Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 04] (31 page)

“Oh, Tykir!” she whispered when she saw the box’s contents. It was the amber neck ring he’d shown her at Hedeby. “I can’t accept this.” Her green eyes welled with tears, and her voice sounded choked with emotion.

“Yea, you can and will.” His voice was equally choked.

Brushing a tear aside with the back of one hand, she reminded him, “You told me that the Arab trader who bartered it with you said it was intended for a bride on her wedding night, as a charm ensuring marriage-luck. Since you do not intend to wed, you said you would give it to one of Eirik’s daughters on her wedding day.”

He shrugged. “I changed my mind.”

“About marriage?” she asked, wide-eyed with surprise.

“Nay!” he retorted way too quickly and loudly.

But she just smiled at his impassioned response.

“Do not look for hidden meanings in this gift, Alinor. I wanted to give you something special, but not—”

She pressed her fingertips to his mouth, halting further words. “It is special.”

She let him put the neck ring on her then. Its thick gold band fit snugly around her slim neck, just above the collarbone. From it were suspended many tear-shaped amber stones, starting with a large one in the center and decreasingly smaller ones on either side, going back, till they were the size of tiny human tears. She resembled a magnificent Viking princess, garbed thus. A goddess. The yellowish stones set off her breasts and the creaminess of her skin. They made her eyes sparkle green fire.

“Thank you, Tykir,” she whispered. “It is a gift I will always cherish. Always.”

She thanked him then by being the aggressor. And she reversed the tables on him in other ways, too, by giving him the most tender loving of his life. In the process, something precious happened between them.

Mayhap the amber neck ring did indeed have magical powers.

Or mayhap the magic was in them.

Three months later

Springtime arrived way too soon, and they were leaving Dragonstead.

Oh, it was not a true spring. There was still snow on the ground in the mountains, and the air was chill. But the ice had broken in the fjords, which allowed the longships to move out for their trading and a-Viking ventures.

Jubilation filled the air as the bearlike Vikings, many with huge beards and fur cloaks, came out of winter hibernation, eager for new adventures. Blood thickened by the cold season and lack of exercise suddenly thinned and roared to life. These virile men were not made for inactivity or bucolic work, and exciting exploits awaited them in the Westlands, beyond Norway.

Not everyone was jubilant, however.

Finally, Alinor was going home. But where was home
now? She’d become so fond of Dragonstead and its people…and one infuriating Viking, in particular. She was so confused. This was not her home, and yet it felt like home.

She’d always thought that her only dream was to live independently on her own estate in Northumbria. No marriages. No greedy brothers. Just a peaceful, solitary life.

What a foolish maid she had been!

“Why the tears, my lady?” Tykir inquired softly. All the trading supplies and foodstuffs had already been loaded. He’d come up to her side where she stood on the dock waiting to board the longship. She noticed that he barely limped, having pampered his leg all winter long with hot bricks, massages and rest.

“I’m not weeping,” she said, swiping at her cheeks with the sleeve of her gunna.

He raised his brows in contradiction. “I would think you’d be happy to leave this ‘prison’ and return to your homeland.” There was an odd vulnerability on his face as he spoke.

“I
am
happy,” she lied. “These are tears of happiness.”

It was the wrong thing to say. She saw that immediately when his expression went flat. What did he expect of her? He hadn’t asked her to stay. And, frankly, she didn’t know what she would have done if he had.

“Well, then, there must be a keepful of happy people here at Dragonstead. I have not seen so much weeping amongst the womenfolk since the widows came to claim the bodies after the Battle of Brunanburh. ’Twould seem you have touched a few hearts here, Alinor.”

She nodded her head at his kind words, unable to speak over the lump in her throat.

“You must be stronger with your brothers when you
return to Graycote,” he advised her then. “Do not let them dictate your life, as they have in the past.”

“Yea. I have taken a vow to withstand their assaults on my private life in future. What think you,” she asked, flashing a mischievous smile his way, “of my threatening to curl their manparts if they try to force another husband on me?”

“That should handle them good and well,” he said on a laugh. Then, suddenly serious, he declared, “I will miss you, Alinor.” He put up a halting hand when she opened her mouth to speak. “I do not utter those words lightly, sweetling. Know this: I have never said them to another woman in all my life.”

“Oh, Tykir,” she murmured.

Then, on a lighter note, he teased, “But I will not miss your chicken soup.”

“Nor I your
gammelost.”

He smiled gently down at her. “Mayhap we will meet again someday.”

“Mayhap.”

