The Viking Takes a Knight (2 page)

T
o market, to market, to buy a…chauvinist pig?

Ingrith Sigrundottir walked through the busy streets of Jorvik with five young orphans trailing behind her.

To Ubbi, her elderly “guard,” she whispered, “I feel like a goose with its goslings.”

“Best ye not be waddlin', m'lady. Many a lustsome man here in the city might take it as an invitation.”

“Ubbi! I'm almost thirty-one years old. Way past the time when men grow lustsome and drooling at my comeliness.”

“Age is naught when the sap rises in a man,” Ubbi said, “but ye are not to worry. I will protect you.”

Which was ludicrous, really. Ubbi…seventy if he was a day…was no taller than ten-year-old Godwyn, who preceded him. If anyone waddled, it was him on his short bowed legs. The little man carried a lance in his gnarled right hand, but it was more for a walking stick.
No matter!
Ingrith was well-armed with sharp dag
gers at her belt and ankle, and she knew how to use them.

Truth to tell, Ingrith was still an attractive woman. It was her no-nonsense personality, rather than her appearance, that repelled most men, who preferred biddable women. She was happiest when she was organizing a kitchen and all the cooking, some said like a military commander. And she satisfied her maternal urges by caring for the orphans at Rainstead, an orphanage located outside Jorvik.

With blonde hair braided and wrapped into a tight coronet atop her head, Ingrith did her best to hide her tall, embarrassingly voluptuous figure with a modest, long-sleeved
gunna
under a calf-length, open-sided apron. She wore her usual prim expression on her face.

“As fer that,”—Ubbi was still blathering on whilst she had been woolgathering—“that Saxon commander, Leo of Loncaster, is certainly smitten with you.”

Ingrith made a grimace of distaste at the reminder of the soldier, who persisted, despite her continual rebuffs. Lately, although she did not see him often, he had become vile in his attentions.

“Could we proceed?” Ingrith urged, suddenly nervous.

It was not that the market town was dangerous, especially during daylight hours, but it was crowded. And there were evil men who preyed on
young children for the sex-slave trade. Those same men resented the children's shelter, which offered refuge to what they considered a commodity. In addition, the city was home to numerous thieves able to slip a pouch of coins from people's belts without them noticing. Godwyn had perfected that particular talent before being “rescued.”

Jorvik, at the confluence of the Foss and Ouse Rivers, which led out to the North Sea, was once the site of the Roman city Eburacum, or what the Saxons still called Eoforwic. It had been held as the capital of Northumbria by Vikings off and on over the past two centuries, most recently as ten years ago when the Norse king Eric Bloodaxe had been driven away. For the time being, Saxon earls ruled in King Edgar's place, and the
clomp-clomp
of the garrison soldiers' boots could be heard as they patrolled the streets in groups.

“Stay close. Hold hands,” she warned as they approached the minster steps, where two young monks were tossing out hunks of bread to the destitute who crowded there every morning.

“Why are the monks' heads bald only on the top?” five-year-old Breaca asked.

“'Tis called a tonsure,” Ubbi explained.

“A ton-
sore
? Oh, do they have sores on their heads, like Aelfric's flea bites? Listen to the bells. 'Tis like angel music. Remember the story about St. Michael the Archangel?” Betimes, Breaca chattered away like a magpie.

“I would like to see an angel some day.” Seven-year-old Arthur sighed, and the other children nodded.

“I would not want to be a priest,” Godwyn asserted. “They cannot tup girls.”

“Godwyn!” Ingrith exclaimed.

“What? 'Tis true.”

“The boyling has a point,” Ubbi agreed with a chortle but still tapped Godwyn on the shoulder with his lance.

“What is a tup?” Emma asked.

“That is when—” Godwyn started to say.

But Ingrith cut him short with another “Godwyn!”

He ducked his head sheepishly, but he would probably be regaling the other children later with misinformation.

Motioning with her hand, Ingrith encouraged them all to move on behind her.

The city, which housed ten thousand people inside its walls, was laid out in an orderly grid of streets, best known as gates in the Norse language, such as Petergate, Stonegate, and Goodramgate. The Coppergate section, where they headed now, hosted dozens and dozens of craftsmen, merchants, and traders, many of whom lived in small, horizontally timbered or wattle-and-daub houses with neat front yards where tents and tables were set up to sell their services and wares. The children's heads swung left and right, mouths agape,
as they took in all the sights. Jewelers, blacksmiths, tanners, shoemakers, glassblowers, seam-stresses, lace makers, wood-carvers, knife and scissor sharpeners, barbers, potters, silver- and goldsmiths, weavers, candle makers, and so many more, including those women practicing the art of
orfrois
with gold and silver thread on bands of silk. Sometimes a damsel would weave strands of her own hair onto the patterns as a special gift for a lover.

