Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 04] (7 page)

“Thea, a Saxon thrall, was Eirik’s mother. She died in the birthing,” Gyda answered. “But Tykir…well, his
mother Asbol was a Viking princess who abandoned the boy when he was still in swaddling clothes. Thork offered to marry her, ’tis said, but she sought a nobler marriage, and never once wanted to see her child over the years.”

All of the women exchanged appalled looks at that unnatural behavior for a mother.

“They were such lonely children,” Gyda continued, “raised here in Jorvik by me and Olaf, then at Ravenshire by Dar and Aud, their grandparents, till their death, but I think Tykir suffered most, being the youngest. I remember how the little boy would ask every woman he encountered, ‘Are you my mother?’ ’Twas heartwrenching, I tell you. He was left alone when he was only eight and Eirik ten when Eirik went off to foster in King Athelstan’s Saxon court. Eirik was only half-Viking, you recall, but Tykir was pure Viking to the core. I remember how he would proclaim, even when he was too small to lift a mighty sword, that someday he would be a Jomsviking, too…just so he could stand beside his father. Then, his father died later that year, when he was eight, and Eirik was off a-fostering. And finally, his stepmother, Ruby, disappeared in a mysterious fashion.”

“Gyda!” Eadyth exclaimed with sudden inspiration. “Dost think that is why Tykir has refused to settle in one place all these years? Why he never wed?”

“I am certain of it,” Gyda said with an emphatic nod. “The boy was rejected or abandoned by everyone he ever loved. So he protects himself from hurt by never caring deeply for anyone. Even his own brother, whom he visits only on rare occasions.”

“Oh, this is too much. You two are trying to turn my anger away from that troll by playing on my sympathies. The
boy
has seen thirty and five winters, and if he fails to care for anyone but himself, ’tis because he is a troll.”

Gyda and Eadyth smiled at the vehemence of her response.

“Do you think…?” Eadyth arched a brow at Gyda.

The old woman chortled gleefully. “Mayhap. Mayhap.”

And they both gazed at Alinor in the oddest way.

“Here,” Eadyth said then, handing Alinor a small soapstone container filled with a rose-scented cream. “Your hair is just like mine—”

Alinor surveyed Eadyth’s silken tresses and laughed. The woman must be blind.

“—curly and unmanageable. I have developed a wonderful concoction for the hair that tames even the wildest tresses.”

Alinor was skeptical, though the cream did smell wonderful. She usually didn’t indulge in such vanities, but mayhap just this once. As she worked the delicious substance into her long strands, Eadyth addressed Alinor once again. “Is it true that you are a witch?”

“Do I look like a witch?” Alinor scoffed, then immediately regretted her words as the eyes of both women traveled over her freckle-ridden body. She was aware of that old wives’ tale about freckles being the devil’s spittle, and apparently so were they.

“’Tis a well-known fact that a witch cannot be discerned by outward aspects. Take Eric Bloodaxe’s wife, Gunnhild, for example,” Eadyth said, as she rinsed the lotion out of Alinor’s hair and motioned for her to stand so she could comb out the tangles in the wet strands. “Yea, Gunnhild, the sister of King Harald Gormsson of Denmark, studied witchcraft in her early days in Finnmark, and a more beautiful woman there never was. At least from outward appearances. ’Tis said Eric rescued her from a most bizarre witchly voyage into the White Sea and over
the years has gained strength from her powers.”

“There are good witches and bad witches, of course.” Gyda stopped her weaving for a moment and stared at Alinor, attempting to determine in which category she fell.

“I am not a witch,” Alinor said, but neither of the women paid her any heed.

“You must talk with Gunnhild this eve when we sup at the palace,” Eadyth said. “Mayhap you can share potions and such in the midst of the feast.”

“Me? Me?” Alinor stammered. “Why would I be asked to participate in some Viking feast?”

