“Tykir,” Alinor said softly with a little sigh of sympathy.
Sympathy now? Aaarrgh! He glanced up to see her staring at his thigh, where he was unconsciously kneading it.
Before he had a chance to rebuff her, she swatted his hand aside, laid his cloak over his lap and began to massage the sore muscles underneath herself. At first he was too shocked at the boldness of the wench. But then he could only melt as her expert ministrations brought blessed relief. It was as if her flexing fingers imparted heat to his tortured flesh.
“You must, indeed, be a witch,” he murmured, but there was admiration, not condemnation, in his voice.
She shrugged and smiled shyly at him.
Shyness? From the boldest wench in all England? His heart lurched and expanded with a most disarming fullness.
Fortunately, their attention was diverted by the banging of the lawspeaker’s staff on the floor at the head of the room.
“Hear one, hear all,” Styrr the Wise called out in a surprisingly strong voice for one of his age. “Peace be to you, freemen of Trondelag. Come ye to judge your fellows according to the ancient laws laid down by good Norsemen through the ages.”
“Hear! Hear!” the crowd roared.
“Remember our gods and their great esteem for wisdom. Remember how Odin sacrificed one eye to drink from the well of knowledge.”
Many nodded at that reminder of their High-God’s reverence for law and order.
“But I am remiss. Many of you follow the Christian religion, as well. Dost your God-book not say, ‘The tongue of the just is as choice silver’?”
“Amen!” some of the men responded loudly.
“It is the custom that all men differ in opinions. But the goal of all is justice, and in this Thing, justice will prevail.”
A loud clamor of assent rang through the assembly.
“All freemen will have a vote. No army will there be enforcing the decisions of the Thing…not Anlaf’s, nor any other’s. Order depends entirely on the willing acceptance of those in judgment, which will be shown by the vapnatak, or weapon clatter.”
Hundreds of men rattled their swords against shields to demonstrate the method by which votes would be cast.
“This, too, I pronounce. The decisions of the Thing shall be final and accepted by one and all, in peace…”
Again, the assembly voiced their agreement with shouts of “Yea!” or yipping yells.
“…unless the need arise for verdict by combat.”
The assent this time was a wild cheer.
Alinor stopped massaging his thigh and snickered. “As if a bloody nose proves anything.”
“Or a dead body,” he added with a grin.
“I hope they don’t expect me to wrestle Anlaf to prove my innocence.” ’Twas her feeble attempt at humor, he supposed.
Damn, but he was developing a fondness for her sharp tongue…and her brave front in the face of what had to be the most frightening ordeal of her life. “Nay, they would expect you to have a champion fighting in your stead.”
He immediately wished he could snatch the words back. Too late! He braced himself for trouble.
Her trembling lips stilled, then spread into a wide smile, just before she slipped her hand in his.
Trouble…I am in big trouble.
Alinor listened carefully as the lawspeaker enumerated all the various crimes and their respective punishments, as dictated by Thing ritual. Adam sat at her side.
Tykir, Rurik and Bolthor had taken their seats in the half-circle of chieftains. Those of his hird who remained at Anlaf’s court—about seventy men—sat behind them, awaiting the Thing.
Apparently, Things handled a wide variety of disputes: murder, robbery, land ownership, divorce, rape, grazing and hunting rights, even such mundane conflicts as the wooing of bees or collection of firewood.
The lawspeaker would enumerate the punishment for whatever the crime. In some cases, the punishment was death or banishment. Sometimes the punishment involved the “eye for an eye” mentality. For example, the rape of one man’s wife could result in the rape of the rapist’s wife or daughter, or both. Most often, though, elaborate wergilds were levied, involving the payment of silver, wool, cows or other items of equivalent value.
“The wergild in the case of woman-theft demands the payment of bride-money,” the lawspeaker was explaining. “For a farmer’s daughter in prime with a maidenhead, fresh and strong and without blemish, the wergild would be thirty marten skins…and they must be winter pelts with no arrow holes. If the daughter be of a chieftain, however, there would be treble bride money paid, equal to up to ten quarter marks of silver.”
