Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 05]

by The Blue Viking

  “Rurik, I’m sorry… I can explain,” she offered, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  He shrugged her off and turned so abruptly, she almost fell backward. “Explain? Explain?” he shouted. “How can you explain not telling a man he is a father?”

  “You weren’t here,” she pointed out with infuriating logic. “As you must recall, you left Scotland afore I could have known I was quickening. Then I married Kenneth, and it seemed more expedient to just let him be father to Jamie.”

  “Expedient? Expedient?” he sputtered angrily. “ ’Tis obvious that the man knew Jamie was not of his seed.” An alarming thought occurred to Rurik then. “Did he mistreat the boy?” Oh, he would never forgive her that negligence. Never!

  She shook her head vehemently. “I would never have allowed that. He just ignored him most times, even in the beginning when he had no reason to doubt his fatherhood. ’Twas only later that Jamie’s appearance made it obvious he was no MacNab. Nay, Rurik, you must believe me. Kenneth never struck Jamie. He only…”

  Rurik divined her unspoken words. Kenneth had only struck her. He closed his eyes and inhaled and exhaled several times for calm. Because his seed had taken root in a woman’s body, she had been subjected to physical punishment from another man. Did she not know how he would feel knowing that? But, nay, he refused to take the blame for her sins.

  “So, you did not tell me in the beginning because I was far away, and because you had a new husband to appease,” he said in a surprisingly calm voice as he opened his eyes and speared her with a glower. “What is your excuse for not telling me these past days I have been here in Scotland?”

  “Fear.”

  Well, that made sense, he supposed. “Fear of what?”

  “You.”

  That made sense, too. “I do not make a habit of beating women, even when I am sore angered.”

  “ ’Twas not fear of physical pain that locked my tongue. ’Twas fear that you would take Jamie away from me.”

  His head jerked up at that unexpected admission. “Why would I do that?”

  She shrugged. “Revenge.”

  He cocked his head as he continued to study her. “You do not think much of me, do you?”

  “Men have this thing about carrying on their line. I feared you would develop an instant attachment to your son, and be unable to separate yourself from him. Since you have made your opinions of Scotland clear on many an occasion, ’twas obvious you would not be staying here. So, really, any sane-minded woman would harbor the same fears.”

  Sane-minded? Hah! Devious, seductive, secretive … yea. But sane-minded? I have my doubts. “Who else knows?”

  “Well, I do not think the MacNabs ever knew for sure, though Kenneth probably discussed his suspicions with his brothers at one time or another. Certainly, they never made a connection with you.” She took a deep breath, then went on, “But on the Campbell estates, everyone knows.”

  “Everyone?” he shouted.

  “Well, forgive me for pointing this out, Rurik, but you and Jamie are identical in appearance, except for the difference in years. They could not help but note the similarity.”

  “Your sarcasm knows no bounds, m’lady. Truly, you tug the wolf by the tail when you risk my wrath thus.” But her words remained imbedded in his brain. What a sightless fool he must be … not to have seen what everyone else did. Had they been snickering behind his back every time he passed by? Was he once more, as he’d been as a child, a pitiful subject for mockery?

  “Rurik, I’ve told you that I’m sorry. You have to admit that I tried on several occasions to broach the subject. What else could I have done?”

  “Thor’s Blood! You could have told me.”

  She stared at him, chin raised with more bravado than she had a right to display. “What will you do now?”

  He glowered at her, his chin raised also, unable to express his bone-melting fury. “I do not know,” he said, opening the door behind him. “I just know that I cannot bear to be in your presence now. You revolt me.”

  She flinched, as if he’d struck her, and tears immediately welled in her green eyes, but he steeled himself not to care.

  “One thing I do know,” he said in a scathing tone before he exited the chamber, “you will pay for this perfidy. You will pay.”

  “I toi’ ye I had somethin’ important to tell ye,” Jamie said matter-of-factly as he plopped down on the ground beside Rurik.