“Because you are Tykir’s captive,” Eadyth declared, as if that was a normal thing to be. “And you must remain under guard at all times. Tykir insists. Tykir wouldn’t want Bolthor or Rurik or any of his men to miss this feast tonight by staying behind to guard you.” Eadyth glanced at Alinor reprovingly, obviously deeming her a most selfish female to think otherwise.

“I am
not
a witch,” she repeated again, then exhaled with exasperation. Really, it was like talking to a wall, trying to convince people of her innocence. “Do you even know what this is all about? Do you have any idea what they think I have done?”

Gyda shook her head slowly, and Eadyth said hesitantly, “Well, I know what Rurik said back at the palace, but I can hardly credit…tell us your version.”

When Alinor explained, their mouths gaped with amazement.

“The king’s manpart did what?” Eadyth choked out.

“Turned right, apparently,” Alinor answered dryly.

“And you put a spell on him to make it do such?” Gyda grinned, rather impressed by that feat.

“There are a few men I wouldn’t mind afflicting so.”
Eadyth grinned mischievously. “Can you teach me the spell?”

“I am not a witch. I keep trying to tell you, it’s what they accuse me of, but it’s not true.”

The women remained unconvinced.

“You know,” Gyda said, tapping her pressed lips pensively with a forefinger, “it seems to me that I have heard of this malady afore on a man’s private parts. Ofttimes ’tis caused by an injury that scars over and forces the staff to go crooked. The few cases I’ve heard of eventually corrected themselves.”

“So all King Anlaf needs to cure himself is time?” Eadyth offered hopefully.

“Mayhap.” Gyda tapped her chin pensively. “Lest the crooked manpart is caused by a witch’s curse, of course.” She looked pointedly at Alinor.

“I am
not
a witch. Why won’t anyone believe me?” Alinor felt like weeping with frustration.

“What of the bowel spell you put on Tykir? Surely you cannot deny that.” Eadyth folded her arms over her chest and nodded her head, as if she’d just won some point of argument.

“Well, nay, but—”

“Aha!” Eadyth and Gyda said as one.

“—but it was a mere herb that grows—”

“A poison?” Eadyth lashed out. “You gave Tykir a bane drink? That is as bad as a witchly potion, Alinor. I could kill you myself for that.”

“It wasn’t a deadly potion…oh, what’s the use? No one believes me anyhow.”

“EA-DYTH!” a loud male voice rang out from downstairs.

Eadyth cringed and Gyda gathered up her weaving items, preparing to leave the room.

“Oh, the brute! He knows I hate it when he yells for me like a cow in the field.”

“EA-DYTH!” her husband shouted once again, his voice coming closer. “Where are you? I have something to show you.”

Eadyth’s face bloomed bright red. “I have seen
it
more than enough times, believe me,” she informed Alinor with a wink. “Here,” she said, handing her a towel. “Best you dry yourself afore my husband comes blundering in here.”

Both Eadyth and Gyda left the room, giggling.

Through the closed door, she could swear she heard Eirik say, “Ea-dyth! I dropped honey on the front of my braies back at the castle. Can you think of any way I can remove it?”

Eadyth said something that Alinor could not overhear, but Eirik let loose with a low, masculine growl of pleasure at whatever it was.

And Alinor decided that Eadyth needed no lessons at all from a witch.

Tykir leaned against the doorjamb of Gyda’s house and watched with amusement as his brother greeted his wife with a familiar pat on the behind and a deep, noisy kiss.

Seven years they had been wed, and still they acted as lovestruck youthlings. Three children they’d had together—Thorkel, Ragnor and Freydis—and three others they’d brought into the marriage betwixt them…Eadyth’s John, and Eirik’s Larise and Emma. Ravenshire rang with the joyous sounds of children of all ages, and yet these two behaved as children themselves.

There was a Norse legend about a golden apple and how adventurers searched for this treasure a lifetime and more, across many lands, risking life and family. The moral of
the tale was that often the precious fruit was growing in one’s own orchard.

