The Caged Viking

by Sandra Hill

  “Dating? Is that like tupping? So, ye let the JAM man swive ye and then decided my Lord Hauk was a better swiver. Ye should have known that from the start if ye ask me.”

  “That’s not it, at all, Egil.” She inhaled and exhaled deeply for patience. Her head was starting to feel fuzzy, not just painful. She tried to look as sincere as possible before telling him, “Bottom line: I love Hauk.”

  “Good luck with that!” He looked at her and quickly added, “Now, don’t be getting’ all teary-eyed. Mayhap ye’ll be able to melt that wall he’s put around hisself.”

  ‘Well, in case I’m not going to be here that long, I better give you your gift now.” Once again, she leaned forward and took one of the Ziplock bags out of the cloak.

  “What is this?” Egil asked, taking the package she handed him.

  “Oreo cookies. I know you have a sweet tooth, and these are a popular snack.”

  “Hmmm,” he said doubtfully.

  “Believe me, you’ll like them. Best way to eat them is by dunking in a cup of milk.”

  “Milk!” he exclaimed as if she’d suggested some vile substance.

  “Thank you for welcoming me back,” she said then, but the sarcasm passed over his head as he waved good-bye.

  Kirstin didn’t bother to lie back down again, waiting to see if there were any more visitors. She wasn’t disappointed. In came Gorm, the little boy who’d been abused before Hauk’s return to Haukshire.

  “My, my! Aren’t you the handsome little man?” Kirstin said.

  The boy looked fairly clean and his tunic and braies, though of a simple, brown homespun, were obviously new. He preened at her remark about his appearance, but then confided in a tone of disgust, “The master made me take a bath. Again! Called it the Yule Bath, but methinks he were just makin’ mock of me.”

  “I see that you lost two of your front teeth.”

  Gorm nodded. “But I’m gonna grow other ones in that place.”

  “You know, Gorm, where I come from, children get a gift from the tooth fairy when they lose a tooth. I wonder if I might have something for you. Oh, I know. I brought some things that should please you as well as all the other children here. In fact, they are a special Christmas…um, yule treat.”

  Reaching once again into her cloak, she took out a bag holding several dozen items. Gorm leaned forward, studying what she held in her hand, sniffing the peppermint scent, clearly not understanding.

  “These are called candy canes. I noticed that there is a yule tree out in the hall. These are meant to be hung from the limbs of the tree, and then on Christmas day the children get to take one and eat it.” She pulled one out of the bag and put the end in her mouth, sucking on it and humming her enjoyment. “These sweet treats are best if you suck on them, making them last a long time. But some people just crunch them. Here, try one.”

  “They look like shepherds’ crooks.” Gorm took one and hesitantly put it into his mouth, right between the open space in his teeth. Immediately, he smiled and said, “Good!”

  She could hear him boasting of his booty to his friends once he exited out into the hall, but then she worried that these “gifts” she’d been doling out might prompt even more visitors. So, she went to the door and locked it by pulling a bar against the latch. With that little bit of effort, she had to lean against the wall for a moment to steady her wooziness. If Hauk wanted to talk with her, he would have to knock.

  He never did.

  Chapter 24

  If Dr. Phil were a Viking…

  Just as Hauk had been plagued by advice from one and all when Kirstin had disappeared all those months ago…nine sennights and two days, to be precise…he was plagued now by people…meddling busybodies, to be precise…giving him advice of a different sort. How to punish his wife. How to keep his wife. How to reject his wife. How to win his wife’s affections. How to…how to…how to! ’Twas enough to drive a Viking man mad.

  Signe was the first to approach him where he was shoveling snow from the path to the fjord. It wasn’t as if the path hadn’t already been cleared a number of times already, as evidenced by the waist-high banks on either side, but there’d been another snowfall. And it wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of others to handle this chore. But Hauk needed hard work to deplete his body humours lest he explode with fury, or frustration, or mind-blowing something or other.

  “Master?” Signe called out, as she approached. When he ignored her, she repeated, “Master?”

