Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 05]

by The Blue Viking

  “This witch-hunting business is becoming bloody bothersome,” Rurik continued in a low grumble, but not before spitting out yet another clump of what tasted like soggy charcoal.

  They all nodded vigorously in agreement.

  Bolthor lumbered up and loomed over him, adjusting the black eye patch over the socket of one eye that had been lost in the Battle of Brunanburh many years before, when he was hardly older than Jostein. He squinted at him through his good eye, then put a palm over his mouth to hide his smile, as if there was humor in a grown man falling into a peat bog.

  “You know, Rurik, the Scots poets have a practice of writing odes, unlike we Norsemen, who prefer a good saga. Dost think I could put together an ode or two just for practice? How about Ode to a Peat Bog’?”

  Everyone guffawed with mirth, except Rurik.

  “How about ‘Ode to a One-Eyed Dead Skald’?” Rurik inquired.

  “It does not have the same ring to it,” Bolthor said.

  I would like to give you a ring, you dumb dolt. More like a ringing in the ears from a sound whack aside the head with a broadsword.

  Then Bolthor added, more soberly, “Methinks ’tis time to put an end to this fruitless venture and admit defeat.”

  “A Viking never admits defeat,” Rurik reminded him.

  Bolthor shook his head in disagreement. “Vikings never admit that they admit defeat.” That was the kind of daft logic Bolthor came up with all the time.

  “I say we behead every Scotsman and Scotswoman we come across,” Stigand interjected. “That will flush the witch out of her lair, I predict.”

  Everyone looked at Stigand with horror. It was one thing to spill sword-dew in the midst of battle, but to kill innocent people… even if they were scurvy Scots? ’Twas unthinkable.

  Vikings had their ethics, despite the English monk-historians in their scriptoriums, who liked to picture Norsemen as rapers and pillagers. Hah! Every good Viking knew that the Church amassed gold and silver in its chalices and whatnots just to tempt Norsemen. Besides, it was a well-known fact that Vikings invigorated the races of all those Christian countries they conquered. And didn’t they embrace Christianity itself … even if it was only a token embrace?

  But, back to Stigand. Rurik knew about the horrors that Stigand had suffered in his youth… horrors that had caused his mind to split. But what had happened to him over the years to make the adult man so hard?

  Fortunately, Rurik did not have to respond to Stigand’s suggestion because one of the twins, Toste, spoke up. “I have grown accustomed to the blue mark on your face, Rurik. Really, ’tis not so bad. If that is the only reason for continuing this quest… well, perchance you should reconsider.”

  “The wenches seem to have no problem with it, either,” Vagn added. “Yestereve that farmsteader’s daughter picked you for swiving above all of us, and I’ll have you know that I am renowned for my good looks. Godly handsome is how the wenches describe me.”

  “I did not swive—” Rurik started to demur, then gave up, throwing his hands in the air with disgust. But then he added drolly, “I thought it was your knack the women coveted.”

  “That, too,” Vagn said with a grin.

  “I’m more handsome than you are.” Toste challenged his brother.

  “Nay, I am more handsome than all of you,” Bolthor proclaimed, which was so ridiculous it did not even bear comment.

  “I think Rurik is the most handsome,” Jostein piped up. Jostein was suffering a severe case of hero worship and had been since Rurik rescued him when he was ten years old from a Saracen slave trader with a proclivity for male children.

  “Bugger all of you,” Stigand said with a mild roar. “I am the most handsome and anyone who disagrees can taste the flavor of my blade.” He rubbed a callused forefinger along the sharp edge of Blood-Lover for emphasis.

  No one disagreed with Stigand, though he resembled a wild boar. Mayhap he was a handsome fellow, but who could tell how he really looked under his unruly beard and mustache? He had not shaved in the past few years.

  “I have three more months left,” Rurik told them with a weary sigh. “Theta gave me two years to have the blue mark removed afore she would wed me. And that time does not end till autumn … three months from now. I do not intend to give up till then.”

  “Three months! Twelve more sennights!” Vagn griped. “It might as well be a year. Remember one thing, Rurik. Friends are like lute strings; they must not be strung too tight, and we all in your troop are overstrung, believe you me.”