He didn’t believe that any more than she did. Once Tykir’s longships reached the juncture of fjords and sea near Anlaf’s court two days hence, they would all be going their separate ways—Tykir and Bolthor to the Baltic lands for amber harvesting; Adam to the land of the Arabs, where he would continue his healing studies; Rurik off to Scotland in search of a dye-wielding witch, and Alinor back to Graycote and her sheep.

“One thing is for sure,” he said, handing her up onto the landing board that spanned the distance from dock to ship, “I will never forget you, Alinor the Witch.”

“And I will never forget you, Tykir the Troll.”

In the background, aboard ship, she heard Beast barking madly, Rurik cursing about one thing or another, Adam
flirting with a hesir’s wife, who was going with him to Birka, and Bolthor reciting a new poem:

On the morning of the second day they arrived at Trondelag and Anlaf’s castle.

At least a hundred longships of all sizes, including the large knarrs, or trading vessels, were lined up along the docks or anchored a short distance out to sea. Alinor was walking along the quayside, waiting for Tykir to return from paying his respects to the king. Then he would put her on an England-bound vessel with Rurik before making sail himself for the Baltics. He wanted to waste no more time, since the winds were good today.

Even Bolthor’s one good eye had seemed to well up with emotion. “We will see each other again, Lady Alinor,” Bolthor had said gruffly before going off to perform some ship chores. “I feel certain of that.”

Alinor didn’t share that certainty, but Bolthor’s final words had brought a slight smile to her face.

“It rhymes,” had been the only words she’d been able to come up with. But Bolthor had taken that as a compliment, saying, “Yea, those are the best kind.”

While Tykir had gone inside the castle, she chose to stay outside, wanting no repetition of the witchcraft charges levied against her. Besides, Tykir had not invited her to accompany him. Was he ashamed of his relationship with her, which had no doubt spread through the Viking gossip chain? Or was he protecting her sensibilities against any mean-spirited besmirching of her reputation?

“Pssst! Pssst!”

Alinor turned this way and that before she recognized that it was King Anlaf’s older sister, Gudny, who was standing behind some barrels of salted herring, trying to get her attention. Jerking her head sharply, she indicated that Alinor should join her in hiding.

“What?” she asked, looking up at the woman, who was tall as a man, wide-shouldered, thick-boned, and buxom as a ship’s prow.

“I need a love potion,” Gudny said furtively, shoving a few coins into Alinor’s hand.

Alinor tried to give the money back. “I have no knowledge of love potions.”

“Yea, you must. Witches know things we mortals do not.”

“But I’m not—”

“I’m desperate,” Gudny moaned. “Dost know what it
is like to live on my brother’s sufferance? He makes my life miserable. And everybody laughs at me…to think I could not keep the attention of a husband, especially one as worthless as Alfrigg. But I want him back. There’s a ship going to the Irish lands that I could board, if only I was carrying a love potion with me to ensure that he will return with me.” Gudny exhaled loudly after that long-winded exhortation, then added, “Please?”

Alinor racked her brain for advice she could give the poor woman. For a certainty, she knew how Gudny felt living under her brother’s thumb. Suddenly, she inquired, “Have you tried bells?”

Gudny swiped at her tears and brightened. “Bells?”

And Alinor explained a most unusual costume that Gudny could make for herself to entice her wayward husband home. Alfrigg was either going to be overcome with lust or surprise when he saw the big woman adorned like a harem houri.

Alinor was still smiling over that picture long after a wildly thankful Gudny had left her. That’s when Signe, King Anlaf’s daughter, approached her.

“Uh, Lady Alinor, um…” Signe began awkwardly. “I was…uh…speaking with Gudny, and…”

Uh-oh!
“Signe, you’re young and beautiful and you’ve only been married a few months. Surely you don’t need a love potion.”

“But I do,” Signe wailed. “I saw Torgunn talking with a Rus slave trader this morn. And ogling a young Slav girl, he was. I suspicion he is going to take her as a bed slave.”

The pig!
Alinor thought. In the end, she suggested, hesitantly, “Have you tried feathers?”

When she was done giving her brief explanation, Signe was staring at her with such admiration you’d have
thought Alinor had invented gold…or sex. “I don’t know if we have any peacock feathers about. Dost think goose feathers would suffice?”

“I daresay any kind would do,” Alinor said on a laugh. “’Tis the texture, not the looks of the feather that matter.”

“Ooooh!” Signe cooed and shoved a piece of gold into Alinor’s hand.

A number of other women showed up next, but Alinor put up a halting hand. Enough was enough. “I am not a witch!” she’d asserted firmly, and they’d gone off grumbling.