In truth, the goods offered appealed to one and all, from ells of cloth in fat bolts as well as ready-made garments of samite silk, fine Northumbria wool, linen, and rough homespun. Horseshoes, swords and knives. Arm rings and amulets. Thimbles of all sizes and materials. Live animals: cows, goats, horses, and pigs. Poultry and eggs. Relics from the Holy Land…some of them outlandish, such as the Virgin Mary's toenails. Many varieties of fresh fish, including oysters and mussels. Newly butchered meats, still dripping blood. Rich cheeses, both hard and soft. Honeycombs, mead, and candles. Fresian wines.

The raucous noises were not unpleasing to the ear, whether they be merchants calling out their goods, the braying, bleats, and grunts of animals, conversations of passersby, the bells of the minster, or conversations in a dozen different languages. The smells, though…ah, some of the smells were enough to gag a rat, like the leather booth they
were approaching, with its tannery in back. Then, too, there were the slave auction platforms down by the waterfront, which Ingrith always avoided.

“What kin I do fer ye, mistress?” the bootmaker asked.

“I need shoes for each of these children…leather ankle boots. Also, several lengths of leather thongs for laces.”

“Fine children ye have, too, mistress,” the bootmaker said, rubbing his hands together with anticipation of the coins he would soon have. “They look jist like you.”

She laughed at that observation, especially since Kavil was a Nubian, with ebony skin.

Kavil caught her eye and smiled back at her, a smile that did not reach his liquid brown eyes. It never did.

What a dear boy he was! Too pretty by half, and for that reason had been misused by sodomites to whom his slave master had rented him out. His spirit and his body had been broken when they'd first found him. After a year, he was still not totally healed.

From there, the entire group stopped at various booths, buying spices from far lands, a new cauldron, carved horn spoons, and straining cloths for making cheese. For the thirty children from ages one to fourteen currently at the orphanage, they had two cows for milk and butter, as well as chickens that produced a large number of eggs, a
goat, and several sheep. Still, there were essentials they needed to purchase. Fortunately the orphanage was well funded by generous benefactors.

A pottery booth drew her attention now. Behind the table was a petite woman with lustrous black hair and blue eyes. Although older than Ingrith, she was beyond beautiful.

“Are you interested in some pots today, m'lady?” The woman smiled.

“Yea, I am.”

“My name is Joanna. Feel free to examine my wares.” With a sweeping hand, she indicated her items for sale, both on a long table, and on shelves behind her. Presumably she lived in the neat timbered house in back. Ingrith could see a kiln on the side. “If these are not to your liking, I can provide you with any size or shape of container you want.”

“Hmmm.” There were redware pots of all sizes and shapes, glazed and unglazed. Jugs, too. The most interesting were those that had been decorated before firing with flowers and other designs. “Years ago, I was in Jorvik. As I recall, there used to be a red-haired man in this spot.”

“That would be my husband, Gerald, who was a master potter. He died three years ago.”

“My sympathies. You are fortunate to have found another supplier for your wares.”

“That would be me,” she revealed, lifting her chin with pride. “Gerald taught me the craft, but it was my idea to add the decorations.”

“They're lovely.”

Joanna blushed prettily. “Thank you, m'lady.”

“I need some of this size to store soft cheeses, like
skyrr
.” She pointed to two of the plain ones with wide mouths and lids. “And that one over there would make a wonderful gift for my sister Drifa. She loves flowers.” It was an urn, decorated with twining roses.

After she paid for her goods with a halved silver coin, and while the woman wrapped her purchases in worn, rough cloth, Ingrith carried on a conversation for the sake of politeness. “Do you a thriving business here?”

Joanna shrugged. “The stall on market days is busy, but I must close over the winter. I have steady orders from some customers, though, like a beekeeper in one of the northern shires who finds that size over there perfect for holding whole honeycombs.”

“Would that be Lady Eadyth of Ravenshire?”

Joanna's blue eyes brightened. “Yea. Do you know her?”

“My family is well acquainted with hers.”

Joanna continued to wrap the pots, then seemed to hesitate before asking, “Do you know Lady Eadyth's son John?”

John? She refers to him by his given name?
“Do you mean Hawk? John of Hawk's Lair?”

Joanna's face bloomed crimson with embarrassment. It could only mean that she knew John in
timately. Was she his mistress? Ingrith had heard that men often sought widows for their mistresses, especially those not of the upper classes. Viking men took extra wives or concubines. Was that the case with John?
Oh, good gods! Why should I care?

Joanna picked up a tiny glazed clay pot the size of her fist and caressed the edges in a loving fashion. “Lord Gravely”—she used his formal name now, having realized her error in calling him John—“buys numerous pots of this size for his experiments with honey.”