Eirik had found that golden apple.

Tykir was pleased for his brother, truly he was. There weren’t many men fortunate enough to find a lifemate who was steadfast and loving. He never had.

“Have you left any mead for me back at the castle?” Bolthor asked as he passed by him through the doorway.

“Yea, I did. Not as good as Eadyth’s home-brewed ale, but sufficient. There is Frisian wine, as well. And Rurik discovered a group of thralls bought by the king’s steward from a Nubian slave trader. He said for the price of a gold coin, one of them has a surprise for you.” Tykir jiggled his eyebrows meaningfully.

Bolthor laughed. “Good thing I have a gold coin.” He hesitated, then added with a chuckle, “I will see you aboard ship at dawn when we set sail.”

Eirik and Eadyth came next.

“We have decided to dine with the king, then come back here to sleep tonight,” Eirik informed him. “Eadyth has no inclination to sleep under our uncle’s roof. Nor do I.”

Tykir nodded.

“Will you come with us?”

“You go on ahead. I wouldst get the witch first.”

“Why not leave her here tonight?” Eadyth suggested.

He shook his head. “Nay, the witch does not leave my sight till we are asea. Even then, I cannot be sure she will not put a curse on my ship if I do not watch her closely.”

Eadyth began to protest, but Eirik laid a warning hand on her arm. “Leave be, Eadyth. ’Tis Tykir’s concern, not ours.”

They left then, and Tykir waved aside Gyda’s tsk-ing reprimand when he took the steps two at a time, attempting
to locate Alinor. The night was wasting, and he had much mead to imbibe afore dawn.

“Alinor, where are you, witch?” he called out, at the same time he opened a bedchamber door. “’Tis time to…”

His words trailed off at the vision that greeted him.

A woman was standing knee-deep in a hip bath. Her arms were raised overhead, pushing long strands of wet, rust-colored hair off her face. The sleek tresses hung in a silky swath down her back practically to her buttocks, which were round and smooth and most enticing. With a start, the woman turned quickly, arms still upraised, and regarded his shock with her own.

It mattered not that her creamy skin was covered with freckles from forehead to knees, and probably to toes under the murky water. Her body was spectacular. Small breasts, yea, but they were high and firm, with raspberry tips. A trim waist and narrow hips. Long, slim legs joined by a thatch of reddish-blond curls dewed with droplets of water. In all, a perfectly proportioned body that would put the finest goddess to shame.

My very own witch goddess.

Bloody hell! When did I start thinking of her as mine?

The witch blinked at him through green cat eyes, as if she was held in the same spell that immobilized him. Mere seconds had passed since he’d opened the door, but it seemed like a lifetime. Only then did he admit what he’d already come to suspect earlier.

He was bewitched.

And he didn’t care.

“Stop it,” Alinor hissed at Tykir.

They were sitting on long benches in the vast great hall of the Norse palace, along with hundreds of other noble, and not so noble, personages. Everyone of high station in Northumbria, whether Norse or Saxon by birth, had come with their entourages to pay self-serving homage to the newly reinstated king, Eric Bloodaxe Haraldsson, and his wife, the witch-queen Gunnhild.

The royal couple was ensconced at the high table up on the dais with those of highest rank. Tykir, his friends and family, along with Alinor, his captive, sat just a short ways below, definitely a position of favor.

“Stop what?” the insufferable Viking knight inquired with exaggerated concern, as if he cared what was bothering her…which he did not, of course. The troll braced his shoulders back against the wall behind them, sipped at his goblet of mead and regarded her with lazy amusement.

Alinor felt as if she’d landed in a Viking version of hell. Especially since she was practically joined at the hip, and other places, to the man who had become her nemesis of late.

“Stop moving your hand about, for one thing.” She glanced pointedly at their bound hands—his left tied at the wrist to her right. At the moment, the pair of appendages were sitting high on his thigh. Very high!