“Have you gained a witch following now, Alinor? A coven, mayhap?” Adam asked, coming up to embrace her in leavetaking.

“Don’t even hint at such a thing.”

“What is the cause of your sudden popularity then?”

“You do not want to know,” she said with a smile.

“Well, I am off then.” He gave her another fierce hug.

“Godspeed,” she answered. “Someday I will expect to hear news of your great fame. The Healing Knight. It has a good sound to it, does it not?”

He smiled warmly down at her. “Alinor, I hate to see you traveling back to Britain alone. Is that really what you want?”

“We’ve had this conversation afore. I have no choice.”

“But you love the oaf…I mean, Tykir…though why I cannot say, he is such a homely beast, unlike me who—”

He ducked when she tried to swat him on the side of the head for his devilment.

“You do love Tykir, don’t you?”

She exhaled loudly. “Yea, I probably do, but—”

“Have you told him?”

“Of course not! Never would I embarrass him or myself so.”

“Embarrass?” Adam frowned with confusion. “He loves you. You love him. You are going to Britain alone. He is going to the Baltic alone. What is wrong with this picture?”

“Tykir does
not
love me. Oh, I concede that he has formed a fondness for me. Mayhap that’s the best any woman could hope for with him…but he does not love me. That I would know.”

“Just as he would know, without the telling, that you love him?”

“I don’t want to discuss this any longer with you, Adam. It’s over. Painful as it is, I have resigned myself to the fate God has given me.”

He shrugged hopelessly, then tried a different tack. “Come with me, then.”

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “With you? To the Arab lands? Why?”

“My lady, how you insult me!”

“Hah! Your conceit is much too great for you to take offense at my refusal of your overblown charms.”

“Was it my charms you thought I was offering?”

She blushed.

“Nay, I just thought you might like to come along as a fellow adventurer. A friend. Think of all the exiting new places and people you would meet. Think about—”

“What? Do my ears play me false?” Tykir asked in a voice reeking with consternation. “What are you up to, Adam, that you would invite the Lady Alinor to accompany you?” Then he turned to Alinor. “And you, what a fickle lady you have become, that you would go from my bed to Adam’s with nary a second thought.”

She and Adam both gasped at Tykir’s misunderstanding
of the situation…and at the vehemence of his wounded pride.

“If you are going anywhere with any man afore returning to your homeland, you may as well come with me to the Baltic,” Tykir said and stomped off.

She and Adam exchanged a stunned look at Tykir’s uncalled-for reaction, followed by the less-than-complimentary offer. Not that she was about to refuse. No matter how ungracious the invitation, Alinor was not so lackwitted as to fail to realize she’d been given a reprieve. A temporary reprieve, but a reprieve just the same.

Adam smiled widely and bragged, “I am
so
good!”

She smiled back and gave her thanks where thanks were due. Certainly not to Adam.
Thank you, God.

Alinor was once again alone, momentarily.

Bolthor was on one of Tykir’s ships, helping him rearrange the goods in the six longships he would be taking to the Baltic. These last-minute changes were necessary to accommodate the special Saracen horse, Fierce One, that Anlaf had gifted to Tykir, previously, along with some mares the king wanted him to sell in Hedeby on his way back.

The air was cool, but the sun was warm on her face as she leaned against a narrow tree near the docks. Tykir gave a silent signal to her that they would be a little bit longer and soon was gone from sight on one of the far boats.

Suddenly, she was grabbed from behind. Alinor squirmed and tried to see who it was, but she was being held firmly with one hand clamped over her mouth and another wrapped round her waist from behind. Lifting her off the ground, the person proceeded to edge backwards toward the forest and a number of outbuildings. Her eyes darted this way and that, but no one seemed to be looking
her way. She squirmed and flailed, to no avail.

Was it a jest someone was playing on her?

Nay. The only person she could think of who would do that would be Adam, who was gone, or Rurik, who was working alongside Tykir and Bolthor.

Was it King Anlaf’s way of getting back at her? Nay. Alinor knew that Anlaf would enact his revenge in public, not in a clandestine manner.

Her questions were soon answered when she was dragged into an empty woodshed where Egbert and Hebert stood with a half-dozen ruthless-looking men of various nationalities. Mercenaries, she would wager. A few looked to be Vikings, and a sorry lot they were, hard-eyed and scruffy in attire, though Norsemen just the same; probably Viking outlaws.

“Are you two mad?” She pulled out of the grasp of her captor and, storming at Egbert and Hebert, stood in front of some large object lying on the far side of the woodshed. “To come into Norse country…surely you have lost your senses!”