He motioned to his men to stand in place and keep guard over the brothers. Then he took Alinor firmly by the upper arm and pulled her toward the trees.
“Well?” he demanded. “What are Cain and Abel up to now?”
She smiled at what she must have considered a jest. Blessed Lord, could she not see how little in the mood for humor he was? But he then noticed that the smile did not reach her sad eyes. “What’s wrong? Have they harmed you?”
She shook her head.
“Threats?”
She shook her head more vehemently. “I’ve decided to return with Egbert and Hebert to Britain,” she blurted out.
In his surprise, he had no time to hide his gasp. “But just a short time ago you agreed to go to the Baltic with me.”
“Nay, Tykir, I did not agree. You said I may as well go with you if I was even considering going elsewhere with Adam. You never asked my opinion. Besides, ’twas a forced invitation.”
“I meant it.”
“I know you did.”
“I do not think I ever intended to let you go to Britain,” he admitted grudgingly.
Her eyes went wide at that news. “’Tis too late,” she told him, regret clear in her voice.
He tilted his head in puzzlement. “Why is it too late?”
Her jaw clenched into rigidness. He recognized stubbornness when it stared him in the face, and, oh, he was suddenly very, very fearful that she was determined to leave him now.
“I just meant that I have decided that it is best for me to return to my homeland. It’s where I belong. Egbert and Hebert have promised that I will not have to wed again. And I have my sheep and Graycote and…” Her voice broke. “Do not make this difficult for me, Tykir.”
“Why? Why must you go?” The shrillness of his voice shocked him. It reminded him of…oh, my God!…it reminded him of the exact same words he had exclaimed numerous times as a boy when others had left him, too. His father, mother, Ruby, Eirik, Dar and Aud. Oh, God, it was happening again. He had somehow opened himself up to the excruciating pain again.
“Oh, Tykir.” The pity in her voice rocked him to his soul.
Pity? Is this what I’ve come to? He lifted his chin, but not because he wanted to keep tears from welling over in his eyes. He refused to believe he actually had moisture welling there. Nay, he wanted to show her that he could be stubborn, too. He wanted to show her that he could be as heartless and uncaring as she was now. He wanted…so many things.
Dashing his pride aside, he inquired, “Are you sure this is what you want, Alinor?”
She nodded, her eyes huge with unshed tears. Tears of pity, no doubt.
“You have other choices, sweetling.” God, I am pathetic.
She tried to smile at his endearment but could not. “Nay, I do not. It is my final decision…mine to make, not yours.”
He swallowed over the lump in his throat. “And you will be safe from your brothers’ machinations?”
She nodded again. “Try to understand. It’s for the best.”
Best? Whose best? he roared inside. I am dying, and she says it is for the best.
She put out a pleading hand, as if to touch his arm. He could not stand that now. It would be his undoing. So, he slapped her hand aside.
She put the hand to her mouth to hold back a sob. But he could see that she was not going to change her mind.
“So be it,” he said finally. Before he spun on his heel to walk stiffly away from her, he took Egbert and Hebert by the necks and cracked their heads together, just for the pleasure of it, for all their past misuse of Alinor and to ease this wild need to go berserk. “Hurt her and you hurt me,” he murmured under his breath to the two whimpering brothers.
Then, without another word to her or even one final, lingering look, he turned his back and stomped away.
As he left he thought he heard her murmur, “I love you.”
But he must have been mistaken.
Alinor arrived on British soil a mere two sennights later, and she was not in a good temperament. Her brothers probably wished they’d never come after her.
She’d done nothing but vomit with the seasickness, despite the placid seas. When she wasn’t emptying the contents of her stomach, she’d been eating everything in sight.
Or she’d been rushing for the chamber pot in a screened-off area to relieve herself. There was something to be said for the male anatomy, which allowed men to just whip out their manparts and take care of matters over the ship’s side, she’d thought on more than one occasion. And crying…Blessed Mary, she’d done more weeping and sobbing than ever before in her entire life. If she hadn’t been making water from one end it had been the other. Good thing she was inclined to sleep so much.