  So, the boy had known, too … or suspected. The situation got worse and worse. For the past hour, Rurik had been sitting at the edge of the loch, staring out over the nighttime waters, thinking … thinking … thinking. And not a solution in sight.

  “Shouldn’t you be abed?” he asked the boy.

  “Me mother sent me to find ye. She said ye might need me?”

  Damn, but that witch was going to drive him barmy. Could she not leave him be till he’d settled his thoughts?

  “Do ye?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Need me.”

  Rurik’s shoulders slumped. How did he answer a question like that? “What I need is to be alone for a bit.”

  “To settle yer temper?”

  He shook his head at the boy, and tried to see him more clearly in the moonlight. Did he really resemble him? Was there a miniature version of himself walking the earth? Why did his heart swell with pride at such a prospect?

  “Are ye gonna beat me mother?” the impudent lad inquired. “If that’s what’s on yer mind, I gotta tell ye … I won’t allow it.”

  Rurik chuckled. The boy did have balls … even if they were small ones. “And how would you be stopping me?”

  Jamie made some punching motions in the air. “I’d beat ye to a pulp with me bare hands, and kick ye in the shins, like I used to do with me fath… I mean, Kenneth … and put slugs in yer ale.”

  A sadness swept over Rurik and squeezed at his heart that his son had witnessed his own mother’s abuse. Had he learned early on to dodge his fath … Kenneth’s fists, just as Rurik had developed survival skills as a child? If so, Rurik felt new anger boil up in him. He had always sworn that no child of his would go through what he had. ’Twould seem the choice had been taken from his hands.

  “I do not beat women,” Rurik told the boy flatly.

  Jamie let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Guess I’ll be goin’ a-Viking with ye after all, then.”

  Rurik had to laugh at that. “What would make you think so? That is the last thing on my mind.”

  The child blinked at him several times before blurting out shakily, “Don’t ye … don’t ye want me?”

  Rurik put his face in one hand and rubbed his fingertips across his creased forehead. When he looked up, the boy was gazing at him as if he’d asked the most important question in the world. “Of course I want you.” And, to Rurik’s amazement, he realized the truth of his statement.

  “Well, then?” Jamie asked, putting his hands on his tiny hips with impatience … just as his mother was wont to do on occasion.

  “Well, then, what?” Rurik asked.

  “Don’t ye want to hug me? That’s what me mother always does when she gets teary-eyed.”

  Before Rurik could register the fact that the rascal was accusing him of weeping, or that he’d asked him for a fatherly embrace, he was standing and his son was hurling himself high into his arms.

  With the child’s face nestled in the crook of Rurik’s neck, and his skinny arms wrapped around his neck like a vise, Rurik hugged his son for the first time. And it was a glorious, glorious feeling.

  His life would never be the same again.

  And Cailleach had been right… his life was turning upside down.

  It was after midnight and Rurik was making his way through the trestle tables in the great hall, which still bore the remnants of the night’s feast. There would be much cleanup work to do on the morrow.

  Well, that was none of his concern. Rurik had more important things on his mind. Like his son, whom
he’d just tucked into a pallet in an alcove off the great hall with promises that he would be there when the boy awakened. There were a hundred things Jamie wanted of him. Lessons in archery and swordplay. Trout fishing. A walk to his favorite mountain peak. Horseback riding. An exploration of the cave where Jamie had been hiding for weeks on end. And talk, talk, talk about every subject that would be of interest to a small boy, and some things that should not be of interest to a small boy.

  How was Rurik going to do all this … deal with Maire … have the blue mark removed … and leave for the Hebrides and his wedding?

  “Are you all right?” a male voice asked out of the darkness.

  Rurik had just stepped from the hall doors into the courtyard, and he jumped with surprise. It was not one male, but four of them. Bolthor, Stigand, Toste, and Vagn. All waiting to accost him. All with worried frowns marring their faces.

  “Nay, I am not all right,” he grumbled, sinking down to the stone steps.

