Chapter Seventeen
Tykir had been on the Samland Peninsula of the Baltic coast for only three sennights and he was driving everyone as hair-pulling mad as he himself was.
Flesh was melting from his body for lack of appetite, and even when he tried to drink himself senseless as an ale-head, the brew could barely pass over the lump in his throat. Drumming through his brain with an incessant refrain were the selfsame painful thoughts.
Alinor. God, how I miss her!
She must have bewitched me.
But she’s not really a witch.
How could she have left me?
How could I have let her go?
I should have told her how I felt.
How do I feel?
Aaarrgh!
He was so racked with confusion over his turbulent emotions that he could not think or work or sleep.
God, I miss her so!
Then Adam arrived to add to the madness. He’d changed his plans, claiming a concern for Tykir’s well-being.
By the gods, who named Adam and Bolthor his protectors? Even as he’d strived to hold people at a distance all these years, some seemed to have ignored his signals. He did not need them. He did not need anyone, not even the fickle Alinor. That was what he told himself. What he thought was: I am dying inside.
“I got off my ship at the first watering stop on the way to the Arab lands,” Adam told him. The fool, who’d been sleeping on a makeshift pallet in the single bedchamber in his lodging, had heard him rise at dawn. Now he professed a yen to ride alongside him and the amber harvesters on the Baltic shores. That, after being up half the night…tumbling half the maids in all the Baltic, no doubt. He’d surely hit the first half the night before.
“Like a thorn in my privates, you are, Adam. Go back to snoring and leave off with your nosing in my affairs.”
Ignoring his advice, Adam continued to dress…in his ridiculous Arab robes, at that. Tykir would like to see him astride a horse in a good wind. Some of the female amber gatherers would like that, too, he would wager. “Something told me you were going to make a muddle of things with Alinor,” Adam continued to blather while he tied a robe around the waist of his flowing robe and grabbed a hunk of manchet bread topped with a slice of cold sausage to break his fast.
“Well, something should tell you to just blow away. Mayhap I like being in a muddle.”
“I just knew you would need my expert advice in love matters.” Adam had an annoying habit of screening out any words he did not want to hear and talking over a person. Apparently, he was screening him this morn because the jabberling went on blithely. “And see, I was right. Here you are. Alone. Smitten. And dying of a broken heart. Methinks I got here just in time.”
“Methinks you think too much,” Tykir countered, shoving the young know-everything in the arm. He then proceeded to suggest that Adam do something he presumed was physically impossible. But then, one never knew with Adam.
The lackwit just grinned at him and danced away to avoid his second punch. “I could give you advice on how to hold a woman’s attention…a sort of reverse bewitching,” Adam said, munching on his cold repast.
Tykir slanted him a sideways glance of disgust, then dunked his head in a bowl of water, drying off with a rough linen. “Brrr!” was his only response to Adam—or the quick cleansing.
“Really, Tykir. I know things,” Adam continued, waggling his eyebrows. “Things I learned in the Arab lands. Those desert princes have naught to do out on the dunes except count sand particles and chase camels; so, they have become adept at—Hey! Be careful!” Tykir had thrown the wet cloth at him, mussing his hair, which was clubbed back off his too-handsome face.
“It wasn’t my lovemaking skills, or lack thereof, which caused Alinor to leave.”
Adam seemed to ponder that assertion. “I could have sworn that she loved you…and you know how women are once they are bitten by that particular bug. There is no getting rid of them. What did she say when you told her you loved her?
“Adam! Your intrusiveness passes all bounds. You have no right to ask such personal questions of me.”
Adam studied him for a moment, a frown creasing his brow. “Do not tell me that you never told her how you feel. Surely you are not that inept in the love arts.”
“How I feel! How I feel!” he exclaimed, pulling at his own hair. “How the hell do I know how I feel?”
Adam’s face brightened, as if a candle had been lit behind his eyeballs. “Ah, there is the rub, then. At last we have arrived at the crux of your problem. Now I will be able to prescribe a solution.”
“What problem?” Bolthor asked, coming in, unannounced, to Tykir’s rustic longhouse near the Baltic beach. “Oh, are we speaking of Tykir’s problem? Didst thou tell him of the solution we conjured yestereve over our horns of ale?”
Tykir put his face in his hands.
“I was even inspired to write a poem about it.”
Still with his face buried in his hands, Tykir groaned.
“Pride is the downfall
Of many a man.
And a Viking most of all.
Lord of the swordplay he may be.
And sing his weapon does.
But when it comes to the music
That fills his heart,
Pride stands in his way.
Rather than sing of his own true love,
The proud Viking bird goes mute,
And falls on his less-than-feathery arse.”
With a cough, Bolthor concluded, “This is the Saga of Tykir the Great, also known as ‘The Saga of the Proud Viking.’”
“More like, ‘The Saga of the Viking Who Fell on His Arse,’” Adam muttered under his breath.
Tykir was about to tell Bolthor how awful his poem was and to snarl at him, as he had at Adam, to stay out of his life. But Bolthor stared at him with such obvious need for encouragement that Tykir found himself saying, “That was excellent, Bolthor. I really think you are improving.”