Furthermore, she’d taken every free moment to berate her lackwitted brothers for every infraction they’d levied against her in the past twenty-five years. And she had a long list.
They were walking through the Coppergate district of Jorvik now, heading toward the horse stables, where Egbert and Hebert intended to buy some steeds to take them to her—their—estate in Wessex and an eventual parade of prospective bridegrooms. ’Twas enough to make her vomit again.
Suddenly, Alinor came to a screeching halt, causing Egbert and Hebert to run into her back end, which had grown decidedly wider of late, she’d noticed. It was a smell that had drawn her attention. She glanced to the side and smiled. Gammelost. It was a Norseman’s booth in the craftsmen’s district of Coppergate. Amongst the intricately carved bowls and furniture, there was a linen cloth heaped with the smelly Viking cheese intended for the man’s midday meal. Alinor pulled a coin from the cloth flap at her waist and smiled.
A short time later, as she stood gobbling the cheese down as if it was ambrosia of the gods, Egbert and Hebert approached her with the horses in lead reins. They looked at her, then at each other, then blurted out simultaneously, “Are you with child?”
“Huh?” Alinor said, setting aside the cheese, which suddenly appeared disgusting. “Do not be ridiculous.” As she fought off the urge to vomit, or make water, or weep, all at the same time, she stared at Egbert and Hebert as if they were even more demented than usual.
Then she thought, Could I be?
Nay. I am barren. Three husbands have I had and never quickened before.
But what if Tykir’s seed were more potent? Or my womb more receptive? What if…oh, praise God!…what if I am carrying Tykir’s child?
But she would have known, wouldn’t she? Well, actually, she would not. Her monthly fluxes had always been irregular…’twas why she had reasoned in the past that she could not conceive. Plus, she had told Tykir once when he commented on her weak or nonexistent monthly fluxes that her body was probably affected by the cold, or the change of place, or all that lovemaking.
She felt foolish now, not to have suspected.
Then she put a hand over her stomach and remembered a night—’twas Christ’s Eve, less than four short months ago—when Tykir had made tender love to her after gifting her with the magical amber neck ring. Hadn’t she felt afterwards that something special had happened?
It had.
She burst out with joyous laughter. “Yea, I am pregnant. I have conceived the troll’s child. Isn’t that the most wonderful news in the world?”
Egbert and Hebert gaped at her with horror and disgust.
“Pregnant? How can we sell…uh, betroth…you to an English nobleman with a heathen whelp in your belly?” Egbert stormed, pulling madly at his mop of red curls.
“And do you say the babe will be a troll?” a terrified Hebert squealed.
“Now you have ruined everything,” Egbert wailed.
“Nay, this is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am not barren after all.”
“No man will want her now,” Hebert told Egbert.
“’Tis true. ’Tis true. And the Viking would surely come after us for vengeance if he finds out about this,” Egbert told Hebert. “If we were to rid her of
the babe, or fob it off on some cotter after wedding her to another, that vengeful monster would follow us to the ends of the earth. I know he would.”
“Forget about the Viking. I would rip your eyes out with my own fingernails if you dared take my babe from me,” Alinor said vehemently, only slightly surprised at how protective she was feeling already toward the seed growing inside her.
“We wipe our hands of you then, ungrateful wench,” Hebert spat out. “Never did you appreciate all our efforts on your behalf. Now find your own fate. We care not if it be in a Viking midden or hell.”
With that, the two stomped off, already concocting new brainless schemes, leaving Alinor standing in the middle of the busy city. Alone.
She hooted with laughter then, drawing a few curious looks from passersby, but she did not care. For the first time in her life, she was free. She could go to Graycote and be an independent woman. Or she could find herself a husband of her own picking. Or—and her heart skipped a beat—she could make her way back to Dragonstead and wait for Tykir to return.
She did not even hesitate.
Dragonstead it would be.