“And what would the wergild be for a Saxon lady?” Alinor asked Adam in an undertone. “A widow, thrice over, who is past her prime and with blemish, but still fresh and strong.”
“Thrice?” Adam exclaimed, then immediately ducked his head when he saw Tykir frown at them for conversing while the lawspeaker was still speaking. In a lower voice, he informed her, “A widow, even of high station, would bring less than the virgin farmer’s daughter. Unless she carries vast estates, that is.”
Alinor made a snorting sound of disgust. Actually, she had expected no less. Even her brothers did not place all that much value on her when bartering her in the marriage mart.
“Shhh,” Adam cautioned then.
The lawspeaker was detailing the various punishments that could be levied for witchcraft, and they were gruesome, indeed. Flaying the skin off the back. Death by sword drink. (She assumed that meant a sword through the heart or lungs, which caused blood to gurgle up through the throat.) Skewering the head on a pole. Nice image, that! Burning at the stake. Splitting the witch in half at the buttocks to search for the hidden tail. And something called the Spear Death, whereby twenty spears were planted in the ground and the witch was thrown onto the points of the lances, where she would lay till death overcame her, or she succumbed to the pecking of vultures.
“A bloodthirsty bunch, these Norsemen are.” Alinor murmured the words in a jesting way, but inside, she quivered with fright.
Adam patted her hand, and she could have kissed him with thanks.
Finally, it was time for the Thing to hear Alinor’s case.
“What crime has been committed here?” the lawspeaker asked.
“Witchcraft,” Analf answered, “by Lady Alinor of Graycote.”
“Deception. Failure to honor a commission. Betrayal. Theft,” Tykir answered at the same time, “by King Anlaf.”
Anlaf glared at him, and Tykir glared back.
Alinor was not about to sit back and let them do all the accusing. She stood, to the shock of those surrounding her, especially Adam, who was tugging on her gunna, trying to force her back to her seat. She dodged his grasp and announced her complaints. “Kidnapping. Torture. Starvation. Seasickness. Assault by constant sexual looks. Improper touching.”
Her complaints were met with hoots of laughter and congratulatory shouts directed at Tykir. Tykir, on the other hand, appeared as if he’d swallowed a barrel of gammelost.
“Improper touching? That is the best type,” one man pronounced, clapping his knee with glee.
“Can you show us how to give a sexual look?” another man made mock of Tykir, the whole time contorting his face into a ridiculous moon-eyed expression.
Adam managed to pull her back to the bench and told her with a short laugh, “Women aren’t supposed to address the Thing, unless given specific permission to do so.”
“Oh, now you tell me! I suppose my outburst will count against me in the voting.”
“I don’t know about that. Laughter is always a good sign.”
“Proceed,” the lawspeaker said, pointing his staff at Anlaf to go first. Easing himself tiredly into a nearby chair, the lawspeaker shook his head slowly from side to side, as if he knew this was going to be an impossible case.
Analf took a pose of arrogance, with wide shoulders thrown back and thumbs looped in his ornate belt,
then commenced giving his distorted version of the events at St. Beatrice’s Abbey last year. He claimed that he and his men had merely stopped for food and drink and to rest their horses when the witch had placed her infamous curse on his manparts.
Alinor started to rise again to give the correct version of the encounter, but Adam placed a cautioning hand on her forearm.
“I but wish to tell the truth. The king is lying.”
“You will get your chance later.”
“Why would the woman curse you if you were doing no harm?” asked one burly Viking with gray-streaked black hair and piercing blue eyes.
Anlaf shrugged. “Mayhap she is a man-hater. Or an enemy of all Norsemen, as many Saxons tend to be. Why else would they recite that foolish prayer to their One-God? ‘Oh, Lord, from the fury of the Northmen please protect us.’”
Several men preened, as if engendering fury were a good thing.
“King Anlaf!” Father Caedmon spoke up. “You have taken baptismal vows yourself.”
“That I own,” Anlaf said, waving a hand dismissively. It was obvious his conversion to Christianity was in name only.