“Thank you.” Bolthor’s good eye seemed to fill with tears of appreciation. “I was afeared you would not like it. Even laugh.” Then he confessed, “I could not think of a rhyme for arse at the end. In truth, I have a terrible time with rhyming, which is surely a failing in a good skald.”
Adam commented, “I think you are a good skald,” and Tykir could have kissed the young lout.
At the same time, if he hadn’t thought it before, Tykir did now. I am going mad.
Tykir rode his horse a good part of the morning till he and his steed were both exhausted, sweeping low with a specially designed basket scoop to rake the sands for loose amber. Then he plagued his amber workers in their sheds along the shores as they sorted and polished the raw amber.
Some days they brought in hunks of amber as big as a man’s head, especially after a storm had churned up the ocean’s bottom, but most often they were small pieces. It was luck that determined their hauls for the day, not the workers’ misdeeds, and he had no right to take his mood out on them.
Adam and Bolthor had kept up with him in the amber harvesting, in fact, relishing the outdoor exercise as they galloped along the foam of the low tide. But finally, the two confronted him at the end of the day.
“Tykir, this has to stop,” Adam declared. They were seated at a table in his lodging, sipping at huge goblets of ale. “You are driving yourself too hard, not to mention your workers. Have you looked in a mirror lately? You have dark shadows under your eyes. Your face and frame are becoming gaunt.”
“Since when have you cared about my appearance?”
“I care about you,” Adam said gravely.
“And so do I,” Bolthor added gruffly.
“I do not want you to care,” Tykir roared, slamming his fist on the table, then softened his voice. “I do not want anyone to care.”
“Be that as it may, Bolthor and I have been talking, and we think you should go to Northumbria and bring Alinor back.”
Tykir gaped at them. “Bring he
r back? To where?”
Adam and Bolthor shrugged.
“Here,” Adam offered.
“Or Dragonstead,” Bolthor recommended.
“Anywhere you are,” Adam and Bolthor urged as one.
“And if she does not want to come? Are you suggesting I take her captive again?”
“The idea has merit,” was Adam’s opinion. “Have I told you about the sheik who captured—”
“A hundred times, at least,” Tykir said dryly.
“Nay, I do not think kidnapping would be necessary this time,” Bolthor opined.
“I am not going after Alinor,” Tykir asserted firmly. “She made her decision, and it was final.” Besides, the heart-pain he endured now would be naught compared to how he would feel if she rejected him again. ’Twas time to reinforce his old defenses. A man could not be hurt if he did not care. Everyone leaves…eventually. It was a fact of his life.
“But she didn’t have all the facts,” Adam argued. “If you—”
Tykir put up a hand, barring further debate. “I will not go after Alinor, but you are correct. I cannot go on this way. I have made a decision.”
Both men looked at him expectantly.
“I am going back to Dragonstead.”
Two sennights later, in mid-May, Tykir was arriving back at Dragonstead.
It was the right decision to have come back, Tykir realized as he gazed about him at the verdant paradise that was his home. Home, he repeated to himself. Yea, that’s what it was. He’d been denying it for years, denying himself the pleasure of it in its best seasons. Alinor had been correct in that, at least. He’d been a fool to stay away from Dragonstead.
As his longship turned a bend in the fjord, the valley and lake in all their springtime splendor came into full view. And something else, too.
Tykir came instantly alert. There was a dragonship tied to the bollards of his wharf. He drew his sword from its sheath. Adam and Bolthor, at his side, did likewise.
“Is that not Rurik’s vessel?” Bolthor questioned, squinting, as they came closer.
“But I thought he was headed for Scotland,” Adam said.
“And who are all those people about?” Tykir murmured. There were men and women up near the lake. And sheep, even a curly horned ram…nay, he must be mistaken about the curly horns. It was probably an illusion of the bright sunlight. But it was Beast who was chasing some mangy sheepdog that resembled…but, nay, that was impossible. And look there. Children. Lots of children. “Oh, good Lord! Is that Eirik and Eadyth?”
“And Selik and Rain. She must have had the baby,” Adam added, noting her flat stomach. “I should have made for the Arab lands when I had a chance. They will be cajoling me to come back to Northumbria, where I belong.”
Soon, his longship was anchored and tied to the wharf, and Tykir was surrounded by his family.
“What are you doing here?” Tykir asked Eirik.
“Well, that is some welcome, brother! Can we not come to visit Dragonstead when the inclination calls?”
“When I am not here?” Tykir inquired, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Have you been ill, Tykir?” Rain’s healing instincts leapt to the forefront. “You are much too thin, and there are bags under your eyes, and your pallor is—”
“I am fine.” He laughed whilst she prodded and probed him with a forefinger here and there. She even lifted his eyelids—to check his eyeballs, he presumed.
“For shame, Adam!” Rain said then, hugging him tightly as she spoke, then passing him on to Selik, his adopted father. Both Rain and Selik were tall as a tree. Adam would no doubt have bruises on his ribs when they were done with him. “What kind of healer are you becoming that you would let Tykir waste away so?” Rain continued to berate her “son.”