Rurik was ambling along Coppergate, enjoying the sights, including a Saxon maid with a pair of swishing hips that would make a Norseman blush. Well, some Norsemen. Not him, of course. He was too much a man of the world.
Beast was temporarily sheltered at Gyda’s house. He was headed toward the king’s garth, where he intended to pay his respects to Eric Bloodaxe, then make his way north to Scotland and a certain mischievous witch. But then he stopped in his tracks when another bloody witch caught his attention.
Lady Alinor! What is she doing here? She is supposed to be off in the Baltic skipping along the beaches, collecting amber with Tykir. Could she perchance be in two places at once, being a witch and all?
Nay, Rurik decided, having long ago accepted that Alinor wasn’t a real witch. Just witchly.
She was jabbering away at a tall Norseman with long blond hair and a huge, finely groomed beard. A mercenary, by the looks of him. In fact, Rurik seemed to recall seeing him one time at King Haakon’s Vik court on Oslo-fjord. And, oh, holy Thor! Was the woman daft? Now she was jabbing the big Viking in the chest with a finger to make some point whilst she talked his ear off.
Amazingly, the man didn’t lop off her head, as any sane man would. Instead, he listened intently and his face got paler and paler at whatever news she was imparting.
Meeting up with her will mean trouble for me, I wager. Should I pretend I haven’t seen her and escape? No one will even know. While he pondered his decision, Rurik moved closer, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“I have a child?” the man was asking. “For the love of Freyja! Tell me more, Lady Alinor.”
“Yea, Toste, you have a child. His name is Thibaud, and he has seen only four winters. Good thing I overheard the craftsman over there address you by name, or you might never know the glad tidings.”
“A son?” Toste said with wonder. “A son?”
Alinor smiled indulgently, apparently no longer angry with the man. “Yea, and a beautiful boy he is, too.”
“I have thought of Rachelle many times these past years since we were together in Rouen. But she was married, or so I thought.” He shrugged. “And you say the boy lives in Hedeby with his mother? Why, I was in the market town just last year. How could I have missed seeing her?”
No doubt he’d spent his time in an ale house, or visiting the loose women who sold their favors there. That was Rurik’s opinion. Leastways, ’twas how he spent his days there.
“I do not think Rachelle goes about much, Toste. You see, before her husband divorced her, he performed a brutal mutilation on her.” Alinor explained, and Toste’s face grew red with rage.
“That matters not to me,” he asserted. “I will go to her and my son forthwith, and make right all she has suffered for being with me. And I will take revenge on her former husband, Arnaud, as well. That I forswear.”
Well, there’s naught here for me to do, Rurik thought, and was about to creep away, unnoticed.
“Rurik! Is that you?” he heard a male voice call from behind him.
Too late! Trapped!
“Eirik,” he groaned aloud, seeing Tykir’s brother coming forth. Then he groaned mentally as he noted the rest of Lord Eirik’s party. “Lady Eadyth, Selik, Rain…’tis good to see you again. And all your children.” By the gods, these two couples breed like rabbits. They must copulate enough to populate the entire countryside. ’Tis best that Tykir has never wed if his brother and sister and their spouses set such an example. That was what he thought, but what he said with a sweet smile of admiration was, “What nice families you have!”
“Who is that you are watching over there?” Eirik pointed so that Eadyth would look, too. “Oh, I see, ’tis Lady Alinor. Where is Tykir? I daresay he would not let the witch escape, so he must be about somewhere.”
“He is not here, as far as I know,” Rurik disclosed. “Last I heard he was on his way to the Baltic.”
Alinor glanced up, and Rurik groaned aloud again. He was trapped, good and proper, now.
Everyone was introduced all around, including Toste.
Eadyth embraced Alinor in the way womenfolk often did, as if they were longtime friends. ’Twas their lesser brains that caused them to act so, in Rurik’s opinion. Rain embraced her, too, stating, “You are the one that Eadyth has told me about…the one she predicted would capture Tykir’s hard heart.”
