by Sandra Hill
“He is getting better by the hour. Surprisingly better.”
“You are not coming with me.”
“I just want to protect you.” Another hasty, blurted mistake, he realized immediately.
Now her scowling face was replaced with an angry face. “Dost question my competence, Saxon?”
“That is not what I meant.” He stood and walked toward her.
“I know what this is about. You think because I showed a woman’s weakness last night that suddenly I am less of a warrior. Well, think again.” She was backing away from him as he approached. Putting up a hand, she said, “Don’t come any closer. No more of your seduction ploys will you use on me.”
“Ploys? What ploys?” Now he was offended. “Go! Go play your man-role, if you must. But do not dare get yourself killed, my lady, because … because …” He was so furious, he could not complete his sentence.
She tilted her head in question, and when he refused to finish, she turned and walked stiffly toward the groups of men and horses waiting for her. He noticed that there was not even the tiniest bit of sway to her walk now. Damn it.
Too late, he completed his sentence, but only to himself: “… because I care.”
The news was not good.
When Tyra and her troops arrived at the small outpost village of Fagrfjord, the Danish outlaws had already come and gone. Apparently, news of her father’s impending death had spread to their enemy camps, and the scurvy lot, led by Ejnar the Evil, had attacked, sensing an opportunity. They’d burned some timber long-houses, stolen cattle and sheep, taken a few women and children who were unable to run to the mountains, and killed a half dozen fighting men.
“Unless my father awakens soon and begins to show his face in public, this will be the first of many such strikes, and not just by Ejnar, either,” Tyra told Rafn. “Every malcontent from here to Birka will be on the move, sniffing out any weakness in our flanks.”
“You are correct, of course,” Rafn said. “But we caught this raid early on. Now that we are forewarned, we will send reinforcements to man all of our vulnerable border lines. And, my lady, do not be fearful about your father’s return to leadership. I know that he will recover and resume his overlordship of his land and his troops.”
“Is there something you know and have not told me?” she asked, suddenly alert to the tone of his voice.
He shook his head quickly … too quickly … but Tyra had no time to ponder that now.
“Are you not concerned about Dragonstead?” Tyra asked Tykir, who had ridden along with them.
“Nay. Not really. I left two hundred soldiers back on my estate. The likes of Ejnar only attack where they sense weakness.”
While Rafn and a small troop rode out in search of the culprits, she and Tykir and the other men-at-arms spent the next few hours putting out fires, setting up guards, feeding the poor cotters who had been under siege for more than a day, and tending to the wounded … some of whom would have to be brought back to Stoneheim for more expert ministrations.
It was late that night when they rode slowly back to Stoneheim, exhausted and somber of mood. Fagrfjord would be safe for now, but there was much to ponder regarding Stoneheim and its vast holdings. Ironically, outlaw Norsemen had no interest in the land itself, not this far north, because it was wild and much too difficult to cultivate, especially for lazy sluggards such as these malcontents. They were more interested in treasure, or animals, or people to trade into slavery, all of which Stoneheim had aplenty.
There was a full moon out tonight, and when the long line of her retinue made its way home, over the drawbridge and into the courtyard, she saw one thing clearly.
Adam.
He was waiting for her.
The wench was a constant worry …
It was close to midnight when Tyra’s troop returned to Stoneheim.
Adam had been standing near the gate for more than three hours. He wasn’t sure if he was more worried or angry.
There were wounded, he noticed, slung over saddles or lying in quickly constructed pole litters which trailed behind the horses. None of the men appeared to be Stoneheim warriors, as far as he could tell. More work for him, though, he presumed.
But where was Tyra? His heart beat frantically with panic. Was she left behind, too wounded to be moved? Or dead?
Please, God, not again!
Just then the line of troops parted and Tyra rode forward through the ranks. Tears of relief misted his eyes.
I should not care so much, he told himself. Then, Thank you, God.
When she started to dismount, her knees gave way—no doubt from the exhaustion of the long day—but he was there to catch her in his arms.
“Are you all right?” he whispered against her ear, still holding her upright in his arms. “Have you been hurt?”
She shook her head slowly from side to side, dazed.
“You will never do this to me again, that I swear.”
“Do what?” She cocked her head with confusion.
“Leave me behind to worry, like a … like a …”
“Husband?” Tykir offered with a laugh as he rode his horse up next to them.
Adam knew he was acting foolishly, but his emotions were roiling out of control. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he told Tyra, “We will discuss this later,” and went off to join Father Efrid, who was already examining the wounded.
Almost immediately, he turned around, came back, and kissed her soundly on the lips. Then he was off again.
“Has he lost his mind?” he heard Tyra ask Tykir.
“Undoubtedly,” Tykir said. “Either that, or his heart.”
James Bond, he was not …
Even though it was not quite dawn, Alrek was humming a bawdy tune he’d heard some drukkinn soldiers sing one night. He was in the process of carrying a bucket of fresh drinking water into King Thorvald’s bedchamber.
“Good day to you, boy,” a rumbly voice said.
