOR THE NON-STARVING
Beef-flavored turnip soup with rivels
Thin-sliced pork roast
Stewed turnips
Skyr cheese
Manchet bread
Cabbage soup with turnips and rivels
Shredded pork turnip hash
Manchet bread
Mashed turnips
Lutefisk
Manchet bread
Rivels in turnip butter
Salt herring
Turnip fricassee
FAMINE FARE FOR THE STARVING
Acorn flour bread
Possum pottage
Leftover smoked horsemeat
Nettle soup
Pickled wild onions, endive, and various roots
Women’s work . . . it never changes . . .
Andrea was dressing in her same clothes when a maid and a young boy came in, one carrying an earthenware pitcher of water and the other an armful of firewood. She shrieked at them for entering without knocking and held her T-shirt in front of her bra. They deliberately avoid
ed looking at her.
The boy made quick work of dumping the wood on the burning embers, causing sparks to fly.
“Lackwit!” the woman said, thwapping the boy aside the head with her palm. “Get the chamber pot and empty it in the garderobe. Then go wash it out and bring it back here. Do you hear me, Kugge?”
“They heard ye in the village,” Kugge whined, rubbing his sore head. The boy couldn’t be more than seven or eight.
“What did you say?” The woman put her hands on her hips and glared at the boy.
“Nothing, móðir,” Kugge said, kneeling to draw the lidded pot out from under the bed and carrying it, precariously, through the still open door.
The woman looked at Andrea and grimaced. “My son. Needs a bit of prodding now and then, he does.” There was obvious pride in her voice. “My name is Dyna. Master says I am to take care of you.”
“Oh, did he? And where is the . . . um, master now?”
“Off with the hunters.”
“When will they return?”
Dyna shrugged. “Mayhap tonight. Mayhap on the morrow.” She shrugged again. “They will come when they have meat for the larder, gods willing.”
That is just great. Stuck in this Outlander time warp or whatever it is until the lord and master—in other words, the idiot—comes back. At least Jamie Fraser didn’t have fangs. Cnut is probably afraid to face me again. He should be. I’m developing a real mean streak.
“The other men have gone ice fishing, or rabbit snaring. Still others have gone to neighboring estates to purchase foodstuffs. Praise the gods for this is the first time our jarl has been willing to release coins from his treasure room to help with the famine,” Dyna confided. She was moving about the room, tidying up while she talked, making a pile of Cnut’s dirty clothing, wiping off the washstand, sweeping ashes off the floor near the fireplace. Andrea could have done these small chores for herself—in fact, she’d cleaned the room herself last night—but she refrained from saying so until she got the lay of the land, so to speak. She didn’t want to offend or take away someone’s job.
“A bit tight-fisted, was he?”