Alinor burst into tears then and was blubbering noisily about a number of nonsensical things, like braids and feathers and lusty trolls and gammelost and cravings and piss and vomit. But only one of them caught his attention. With child.
Rurik threw his hands in the air. Well, that does it! Now I will never get away. The witch will be foisted on me. Everyone will think me uncaring if I just traipse off without caring for my best friend’s babe…and the mother of my best friend’s babe…and the sister and brother of my best friend…oh, hell, the whole bloody world. He sighed deeply, though no one was paying attention to him. Everyone was doting on Lady Alinor.
“I know Tykir probably does not want me, even with a babe,” Alinor explained on a sniffle, “but my only wish now is to find someone with a longship to take me back to Dragonstead.”
Everyone turned to him. Me? Why me? Oh, this is just a wonderful turn of events. I should have followed the maid with the swishing hips when I had a chance.
“Does your face hurt, Rurik?” Rain inquired, turning him from side to side with a firm grip on his chin.
“Nay. Why?”
“Because it’s blue.”
“Oh, have you not seen Rurik since he turned blue?” Eadyth spoke to Rain, but everyone in the bloody world was listening, including many a passerby. “He got it whilst swiving a witch.”
“Ead-yth!” Eirik remonstrated. “Where have you heard such language?”
“From you.” She wiggled her nose at him.
“Men!” Eadyth and Rain exclaimed, sharing a communal look of disgust. Alinor was too busy blubbering still.
“Rurik, do you have a longship here?” Eirik asked.
Uh-oh! Blindsided whilst woolgathering. “Yea, but I was going to Scotland for a time.”
Everyone stared at him as if he was the most selfish clod in the world. “I suppose I could postpone—”
Eirik had already assumed he would help them and was off on another subject. “The ships that Selik and I own are off being repaired. We have not much need of them, being landlocked as we are these days. Ouch,” he said, as Eadyth jabbed him with an elbow. “I wasn’t complaining, sweetling,” he told her with a reassuring pat on the arm; then he addressed Rurik again. “I suppose the one longship could take us all to Dragonstead?”
“All?” Rurik squeaked out, and his single word was echoed by everyone else in the group. Toste was nodding at everyone and making his escape. Lucky fellow!
“Yea, all. You did not think we wou
ld let you go alone, did you? And, of course, Eadyth and I will want to bring our five children. Some of them have never seen Dragonstead.”
“And Rain and I will bring at least four of our children and some of the orphans, though our oldest, Mary, and Adam’s sister, Adela, could stay with the greater number of the orphans. On the other hand, they want to come, too. Mayhap we could set them all to rowing. Ha, ha, ha. What do you think, heartling?” Selik asked Rain.
Rurik thought he might go mad and wondered if he might have been cursed by Alinor the Witch, after all.
There was no maybe about it, Rurik decided a short time later when Alinor looked up at him and wheedled, “Rur-ik?”
’Twas always best for a man to run like the wind when a woman asked something in a wheedling voice, especially when accompanied by the batting of eyelashes. Alinor should know that he was immune to her charms, or lack of charms. Tykir was the only one who thought her winsome. “What?” he snapped.
“Can I bring my sheep with us on your ship?”
“Nay!”
“Please?”
“Nay! Nay! Nay!”
“Ple-eee-ase?”
“Well, mayhap one. Or two. But that’s all.”
The huge smile she flashed at him then told him he had been bested good and proper. There would be more than two sheep.
Alinor turned to the others then. “Since Rurik is willing to take me back to Dragonstead—”
Hah! Who said aught about “willing”?
“—’tis not necessary for all of you to accompany me.”
Well, finally, someone has an intelligent thought here.
Everyone demurred, though. Lackwits, all!
“But why do you all need to come?” Alinor asked.
“Good question,” Rurik piped in quickly.
“Do you think we would miss Tykir’s wedding?” they all said, except for a slack-jawed Rurik, who thought Tykir might have something to say about that important event, and except for a slack-jawed Alinor, who began to cry again.
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