Alrek almost wet his braies, so frighted was he. Setting the bucket down on a bench, he glanced right and left, searching the room. He was the only person about, aside from the king, who was still in a deep sleep from his head wound.
Tentatively, he approached the bed.
The king’s eyes shot wide open, and he winked at Alrek.
Alrek nigh jumped out of his skin.
“Yer highness!” he exclaimed. “Let me go call yer daughters and the physician. Thanks be to Odin, ye are back from the dead.”
The king raised a halting hand. “Nay, I want no one to know that I am awake. Come here, boy, and help me.”
When Alrek was next to the bed, the king threw the linens back, exposing a trencher made of manchet bread. On it sat two roast chicken legs, several hunks of hard cheese, and some slices of pickled reindeer tongue. Held between his knees was a huge wooden goblet of ale. “Are you as hungry as I am, Alrek?”
Alrek nodded. He was always hungry.
So at the king’s bidding, Alrek locked the bedchamber door, then crawled up onto the bed with his king, and they both broke their fast together.
While they ate, the king remarked, “I owe you a coin about now, do I not, boy?”
He shook his head. “Yer daughter Tyra paid me. She denied it, but methinks Adam the Healer reminded her to pay me in yer stead. He is a good fellow, Adam is. Me hero, actually.”
The king nodded, even as he chomped away on the ample, tasty fare. “That Ingrith of mine is a mighty fine cook. It will be a sad day when she weds and leaves Stoneheim … not that that will be happening anytime soon, the way Tyra dawdles in the marriage market. But that is going to change, if I have my way.” The king was speaking more to himself than Alrek, who was too stunned by his circumstances to speak anyhow.
“So, Alrek, tell me everything that has been going on in my castle.”
And Alrek did, leaving nothing out. The king was especially engrossed by the events surrounding Tyra and Adam, but he was also more than interested in the outlaws who’d attacked his
holdings the night before. Alrek thought he heard the king mumble, “Rafn did not tell of this yet. Where is the man? Has he become a slugabed now?”
Alrek wasn’t sure he’d heard right, so he withheld comment.
“I need your help, Alrek.”
Alrek sat up straighter.
“Can I trust you?”
“With me life.” Oh, this was the best day of Alrek’s life. To think his king was going to trust him with some special assignment. “Shall I tell the smithy to make me a sword? Even the lowest knight needs his own sword to slit his enemy’s gullet, or cut out his heart, or lop off his head. I do so want to lop off a head or two.”
“Uh, I do not think a sword will be necessary just yet,” the king said. A weak smile slashed his still ashen face. Mayhap the king was not as well yet as Adam had thought. “The task I would set for you requires a sharp mind, not a sharp blade.”
Alrek tried to look intelligent and alert, but he feared he just looked bug-eyed.
“Firstly, you must tell no one—no one—that I have awakened.”
He nodded his understanding.
“You must be my eyes and ears about the castle. Report everything to me, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Can you do that?”
“Yea, I can that. Am I to be yer spy, then?”
“Exactly.”
Alrek stepped off the bed and rose to his full height, which wasn’t all that much. A spy! I am to be a spy. Praise the Gods! ‘Tis just as Adam predicted back on the longship. Mayhap he made this miracle come true fer me. I should thank him, but nay, I cannot thank him properly because it is a secret. Still … me, a spy! Alrek wiped the smile of pure joy from his face and tried to appear somber and responsible. “I will not let ye down, Yer Highness. Even if they torture me with burning splinters. Even if they chop off me ear. Even if they shave me head. Even if—”
“I don’t think it will come to that,” Thorvald said with lips that twitched oddly, as if he were suppressing a smile.
“Now, Alrek, summon Rafn for me. Do not tell him I called for him, especially if others are about. Just say that you must go to the garderobe or some such thing, and that you hate to leave your king alone.”
Alrek kept nodding at each of the king’s orders.
“And remember, this is our secret.”
A hole in the head and a harem, too …
“It will be our secret,” Tykir assured the king.
Rafn had summoned him to the king’s bedchamber after spending some time there himself, asking if he would keep the sleeping king company whilst he prepared for the early morning patrol.
It appeared that the Stoneheim ruler had come out of his sleep state but wanted no one to know about it yet except Tykir, Thorvald always had been a wily man … and smart. Tykir was not about to question his motives.
“I want you to report back to me what you see around my keep,” the king said. “It is important that I know not just what is happening with my men-at-arms and the Stoneheim cotters, but with my daughters, as well.”
“Why not just ask them?”
“For shame, Tykir! Methought you knew better than that. Women never answer a question when it is put to them directly.”
“I suppose.”
“Now, what think you of a match betwixt my daughter Tyra and your nephew Adam?”
“ ‘Tis not for me to say, Thorvald. It’s what they want. I will say this: the sap of lust is running high in both of them.”
The king clapped his hands gleefully. “Perfect! Perfect! All according to plan.”
“What plan?” Tykir asked, wondering if the king had heard of the plan he and Rashid and Rafn and Bolthor had devised for Adam, but nay, that was impossible.
The king never answered him. Instead he ordered, “Send that rascal Rashid to me. Do not tell him I am awake. Just say it is his turn to sit a spell with the king.”