  “What?” he snapped.

  She flinched.

  “I’m busy, Signe,” he said, as if that was any kind of apology. “What is amiss now?”

  “She’s sorry.”

  “Who?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.

  “Your lady. She said to tell you that she is sorry.”

  “Pfff!” He would like to ask what she was sorry about. Leaving, coming back, lying, or something altogether different. “It matters not to me, Signe.”

  Instead of leaving right away, Signe shifted from foot to foot.

  “What else?” he asked, trying his best not to betray his emotions by snapping again. He continued to shovel around Signe.

  “She thought you got married.”

  Now, that surprised Hauk. “Is she barmy? Why would she think that?”

  Signe gave some long-winded explanation that made no sense, ending with, “And that’s why she called you a pig.”

  Hauk just shook his head, then sniffed the air. “Why do I smell flowers?”

  “Oh, ’tis perfume that my lady gifted me. Isn’t it wonderful?” She stuck out her hand for him to smell.

  Truly, Hauk felt as if he’d fallen off a cliff into a land of the demented. He narrowed his eyes at her. This must be a magic trick Kirstin was employing, using scent on this wench to lure him back. With a snort of disgust, he continued shoveling, and Signe wandered back to the keep, muttering something about bull-headed men.

  Next to offer him advice was his son who sought him out in the barn where Hauk was raking shit out of the straw in the stalls occupied by Ingolf’s horses. His son was wearing a strange shert celebrating the dead, as if warriors would be grateful to be dead, although he supposed some would be, those who went to Valhalla. Aaarrgh! He had no doubt that this, too, was a scheming gift from his wife; so, he declined to ask the traitor about it.

  “She says she feels like my mother,” Bjorn told him right off.

  Under normal circumstances, Hauk would have asked “Who?” but he knew and would not give her the satisfaction. Not that she was here to witness his disdain. Instead, he just ignored Bjorn and almost got kicked by the one of the horses who was not happy with his proximity.

  “She did not mean to leave us,” Bjorn continued.

  That, he could not ignore. He turned, leaned on his rake, and glared at his son.

  “Well, she didn’t. She said it was an accident. Must be it was her One-God who decided to send her away.”

  “And was it her One-God who sent her back?” Hauk inquired, disbelieving. “And why?”

  “I do not know.”

  Hauk handed Bjorn another rake and motioned for him to push the soiled straw toward an already large pile, which would later be spread on the kitchen garden. Bjorn complied, but then he turned back and said, “Don’t send her away.”

  “What makes you think I have the power to do that?”

  Bjorn shrugged. “Forgive her. That would be a start.”

  “Pfff! According to you, there is naught to forgive. She was not responsible for her desertion.”

  “Well, according to Egil, when dealing with women, the best course of action for a man is always to apologize to a woman, even when he is not in the wrong.”

  “Ah, and now Egil is the font of all wisdom. An Odin he has become.”

  “I am just saying.”

  It was not a surprise, therefore, when Egil showed up later in the storeroom where Hauk had gone to get a barrel of mead for tonight’s yule feast. “Do ye need help wit
h that?”

  Hauk nodded, and the two of them rolled the heavy barrel, which held a half-tun of mead, up the steps and into the outer kitchen and from there to the great hall.

  Setting the barrel in one corner, for now, Hauk turned to Egil. “What? No advice from you, too.”

  “Hah! Ye know what I think of wimmin and their greedy ways. Nay, I would not be swayed by her declarations of love, if I were ye. Best to send her away, sooner rather than later.”

  “What declarations of love?”

  “She claims to love ye, but then she was with that JAM fellow whilst she was gone, and you know what that means?” He raised his eyebrows as if they shared some understanding.

  “I don’t understand,” Hauk said. “She said she loves me?”

  “Yea.”

  Hauk’s heart lifted, despite himself. “Why would she tell you something like that?”

  “’Cause I accused her of bein’ unfaithful with the JAM man, but she says they was jist datin’, which I still think is suspicious. She claims datin’ ain’t tuppin’, but I don’t know about that.”

