Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 05]

by The Blue Viking

  He was constantly fondling his red-haired, freckle-faced wife, who was less than thirty, or gazing at her with open adoration … when he wasn’t pinching her buttocks, that is … or she wasn’t pinching his. Ahnor had their squirming two-year-old son, Thork, sitting on her lap right now, and she was breeding again … due to drop that winter.

  Rurik’s three friends had taken to wearing red bows of a largish size on their middle fingers. When Alinor had inquired about their purpose, Tykir had told her, in blunt terms. She’d swatted him on the shoulders, and chided, “What lies have you been telling, fool?”

  “Just a precaution, wife,” he’d chortled.

  Eadyth had grinned at her husband’s bow and remarked, “A bit of an embellishment, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Not big enough,” Eirik had disagreed.

  Alinor addressed Rurik now. “Will you be leaving with us two days hence? Tykir and I plan to spend several sennights at Greycote and then Ravenshire, afore returning to the Northlands for the winter. We would love your company.”

  “More like you would love having me to tease, Alinor. I swear, ’tis your greatest pasttime,” Rurik countered dryly.

  Alinor stuck her tongue out at Rurik, which Maire thought was a most scandalous thing for a fine lady to do. Rurik and Tykir laughed at her antics, though, and her son, Thork, thought it was a great trick, and did it repeatedly himself.

  “But, nay,” Rurik replied, “I will not be leaving Scotland … not that soon, leastways.”

  Maire’s heart skipped a beat. What did he mean? Was he staying longer because of Jamie? Or had her seduction managed to melt the wall of unforgiveness that had surrounded him? Did they have a future? Or was this a temporary reprieve?

  Leaning forward, she tried to get a better look at Rurik’s face. That was when the amber pendant slipped forward, out of the confines of her gown.

  Alinor’s eyes immediately latched on to the necklet. “Oh, my goodness! The bride gift!” With a chuckle, she turned on Rurik and berated him with a wagging forefinger, “Why, you rogue, you! You did not tell us that this precious piece you selected for a bride gift was intended for your Scottish witch.”

  Rurik made a choked, gurgling sound deep in his throat, and his skin paled. “Alinor, lock thy tongue!”

  It was Tykir who spoke next. “But I thought the necklet was intended for Theta … as a bride gift … once you have the blue mark removed and she has wed with you … in the Hebrides … where you purchased land and…” Tykir’s words came out slow and halting, then stopped suddenly as he realized their import.

  Maire came to the same realization, just moments later. Her skin went instantly clammy, and her throat closed as she speared Rurik with a wounded expression.

  The knave looked guilty as sin. “Maire, I can explain …”

  Explain? What is there to explain? Rurik is betrothed to another woman. He gave me a necklet intended for his bride. I am the most foolish, pathetic woman in all Scotland… nay, in the entire world.

  “Oh, my God!” Alinor said. “You didn’t, Rurik? Tell me that you didn’t do such a lackwitted thing.”

  But shock yielded to fury and Maire was already standing, unclasping the necklet. Throwing it to the table in front of Rurik, she declared in an icy voice, “I expect you to be gone afore morn.”

  “Now, just wait a minute,” Rurik protested.

  “I hate you,” she seethed, throwing the words at him like stones.

  “You can’t hate me. You told me that you loved me.”

  All the women at the table exclaimed, “She did?” as if it were of great import.

  Maire bared her teeth in a snarl. “I take it back.”

  “You can’t take it back. Uh-uh. Especially not in two days. You love me, and that’s that.”

  “You are the most infuriating, insensitive, lecherous, traitorous, half-brained, two-legged animal ever to walk the earth.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Oooooh! I’ll show you my point, you clodpole.” She took a huge cup of uisge-beatha and tossed it into his stunned face.

  Then she walked proudly from the now silent hall. Once she reached her bedchamber, though, she sank to her knees and cried fiercely for all she had lost that day.

  All that evening, and all the next morning, Rurik pounded on Maire’s door, but she refused to respond. He could hear her crying, though, and that nigh broke his heart and brought tears to his own eyes.

  “I can explain. Really,” he’d said at first.