“Methinks Adam would be a better healer if he were back in Northumbria…” Selik started to say.
And everyone finished for him, “…where he belongs.”
Adam groaned.
They all moved up toward the keep, after Tykir instructed his seamen about the chores to finish up before heading for a cup of cool mead in their own homes or in the castle’s great hall.
“Who do all those children belong to?” Tykir grumbled, an arm looped around the shoulders of Eadyth and Rain, on either side of him. Everywhere he looked there were children, of all ages, from babes barely out of swaddling clothes toddling along in front of maidservants, to youthlings with first beards and young girls in first bloom.
“Me,” Eadyth, Rain, Eirik and Selik answered as one…then beamed with pride, as if begetting were some great feat.
“I thought the same thing you’re thinking about the number of whelps when I ran into your family on the street in Jorvik,” Rurik confided, coming up to them with two twin boys hanging on to each of his ankles, like puppies, and another little girl sitting on his shoulders, tugging on his hair.
“Rurik!” Tykir exclaimed. “I thought you went to Scotland. But, nay, I see you still have your blue mark; so I guess you never made it that far.” He stared at him in puzzlement. “What are you doing here?”
“Trapped,” was Rurik’s only response as he spun on his heels and hobbled away with his human cargo.
Tykir shook his head slowly, totally confused.
“What you need is a cup of mead,” Eirik said, and everyone agreed. They all exchanged the oddest looks with each other as they nodded in agreement. Bolthor, Adam and Rurik were grinning like lackwits as Selik whispered something in their ears.
Something very strange was amiss at Dragonstead.
But first he would have a cup of mead to clear his head.
Tykir shrugged off Eadyth and Rain, who were clinging to him like a long-lost swain, and began to walk through the bailey toward the keep door. Once he glanced back over his shoulder, then looked again. “Good Lord, the bunch of you are following after me like a herd of ducklings after a goose.”
“Quack, quack!” Eirik opined.
“Do not be laying any eggs,” Selik advised him. “Or anything else.”
“Some people are so immature,” Tykir remarked. Then, “Phew! What is that stink in here?” He was about to enter the great hall when the stench assailed his nostrils. “Has Rapp of the Big Wind been hereabouts?”
“Nay, it’s the gammelost,” Eadyth announced gaily from behind him. He could hear giggles and male guffaws as well, but he had no time for wondering about their behavior. He was too busy staring at the most wonderful sight in the world.
“Alinor!”
She looked up, and the joy he saw there made his heart leap. All the pain of the past few sennights melted away. Mayhap he’d been wrong. Mayhap everyone didn’t leave him after all. “What are you doing here?”
Her face fell.
Had his voice been sharp or less than welcoming? Oh, God, he wanted to say the right thing, but he couldn’t think. He could only feel, and what he felt was the most intense happiness and relief.
“Eating gammelost.”
“Huh?”
“You asked me what I was doing here, and I told you. I’m eating gammelost.”
“Willingly? No one is torturing you?”
“Notice that I am not amused by your jest.” She put another hunk of cheese into her mouth. Cheese with a golden syrup on top, which she licked off her fingers.
“You are eating gammelost with honey?” He gagged at the prospect.
“Yea, and horseradish, too.” She glared at him, as if waiting for him to laugh at her.
He forced himself not to laugh.
“Would you like some?” she asked softly.
“Nay, I just ate on the longsh—”
Someone jabbed him in the back and hissed, “Lackbrain.”
“Actually, I might try a bite,” he said, but before he sat down he turned on his following and gritted out, “Get out of here! All of you!” He heard muttered oaths and the scurrying of footsteps behind him, followed by the slamming of a door. Then silence, except for the
sounds of Alinor’s munching.
She stopped for a moment and put a slap of gammelost on his palm, oozing honey and topped by a dollop of horseradish.
“I missed you, Alinor,” he blurted out.
She looked up at him. Was she pleased or just surprised by his blunt words? Mayhap stunned, because she seemed unable to speak.
“Did you miss me?” he inquired. God, I am pathetic in my need for her. Why doesn’t she speak and put me out of my misery? Is her throat clogged with that bloody cheese?
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “I missed Dragonstead.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“Because you did not ask me to stay, you dunderhead.”
Now, this was interesting. He cocked his head to the side, studying her. And for the first time he noticed the changes in her. Her face seemed fuller—all that cheese, no doubt—but the skin under her freckles had a certain bloom to it. A lovely hue, actually. Mayhap she had been out in the sun. Yea, that was probably it. And her breasts, were they fuller? But it was hard to tell with the full gunna of green wool she was wearing.
“Stop staring at me.”
He smiled. “I like staring at you. But, Alinor, I would know this: If I had asked you to stay at Dragonstead, would you have?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed, and big fat tears filled her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks.
“You’re crying! Why are you crying?” He started to take her hand in his, but he still held the cheese in his palm.
“Because that’s what I do,” she keened. “That, and sleep.”
Sleep? What has sleep to do with aught? This was the most ludicrous conversation he’d ever had in all his life.
She stood suddenly, pulling her hands from his grasp.
“Where are you going?”
“To the garderobe.”
Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 04] Page 32