  Hauk put his face in his hands and counted to ten, under his breath. “Ein, tveir, Þrir, fjorir…”

  “Do ye have a head pain? The lady has a cure fer that.”

  Hauk raised his head. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “You know, m’lord…” Egil began

  Hauk groaned. He knew when Egil referred to him as lord or master, he was going to say something Hauk would not like.

  “You know, m’lord,” Egil repeated, and went on, “it occurs to me that ye are in a prison of yer own makin’, no different from the cage ye were in back in that Saxon castle.”

  “Whaaat?” Hauk exclaimed.

  “’Tis true. Yer in this cage, and each of the bars were put there by yerself.”

  “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

  Egil went on as if he hadn’t even spoken. “One of the bars is yer excessive pride. Another is yer stubbornness.” He began to count off on his fingers. “Third, there’s a denial of pain, the heart kind. Fear is fourth…oh, yea, you have fear of rejection, again. Then, number five, is yer Viking manhood, or yer view of it, which makes ye stick to the old ways. Six is yer selfishness; things always have to be yer way, like returning to Haukshire, or kidnapping the lady.” He waved a hand airily. “There are probably lots of other bars, but I’ll have to think on that.”

  Hauk found that his jaw had dropped, and he was gaping at Egil. “I had no idea you had such a low opinion of me.”

  “Nay, nay, nay! You misread me, m’lord. A loyal comrade speaks the truth to help his friend. And none of the things I mentioned diminish yer goodness.”

  Hauk shook his head with incomprehension. “There is no cage, real or imagined. I am as free as I could ever be. What do you imagine I am barred from doing?”

  “Going to yer wife, like ye know ye want to. Keepin’ her with ye by any means, even up to beggin’, if necessary.”

  “You just got done telling me that women are selfish creatures and that I would do best sending my wife away.”

  “Now that I think on it, I realize that ye were much easier to live with when she were around. When the lord is happy, his followers are happy.”

  “I’m happy.”

  “Pfff.”

  “Contented then.”

  “Pfff.”

  “Truly, you go too far betimes, Egil.”

  Something seemed to occur to Egil then, and he put up a halting hand to Hauk. “Wait here, m’lord. I have somethin’ to show ye.” Egil went off to a nearby bed closet where he’d stored his sea chest. He came back with a black circle…nay, two black circles with white in the middle. “Eat that,” Egil told him.

  “What? Nay! It looks like dirt.”

  “’Tis is a sweet from Lady Kirstin’s land. Called an Oar-yo. Taste it.”

  Hauk took a small bite, chewed, then popped the whole bit, which wasn’t that large, into his mouth. It was delicious. “Give me another one,” he said after chewing and swallowing.

  “Nay. I only have so many and I’m am saving them to last for a long time.”

  “Why did my wife give you these sweets?”

  “Probably so that I would soften you up toward her,” Egil told him, but then added, “You should see the sweets she gave Gorm.” Egil pointed toward the other end of the hall where the boy was on a wooden ladder propped against a wall next to the yule tree, leaning sideways precariously. A number of other boys stood at the bottom of the ladder cheering him on.

  “Good gods, the bratling is going to fall and break his fool neck.” He ran forward and hollered, “Gorm!”

  Which was a mistake, of course, Hauk realized too late, his yell causing the boy to turn abruptly, lean in the opposite direction, and look down at him, the ladder teetering and starting to fall. Luckily, the ladder dropped toward the trestle tables in the hall, and not toward the ceiling-high tree which would have surely toppled over. As it was, the old ladder shattered into several pieces when it hit the table, but he was able to save the boy from injury just in time by lurching forward and grabbing his tunic by the neck.

  Gorm’s eyes and mouth were both wide when Hauk placed him on his feet. “Bloody hell!” the imp exclaimed. “That was a close one.”

  “I’ll give you a close one, and watch your filthy mouth. That’s no language for a child,” Hauk said, taking the boy by the shoulders and shaking him. “You could have killed yourself.”

