by Sandra Hill
“His father, you mean?”
“Our father was a bitter, sometimes vicious man who took out his unhappiness on Steven at times. I was his natural son, and he did not like me much, either. But it was after father died that the horror began. We were left in the care of the Gravely castellan, Gerald. Satan’s disciple, for a certainty. Steven was only ten. I was much younger, but I saw…oh, my heavens, what I saw! Most people did not know this, but Steven’s back was covered with whip scars. His arms had been broken more than once, and his ribs cracked repeatedly.”
“Why would someone want to punish a child so?”
“Because at first Steven resisted…That was before his mind split. That is the only way I can describe the change in him.”
“My stepfather said the same thing.”
Elwinus nodded. “There is more.” By the expression on the monk’s face, John suspected the worst was to come.
John could not imagine anything worse.
“Gerald sodomized Steven. Repeatedly. And then he passed him around to friends of his with similar tastes.”
“What happened to Gerald?”
“Steven killed him when he was fifteen. Probably some of the other abusive men as well.”
“You condone the murders?”
“Of course not. But I understand why he did it. The damage done to him was irreparable by then. He could not go back to the innocent boy he had been five years before.”
“And so you think my fears are unfounded about never having children.”
“Oh, John, the best thing you could do is fill Gravely with lots of happy children to erase the past.”
The image of that possibility filled his head, but John had lived for so long under the misconceptions about his possibly inherited insanity that he found it hard to be hopeful. But it was seeping slowly into his consciousness.
Ingrith. He could go for Ingrith now. He could ask her to marry him.
He only hoped it wasn’t too late.
A welcome wagon it was not…
Three sennights later, and John was still searching for Ingrith.
Even though the remaining orphans at Hawk’s Lair had been sent back, Ingrith had not returned to the orphanage in Jorvik to help in its rebuilding, as he’d assumed. A logical assumption. Unfortunately, too much assuming and not enough logic.
While in Jorvik, he stopped to visit with Joanna, to see how she was progressing. Turns out she had a nicer home and merchant stall than before, and a new kiln had been installed. Even more amazing, Archbishop Dunstan had ordered Loncaster to pay for these repairs. He was not surprised to find Hamr there with her. For how long, he did not know, since Hamr had been informed that his outlaw status had been removed, but the Viking looked very self-satisfied. It was strange the twists and turns of fate, he thought.
“Mayhap she has decided to become a nun,” Hamr offered.
He offered a famous Anglo-Saxon word in return.
“Nay, I have not seen Lady Ingrith, not since the Witan meeting at Winchester,” Joanna told him. “Mayhap she went to visit with one of her sisters. Two of them live in Northumbria, I believe.”
And so he’d wasted another two sennights going first to Larkspur in far northern Northumbria, where Ingrith’s sister Breanne lived with her husband, Caedmon, and then to Hawkshire, where her sister Tyra, an Amazon of a woman—a warrior, for the saints’ sake!—lived with her husband, Adam the Healer. Now John dabbled in the healing arts with his honey experiments, but Adam was a true man of medicine. Highly skilled and trained. But John had to say, regarding Ingrith’s sisters…they had warped senses of humor, if you asked him, laughing when he told them he was searching for their wild sister.
“Wild?” Breanne remarked. “Ingrith is the most sensible, tame person I know. All she wants is to be left alone in peace in her kitchen to cook.”
He’d merely raised his eyebrows at that misconception.
But Caedmon revealed to him in an aside, “All of King Thorvald’s princesses are wild, in my experience.”
“Good wild or bad wild?” he had been foolish enough to ask.
“How can you ask?”
Then there was Adam, who was unable to stop laughing at him. “I knew it, I knew that one day you would be trapped in some woman’s wily net.”
“Ingrith ne’er set out to trap me.” More like I tried to trap her. “Else, why would she have run from me?”
“Run from you?” Tyra rose to her full height, which was almost as tall as he and Adam. The woman had muscles where women were not supposed to have muscles. “I will lop off your private parts if you have shamed my sister.”
“I am the one who is shamed, running hither and yon after her like a besotted calf.”
That remark satisfied Tyra and caused Adam to burst out in another bout of laughter.
He even stopped at Ravenshire to report to his mother and Eirik on the visit he’d made to his Uncle Elwinus.
Finally, the consensus was that Ingrith must have gone home to the Norselands, which disturbed John more than he could say. Ingrith had told him on more than one occasion that she would not go back to Stoneheim, where her father was obsessed with offering her prospective husbands. She’d better not have accepted one of them.
“Go after her,” his mother advised when he was about to leave the following day.
“I’m trying, I’m trying,” he replied with a long sigh.
It took him another sennight to find a longship going to the Norselands, and it was a decrepit ship he traveled on, too. Plus, he soon learned why many Vikings went berserk after sampling the ship’s fare. Lutefisk and smelly gammelost.
By the time he got to Stoneheim, he was not in a good mood. And his mood got worse when he saw his two-man welcoming entourage. Ubbi and Rafn.