  “Lute strings? Lute strings?” Rurik sputtered.

  “Precisely,” Vagn said. “I am sick to death of moors and Highlands and Lowlands … and quarrelsome Scotsmen.”

  Stigand tilted his head to the side, as if thinking hard. “I rather like the quarrelsome Scotsmen. They give me an excuse to hone my fighting skills.” He ducked his head sheepishly and added, “They remind me a bit of us Vikings.”

  Everyone gawked at him as if he had gone senseless … which he probably had, long ago … after his first hundred or so kills. Perhaps even long before that.

  “ ’Tis true,” Stigand insisted. “They are proud, and independent, and good fighters. And they hate the Saxons the same as we do. So, we have something in common.”

  “They hate Vikings, too,” Rurik pointed out.

  That contradiction went right over Stigand’s head. Seeing their lack of accord with him, Stigand continued, “Even their practice of constant reaving—stealing shamelessly from their neighbors—is not unlike us Men of the North who enjoy a-Viking on occasion.”

  They all shook their heads at Stigand’s thinking, even though it had some validity to it.

  “What I hate most about Scotland is the haggis,” Jostein said, gagging as he spoke. “I swear, ’tis a concoction the Scots devised to poison us Norsemen. ’Tis worse than gammelost, and that smelly cheese is very bad.”

  Rurik nodded in agreement. Once he had been on a sea voyage in which their food stores had been reduced to gammelost. By the time their longship had finally arrived back in Norway, all the seamen’s breaths reeked like the back end of a goat.

  “Well, I for one think Theta was being unfair to give you such an ultimatum. Methinks you should have tossed her into the bed furs then and there,” Toste opined. He was tipping a skin of mead to his mouth between words, which probably gave him the courage to speak to his leader so. “Without her maidenhead, her father would have had no choice but to force Theta to exchange vows with you.” He belched loudly at the end of his discourse.

  “Her father is Anlaf of Lade, a most powerful Norse chieftain,” Rurik told Toste, as if he did not already know. “And Theta, even being a fifth daughter, is a most willful wench. She would not come to my bed furs without the vows, and I had no inclination to waste long hours seducing her to change her mind.”

  In truth, Rurik had been thinking on that very subject of late. Sometimes, he wondered if he really wanted to wed the woman who’d made such demands on him. For a certainty, he was not in love with her… nor had he ever been with any woman. At the time, it had seemed the right thing to do. His good friends Eirik and Tykir Thorksson had settled happily into their own marriages. So, he’d purchased a large farmstead on a Norse-inhabited island in the Orkneys. Rurik had never had a real home of his own. He was twenty-eight years old… well past the age for settling in and raising a family. What it all boiled down to was that he’d made a decision to wed simply because it had seemed the right thing to do.

  After these long intermittent years of scouring the Scottish countryside for an elusive witch, Rurik had changed. For one thing, he’d become a sullen, brooding man. His sense of humor had nigh disappeared. He’d lost his dreams. Bloody hell, he could not even remember what they had been. Too much time for thinking and pondering was causing him to doubt all that he’d thought he wanted. Still, he felt the need to finish what he’d started … whether it be the capture of a Scottish witch, or marriage with a Norse princess.r />
  “Actually, ’tis not uncommon for highborn women to make such demands.” Bolthor had been speaking while Rurik’s mind was wandering. “Remember Gyda, daughter of King Eric of Hordaland. She refused to wed with Harald till he defeated his enemies and united all Norway. And Harald did it, too, but not afore making a vow to never bathe or cut his hair till he completed his mission. Thereafter, he was known as Harald Fairhair.”

  Everyone knew the story of King Harald, and each sat or stood contemplating Bolthor’s words. Moments later, one by one, they turned to gape at Rurik, as if wondering why he had not made such a vow. But then, they knew that Rurik was prideful of his personal appearance, and was known to wear only the best crafted fabrics for his tunics and overmantles, adorned with embroidery and precious brooches of gold or silver. Colored beads were often intertwined in the war braids at the sides of his long hair. Never would he go for an extended period without washing the silky black tresses. They did not call him Rurik the Vain for naught… a title he disdained, but had earned.

