by Sandra Hill
“He is fine,” he said, addressing everyone in the room. “Methinks he will awaken soon.” In an undertone, Tyra thought he added, “If he hasn’t already.”
“That is wonderful news,” Tyra said. “It will gladden my heart to leave the Norse lands knowing my father will recover.”
“Can you not wait another day?” Adam’s question was asked with little inflection in his voice. To Tyra, that meant he did not care one way or another.
She shook her head. “‘Tis time for the ritual.” Everyone stepped back to give her room. She stood at her father’s side and began once again. “I, Tyra, daughter of Thorvald Ivarsson, do hereby renounce—”
“Nay!” a booming voice pronounced.
It was the king. With a snarl of disgust, he sat bolt upright in his bed. “Have you all gone barmy?” he snarled, and tried to disentangle himself from the furs that had covered him. “Must I do everything myself … even coming back from the dead?” He leaned wearily against the pillowed headboard.
“Father!” Tyra and all her sisters exclaimed and converged on his bed to give him hugs and kisses.
“Leave off! Leave off!” he protested. “You will smother me.”
“Step back,” Adam ordered. “Let me examine the king.”
As he leaned over the old man, she heard her father ask, “And who be you? Ye have the look of a bloody Saxon about you?”
“I am Adam the Healer. And, yea, a Saxon. The very one your daughter Tyra kidnapped to come save you.”
“That you did. That you did,” the king acknowledged. “And my thanks you have in abundance.”
“Father, now that you are on the road to recovery … do not take this personally … you have been a good father … most times, least ways … but I want to renounce our blood ties, and—”
He muttered something like, “When snow falls in Valhalla!”
Tyra sighed. “You owe me this favor in return for bringing the physician.”
Her father raised his hand in a halting fashion. “Not now Tyra. You will not bedevil me with this nonsense the moment I escape the raven’s fate.”
“It is not fair, I tell you. You cannot keep putting me off. You cannot put my sisters off.” It was unlike Tyra to argue with her father, especially in these circumstances. But she needed to act, and soon.
“I will handle it, daughter. Trust me, dearling. Just this once. One more day will make no difference, will it? I promise this situation will be resolved, and soon.” Her father’s voice was weakening, and she recognized that she was not helping matters by forcing an answer now.
“One more day. That is all,” she agreed.
Her father nodded, though he muttered under his breath, “Obstinate, unbiddable girl!
“I would ask you all to take leave of me so that I may rest,” he said then. But first he turned again to Adam. “Ask any boon of me and it is yours.”
Adam thought for a long moment, then said, “Transport home. I ask for one longship to take me home … now … afore winter …”
The king nodded. “It is done. And a fair request it is, too.”
Tyra’s heart sank. Unreasonably. Whether she left first for Byzantium, or he left first for Britain, the result would be the same. Separation … and soon.
“… and I insist that the captain of that longship—” there was a long pause—“be your daughter Tyra.”
A stunned silence filled the room before Tyra gasped and said, “Nay! You cannot ask that, you … you …”
“Loathsome lout?” Alinor offered with a grin.
“Yea, you loathsome lout!” Tyra said to Adam, who remained grim-faced, waiting for the king’s answer.
“Good strategy,” Tykir congratulated Adam, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Methinks this calls for a saga,” Bolthor announced. “How about, ‘How the Lady Warrior Got Caught in Her Own Snare’?”
“I give you this word of caution, my lady warrior,” Rashid said. “She who rides the tiger should be careful how she dismounts.”
“That is the most nonsensical proverb you have spouted thus far,” Tyra told Rashid.
“It means that you have been tempting me as if I were a castle cat, when in fact I am a tiger,” Adam explained to her. He added a tigerish growl and a wink to make his point.
The growl and the wink touched Tyra in the most sensual way … well, actually, in the most sensual place.
“You are clearly some sort of disgusting male creature,” Tyra informed Adam, clicking her tongue with disgust.