  Then, “Alinor and Eadyth and Rain have convinced me … I am a loathsome, lackwitted lout.”

  Another time, “I want you to have the necklet, Maire. It was meant for you… I mean, I think that deep down I always intended it for you, not Theta.”

  “About Theta …,” he’d tried to explain, “I never loved her, or anything like that. ’Twas just that all my friends had settled down happily and it seemed the right thing to do. I was already regretting my decision long afore I entered Scotland.”

  “I’ve sent all the witches away,” he apprised her by midmorning. “At great risk to myself, I might add. Several of them cast worrisome spells on me, but I told them I had my own personal witch to remove the spells. That would be you … not Cailleach, who refuses to depart, by the by. She won’t stop laughing at me, or cackling. Why do you suppose that is? I think she gave me the evil eye. Either that, or her one eye has developed a twitch.”

  “Jamie has taken to kicking my shins. And he put slugs in my morning ale. Best you come out and reprimand him, Maire. Actually, it was milk, not ale. Ugh! The dairy cow still won’t stop giving milk, and some of the cats look as if they are going to explode. Who ever heard of a Viking drinking milk? Bolthor has already created a saga about it.”

  “I’m hungry. Cook won’t give me anything to break my fast,” he said at noon. “Aren’t you hungry, Maire? You will wither away to nothing, and then where will you be? I may have to resort to eating the leftover haggis. Ha, ha, ha.”

  Over and over, he kept coming back to repeat his different pleas.

  “I’m lonely. No one will speak to me, not even Stigand, or Bolthor, or Toste, or Vagn, or Jostein. Bolthor made up a new saga, in addition to the milk one. ’Tis called ‘Rurik the Dumb-Arse Viking.’ What think you of that?”

  “Guess what? Someone has finally spoken to me. Stigand. And you would not believe it if you saw him. He is clean-shaven and his hair trimmed. I swear, he is actually handsome … not as handsome as me, of course, but more than passable. That is not the most unbelievable part. Stigand is in love. With Nessa. They are going to marry and settle here in the Highlands. Do you think you will be coming out by then?”

  Another time, “Answer me, witchling, or I am going to order Bolthor to come play bagpipes outside your door.”

  Then, “Lance misses you.”

  “If you don’t come out soon, I’m going to go play with my chain mail… alone.”

  “I’m bored. If you’re not coming out, I may have to go find a war to fight.”

  “You’ll be sorry.”

  Over and over, Rurik trekked up and down the stairwell and down the corridor to Maire’s door, to no avail. He was developing some really fine muscles in his calves and thighs from all that climbing … not that they weren’t already fine.

  Old John remarked in passing him one time, “The cracked bell needs no mending.” When Rurik just frowned at him, he translated, “Some things cannot be fixed.”

  Rurik refused to believe that, even when Nessa added her opinion, “All yer talkin’ shakes no barley.”

  Finally, Alinor took pity on him and took him aside. She was the most meddlesome person, but she was a woman. She must know things … things that he, a lowly man, did not. Not that he would ever refer to himself as lowly in her presence. “I have the answer,” she announced without preamble. “Tell her that you love her.”

  “That’s it? That’s your great advice? Pfff! Incidentally, I think you have grown more freck
les whilst I’ve been gone from Dragonstead. Devil’s Spittle, that is what I always heard them called. Has Satan been spitting on you of late? Ouch! Why did you hit me?”

  “Do it,” she ordered. Hands on hips, her belly sticking out as if she’d swallowed a small boulder, she resembled a pregnant virago … which she was.

  “What is it with you and Tykir and your insinuations that I must love Maire?”

  “Tykir told you that you are in love?” Her red eyebrows arched in astonishment. Then she smiled widely. “Well, that settles it then. You must be in love.”

  “On, nay, that is not what I said… what he said … what it meant. Oh, Good Lord, where are you going now?”

  “Eadyth! Rain! Come quickly!” Alinor was shouting as she waddled down the corridor. “I just found out. Rurik is in love. We have a wedding to plan. Tell Cook to whip up a haggis. Tell the men to go shoot a boar. Tell Bolthor to prepare a nuptial saga. Tell that witch, Cailleach, to cast a spell on that bloody bedchamber door and make it melt away.”

