by Sandra Hill
“Shhhh!” Father Efrid said. “Have some decorum before the ailing king.”
Adam and Tykir ducked their heads, while Rashid, Rafn, and Bolthor grinned at their discomfort.
“Has he awakened again?” Adam asked Rashid.
“He is in and out of consciousness, but never for very long. Leastways, not whilst I’ve been here,” his assistant said, already laying out Adam’s tools and medicants on a clean, linen-draped table.
Everyone stepped back so he could examine the patient. Someone must have been in to bathe the king, because he smelled of Drifa’s pine-scented soap, and he wore clean apparel, though it was only a loose, unbelted tunic. Even his mostly gray beard had been trimmed.
“His skin color is improving,” Adam remarked, more to himself than the others in the chamber. “And Ingrith told me that she managed to get a whole bowl of beef marrow broth down his throat today. If only he would regain consciousness for longer periods of time.”
“He spoke to me a tiny bit yesterday,” Rafn informed him. “He wanted to know what happened. Mostly, I did the talking, but he seemed to be aware of his surroundings. Is it really so unusual for a man to ‘sleep’ so much after such an operation?”
Rafn’s long-winded speech seemed odd, though Adam couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason why. Perchance it was because he’d kept his eyes averted the entire time. Adam had a sneaky suspicion about the king’s continued unconsciousness, but the notion was too outlandish for even this rascally king.
Adam changed the linen dressing on the head wound, checked the King’s eyes and mouth and ears, and listened to his heartbeat. All seemed normal … or as normal as a man with a hole in his head could be.
He stepped away from the bed and said, “I will stay with him for several hours. Mayhap he will awaken whilst I am here. I would like to see myself how he reacts.”
“Uh, master, didst know that folks started lining up afore dawn for your medical services?” Rashid informed him.
“As I said, I will remain here several hours. This afternoon I will see some people,” he said firmly. “Please, Rashid, not too many yet.” There was a hidden message in his last statement … a plea for his assistant to understand that he needed to move slowly back into his medical practice … that he still suffered misgivings.
Rashid nodded.
No one left right away, though. He and Rashid were gathering up his supplies, setting aside those items to be destroyed and those to be boiled for another use.
“Are you planning to wed Tyra?” Rafn inquired without any warning.
“Huh?” Now, that is a really intelligent answer. “You overstep your bounds, Rafn.”
“I know you are attracted to her … do not try to deny it. And, if I overstep my bounds, ‘tis with good reason. I want to marry Vana. Five years I have been waiting for her. And the only thing standing in our way is Tyra.”
“ ‘Tis not my responsibility to pave the way for you two lovebirds.”
“It may not be your responsibility, but if you intend to marry our lady, then I would appreciate knowing. Holy Thor, man, you would be saving Tyra’s sisters and many Stoneheim warriors much heartbreak if you could take her away with you.”
“That doesn’t say much for Tyra, does it? She has been a fine chieftain to you all, in her father’s stead, and how do you all show your thanks? By making her feel less than a woman … and less than a leader. Has anyone asked Tyra what she wants?”
There was a stunned silence in the room.
Finally Tykir noted, “You are defending the wench? Uh-oh. Sounds serious to me.”
“I think I will write a saga about men who do not know what they want,” Bolthor said.
“I think I will throw you in the moat,” Adam replied.
“I think I would like to see you try,” Bolthor countered.
“There is a famous proverb that goes like this: ‘Sad is the man who searches the world over for brass and finds gold in his own tent.’”
“What the hell does that mean?” Adam snarled. Then, “Never mind.” He turned on Rafn. “In answer to your question, I have no intention of marrying Tyra … or any other woman. I can understand perfectly how Tyra must feel, with everyone nagging at her all the time. I never wanted to return to medicine and here I am in the midst of a sickroom with ailing people lined up to who-knows-where. Picking, picking, picking at my bones. Now you want to start on me and marriage. Well, I have had more than enough. All of you, out of here and leave me in peace!”
Four men’s jaws gaped open with shock at his outburst. But at least they got the message and left in stunned silence.
Once they were gone, Adam turned back to the bed. He could swear there was a smile on the old man’s lips.
CHAPTER TEN
Mischief and mayhem galore …
“You need to flirt,” Vana told her.
“For the love of a troll! You came out to the exercise field to tell me that?”
“If you want the man, you have to take some drastic actions. Flirting, that would be my solution.”
“What makes you think I want the man?” Tyra was wiping sweat off her brow with her forearm. Two hours of spear throwing and she still couldn’t stop thinking about the rogue who had lured her to the stables. And that stupid kitten kept following her around. She’d had to lock it in the stable finally when it kept wandering onto the exercise fields, where it would have surely been speared.
Not that she cared about the mangy little cat. Even if it was named after her.
“Please, Tyra, give me some credit. You came back from the stables last night with your hair looking like a haystack, and Adam was no better. I do not mean to embarrass you, sister, but I swear there were whisker burns on your chest. And both of you were panting.”
Oh… my… Valhalla!