“Oh! I beg your pardon, my lady,” he said solicitously. Then, with total lack of social grace, he raised his hand to scratch his belly. Which placed her hand just about square on…

“You crude clod!” She jerked her hand away from his…bulge. “You dumb dolt! You slimy swine! You…you…”

“How about loathsome lout?” Eadyth offered from across the table. “It always works well for me.”

Her husband looped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. Presumably in punishment, but more like affection. Married couple though they be, the two could not seem to keep their hands off each other’s persons. Alinor had never witnessed such spousal behavior. For a certainty, she’d never yearned to touch any of the slimy maggots she’d been handed in matrimony.

Well, mayhap she would feel differently if she was as beauteous as Eadyth, with her luxurious silver-blond hair lying wimpleless about her shoulders under a gossamer-thin headrail of palest lavender, held in place by a gold circlet of twisted flowers. Her headrail matched her misty violet eyes and her darker lavender gunna, which was embroidered at the edges in the orphrey style with gold thread.

Then, too, she might feel differently if she’d ever been wed to a man as young and roguishly handsome as Ead
yth’s husband, Eirik, who was a few years older than his brother Tykir. God’s mercy! He was a sight to behold, with his black hair and blue eyes, bedecked in a deep blue wool tunic over black braies, belted at the waist. A short mantle was pinned back off one shoulder with a most unusual gold brooch in the form of a twisted dragon with amber eyes.

Tykir made a coughing noise, recalling her attention to him. “’Tis not polite to ogle another woman’s spouse.”

“I was not ogling. I just wondered how such a comely man as Lord Eirik could have such a homely troll as you for a brother.”

“Some women like my looks.” The grin on his face told Alinor how much he cared whether she considered him ugly or not. And she had to admit that even with a blackened eye and bruised nose, he was far from ugly.

“Some women cannot see past a man’s money pouch. And speaking of looks, I would appreciate it if you would stop looking at me in that manner.” She said this in an undertone. Ever since he’d come barging into Gyda’s bedchamber, he’d been staring at her in the strangest way. And smiling.

“What manner?” he asked with a knowing chuckle.

She must have spoken louder than she realized because Rurik, who sat on the other side of Tykir, leaned forward around the buxom Viking maid who sat on his lap and commented, “Yea, Tykir, you have been gaping at the witch like a tasty sweet from a sultan’s harem. Are you
drunkkinn?”

“Not yet,” Tykir said, taking another long swig of mead from his cup, his eyes holding Alinor’s the entire time. No man had ever looked at her in quite that way before, and she found it discomfiting.

Even more annoying was Tykir’s appearance. No man should be so beautiful. Or so rascally.

He was wearing a buttery brown tunic of the softest wool over a pair of dark brown braies. The star-shaped amber pendant hung by a gold chain against his chest. She assumed that he had bathed in the palace bathhouse that afternoon because the flaxen strands in his light brown hair glistened, resembling threads of spun gold. One side of his hair was braided so that his thunderbolt earring was exposed, as it had been the first time she had seen him. His sword was in the scabbard at his hip, and his sable-lined cloak lay on the bench, on his other side.

Tykir winked at her.

And Alinor wished she could sink into the rushes to hide her mortification. It was one thing to be caught ogling Eirik of Ravenshire, but quite another
unacceptable
thing to be caught ogling the troll.

“You must not let the witch cast her spells on you, Tykir,” Rurik warned. “Are you still wearing your cross?”

In answer, Tykir pulled the wooden cross on a leather thong from inside his tunic and settled it on his chest next to the amber pendant.

“Well, if you are going to take risks by engaging in eye contact with a witch, you must exercise every precaution.” Before anyone realized what he was about, Rurik stood, dropping his lap companion unceremoniously to the floor. She shrieked with outrage before scurrying off indignantly.

Annoyed at the interruption, Beast shifted in the rushes at his master’s feet, growled, then immediately went back to sleep.