“Faults are thick where love is thin,” Rashid opined.
“Shut your teeth, Rashid,” Adam said cheerily.
“I still want to know what finger-pleasuring is,” Breanne said.
“Me, too. Me, too,” chimed in Ingrith and Drifa.
“Enough!” the king roared.
When there was silence in the room, he addressed Adam. “Your request is granted. She who kidnapped you shall return you to your home.”
Tyra put her face in her hands and moaned. As she heard everyone leaving the bedchamber and calling out their good wishes to her father, she wondered how her life had reached such a chaotic state, and how it could get any worse.
She soon found out.
When she opened her eyes, she realized that her father had fallen back asleep … a relaxed slumber, by the sound of his even breathing … and she saw that Adam remained in the bedchamber.
Meeting her eyes directly, he said simply, “Tonight.”
Tyra required no further explanation. Adam had healed her father. Now she must fulfill the pact she’d made with him.
One night. His bed furs. Naked.
She answered him with the same simplicity, “Tonight.”
But what she thought was, May the gods help me. Tonight.
He would make his own miracles…
“Come with me,” Adam told Alrek.
“Me?” Alrek almost swallowed his teeth on hearing Adam address him directly. He’d been moping about the courtyard, shuffling his boots in the dirt. He’d heard about Adam’s imminent departure for Britain, and it was finally sinking in that he and his siblings would not be going with him.
Now that he had finished treating patients for the day and had checked on Dagma and then the king, Adam had strapped on a belted sheath to hold his sword. Then he’d gone searching for Alrek.
Adam took Alrek by the upper arm and led him out of the main courtyard toward the blacksmith building. “I have something to show you.”
Usually, that kind of statement would have brought forth elation in the youthling, so desperate was he for attention, but he just nodded forlornly now.
They stepped into the exceedingly hot building where Bjorn was working on a sword over a blazing fire. A young thrall kept the flames high by working a bellows from the side.
The sword Bjorn was working on was not a large one, but it was finely worked. Using the damascening method, he twisted together iron and steel rods of different textures and shades and then forged them into a single blade. Intermixed with the twisting and pounding was frequent heating and quenching to harden the metal. The result was a beautiful flame pattern ingrained in the surface of the blade.
When he was done, Bjorn handed the sword to Adam and muttered under his breath, “I still think ye are demented. He will kill himself … that he will.”
Walking out of the smithy, Adam handed the sword to Alrek and said, “This is for you.”
“Me?” Alrek’s eyes went huge with wonderment. Alrek took the short sword by the hilt and almost tripped forward, not being prepared for its weight.
Adam winced at Alrek’s first near-accident with the weapon. He could just hear people telling him, “I told you so. I told you so.”
“Why?”
“It’s a gift.”
“No one ever gave me nuthin’, ‘ceptin’ the king, and that was a job.”
“Well, I am giving you something, but there is a price attached.”
Alrek wa
s staring at his new sword adoringly. “Whatever you say.”
“You know that I am going away soon, and I am not … cannot take you with me.”
The boy immediately stiffened at that reminder. “I do not see why—”
Adam put up a halting hand. “You should be able to live as a boy, but God … the gods … have dealt you a different fate. That means you must continue to be the head of your family. Being the head of the family also means protecting those under your shield. That is why I’m giving you the sword. That is why I will practice with you as much as possible till it is time for me to leave. Having your very own weapon means being responsible, Alrek. You must learn to be more careful. A sword can be your friend or your foe. Make it your friend. Do you understand?”
Alrek nodded, but Adam wasn’t sure how much the youthling understood. Well, he would once Adam was done instructing him. Some people believed that they were helping children by keeping all dangerous objects out of their path, but he was of the opinion that people—even little people—must learn to deal with the dangers that surrounded them.