Rafn was about to stroll by, a battle-ax in one hand and Alrek in the other. He carried the squirming boy by the scruff of his neck. Tyra didn’t even want to know what Alrek had been doing now. Nor did she want to know where Thork, that wild son of Tykir and Alinor, was at the moment. What Alrek did not need was mischievous ideas planted in his head, and Thork was mischief himself. Mischief and Mayhem … that’s what those two were. Bolthor ought to write a saga about them.
“Good day to you, Vana,” Rafn drawled.
“Good day to you, Rafn,” Vana drawled back at him.
Rafn winked at Vana.
Vana fluttered her blond eyelashes at Rafn.
Tyra was thinking seriously about tossing up the contents of her stomach.
Once Rafn was gone, Tyra told Vana, “If you think for one moment that I am going to start batting my eyelashes at a man like a mush-brained maid, then you are surely demented. Flirting! Hah! That is not in my nature.”
“Tyra, Tyra, Tyra,” Vana sighed. “Flirting is in every woman’s nature. But it does not just have to be fluttering your eyelashes, though that always works for me. Try this sometime.”
Tyra’s eyes nigh bulged out at the sight of Vana pursing her lips. “What is that supposed to accomplish? You look like a puffy fish.”
“Tsk-tsk! Open your mind to suggestions, Tyra. When a woman makes a moue of her mouth this way, men think of kissing.”
“Are you sure they do not think of fishes … or that you have eaten a sour apple?”
“And you have got to stop that scratching business. Really, Tyra, what could you be thinking to engage in such a vulgar touching of your female parts?”
“Men do it.”
“Aaarrgh! Are you even listening to me? I am trying to make you more womanly, not manly.”
“Why?”
“Dost really need to ask that question? So you can seduce the man and get married so the rest of us can have lives of our own.”
“In other words, the same old blather.”
She could tell that Vana wanted to throw her hands in the air with disgust, but her sister took several deep breaths for patience. “One last thing … and, yea, I know I shou
ld not toss too many bits of feminine wisdom your way at once, but, Tyra, you must change your walk.”
“My walk? What is wrong with my walk?”
“You swagger, dear. A woman should sway gracefully when she walks.” Vana looked left and right, then picked up one of several bricks that Drifa had arranged around a newly planted cherry tree. “Watch this,” Vana instructed. Then she placed the brick on her head, held her arms out from her body, and proceeded to walk a straight line, first in one direction, then back again. Vana did, indeed, appear graceful, and, blessed Thor, her hips did sway mightily.
“I could never do that,” Tyra asserted.
“Yea, you could,” Vana insisted, pushing the brick into Tyra’s hand. “Practice.”
Tyra had a hard time concentrating on spear throwing the rest of the morning when all she could see in her imagination was herself with a brick on her head. No, that wasn’t all she saw. She also saw a too-handsome-to-be-true Saxon doctor with his mouth on her breast.
Could I really learn to flirt? And walk like a longship riding the waves? And purse my lips? Never! Never ever! Well, mayhap once. Nay, never, never, never!
Save me, Odin, she prayed.
But all she heard in her head was Loki laughing.
God spare him from pestsome friends…
Adam was headed toward the solar just before noon when he saw Tykir and Bolthor approaching him.
He’d sat with Thorvald for three solid hours, and not once had the king awakened, to Adam’s dismay. So now he was off to treat some other patients.
“Adam, I want to give you a few bits of manly advice,” Tykir said, walking along with him on the right. Bolthor matched his strides on the left side.
“Go away, Uncle.”
“I have had many more years of experience with women than you have, and believe you me, the female animal is a difficult one to understand. You should listen to me,” Tykir expounded.
“Go away, Uncle.”
“Before Alinor, I had a reputation as a good lover. Even now, I am sure Alinor would vouch for me in that regard … if you catch her on a good day, that is.”
“Except for that time you lost your knack,” Bolthor reminded Tykir.
“Both of you, go away. I do not want or need your advice.”
Tykir totally ignored his protests and blathered on. “We already know that you have mastered the art of kissing a maid witless, as evidenced by last night. And you already know the importance of catching a wench alone, also based on last night. You must act quickly to seduce the maid, in case her father awakens … in which case I see a forced marriage for compromising his daughter. Actually, whether the king lives or dies, your chances of landing in her bed furs are diminishing by the day.”
Thank God they do not know about the pact I’ve made with Tyra. I will be in her bed furs, for sure. Well, I am fairly sure.
“We have decided that you must give Tyra more hot looks,” Bolthor said.
“Who is we?”
Tykir waved a hand airily. “Me, Bolthor, Rafn, Rashid.”
“You are all discussing my sex life amongst yourselves? Have you naught else to do with your time?”
“We care about you,” Tykir said. And he probably meant it.
“I have written an advice-poem for you,” Bolthor added. Already that dreamy expression covered the skald’s face which indicated that another awful poem was about to burst from his lips.
Tykir was grinning at Adam’s discomfort till Bolthor told him, “You could learn from this, too, Tykir.”
Tykir blushed. He actually blushed.
“I call this one ‘Manly Rules of Love.’
“Man is a witless creature
When it comes to women lore.