  Rurik pressed his forehead against the door and pleaded, “Maire, you have to come out. Things are getting really, really bad.”

  It was midafternoon, and the pounding started again.

  Maire glanced up from the tapestry, which she’d been working at diligently all day, and wondered what outlandish idea Rurik would come up with this time to convince her that she should let him in.

  But it wasn’t Rurik this time.

  “Maire, let us in, please. It’s Alinor.”

  “And Eadyth.”

  “And Rain.”

  Did she really want to be badgered by more people who thought they knew what was best for her? On the other hand, did she want to offend her guests?

  “Come in,” she called out.

  The three ladies swept into her bedchamber with eyebrows lifted… no doubt because the door hadn’t been locked.

  “I unlocked it this morning when I went to visit the garderobe and filch some food from the scullery.”

  Alinor grinned. “You didn’t inform Rurik of that fact?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Ooooh! I think I am going to like her,” Alinor told the other ladies. “She is going to be soooo good for Rurik.”

  Eadyth and Rain nodded, also grinning.

  “I must tell you, right off, if you are here to plead Rurik’s case, forget it.”

  “Would we do that?” The three put palms to their chests to indicate their innocence. “The dolt does not deserve you,” their spokesperson, Alinor, said.

  Well, that was correct. Rurik didn’t deserve her, but she wasn’t sure she liked Alinor stating that fact… or calling him a dolt. “I want naught to do with the man.”

  “I can understand that,” Eadyth said. “How could he be so insensitive?”

  “Or cruel?” Rain added.

  “Or thickheaded?” Alinor further added.

  The ladies circled behind her to examine her tapestry.

  “Oh, Maire, it is exquisite!” Rain declared and touched the cloth lovingly.

  “I wish I had such a skill with needles,” Eadyth agreed on a sigh. “Alas, my talents lie more with bees … not so fine or feminine a talent.”

  Maire started to protest because she had heard of the marvelous honey and mead Eadyth produced and sold, not to mention her unusual timekeeping candles, but before the words could leave her tongue, Rain was speaking. “I am a good doctor… there is no denying that… but so much of my life is involved with sadness and death. I have always wished I could create beauty.” She inhaled and exhaled loudly with regret, then asked, “Is that you and Jamie and Rurik? What a lovely family you will make!”

  Maire was almost done with the tapestry, and it was true… there was no hiding the fact that the male figure was Rurik. She couldn’t have done it any other way. But a family? Nay, that would never be. For some reason, she had felt a need to complete the work, though, like a rite she must perform to put an end to her fantasy. Thereafter, it would be a reminder to her of foolish woman notions that could never be.

  “You must come to Dragonstead sometime … in the spring or summer when it is loveliest… and make a tapestry for me of Tykir’s beloved home,” Alinor urged.

  “Oh, really, I cannot foresee any time when I—”

  “Alinor! Must you always think so fast? My brain cannot react so quickly. I would like Maire to do a tapestry of Eirik and me at Ravenshire with our entire family. Would that be too many figures for you, Maire?” Without waiting for Maire to answer, Eadyth tapped her chin pensively. “Mayhap she could go to Dragonstead in the springtime, then come to Ravenshire in the fall.” She turned to Maire, who was dumbfounded by these requests. Did they not understand that once they left Scotland, she would have no connection with them, because Rurik would have no connection to her… other than through Jamie?

  Blessed Mary, she was getting a pain in the head. “Oh, I couldn’t,” Maire said. “I have too much work to do here at Beinne Breagha. And, besides, the tapestry is just idle work. I have more important things to engage in than such frivolity.”

  “Frivolity!” the three ladies exclaimed as one.

  Rain patted her on the shoulder. “There is naught frivolous about creating beauty.”

  “That’s what Rurik said.”

  “He did?” Alinor cocked her head as if pondering a great puzzle. “Perchance the dolt has promise, after all… deep down.”

  “I have the perfect answer,” Rain announced.

  Maire hadn’t realized there was a question to be answered.