  They sank down beside him.

  “How long have all of you known?” he demanded of them.

  After a short bout of silence, Bolthor spoke for the group. “Several days … from when the scamp first got a bath and wore braids similar to yours.”

  Rurik snorted with disgust.

  “We figured that you must know, deep down, or that you would soon discover the truth,” Toste revealed. “After all, Jamie is a mirror reflection of yourself.”

  Rurik turned on Stigand. “You above all others knew how I would react. You saw firsthand, when we were children, how I hated being the subject of mockery. How could you have withheld the news from me?”

  Stigand shrugged. “I did not think you would care.”

  Rurik’s head reared back with affront.

  “You always said bringing children into a world of pain and degradation was not to your taste. I thought you would not want the child.”

  “You are a fool to think such,” he declared hotly. “As much a fool as I for not seeing the truth.”

  Anyone else who proffered such an insult to Stigand would be holding his severed head in his hands by now, but his old friend just shook his head sadly.

  “Ah, but now that you know,” Vagn opined, “is it not a grand feeling to have a son? Leastways, I always imagined that it would be the highest accomplishment for a man.”

  “Yea, it is a proud feeling,” Rurik admitted, “and at the same time humbling.”

  “I could be his foster father,” Stigand suggested hopefully.

  Rurik gaped at him. Who would have thought the burly berserker could blush, or that he would entertain such a thought?

  “Nay, I will be Jamie’s foster father,” Bolthor countered.

  “Nay, me,” Toste said.

  “Nay, me,” Vagn piped in.

  Rurik put two hands in the air, as if in surrender. And he laughed for the first time in hours. “You can all be the boy’s foster fathers,” he conceded.

  There was some grumbling, but finally agreement.

  “This is the saga of Rurik the Greater,” Bolthor began.

  “Do not think of starting on me now, skald.”

  But Bolthor just spoke over him, and for once, truer words were never spoken.

  Betimes a man goes all through life,

  Happy without family or wife,

  But fate sticks out her big toe,

  And down does the man go.

  Then the man learns that being alone

  Is not the place for a man grown,

  Especially if his seed takes root,

  And into this world comes a precious offshoot.

  When that babe is a boy,

  Oh, the wonderous joy!

  For then discovers the man

  What it is to be a real man…

  A father.

  They all nodded, deep in thought, probably wondering what Rurik would do now.

  If only he knew!

  Rurik awakened about dawn in the stables on a bundle of straw he’d raked together. To his surprise, he’d actually slept, despite the turmoil of the night before … perchance in reaction to a long, eventful day that had begun in battle. How could so much have happened in one day?

  But something had awakened him, he realized, even before he opened his eyes. There was someone in the stable beside him.

  Was it Maire?

  Was he ready to face the wily witch and all the problems aswirl betwixt them?

  Should he shoo her away?

  Or forgive her monumental transgression?

  Was he ready to face all this so soon?

  Slowly, he opened one eye, then shut it quickly on a groan. It was a witch, all right, but not Maire the Witch.

  “What do you want?” he asked Cailleach. With eyes still scrunched tight, he rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face in his folded arms.

  “Time’s a wasting, Viking. Get up and start to set your world aright,” she advised.

  Really, the old hag had a death wish, ordering him about so.

  Then the witch did the unthinkable. She whacked him across the buttocks with a palm and cackled several times with relish at her act.

  He was half-reclining on his back within seconds, casting killing glares at the outrageous old crone. He refused to budge beyond that.

  “Did ye hear me, ye lazy lump of Norse flesh? Rise and shine… though I doubt ye’ll do much shinin’ today. Yer skin looks a mite green. Exactly how much uisge-beatha did ye suck up las’ night?”

  “Not enough, apparently.”

  “Ooooh, ye are a foolish lad, maligning a witch so. I have powers, ye know.”

  “Really? Well, what say you to waving your magic wand and getting rid of this bloody blue mark on my face?”