  “Methinks ’tis time for a saga,” Bolthor announced.

  Everyone groaned… softly, so they would not offend the gentle giant.

  “What happened to your idea of embarking on odes?” Rurik made the mistake of asking.

  Everyone except Bolthor scowled at his lack-wittedness, as if they at least knew not to encourage the fellow’s less-than-artistic efforts.

  “Sagas, odes, poems, eddas, ballads … I am willing to try all of them,” Bolthor answered optimistically.

  Oh, God!

  “This is the saga of Rurik the Great,” Bolthor commenced.

  “I thought Tykir was the one you called ‘great’ in your sagas,” Rurik said. “You were always saying, ‘This is the saga of Tykir the Great.’ ”

  Bolthor waved a hand airily. “There can be more than one great Viking.”

  Rurik did groan aloud then.

  “Well, if you insist.” Bolthor apparently decided to change his opening. “This is the saga of Rurik the Greater.”

  “Greater than what?” someone mumbled sarcastically.

  Rurik was about to throw a wad of peat moss at whoever it was who had spoken, but everyone stared at him with seeming innocence.

  Bolthor had that dreamy look on his face that he always got when he was inspired to create a new poem. Then he began:

  Rurik was a winsome Viking,

  Many the maid will attest.

  With long black hair

  And flashing teeth,

  All the wenches were obsessed.

  Through many a land

  And betwixt many a thigh,

  Rurik the Vain wielded

  His seductive moves so spry.

  But, lo and behold,

  Came a Scottish witch,

  Her name was Maire the Fair

  Because of her beauty rich,

  But also because of her

  Fairness pitch.

  No mere Viking would use her so,

  Boast of his conquest,

  Then walk away, no impairment to show.

  Thus befell the witch’s curse so dark

  And the painted face mark.

  Now the fierce Norse lackbrain

  Is no longer vain.

  He is known as Rurik the Blue.

  Or sometimes Rurik the Greater…

  This is true.

  Disgusted, Rurik tossed his knife to the ground, giving up on removing the peat sludge from his boots and wool braies. Instead, he stood and stomped off to a nearby lake… or what the Scots referred to as a loch. It was a strange land, Scotland. At times, its barren, mountainous landscape could appear soulrendingly bleak, and at others, beautiful, almost in a spiritual sense. Not unlike his own harsh Norway.

  The weather was often dreary and dismal. A mist, which the Norse referred to as haar, poured from the North Sea, even on warm, clear days, like today.

  Hearing a loud screeching noise, Rurik glanced upward to see a large golden eagle soaring lazily over the moors, a young red deer in its powerful talons. No doubt it would make a tasty meal for the birdlings left in some lofty aerie. At times like this, he missed his dog, Beast, a wolfhound that he had left behind at Ravenshire in Northumbria to breed with one of his friend Eirik’s bitches.

  Yea, there was a beauty of sorts in this stark land he had come to hate so much.

  Rurik waded, garments and all, into the icy water. Then, with a teeth-chattering exclamation of “Brrrrr!” and a full-body shiver, he dove underwater and swam till the water cleansed him.

  When he finally came up out of the water, he heard Bolthor call out to him, “Dost think it wise to go into the lake without a weapon? The Scottish legends speak of huge monsters that reside in the depths of their lochs … monsters that resemble a combination of fish and dragon. Hmmm. I recall one of their epics that relates the story of Each uisage, which means something like water horse, and…”

  Rurik didn’t wait for more. He dove underwater once again. He would rather risk fierce water dragons, or freezing some precious body part, than hear another of Bolthor’s horrible sagas.

  But Rurik did wonder as he swam.

  Would his quest ever end?

  Was he doomed to wear the blue face mark for life?

  Why had the witch cursed him so?

  And where was Maire hiding?

  Hah! She was no doubt living the soft life in some Highland castle chamber, uncaring of all the havoc she wreaked. And she was fully aware of his fruitless search for her, he would warrant, and laughing joyously about the idiocy of it all.

  The same day, nearby at Beinne Breigha

  Maire was living in a wooden cage … a cage, for the love of St. Colomba! And she was so miserable she felt like weeping.