  “Rurik and Maire will want to winter together alone, here in the Highlands, after their wedding—”

  Maire gasped. “There is not going to be a wedding … leastways not betwixt me and Rurik.”

  “—but come spring, they can take a wedding trip to the Northlands, and—”

  “There is not going to be a wedding.”

  “—come summer, they will arrive at Ravenshire, still on the wedding journey, and then—”

  “There is not going to be a wedding.”

  “—in the autumn, she will be in Jorvik to do my tapestry, before taking the tail end of her wedding trip back to Scotland.”

  “There is not going to be a wedding.”

  All three ladies clapped their hands together, as if they’d just settled Maire’s fate. She couldn’t allow that. Standing abruptly, she almost toppled her stool. Folding her arms over her chest, she asserted in as firm a voice as she could muster, “There is not going to be a wedding. I would not marry the loathsome lout now if he were the last man on earth. And that is final!”

  “Really?” Eadyth inquired. “Well, I can understand that. He is a loathsome lout.”

  “But then, all men are loathsome louts at one time or another,” Rain pointed out.

  “ ’Tis true. ’Tis true,” Alinor concurred. “I recall the time Tykir thought he could win me over with feathers.”

  “Feathers?” Maire choked out.

  Alinor rolled her eyes. “Yea. In the bed furs.”

  Maire almost swallowed her tongue at that mind picture.

  “Of course, that was after the lackwit kidnapped me and delivered me to the king of Norway, just because he thought I was a witch and had put a curse on the king’s manpart, causing it to take a right turn.” She grinned after delivering that long-winded description of one of her husband’s doltish acts.

  Aye, Maire was going to swallow her tongue, for sure.

  Eadyth laughed in a way that implied she knew more of these stories and they were mirthsome, indeed. “ ’Tis no worse than my Eirik. He would not bed me the first few weeks we were wed because he mistakenly thought I was an aged crone. Talk about doltish! Can you imagine that?”

  Maire could not.

  A wistful expression came over Rain’s face, as if she were lost in memory. “I am not so old that I cannot recall the time Selik established an orphanage for me to win me back. The dolt! Did he ever ask if I wanted to adopt dozens of ho
meless children? Nay. He just blundered ahead.”

  Maire narrowed her eyes, suddenly realizing that these three ladies … these three devious ladies … were attempting to manipulate her.

  “I am not going to marry Rurik,” she asserted.

  “Absolutely not,” the three ladies said. Meanwhile, each pulled out lengths of yarn and began to measure her shoulders and bodice and waist and hips and shanks and arms.

  “Wh-what are you doing?”

  Each glanced at the other, guilty as sin, and said, “Nothing.” But she heard Alinor whisper to the others, “Same size as me, except for a little more in the bodice.”

  Then, they all gazed at her with complete innocence.

  “There is not going to be a wedding,” she repeated again.

  Alinor waved a hand airily.

  They all sailed away then, leaving Maire with much to think on, after she locked the door behind them. Did she really hate Rurik? Did she consider his crimes unforgiveable? Hadn’t she sinned against him, as well, by keeping Jamie’s birth a secret for so long? Had Rurik forgiven her for that crime? Was she any less forgiving?

  She straightened with resignation. All these questions were wasted exercises because, after all, the man was betrothed to another woman.

  “I have a deal for you. Heh, heh, heh.”

  Rurik had been sipping at the same cup of uisgebeatha for the past hour and was in no mood for more abuse from the old witch, Cailleach, but since she was the only one in the whole bloody keep willing to speak with him, he said, “What the hell!” Then he motioned for her to sit down on the bench opposite him at the table.

  The witch, who was looking especially old and haggard today—she must have been imbibing one of her own ghastly brews—waved aside his offer of a drink. Instead, she sank down on the bench and got right to the point.

  “I have cast the rune stones and come to the conclusion that you are no good for Maire.”

  “Hah! You and every other person in creation! What else is new?”

  “Your sarcasm will gain you naught, boy.” She studied him in the most disarming way, causing Rurik to shift uneasily. “If it’s a new bairn taking seed that has ye worried, forget about that. Don’ let another child be a reason fer stickin’ aroun’.”