“Why would you want the Arab here?”
“I have heard strange murmurings of a harem. A harem, indeed! There will be no harems at Stoneheim … unless they belong to me.”
Seriously, a Viking harem? …
“So, tell me about your master, Rashid. What is he like?”
Rashid was honored to be taken into the king’s confidence, especially since he was the only one the king had confided in.
“My master, Adam, is a good man. Honorable. But these last two years have been hard on him since he lost his sister. Before that, he was adventuresome, full of life and wit. Now, he is somber and reclusive. But methinks he is changing back to his old self, day by day.”
“Thanks to my daughter?”
Rashid was surprised that the king knew so much about the developing relationship between Tyra and Adam—and it was developing, no matter how either of them protested. A person would have to be blind as well as deaf not to see that something was going on between those two.
“They fight the attraction mightily,” he told the king, “but you know what they say, ‘Lust is love’s handmaiden.’”
“Huh?” Then he waved a hand as if it mattered not. “You will report back to me? You will be my eyes and ears? And you will keep my condition a secret?”
To all of these, Rashid nodded and replied, “I swear on the feet of Allah!”
But what he thought was, Tyra and Adam were in way over their heads, and not just because lust was in the air, but because the king was putting his finger to the wind.
“Now, my Arab friend, tell me how one goes about setting up a harem.”
CHAPTER EIEVEN
Betimes the dolt melted her with kindness…
Tyra awakened just after dawn the next morning, prepared to ride off again with her horse hersirs to patrol the borders. She would go in one direction, and Rafn with an equal number of men on horseback would go in another. Two of the twenty longships in the harbor would also be dispatched to inspect the coastal and river shorelines. They were taking no chances of being caught unawares again.
The first thing she saw when she stepped outside her bedchamber was Adam leaning against the corridor wall, waiting for her. The second thing she saw was Warrior hissing and biting at Adam’s boot. While the kitten had developed an attachment for her, she seemed to have developed an aversion to Adam. Vana would have a hissing fit if she saw the cat in the keep.
“You are not coming with me,” she asserted before he could even speak. Still angry with him for his words and actions of the previous night, she began to walk away toward the steps that led to the great hall.
He fell into step beside her, then took her by the arm and drew her to a halt. Warrior trailed behind them. “Not so fast, my bloodthirsty lady. Do not attempt to read my mind, for it is deep and hard to fathom.”
She stood still and faced him, waiting for him to elaborate.
“You are wearing metal, aren’t you?”
“Of course, I am wearing a chain mail shert under my tunic. Do you object to that, too?”
He shook his head sadly. “Nay. If you must ride like an Amazon warrior into danger, ‘tis best that you are protected.” He hesitated, then reached behind him and handed her a silver-embossed shield with a crest of writhing wolves. “Here. Take this with you … for luck. It is mine.”
It was a fine piece of armory, but that was not why she was so stunned. It appeared she had jumped to the wrong conclusion. “You did not come this morn to chastise me again for my warlike ways, did you?”
He shook his head.
“You did not come to insist that you accompany me, either, did you?”
He shook his head again, then smiled, but the smile did not quite meet his eyes. “Actually, I probably would have … chastised and insisted … except that Dagma the dairymaid has chosen today to bring forth her first child, and it is a difficult delivery.”
Dagma was only fourteen years old, and her pregnancy was the result of a rape the previous winter by a passing tradesman. The man had been executed Viking-style, but that did not help Dagma and her predicament.
He nodded.
‘Twould seem she had misjudged Adam in many regards. “Will she be all right?”
“ ‘Tis hard to say. The girl has a child’s slim hips, and the babe is overlarge. Moreover, she has been laboring for a full fifteen hours already, to no avail.” He shrugged. “God willing, she will survive.”
Tyra could tell that Adam cared more than he was saying. “I’m sorry you are set in the midst of this. I know you did not want to resume your medical practice, and here you are, not just treating my father, but everyone else as well. You do not have to help Dagma. Let the midwife care for her … or Father Efrid.”
“I must.”
She frowned her confusion.
“I promised Dagma I would stay with her to the end.”
“And your promises are solid as rock.”
“Even rocks can be broken, and I have not always lived up to my promises in the past, my lady. Do not set me on a pedestal where I do not belong.”
Tyra recalled then what Rashid had told her about Adam and his dead sister, Adela. Her heart went out to Adam, but she knew his pride was great, and he would not appreciate any overt sign of her pity.
“Should you not be with Dagma now?”
He nodded. “The babe will not come for several hours yet, though the birthing canal has finally started to open.”
“So be it. I wish you well, physician.”
“And I wish you well, soldier.”
They nodded at each other.
Their conversation was presumably ended, but they both stood staring at one another.
Finally he said, “We are so different. You let blood, I stanch blood.”
“There is no future together for the likes of us,” she agreed, reading his inner meaning. But then she asked, “Have you never killed anyone, Adam?”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I have.”
“More than once?”
He laughed grimly. “Yea, Tyra, more than once, and I did not like it any more the second and third and fourth time than the first.”