  “Puir lassie! The old laird mus’ be rolling over in his grave at yer sorry state. Tsk-tsk,” Nessa, her maid and companion, said to her.

  Sorry state didn’t begin to describe Maire’s predicament. She was locked inside a wooden cage that hung suspended high in the air from a long plank fixed to the parapet above the courtyard. Far below, a large pit had been dug and filled with snakes, the top covered with a huge woven mat. If she jostled her cage too much, or someone tried to rescue her, there was always the danger of falling into the pit, cage and all.

  Thus far, she’d been in the cage for five days, and would remain there till she agreed to betray all that was precious to the Campbell clan … something she would never do. All her people—crofters and fighting men alike—had fled to the woods, at her orders, taking her son with them. Other than the MacNab guards stationed about her keep, the only ones left were a few servants and those too old or frail to leave their homes. Duncan MacNab showed up periodically to shout at her and issue threats.

  Maire didn’t even look up from where she sat now, her back pressed against the wooden bars of her “prison,” as Nessa clucked and tutted at her while she leaned out over the parapet, passing her a bowl containing her one meal of the day—boiled neeps and flat bread. By her doleful tone, you’d think that Nessa was an elderly servant and not a young widow a few years older than Maire’s twenty-five.

  “Well, my father has rolled more than once over my problems these many years he’s been gone.”

  “Doona be disrespectin’ the dead. Yer father was a good man, despite the troubles that seem to flock yer way,” Nessa chided, the sympathetic tenderness on her face belying her reprimand.

  Maire was not in the mood for arguing. In fact, she was not in the mood for anything other than a hot bath and a soft bed. But she had work to do … Magick, if you will… if she was going to reverse the bad luck that had befallen her people.

  “What? What are ye about, Maire?” Nessa asked curiously.

  Maire was standing in her cage now, facing east, and was preparing to center herself with legs shoulder-width apart and two hands wrapped around one of the wooden bars. She wished she had her staff with her, but the wooden bar would have to do.

  “Ooooh! Doona tell m
e. Yer gonna try the witchly rites again, I wager. One thing is for certain … if ye try that whirling dance nonsense, yer gonna land yer-self in a snake pit. I swear, my heart canna take much more of… Blessed Lord, why are ye lookin’ crosseyed? Is it the evil eye come over ye?”

  “Shhh! I need to focus if I want to bend my bars so that I can escape.”

  “The last time ye focused—two days past—it was on the MacNab guards below. Ye said yer spell would cause ’em to run off. Instead, ye gave them a bad case of the running bowels. Not that some of us did not find humor in that mistake. And then there was the other spell what was gonna give the MacNabs flight, right off Campbell lands. Bless the Saints! We had two dozen roosters and hens a-squawkin’ and a-flappin’ their wings. None of the hens would lay today, by the by.”

  Maire sniffed. “Sometimes, I don’t concentrate hard enough, or I get the spells a little mixed up.”

  “A little mixed up! Lassie, when ye tried that wind-riding bizness the first day the MacNabs took ye captive, ye promised ye would end up on the other side of the glen come mornin’. The only one ridin’ the wind was Grizelle, and I swear she will ne’er forgive ye fer that affair… her falling off the parapet like an eagle about to take flight, with her gown blowing in the wind, exposing her bare rump. Good thing that young MacNab lad caught her, though he was laughing so hard they both fell to the ground.”

  It was true. Maire was not a very competent witch. In truth, she probably wasn’t a witch at all, despite having studied with the old crone, Cailleach, when she was a young lass. But Cailleach was long gone now. What choice did she have? There was no one else to rely on. She had to try.

  “Either be still, or go away, so that I can concentrate. You’re not helping at all. At least I’m trying. What else would you have me do?”

  “Pray,” Nessa offered with dry humor. She shifted from foot to foot, still not leaving.

  “Well, what else did you want to say? I can tell you have something on your mind.”

  “Aye, that I do. I hate to burden ye with more troubles when yer up ta yer oxters in troubles as ’tis, but there be darkness on the horizon … again. The Viking is back.”