Next, Anlaf detailed the affliction he’d sustained as a result of her supposed curse—the notorious crooked manpart. By the time he was done describing the curvature, the horrific pain, the inability to bury his bent sword into the straight sheaths of his wives and mistresses and the blow to his pride, the majority of the men in the great hall were cringing and tutting with commiseration. Alinor, on the other hand, felt like throwing up the meager contents of her breakfast—gruel with a side of gruel.
Then, the men all oohed and aahed on viewing the new—better than ever, to hear Anlaf tell it—manpart. Alinor tried not to look, except for a quick peek through her fingers, which she held to her eyes. Her stomach roiled again. “As far as I can see, it’s just an ugly old thing. And purplish, for the love of heaven! Certainly nothing to make such a fuss about.”
Adam was bent over, quaking with silent laughter.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Tykir said and stood abruptly, interrupting Anlaf’s discourse on his remarkable organ, which didn’t please Anlaf very much because he was right in the middle of expounding on something called “staying power,” or was it “staying up power”?
Men took their manparts entirely too seriously, in Alinor’s opinion, and she told Adam so in no uncertain terms, which caused him to sputter with continuing laughter. “Oh, oh, oh…I do not believe this.”
That was just before Tykir stomped—or as close to a stomp as he could manage with his limp—over to their bench, where he snarled in her ear. “Shut your teeth, you foolish wench, or I may not be able to save your head.” To Adam, he just shook his head and muttered, “Fool!”
Before she could ask if, indeed, he intended to save her head, he was stomping/limping back to his judgment seat.
Next Anlaf brought forth his witnesses. His healer, Father Caedmon, a witch expert (though how the old hag gained that expertise was never explained) and finally, three wives and two mistresses, who attested to the severity of his affliction and the pain and deprivation he had suffered, not to mention their own unsatisfied state for many months. That latter was almost laughable to Alinor, but she did not dare show her amusement in the face of the unending glower Tykir sent her way.
Next, Anlaf called on some of Tykir’s men, who reported, reluctantly, on the dead seagulls, the shower of goose dung, the bowel fluxes, crab lice, soured wine, sheep familiars and, worst of all, the potion that almost killed Tykir.
The mouths of some of the hardened Vikings were hanging open with amazement. More than a few looked as if they were barely holding back belly-quaking mirth, at Tykir’s expense.
It was the strangest experience of her life…a wildly preposterous trial in a wild land of wild, wild men. Bolthor was mouthing some words to himself, no doubt composing a new saga, “Tykir the Great and the Wild Thing.”
To her amazement, when King Anlaf called on Rurik to give testimony against her, he refused to say anything. Instead, he sat with his elbows braced on his widespread knees, staring glumly downward. The only explanation Alinor could come up with was that Tykir had threatened him with some dire consequence.
Now it was Tykir’s turn to present his complaint. He told how King Anlaf’s messenger, Bjold, approached him in the market town of Birka. The young man was sitting behind King Anlaf, ready to be called to testify, if necessary.
“First, Bjold offered me the Saracen stallion, Fierce One, if I would complete a mission for King Anlaf.”
There were many ooohs from the Viking men, who were clearly impressed with Anlaf’s generosity. If Anlaf had any thought of rescinding that offer, it was now locked in place by the approval of his peers. He chose the higher road and nodded graciously at the compliments being showered on him.
The toad!
“My mission was to search out the witch, Lady Alinor, in Northumbria,” Tykir continued, “and bring her back to King Anlaf’s court so she could remove the curse on his manpart.”
“But I’m not—” Alinor started to say.
The lawspeaker ignored Alinor’s outburst and waved for Tykir to proceed.
“When I declined to take on Anlaf’s mission, even for such a fine horse, Bjold added to the pot another morsel.” A slight grin tugged at his lips—the lecherous lout!—as he pointed to a far corner where the slave girl, Samirah, of the silver bells, huddled in conversation with several other women. The girl, no more than eighteen and beauteous of form and face, smiled coyly at Tykir. And Alinor felt tears brim her eyes.