Well, that may be one reason you know him, but you are either enamored with the rogue, or you are sharing his bed furs.

There I go again! Musing on affairs that are none of my business.

“This size pot would be nice for table salt, or for storing spices. I like to experiment with different seasonings in my cooking,” Ingrith explained. “Could I have six of them?”

After completing her transaction, she smiled at Joanna and said, “Give my regards to Hawk when you see him next.”

“Oh, nay. I do not…He does not—”

Ingrith waved a hand dismissively. “Thank you for my new pots. I will recommend you to my friends and family.”

With those words, she began to gather the children together for a return to the orphanage, despite their protests that they wanted to watch the
musical birds in gilded cages. As she made her way through the crowd, she could not stop thinking about Hawk…John, as she was more wont to call him…and Joanna. Did he love the beautiful woman, or was she a convenient mistress?

And Ingrith wondered if she would ever find a love of her own. At her age, probably not.

A
nd so the trouble begins…

Ingrith had gone only a few steps when she was stopped in her tracks by Commander Loncaster, who was glowering.

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“You know good and well who. That royal bastard Henry. I have it on good authority that you gave the bratling refuge…after I specifically ordered you to send for me at first sight of the boy.”

“I vaguely recall that conversation. 'Twas the day I slapped your roving hands from my bottom.” And, yea, she knew young Henry. The deathbed wish of Henry's mother was that her five-year-old child be offered protection at Rainstead.

Ingrith gazed up at the commander as she tried to decide how to proceed. She had to admit that he really was a handsome man, with clean white teeth and even features. He was big. Very big. All
over. Although he had never done her physical harm, she suspected he could be cruel and vindictive. A man not to cross.

He grinned of a sudden. “You cannot recall my warning about the boy, but you recall my hands on your rump?”

She barely restrained herself from smacking the arrogant smirk off his face. “Tell me again…why do you seek the boy?”

“Not I. King Edgar wishes to see him. It appears he is one of the royal by-blows.”

“King Edgar will recognize him as his blood?” That was news to her.

“I doubt it, lest he has butter yellow hair and pale-as-a-mist blue eyes.”

Exactly!
“Then why…oh, I understand.” Many a royal personage destroyed any heirs to the kingship that might jeopardize the legitimate lineage. The Viking Eric Bloodaxe, for example, was said to have killed a dozen of his brothers, all sons of the virile King Harald. “Tell me, commander, if King Edgar told you to kill the boy, would you?”

He shrugged. His silence was telling. “I will be coming to the orphanage to look over your charges. Expect me within three days.”

Ingrith shivered inside. Not only would he find Henry, whose hair and eyes would attest to his relation to King Edgar, but there were several comely girls who had reason to fear soldiers, despite their young ages.

“I might be able to stay a day or two if a certain woman would be…agreeable.” Leo ran a fingertip over her sleeve along her arm from shoulder to wrist. There was a message in his gesture, given as it was in such a public place. “I am weary with the wait for you, m'lady.” Was that a threat in his soft-spoken words or his meandering hand that now rested on her hip, under her apron?
Agreeable
, meaning that she agreed to couple with him?

“Commander, I am—”

“Call me Leo.”

“Leo, I am nobly born. A princess.” Betimes, Ingrith found it convenient to mention her title. “My father would send a
hird
of warriors to kill any man who beds me without wedding vows.”

“Well, then, I might just offer for you, I suppose.” He smiled as if that were a great compliment and squeezed her hip and a portion of her buttock with his big hand. His pincer-like grasp would probably leave a bruise. “And do not be telling me that I am too far below your station. At your advanced age, you cannot be choosy.”

If he thought to win her graces with such words, he was sadly mistaken. “At my
advanced age
,” she asserted, “I am able to make my own decisions. Mayhap you should direct your attentions elsewhere. A woman not so old as I.”

He laughed and squeezed her again, more on her buttock than her hip now. “You are mine.”

Oh, the nerve of the man!
“I have
never
indicated
that I am yours.” Ingrith spoke with more forthrightness than she usually did in his presence, but his insulting words defied diplomacy.

“M'lady, do not exceed yourself,” he warned. “The fact that I've marked you as my woman does not give you license to malign me, whether it be through wedlock or otherwise.” With those words, and before she could protest, he lifted her by the waist and took her to the side of a building, where he propped her against the wall, feet dangling off the ground.

As his men laughed behind them, calling out lewd jeers, he began to lower his head. She tried pushing against his massive, leather-vested chest, to no avail, then shrieked, “You are such a pig! Put me down at once, or I will—”

Her words were cut off as he chuckled, “Oink, oink!” and slammed his lips over hers, prying them open with a nip at her lower lip, then thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth. She needed to gag, but she could not breathe. The roaring in her ears presaged that she would soon faint, something she never did.