Still standing, Rurik pulled a vial out of a flap in his tunic and commenced to sprinkle holy water all over Ty
kir. Except that he was feeling the effects of about a
tun
of mead, and the water came out in a splash, instead of a sprinkle, all over Tykir’s meticulously groomed hair and forehead.

“
Blód hel,
Rurik! I’m not bewitched…well, I probably am bewitched…but not because of some dark spell.” He stood abruptly, forcing Alinor to stand as well, and shook his head like a shaggy dog, thus causing her and everyone else around them to be anointed as well.

“What do you mean?” Rurik asked. “Bewitched, you say, but not by the witch’s spell?”

Yea, I truly am in Viking hell. Or a Viking madhouse.

“I saw the Lady Alinor…
naked,”
Tykir confessed, as if that was any explanation at all.

Everyone gawked at Tykir in shock, not the least of all Alinor. Quickly regaining her wits, she swung her free arm in a fist to land on the lackbrain’s chest. It was like hitting a stone wall. The man didn’t even flinch.

“What?” He put his free hand up in surrender.

“You’re not supposed to tell people
that.”

“I’m not?”

“Most definitely not.”

“You can look at my nude body if you like,” he offered magnanimously. “Then we will be even.”

“You
are
drunk,” she accused.

“Nay, I am not.”

“Well, what does that signify?” Rurik wanted to know. “Seeing a nude witch…I have seen such, as you well know.”

As one, everyone stared at his blue face marking in sympathy, including Bolthor, who’d just come up and sat next to Alinor. He’d been off with the Nubian slave girl, for the fourth time that evening, by Alinor’s count.

“That design appears to be made by woad, much like
the Scottish warriors adorn themselves with in battle,” Eadyth remarked, “but I have never known it to stay permanently.”

“’Tis not just woad. The dye had essence of zephline mixed with it, I warrant,” Alinor observed, flicking at some crumbs on the table in front of her.

“You…you know how to remove this mark?” Rurik sputtered incredulously. “You
are
a witch, then.”

“Nay, I’m not a witch. I am a shepherdess and weaver, with a talent for dying fabrics. In truth, I make the best wool fabric in all Northumbria.”

Eirik let out a whoop of laughter.

Eadyth jabbed him with her elbow. “Behave yourself, husband.”

“My wife has spouted similar such
modest
claims on occasion,” Eirik elaborated.

Eadyth clucked her disapproval at Eirik and explained to Alinor, “I make the best mead and honey in all Northumbria.”

Rurik cared not about wool or mead or honey, however. “Can you remove the mark, witch?” he demanded impatiently of Alinor.

“Mayhap I can, and mayhap I cannot.”

“Mayhap I can lop off your head, and mayhap I cannot,” was Rurik’s response as he made a low, primitive sound of outrage. He would have jumped over Tykir, to decapitate her no doubt, if her rope-mate had not raised a hand in caution.

Grumbling with frustration, Rurik stopped a passing house carl and took another jug of ale from his tray. “And you find attraction in this bitch…I mean, witch?” He took a long draw, from the jug, then swiped the back of his hand over his mouth.

“I never said I was attracted,” Tykir protested.

The harsh sentiments smarted, and she could not keep her face from heating up.

“Tykir! I’m disappointed in you,” Eadyth remonstrated. “Surely you above all others know to look beneath the surface. Remember the lecture you gave your own brother at our wedding feast about good Viking men knowing how to judge a woman fairly?”

“Det er ikke gull alt som glimmer,”
Eirik added, nodding his head in agreement. “All that glitters is not gold. And some of the glitter you have been sniffing after of late has the lackluster of brass, if you ask me.”

“I do not recall asking you,” Tykir said huffily. “And ’tis unfair of Eadyth to remind me of things I said seven years ago.”

Alinor cringed and felt like putting her face on the table. She abhorred the idea that these people were discussing her as if she was not there…as if she was of no significance.