But the ancients do say
There is a way
To win your woman-prey.
Make her hot.
Kiss her a lot.
Win her with words,
Many compliments poured.
Then tease her with indifference,
Even if ‘tis only pretense.
Touch her ofttimes in passing,
Soon her senses will be singing.
If all else fails …
Beg.”
Who can explain sexual attraction? …
“Wait a moment, Tyra.”
It was Adam who called out to her. Mortified by her behavior of the previous night, she had been avoiding him. He’d caught her now in the late afternoon as she was about to ride out with her men to survey their southern border where some scurvy Danes had been spotted eyeing a village outpost.
“What is it, Adam? I must make haste.” She did not look at him as she spoke. If she did, she knew she would blush.
“Come, sit down here on this bench for a moment. I must needs speak with you about Alrek.”
“Alrek?” Now, that was a surprise. She wasn’t sure what she had expected Adam to say, but not this. “What has he done now?”
“Nothing. Well, he has done something … most recently, he rearranged all the pottery vials in my medical bag, and now Rashid must go through them all to decide which is which. But that is not why I beckoned you now.”
Tyra looked at Adam, and that was a mistake. A big mistake. He was wearing a plain brown tunic today over plain brown braies with a plain brown leather belt, but in truth there was not an inch of this man that was plain. He was just the right height. He had just the right amount of muscle bulging at his arms and legs … and, well, other places she dared not even think about. And his face was a sculpture made by the gods. No man should be so fair of face.
But then she noticed something else. A small bite mark on his neck. From her? Well, who else?
“Alrek has an arrangement with your father whereby he trains to be a Viking and, in return, once a year he is given a silver coin.”
“My father agreed to pay him for all his disasters?”
Adam shrugged. “The point is, the time has come for him to be paid. Your father is dead to the world, so to speak. And Alrek is in need of coin to support his family.”
“We give him all he needs,” she said with affront.
“Apparently not.”
“Why did he not come to me?”
Adam shrugged again. “Pride.”
“That is a lot of pride for a little boy.”
“Pride knows no age, my lady … nor gender.” He reached out and flicked a piece of lint off her tunic … which called to her mind other ways in which he had flicked her the night before. She fought it but could not curb the blush that heated her face again. Then, as if unaware that he had befuddled her senses once more, he went on, “I tried to give him a coin, but he would not accept it from me.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Find a way to give him the coin without bruising his pride.”
She nodded. She could do that. She wanted to do that. “You are a contradictory man, Adam.”
“How so?”
“You are clearly annoyed by Alrek and his pestsome brood, and yet here you are, going out of your way on his behalf. You fight your fate mightily in regard to medicine, and yet you spent many hours today serving my people. You are a Saxon, and yet you have the spirit of a Viking.”
“You are probably correct,” he conceded, to her surprise, “but I can think of still other ways that I am riddled with contradictions. I mislike your mannish ways, and yet I like you. I do not want a permanent relationship with you, or any woman, and yet I sniff after you like a randy dog. I try my best to focus on your illmannered, masculine characteristics, but all I can see is the woman in you. Can you understand that?”
She could not.
But the woman in her did, and she exulted.
Tyra was walking away from him, and he was enjoying the event immensely.
In her tunic and tight braies, her hips swayed from side to side in the most enticing way. Did females have any idea how sensual their arses could be when viewed by the male from this angle? If they did, they woul
d probably always back away from their men. He couldn’t stop gaping.
“Tyra,” he called out. “Why are you walking like that?”
She halted and looked back at him over his shoulder. “How?”
“Like … like you have a brick on your head.”
“A brick?” she choked out, and turned to face him directly, though she was some distance away. He still sat on the bench. “That’s ridiculous. A brick? Ha, ha, ha.” Her face bloomed a lovely shade of pink, as if she were guilty of some wrongdoing.
A wrongdoing involving her walk? Nay, that could not be.
“It must be the chain mail I am wearing,” she explained, still blushing profusely.
“Chain mail? Why are you wearing chain mail?” he asked, alarm ringing in his voice.
“I am off to check our borders with my men. Some Danish outlaws have been pillaging the area.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Of course it’s dangerous.”
“Don’t go,” he urged before he could bite his hasty tongue.
“Don’t go? Are you demented? I must go. It is my job as chieftain to lead my soldiers. How could you think otherwise?”
“I don’t know.” He just knew that he wanted her safe. He did not want to picture her lying on the ground covered with blood. He wanted her close by so that he could help her, if necessary. He wanted her … well, suffice it to say, he wanted her.
“What is that look you are giving me?”
“A look? What look?” He tried to recall what expression might have been on his face.
“A hot look.”
He smiled then, especially when he remembered that Tykir and Bolthor and Rafn and Rashid had advised him to give Tyra just that—hot looks.
She was scowling at him, waiting for an answer.
Well, a hell of a lot of good their advice had done. Hot looks, indeed!
“Methinks I will go with you,” he announced, again without thinking.
“You … will … not. Besides, what about the people who come to you for your services?”
“They can wait. Father Efrid is here … and Rashid.”
“And my father?”