Then suddenly he jerked back with the exclamation, “What the bloody hell?”

It was Ubbi, striking at Loncaster's back with the wooden part of his lance. The children were rushing toward her from one direction, and a half dozen of Leo's men were coming at them from the other direction. Meanwhile, Leo had lifted Ubbi
by the scruff of his neck and was shaking him like a limp rag.

“Nay, nay, put him down.” She pulled at Loncaster's tunic. “He was only protecting me.”

“From kisses?” Loncaster snarled at her. “Striking a soldier in the king's guard is a hanging offense.”

“Please, Leo, I beg you. Put him down, and I will…I will welcome your visit to Rainstead.”

He paused. “Hah! I want a hell of a lot more than a ‘Greetings, Leo' from you.”

“I understand,” she said in a low voice only he could hear.

He dropped Ubbi to the ground, then eyed her icily. “Prepare yourself then, wench.” He said
wench
with deliberate insult. “My appetite is huge and not easily sated.”

On those ominous words, Loncaster joined his soldiers, and they ambled off, laughing at some ribald man-jest.

The children were sobbing, except for Godwyn, who looked fierce enough to do battle, as he helped a shame-faced Ubbi to his feet.

“Oh, Ubbi, we are in such trouble!”

“We?”

“Everyone at Rainstead. We must close down the orphanage for a while.”

“Beggin' yer pardon, mistress, but we cannot just shove thirty children out ta fend fer themselves. Mayhap you could go home to the Norse
lands fer a short time, or to visit one of yer sisters in Northumbria.”

“I would, except I'm not the only problem facing Rainstead. You are aware that King Edgar wants Henry…for some nefarious purpose, I fear. Now he grows more insistent. Plus, you know that the young girls we harbor were indentured to that brothel. More than that, the Saxon soldiers under King Edgar need little excuse to ravage anything associated with Vikings, and Rainstead is clearly a Norse-founded orphanage in Saxon lands.”

“'Tis true. We operate by sufferance from the Saxons, but they have left us alone…thus far.”

“Before I brought Rainstead to their attention.” Ingrith pondered for a moment. “We could close Rainstead for a short while 'til the danger passes.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “There are four adults at Rainstead, including the two of us, and thirty children. Each of us could take seven or more children and seek sanctuary in different places in the region.”

“How long would we have to be gone?”

“I do not know. King Edgar usually spends the winter months at Winchester. It makes sense that Leo, as chief
hirdsman
in the king's guard, would travel with the king.”

Ubbi groaned. “That is six months from now.”

They drew straws that night to decide who went where. Ingrith would be going to Briarstead, a Norse-held estate in Northumbria.

Thus it was that by daybreak the next day, the other women had already left with their charges. Ingrith donned a man's
braies
and overtunic, her upbraided hair tucked under a floppy hat, as she prepared to drive a wagonload of orphans out of Jorvik heading north. With her were Godwyn, Kavil, Arthur, Breaca, and Signe, along with two of the fourteen-year-old sisters who had been indentured from age ten to a brothel before being rescued, and Henry, bless his royal heart, who now had green hair thanks to her failed attempt to dye his hair brown. And Ubbi, her self-proclaimed protector.

“You are the most pitiful-looking boy,” Ubbi declared to Ingrith. “Mayhap you should practice spitting and scratching yerself if anyone stops you along the way.”

“Ye could belch, too,” Godwyn offered. “I could teach you how.” He let loose with a loud belch to demonstrate. “I could also teach you how to break wind.”

“Nay. Thank you just the same,” she said quickly. But Ingrith's plans changed when she stopped at Ravenshire later that day on her way to Briarstead. Lord and Lady Ravenshire gave them welcome, but Ingrith was informed that no one was in residence at Briarstead at the moment, Toste Ivarsson and his wife, Helga, being in the Norselands, visiting family.

“Not to worry,” Lady Eadyth assured Ingrith once they settled down for the evening meal.
“You must go to Hawk's Lair, which is not so far away. My son John will enjoy your company.”

Ingrith was not so sure about that, considering the beautiful Joanna, and considering the sly look in Lady Eadyth's eyes.

“John can always use more help with his honey experiments, and it will save one of our men having to deliver more bees to him, as I had planned. This is a new breed of bees I ordered from the Arab lands. Besides, Hawk's Lair recently lost its longtime cook. Mayhap you could help train a new one.” Lady Eadyth blinked at her with seeming innocence.

It all sounded logical, and Ingrith wanted to be helpful.

Why then, did she have this niggling reservation, as if something momentous was about to happen?

“It was meant to be,” Lady Eadyth concluded.

All Ingrith could say was, “Gods help me!”