Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 04] (34 page)

“Nay, it’s the
gammelost
,” Eadyth announced gaily from behind him. He could hear giggles and male guffaws as well, but he had no time for wondering about their behavior. He was too busy staring at the most wonderful sight in 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 longsh—”

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 out 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 years. 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.”

And he did.

Twice.

At the end, a well-sated Alinor was heard to murmur, “You’ve got to love a Viking.”

Truer words were never spoken.

Later that night, Bolthor regaled the gathering with one of his poems in the Saga of Tykir the Great.

The wedding at Dragonstead of Jarl Tykir Thorksson and Lady Alinor of Graycote was a rip-roaring Viking event.

It was a Friday, or Friggs-day, in commemoration of the goddess of marriage. The heavens reciprocated by smiling down on them with warm weather and bright sunshine.

People came from far and wide, filling the hills and the valley surrounding the lake, where gaily colored tents had been erected. Among the guests were Tykir’s Uncle Haakon, the all-king of Norway, a fair-haired handsome man a few years younger than Tykir. Haakon brought with him his best friend, Sigurd, the jarl of Lade. Only slighter in size than Haakon’s royal entourage was that of King Anlaf and his many wives and concubines, not to mention his ebullient daughter Signe, who was trailed by a perpetually grinning husband, Torgunn, and his sister Gudny, who cared not if anyone noticed the jingling noises beneath her
gunna as she held on tightly to her bewildered husband, Alfrigg, walking beside her.

Alinor was a sight to behold in her soft wool gown and surcoat, tailored to hide her slight stomach, both of a cream color embroidered with Byzantine gold thread. At her neck was a magnificent neck ring of amber teardrops. Atop her flaming rust-colored hair, left loose in the Norse bridal fashion, was a garland of Dragonstead’s own lilies of the valley, mixed with tiny rosebuds.

So beautiful was she that some said rusty hair and freckles became a favored attribute for women of the North that day.

People generally accepted now that Alinor was not a witch, but they took no chances. Many of the men were seen in her presence with their shields placed casually in front of their manparts…most obviously, King Anlaf. And more than a few spectators were seen checking the back hem of Alinor’s gown, just in case a tail was seen falling off now that she’d wed-locked a mortal man.

Besotted was the only way to describe Tykir as he gazed at his beloved approaching the bridal canopy on the arm of Bolthor. Eirik, standing at his side, squeezed his arm, and the two brothers exchanged a look of understanding. Both knew the profound effect the women in their lives had on them and how hard in coming that knowledge had been.

Tykir was dressed all in black, from leather ankle boots to braies and tunic. The starkness of his rich attire was broken only by a thick gold-looped belt at his waist and his usual star-shaped amber pendant. As always he wore at his one ear, exposed by blond hair left loose, but braided on that side only, his father’s silver thunderbolt earring.

After the Christian marriage vows performed by Father
Caedmon, they proceeded to the Viking wedding rituals.

“Who accepts the
mundr
, or bride-price, on behalf of Alinor of Graycote?” King Haakon’s lawspeaker, Ketel, asked.”

“I do,” Bolthor said, stepping forth to take in hand a chest of magnificent jewels from Tykir. ’Twas a task Alinor’s father, or other family members, would have undertaken if they were about, which, thank God, they were not.

Rumor was that Tykir’s
Morgen-gifu
for Alinor—the “morning gift” to be presented the next day, following that night’s consummation—was to be a strangely shaped piece of polished amber that seemed warm to the touch and pulsed. What an odd
Morgen-gifu
that would be! one and all proclaimed in hushed whispers, and wondered at its purported erotic purpose.

“And dost thou have a
heiman flygia
for your husband?” Ketel asked the bride.

“Yea, I do. I give to my husband half-share in a flock of two-dozen prize sheep and a rare curly horned ram.”

Tykir was heard to chuckle then, and his bride was seen jabbing him in the side with a sharp elbow, murmuring something that sounded like, “Behave, troll!”

“Who acts as witness to the
handsal
that thus seals this wedding contract?” Ketel inquired, and six men stepped forth: Eirik, Selik, Bolthor, Rurik, Anlaf and Haakon.

King Haakon handed to Tykir the ancestral sword, Millstone-biter, which had belonged to the famed King Harald Fairhair. Legend said that Harald once cleaved a millstone to the eye with it. Placing a plain golden finger ring on the tip of the sword, Tykir offered it to Alinor, stating, “I give you this ring to mark the continuous circle of our unbreakable vows, and this sword to hold in trust for our sons.”

She nodded, with tears filling her eyes as was her wont of late, and repeated the ritual words with a male finger ring for her groom.

With one hand each on the hilt of the sword and their other hands joined, Tykir motioned for their witnesses to step forth. Then the lawspeaker said, “We declare ourselves witness that thou, Alinor of Graycote, and thou, Tykir of Dragonstead, do bond to each other in lawful betrothal, and with the taking hold of hands, dost promise one to the other, love, honor and fidelity, as long as blood flows through your veins.” The lawspeaker then made a small slit in each of their wrists, pressed them together and proclaimed, “With the blending of their blood, Tykir and Alinor are one.”

It was not exactly the traditional Viking ritual, handed down through the ages, but close enough, if the smiles on hundreds of the faces were any indication, followed by rowdy Norse whoops of congratulations to the newly wedded couple. Besides, calling on the goddess Freyja to bless the couple with fertility would be an indelicate reminder of the bride’s already fertile condition.

“Are you ready, wife?” Tykir said with a wink.

“Yea, I am ready, husband,” Alinor replied with a wild shout that did a Viking maiden proud. Then she ran for the keep, lifting her gown calf-high as she made her way across the grassy knoll for the castle. It was the
brudh gumareid
, or “bride-running”—though it looked more like “bride-lumbering” due to her condition.

Tykir chased after her—albeit slowly, though his leg was feeling better these days—followed by the entire wedding party, laughing and cheering. In the end, it was Tykir who awaited her at the keep door, grinning, with the sword laid across the entryway. If she stepped over the sword, it
was the final proof that she accepted her change of status, from maiden to wife.

She did, to the raucous cheers of all.

Some said Tykir then whacked her across the buttocks with the broadside of the sword. Viking men were trollish like that betimes.

Once inside the great hall, Tykir plunged his sword into the rooftree, putting a deep scar into the supporting pillar of the house. The depth of his cut was an indication of virility and good family-luck.

With the ceremonial drinking of the bridal ale, Alinor presented mead to her new husband in a two-handled bowl and recited the traditional words:

After sipping, Tykir made the sign of Thor’s hammer Mjolnir over the cup and presented the same to Alinor, saying:

After that was much feasting and drinking of the honey-mead, which would be imbibed for a month during the “honey-moon” period. Some said that honey was taken into the bridal chamber that night as well. But who can say if that is true?

Bolthor did write a poem about it, though, to no one’s surprise.

Three months later, Thork Tykirsson came howling into the world, a blond-haired, green-eyed babe of winsome disposition. Some say he is destined to win the world, not with his sword, but with a wink and a smile.