Ubbi kicked him in the shin. Whilst John contemplated picking up the little troll by the scruff of his neck, Rafn punched him in the gut, catching him off balance afore he could defend himself, knocking him to the ground. Then, Rafn helped him to his feet and said the oddest thing:
“It took you long enough to get here, Saxon.”
Beware of rogues with an agenda…
Ingrith was three and a half months pregnant, and still she and Drifa were the only ones who knew of her condition, thank the gods, largely due to voluminous Viking aprons and only a tiny bump low on her belly.
They had narrowed their prospective home-to-be to Norsemandy, where many Vikings were settled. Drifa had contacted a friend of a friend…a fellow flower expert, who had agreed to have them stay with her family at their vineyard until they located a home of their own. Everything was handled slowly and secretively.
So, while Ingrith knew she was not in the market for a husband, her father did not. The well-intended old man continued to bring forth potential mates for both her and Drifa.
She was in the kitchen experimenting on a new dried elderberry relish while Drifa sat at a nearby table breaking off lavender and rosemary sprigs to freshen the rushes throughout the keep. Vana sauntered in with a mischievous grin and plopped down in a chair. Plopped being an apt description since she was more than eight months pregnant. Ingrith could not imagine being that big herself one day.
“What now?” Drifa asked.
“Father has expanded his husband search.”
“How so?” Ingrith asked, although she really could not care less.
“He’s added a Saxon to the mix.”
“Really? I ne’er thought Father would accept aught but a Norseman,” Drifa said.
Lot of good that did Ingrith, since she did not have a particular Saxon offering for her. Nor would she want him to. Not now.
“Father asked that you make the dinner extra special tonight.”
“Hmpfh!” Ingrith snorted. “All my meals are special.”
After Vana waddled off, Drifa came up and gave her a hug. “It will only be two more sennights.”
“I feel bad making you give up so much for me.”
“Hah! Do
st think I want to stay here alone with Father whilst you are gone? He would double his efforts to find me a husband. Besides, I yearn to see all the new flowers in Norsemandy. I have ne’er been there. Have you?”
She shook her head.
It was late before Ingrith entered the great hall that night, having spent extra time on the meal preparations and then bathing and dressing. She seemed to move in slower motion these days. So, dinner was already in progress when she arrived. She stopped here and there to talk with men and women she’d known for years as she made her way toward the dais, where her father, Rafn, and three strange men rose with respect. Except one of them was not strange.
It was John.
She faltered on the step and almost fell. What was he doing here? And why had no one informed her of the identity of the Saxon “suitor”?
But John wasn’t a suitor for her hand. He must be here for some other reason. Oh, my gods! Could it be Henry?
She waited for the introductions. Geirfinn, a Danish warrior of noble birth, though a fifth son…in other words, landless. He was not so bad, although she did not like the perpetual smirk on his face, as if he were doing her and Drifa a great favor by his presence. The other was a short…very short…a Viking from the Isle of Man, Atzer by name, widower with eight…EIGHT!…children under the age of fourteen. Then there was John.
“You know John of Hawk’s Lair, Lord Gravely, do you not, daughter?” her father asked her.
She nodded, her eyes held by John’s, which carried some message she was unable to decipher. He was thinner than before, and his hair had grown in somewhat, though still very short. But he looked good. Very good. Clean shaven and wearing a fine black wool tunic embroidered with red and silver thread over beaten hide braies and half-boots, all accented by a priceless gold-etched belt. On his finger was a heavy gold ring in the shape of a hawk.
Tears welled in her eyes—she could not help herself. He was a loathsome, faithless, selfish lout, but he was here, and she had missed him so much.
Drifa began passing the ornate bejeweled welcome cup around, accompanied by the usual grandiose toasts by her father, Rafn, and anyone else who wished to make a fool of themselves. It was a Viking custom called sumbel. Each recipient of the cup was expected to make a toast, or a boast, or sing a song, or recite a saga. By the time the meal was over, everyone would be half drukkinn, and they would have toasted everything from good friends to good crops to good ships to luck in battle. Once one of her father’s hersirs had even made a toast to good swiving.
But all this toasting gave Ingrith a moment to collect herself and not nigh swoon at the Saxon scoundrel’s feet.
John stared at Ingrith, taking her in with a deep sigh. Whilst he had been living in agony these months since she’d left, she glowed with good health and apparent happiness. And she was entertaining prospective husbands. He would wring the neck of either of those louts if they dared to touch her.
But why was she weeping? Hopefully, not because she wished him gone.
John took both of her hands in his, despite propriety, and garnered frowning glowers from her father and the two other “suitors,” whom he intended to send on their way forthwith.
Ever since John had arrived, Rafn kept chuckling, and Ubbi had shadowed him like an irksome puppy. He’d been here at Stoneheim nigh on five hours, and no one would let him meet with Ingrith. Until now.
The keep was a maze of additions put up in a haphazard manner over the years, thanks to Ingrith’s sister Breanne, who fancied herself a builder, of all things. He’d gotten himself lost twice when trying to find Ingrith on his own, and there seemed to be a conspiracy amongst servants to hide her whereabouts. Well, he had her now, and he was not letting her go. He was done cooling his heels amongst these Norse dunderheads.