  “Is that all ye care about?”

  “I’m getting mighty tired of answering that question.”

  “Well, yer gonna be lots more tired by the end of the day. Ye have much to do this day, Viking. Company’s coming.”

  “Huh?” Rurik said. “What company? We have no need of more people here … not with every bloody witch in Scotland roosting in every free space.”

  “Watch yer tongue, boy, or ye may find this witch roosting on a body part that canna bear the weight.”

  “Don’t push me too far, witch. I cannot guarantee the consequences.” Suddenly, he sniffed … and sniffed … and sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

  “Yer breakfast.”

  Oh … Good… Lord! Rurik’s gaze had moved sideways to where a huge cauldron was boiling over an open fire—an open fire in a stable! The witch was already ladling out a wooden bowl of some grayish liquid with pieces of something floating in it. She shoved the bowl into his lap and handed him a wooden spoon, then ordered, “Eat!”

  “Why?”

  “Ye need yer strength today.” He was alert of a sudden. “Is there to be another battle?”

  “Ye could say that.”

  Rurik’s eyes darted to his sword, which lay to the side.

  “Not that kind of battle,” Cailleach said with a few cackles.

  “What other kind is there?” he asked.

  She pointed to the bowl with the silent message that he was to get to it.

  “What’s in it? Eye of a newt? Toe of a snake?” he jested.

  She just waited.

  He took a tentative bite. It was thin porridge, with chunks of apple. Leastways, he thought it was apples. It didn’t taste too bad. In fact, it tasted good.

  “Why are you being nice to me?”

  Cailleach laughed outright then, with more enjoyment than his question merited, in Rurik’s opinion.

  “What’s so amusing?”

  “Ye won’t think I’m so nice by the end of the day, Viking.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  By noon, the witch situation was totally out of control.

  Despite her heavy heart over the strained relationship between herself and Rurik—he refused to speak to her at all—and despite her concern over Jamie’s reaction to his n
ew father—he was ecstatic—Maire had other, more pressing matters to attend to. She stormed out into the courtyard and screeched, “Cailleach? Come here! Right now!” She might not be proficient at the art of cackling, but she certainly could screech.

  Cailleach was in the courtyard before her, engaged in some kind of dance with five other witches… something involving jumping up and down and swaying from side to side, with hands joined and lots of cackling. Supposedly, they were doing a thanksgiving rite related to the defeat of the MacNabs, though it looked more like a bunch of old women engaged in fits. Several of her servants, some of whom had already threatened to run away, were white of face, as if they were viewing ghosts … though witches were probably in the same category as ghosts when it came to scaring people.

  Maire’s screech apparently carried as far as the exercise yards, where the games were already in progress, and some of the men and women glanced her way, including Rurik, who immediately turned away. That hurt. But she could not dwell on that misery now. She had a more compelling problem.

  “You have to get rid of all these witches,” Maire whispered urgently to Cailleach, who had come at her bidding.

  “Why? Ye’re the one who called for them.”

  “I… did … not,” she protested, as she had numerous times already. “I called for one witch… you … not fifty witches.”

  Cailleach shrugged with unconcern. “What difference does another witch or two make?”

  “Wh-what difference?” Maire sputtered. “I’ll tell you what difference. One witch showed the dairy maid how to milk a cow without touching the teats; now, Bessie is giving milk nonstop; we cannot supply enough buckets for all the milk. Furthermore, the milk has drawn all the cat-familiars who are hanging about the keep, which has caused the castle staff to turn skittish. Five of those cats were pregnant and gave birth, right in the rushes, and don’t think that didn’t cause a stink.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Nay, that is not all,” Maire snarled. “Effa, that witch from Skye, is searching high and low for the knucklebone of a virgin. She claims there are none to be found.”

  “I been meanin’ to tell ye that ye must rein in the doings of some of yer young people. Do not fash yerself, though; have ye considered that perchance no one will admit to virginity when it means givin’ up a body part?”