Adam noticed. “Besotted, are you?”
“I…am…not!” she asserted, giving him a look that would have withered one of her house carls back at Graycote but merely drew a smirk to Adam’s lips. But, oh, despite her protests, she feared she was starting to care about the rogue. Untenable as it was, she was jealous of a mere girl with bells on her breasts.
Tykir stood silent for a moment before commencing afresh. “I declined both offers that Bjold brought on Anlaf’s behalf because I had important work to do afore winter. But then he made me an offer I could not in good conscience refuse. He told me that Adam was being held hostage at his court and would not be released until I delivered the witch. He called it a ‘friendly hostage,’ but a hostage just the same.”
“Is that true?” the lawspeaker demanded of King Anlaf. “Did you deceive Tykir thus?”
“You say me wrong,” Anlaf whined to Tykir in a wounded voice. When he saw that Tykir was unmoved, he spoke to the lawspeaker. “Nay, he misunderstood. I merely told Bjold to inform Tykir, as a last resort, that Adam was visiting at my court, and Tykir might want to join him here afore retiring to Dragonstead for the winter.”
“You lie!” Tykir yelled.
“You overstep yourself,” Anlaf yelled back. “Remember to whom you speak.”
“King you may be, Anlaf, but that does not give you leave to lie, or deceive.”
“It was a misunderstanding, I tell you. We are not foemen, Tykir. Blood kin we be, and comrades. Do not test those bonds with ill-chosen words.”
“It is no small matter to deceive blood kin or comrade, be you king or cotter.”
The lawspeaker held both hands high to halt their argument.
Bjold was called forth then, and he supported the king in a shifty-eyed, stuttering way.
Tykir and Anlaf started hurling accusations back and forth again, while Bjold scurried away. Norsemen within the half-circle of twenty-one, as well as freemen throughout the hall, were muttering amongst themselves.
Finally, the lawspeaker stood and banged his staff against a nearby shield, calling for attention. Quickly, with a rippling effect, quiet descended over the crowd.
“Let the witch come forth,” the lawspeaker said.
Tykir flinched.
Not a good sign, she thought. A moan escaped her lips.
Adam helped her to her feet and whispered in her ear, “Do not go fainthear
ted now, my lady. Hang firm with the mettle you have shown thus far.”
Alinor’s legs felt wobbly as she walked to the center of the room, where she was directed to stand, facing the assembly. She glanced toward Tykir for encouragement, but he just stared at her, his face angry and unsmiling. Whether he was angry at her, King Anlaf or the whole proceeding, she could not tell.
“You have been accused of witchcraft, Lady Alinor,” the lawspeaker said. “What say you?”
She shook her head. “I’m not a witch.”
“How do you explain the hair of flame and Devil’s spittle?”
She shrugged. “God’s choice, not Satan’s.”
Father Caedmon stiffened, unsure if she were uttering a profanity or not.
“Did you put a curse on King Anlaf’s manroot?”
“Yea,” she answered truthfully, and there was a loud murmur of “Aha!” that resounded through the assembly. “But it was not the curse of a witch. Merely that of an outraged woman upon seeing a man about to rape a nun.”
“I…I…I…never…” Anlaf sputtered.
“Yea, you did, King Anlaf. You and your fellow Vikings entered the abbey of St. Beatrice in Northumbria, where you raped and pillaged the good nuns. When I saw you spread the thighs of Sister Mary Esme, I became outraged. When my efforts to dislodge you proved fruitless, I shouted, ‘By the Virgin’s Veil, may your manpart fall off if you do this evil thing.’ That does not mean I am a witch.”
“She cursed me, and my cock took a turn, halfway down,” Anlaf argued. “I am confirmed a thousand times she is a witch.”
“If I were a witch, why would I not place a curse on this whole bloody assembly and be done with it?” she scoffed. “Then I would not need a Thing to gain my freedom. I would just fly off with the aid of magic arts.”
A number of the men shifted uncomfortably at her reminder that she could conceivably curse their dangly parts, as well. Some of them crossed their legs in protection, and a few reached for nearby shields.
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