“All I said was that I had seen the witch naked,” Tykir objected. “And it was a surprise. A
big
surprise.” He rolled his eyes in emphasis.

“Oh! I am beginning to understand, Tykir. Did you finally see
the tail?”
Rurik said those last words in a whisper…the inference being that if he spoke aloud she might do something witchly, like levitate and ride out of the Norse castle on a broom or a black cat.

Dumber than dung, the whole lot of them!

Just then, an older Viking nobleman could be seen approaching their table. He was accompanied by a finely garbed woman—a Saxon would be her guess, by her mode of dress—and a daughter of no more than fifteen years…a girl of passing fair appearance, buxom and pretty.

“Oh-ho, you are truly snared now, Tykir,” his brother teased. “Earl Orm and his lady have been trying to con
trive a marriage betwixt you and his youngest daughter, Eneda, for the past two years.”

“You could have warned me,” Tykir mumbled but stood as a courtesy when the nobleman stepped closer with his family.

He must have forgotten that his left hand was bound to Alinor’s right because he raised his arm in greeting, which caused her arm to raise as well, like a puppet. And as he gesticulated while talking with a wave here and a wave there, Alinor’s arm was forced to follow suit. In the end, she grumbled with disgust, tugged on his wrist in reminder and stood beside him.

Tykir had the nerve to wink at her. Apparently, he had remembered their bound hands the whole time and chosen to embarrass her. The troll!

She saw the lips of Lord Orm’s wife flatten with disdain as she noted their tied wrists.

The young girl, though, twittered shyly with a hand fluttering coyly to her face. Clearly, she would favor this union, if it could be arranged. Her mother was not so predisposed, if her clenched fists were any indication.

And Alinor noticed something else. The woman was as condescending in her demeanor to Eadyth as she was to her. Eadyth caught Alinor’s eye and pulled a face to show her opinion of the haughty lady.

Alinor startled herself by feeling an unaccustomed roil of annoyance at the fuss Tykir was making now over the young girl. Could it be jealousy?

Nay. Never.

Mayhap.

I’m losing my mind.

When the couple and their marriageable daughter walked away, finally, with Tykir’s promise of a visit to their Northumbrian estate sometime soon, Tykir sat down
with a long sigh, dragging Alinor with him. “Whew,” he said.

His family and friends were grinning at his discomfort.

“So, would you like my help in finding a bride gift for the fair Eneda?” Eadyth inquired cheerily.

“Not bloody likely,” Tykir responded, taking a long gulp from his cup of mead.

“Tell me,” Alinor deliberately paused, “would you be taking a wet nurse with you to the bridal bed?”

Everyone laughed at that, except Tykir.

“Are you saying I’m too old for the maid?”

Alinor gave him a look that said, “What do you think?” But then she had to concede, “Actually, I was her age when I was first wed. And my husband was a bit older than you.”

“How much older?”

“He was five and sixty.”

Tykir began to choke on his ale. “A bit?
A bit?
I am only five and thirty.”

“Ah, well,” Alinor declared with a shrug, “men do deteriorate quickly. ’Tis why they buy young wives, to put on a false front to the world that they are still virile.”

Tykir’s face flushed with affront.

Eadyth reached across the table and patted Alinor’s hand. “I am developing a fondness for you, Alinor. You and I appear to be cut of the same cloth.”

“You must admit that the maid had a fine set of breasts,” Rurik commented with his usual crude bluntness.

“Rurik! Mind your tongue in the presence of ladies,” Eirik cautioned.

Rurik ducked his head. In truth, the wretch was so often in the company of men that he probably forgot himself. And Alinor didn’t mind all that much. She’d heard much worse in the company of Egbert and Hebert’s troops.

But she quickly changed her mind when Rurik added, “Do not be gloating so, Tykir. You were the one back at Graycote who said that the Lady Alinor had a chest so flat her breasts probably resembled two eggs on a hot rock.”