  Homing in on the least important thing Hauk had said, Gorm straightened and said, “I’m not a child.”

  Hauk rolled his eyes. “What were you doing?”

  “Hanging the candy crooks on the yule tree…the way Lady Kirstin tol’ me to. It’s a tray-dish-on.”

  I should have known. Kirstin again. He glanced down at Gorm’s hand which still clutched several of the objects in question, miniature shepherd’s crooks, except they were white with red stripes. Dozens of them had already been hung from the branches of the yule tree. Even from here, he could smell the not unpleasant minty odor.

  Once they’d cleared the ladder away, throwing the pieces onto the hearth fires, Hauk looked around, wondering what to do next. It was only mid-afternoon. Ingolf was sitting at the other end of the hall beside his wife and daughters who were working on some type of embroidery. He waved, motioning for Hauk to join him in a cup of ale, but Hauk needed to do something more mind-consuming. He’d love to go off to some private place and drink himself into a stupor, but there was no private place he could think of, except for the treasure room, and he wasn’t about to hole himself in there at this time of day. Besides, getting drukkinn would only work for a short while; then he would have to face his problem once again. The most logical recourse would be to go to his bedchamber…the guest bedchamber…but that’s where his “problem” was currently lodged. Mayhap it was best to take the bull…um, his problem…by the horns. Mayhap it was time to break out of his “cage.” But he was a well-trained fighting man. He knew from experience that a warrior should not go to war unless he had a plan.

  Hauk had no plan.

  He also knew that warriors should be calm and collected before confronting the enemy, lest they be berserkers.

  Hauk was no berserker.

  And Kirstin was no enemy. Was she?

  And forget calm and collected. He was as agitated as an unblooded boyling afore his first battle.

  Without thinking, he stomped down the hall, through a corridor to the guest bedchamber, where he attempted to lift the latch. And found the door locked. From within. The latch would not move.

  Should he knock?

  Should he yell?

  Should he kick the door down?

  Just then, Signe rushed up, putting her forefinger to her closed lips. “Shh. Leave the mistress for now. She is not feeling well and needs to rest.”

  “She dared to lock me out.”

  “Nay. She did not lock the door against you. ’Twas all the
others who kept coming to visit, giving her no chance to get better.” She gave him one last warning look and walked away.

  Somehow the servants had become the master in this keep. One and all felt no compunction about telling him what to do. Even so, he inhaled and exhaled, then decided to go chop wood. A lot of wood.

  He was not done with his errant wife, though. Not at all.

  Animal Farm…

  Kirstin awakened, feeling much better. The Tylenol she’d taken, on top of the stress exhaustion of her time-travel experience and Hauk’s less-than-welcoming welcome, had all combined to knock her into a deep, healing sleep. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was seven p.m. She must have been out of it for at least four hours.

  It also became apparent to her, glancing at the closed, barred door, that Hauk hadn’t come to her. Tears welled in her eyes.

  With a stifled sob, she figured she had three choices: Continue to lie in bed, nursing her hurt feelings. Go back to the future and Hauk be damned. Or fight for what she really wanted, the fool Viking.

  Well, screw the self-pity, and screw capitulation. I am woman…I am Viking…hell, I am Viking woman. Just watch me roar, baby!

  Kirstin rose from the bed furs and shivered, not from the cold virus, but from the chill in the bedchamber. Usually, the bedchamber door was left open in the winter, even when occupied, so that the heat from the hall hearth fires would spread inside this adjacent room. As she relieved herself, using a pottery jar from under the bed, she noticed the noise outside her door…the sound of loud conversation and laughter, even music, possibly a lute. She realized this was still Christmas day, and the people of Haukshire would be enjoying their Jul feast.

  And no one had bothered to invite her.

  No, no, no! No self-pity.

  Besides, she reminded herself, I locked the door. Maybe Hauk knocked, and I didn’t hear him.

  Yeah, right. Like a Norseman would let a locked door keep him from something he wanted.