‘Twas as Rashid always said, “Do not stand in a place of danger and pray for miracles.” Well, Alrek kept looking to him for a miracle. Adam chose instead to provide Alrek with his own means to a miracle. But, bloody hell, he hoped the boy didn’t kill himself first.
By the time dusk rolled over the Norse mountains, Adam and Alrek were both feeling proud of the youthling’s accomplishments. He was not yet a skilled swordsman, but he had made progress. And the two of them had only a dozen or so nicks on their arms to show for the effort. Alrek promised to practice with him early the next morning and again in the late afternoon. Adam would speak to Rafn about tutoring the boy after he left.
It was the best he could do.
As they trudged back toward the keep and the sweat house where they planned to heat up their aching muscles, Alrek turned to him and said, “A man’s sword should have a name, should it not?”
“Absolutely.”
“I know what mine will be.”
“Now, Alrek, remember what I said about so many of your problems being the result of acting before thinking. Stop, think, act. That is to be your motto.”
“I do not need to think about this. The name of my sword shall be …”
Adam just knew he was not going to like this.
“… Miracle-Maker.”
Always keep a woman guessing …
From a distance, Tyra had been watching Adam and Alrek practicing swordplay at the far end of the exercise field. For three hours, Adam had worked patiently with the accident-prone youthling. He would have cuts up one arm and down the other to show for his efforts.
At first, when she’d heard that the healer had commissioned a small sword to be made for the boy, she’d been furious. Storming out of the smithy, she’d stomped over to the exercise fields and had been about to chastise the healer for interfering in the affairs of Stoneheim. Arming and training a Viking boy was her business, not his.
But Rafn had put a hand on her arm to hold her back. “Adam is doing the right thing. We cannot continue to overprotect Alrek. The boy must learn himself.”
“Even if he hurts himself?”
Rafn had nodded. “Even if he hurts himself.”
So Tyra had watched and marveled at the tolerant manner in which Adam instructed his pupil … over and over, teaching the same lesson. The Viking short sword was not made for the thrust-and-parry action of the longer, lighter Saxon sword. And so Adam and Alrek practiced the hacking, slicing motions with their swords against a tall tree stump.
Most surprising of all was the expertise Adam displayed as he hefted his sword and wielded it in smooth, fluid motions. The healer had told her that he had been a soldier betimes over the years, but she must not have believed him.
“He is a handsome devil, is he not?” Tykir asked as he came up to stand beside her.
“That he is,” she admitted. Despite the coolness of the air, Adam and Alrek had stripped off their tunics and were exercising bare-chested. Adam’s dark hair and Alrek’s blond hair were both tied back into queues at their napes with leather ties. Alrek would no doubt be a handsome man when he was grown … if he lived that long. Adam was already as handsome as a god.
“Who is he?” Tyra asked. The man was clearly full of contradictions. He could be a soldier, or a healer. He could be as crude as the most ignorant cotter, or sensitive to the needs of others. He claimed to want no family, and yet he threatened to take her child if it were ever born of his seed.
“Do not judge Adam too harshly,” Tykir said. “I’m not sure he knows, himself. He has lived a harsh life, and a privileged life. In the end, he is a survivor. But at a cost.”
“Have you known him long?”
“Since he was seven years old, and his sister Adela was four. A more foul-mouthed, enterprising, wild rascal you never met in all your life! My stepsister Rain and her husband Selik adopted the two orphans. Only the gods know what horrors the two experienced before that, living on the streets of Coppergate in Jorvik. I do know that the wildness never really left him. He tries to hide it under a veneer of civility, but on occasion it emerges. And always there is this invisible shield he has erected around himself. He lets people in only so far, even family and friends. There are wounds inside him that have never been healed … and not just the death of his sister.”
“You sound like an advocate for the man.”
“I’m being long-winded, am I not? Alinor would say ‘tis time to freeze my flapping tongue. But, really, my lady, Adam needs no advocate. If he wants something, he gets it himself.”
That is what I am afraid of.
“Still, you seem protective of him.”
“We all are. Me, Alinor, Eirik, Eadyth, Bolthor. His prolonged grief these past two years has alarmed us all.”
“That’s why you came to Stoneheim, then? Worry over Adam, not my father.”
He nodded.
She should not be asking these questions of Tykir. He would think she had a personal interest in the rogue. After tonight, he would be out of her life completely. Well, not tonight, she immediately amended. First she had to deliver him to his home in Northumbria. Then she would be off to Miklagard, the “Great City.” It was a rich, powerful, sophisticated city of gold and marble. She could scarce wait. Once there, she would have no cause to think of Adam again.
But first she had to get through tonight.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Timid she was not…
Adam was in his bedchamber with Rashid, helping to pack their belongings for the return trip to Northumbria.
They probably wouldn’t be leaving till two days hence, but all of the medical supplies that Rashid had packed in haste were now in disarray. Decisions had to be made about which ones to leave behind with Father Efrid and the midwife, and which were so rare he must needs keep them for himself.
“I still cannot believe that the king has recovered so rapidly. ‘Tis a miracle. Praise be to Allah!”
“Rashid, please do not use the word miracle in my presence. It has come to leave a nasty taste in my mouth. And, frankly, methinks the king’s recovery is not as rapid as he would have us think.”
“Really?”
“For days he has displayed the symptoms of a recovering man, not one who was unconscious.”
“Why would he pretend to be sicker than he was?”
Adam shrugged. “He is a crafty fellow … always has been, I understand from Tykir. His motives are beyond my understanding. And, really, I do not care. We will be going home. That is the most important thing. I cannot wait till we are gone from this hellhole of the North.”
“From one hellhole of the North to another hellhole of the North,” Rashid murmured, still chagrined over Adam’s refusal to return to the Eastlands and the world of harems. Rashid squinted his eyes at Adam with confusion. “Why did you insist that Tyra be the one to accompany us? Why not cut your ties with Thorvald completely?”
“Revenge. Pure and simple. She kidnapped me. In essence, I am kidnapping her by forcing her to make the return trip.”
“Be careful, my friend. Revenge has a way of coming back to bite a man in the arse.”
Adam laughed. “Is that another of your ancient proverbs?”
“Nay,” Rashid replied with a grin. “That is a bit of Rashid humor. Speaking of humor, master, could you believe all the jests that were being made at dinner about the king’s condition? And Thorvald was the worst of them all.”
“Vikings do have a great sense of humor. They especially like to laugh at themselves. But even I thought the hole-in-the-head jokes went too far. Especially the one about the king making a good candle holder … now that he has a hole in his head.”
“Or, ‘How did the drukkinn Norseman misplace his horn of ale?’”
Adam laughed and finished for him, “It was sitting in the special horn-holder in his head.”
“I give you fair warning, master. I heard the king telling one of his soldiers that ever since the operation, his manpart seems to have regained new virility. Harder and bigger it is now, he claims.”
“Oh, my God!” Adam exclaimed. “You know what that means, don’t you? If word of this spreads, I will have Vikings by the dozens asking me to drill holes in their heads. Just so they can have better sexplay.”
They both burst out laughing.
Just then the door flew open and Tyra stood there like an avenging angel … hands on hips and legs spread in the battle stance he loved. Unlike them, she was not laughing. She must have come recently from a bath, for the hair in her long braids was still damp. She wore only a short-sleeved, knee-length hide tunic with a thick leather belt. On her legs were cross-gartered half-boots. The only adornments that indicated her rank were the etched silver armlets on her upper arms.
Her hair and apparel were neat and perfectly in order, but the only word he could think of to describe her was wild. Yea, Tyra was wild tonight, and he didn’t know why, but her being wild ignited a spark of wild-ness inside him, too.
The Stoneheim princess pointed an imperial finger at Rashid, whose mouth was agape with the same wonder that filled Adam, and ordered, “You! Out!”