“Ingrith, you have no idea how much trouble I have gone to in order to find you.” The wrong thing to say, he realized immediately. “I mean, I have been searching for you for many sennights.”
“Why? Is it Henry? Oh, please, don’t tell me he is harmed.”
He frowned. “Nay. Why would it be Henry? The boy is living with my mother and stepfather, happily, I might add. He has met the king, who accepts him in his own neglectful way.”
“There is no longer any danger to the boy?”
“Not from the king.”
“Then why are you here?”
He was not happy by half at her rudeness. Best they pass that welcome cup this way so that the wench could welcome him properly. “You are the reason I am here.”
She made a very unattractive snorting sound. “I thought you would have been married by now. Are you married?”
“Huh? Who would I have married?”
“Joanna.”
He waved a hand dismissively. “She is back in Jorvik…with Hamr, if you must know.”
“Your mistress rejects you and you think you can come sniffing after me?”
“What?”
She slapped him on the chest and stomped away. When he started to follow her, she turned and snapped, “Stay away from me.”
“Not a bloody chance in hell!”
She headed toward the end of the dais, where a smirking Viking knight, Geirfinn, whom he’d met earlier, was watching the bounce of her breasts as she walked toward him. John bristled. No one else should be noticing the bounce of her breasts, which, by the by, he could tell even with the shroud of an apron were fuller. In fact, she seemed a little fuller all over, including her bouncing rump. Not that he minded. In fact, if she were in a more receptive mood, he would tease her about her wag-tailing him.
The smirking knight made room for her by shoving the short Viking Atzer into an adjoining chair. He’d also met Atzer earlier. A widower, he was forty if he was a day and he had eight children at home looking for a mother. Well, he had news for Atzer. It wasn’t going to be Ingrith.
“Move over another chair,” John demanded and slid into Azter’s chair on Ingrith’s other side. It didn’t matter to him that every other person had to move down a seat to make room. It also didn’t matter to him that he was creating a scene to the amusement of the two hundred or so warriors and ladies who filled the hall.
“I told you to go away,” she said, turning her back on him as she began to make conversation with the smirking Norseman. If she only knew why Geirfinn had that perpetual smirk on his face. He fashioned himself a prize and that he was lowering himself to wed such an aged maiden as herself, and didn’t mind boasting to one and all about his generosity. “Go. Away!”
She thought she could ignore him, did she?
“I didn’t travel on a leaky longboat eating stinky gammelost to be ignored by you, witch,” he muttered under his breath.
She still ignored him.
“Have you gained weight, Ingrith?” he asked amiably, figuring he could lure her into a deeper conversation once he got her talking.
Atzer slapped his thigh and said, “Even I know enough not to mention a woman’s weight.”
Ingrith turned slowly to glare at him. “Are you saying I am fat?”
“Of course not. You are perfect. Besides, a man likes a bit of flesh to hold on to in certain situations.” He smiled at her.
“Could you possibly be more stupid?”
“I just gave you a compliment.”
Atzer and Geirfinn both guffawed at his apparent stupidity.
“Ingrith, you know that I think you are beautiful. You are more beautiful now than you were before. Call me clumsy in expressing myself, but do not call me stupid.”
“Stupid!” she repeated.
Ingrith’s sister Drifa walked up the steps of the dais with the huge welcome cup then. “Will you partake of the minna?” she asked from behind them. “The memorial toasts?” It appeared that he and the two Viking dolts were expected to give toasts.
Atzer went first. He went on and on expounding on all the gods to bless this land and this family and its warriors in their battles against the miscreant Saxons, ending with a toas
t to Freyja, the goddess of fertility, thanking her for all the children he already had and those yet to come. He glanced pointedly at Ingrith on that ending.
She pretended not to have noticed.
Then Geirfinn stood and preened before speaking. His toast was pretty much a praise poem to himself and all his manly feats, which included a suspiciously high number of Saxon kills.
Did everyone forget he was a Saxon?
At the end, Geirfinn raised his cup to Ingrith, and he winked at her.
John would have liked to poke the cockscomb in the eye with one of his gaudy mantle brooches. What man needed three brooches at one time, anyway?
Drifa put a hand on his shoulder then, and handed him the cup. She was a petite woman, part Arab would be his guess, by the slant of her eyes and hue of her skin.
If these folks thought he was going to blather on about this and that, he had news for them. He stood and said, “Here’s a toast to women with wag-tail arses and an enthusiasm for bedsport.” Then he plopped back down to his chair and took a long swig of the strong ale.
Everyone was laughing and commenting on his lewd jest.
Who was jesting? Not him.
Except King Thorvald who was frowning as he called out to Rafn, “Is he talking about one of my daughters?”
“Nay,” Rafn replied, casting him a glance that said John owed him. “He was referring to lusty Saxon wenches.”
“Oh,” the king said and smiled at him.
Ingrith merely remarked, “Crude oaf,” and turned away from him again.
Drifa took the cup from him, then paused. “Lord Hawk, welcome to Stoneheim. We met at my sister Tyra’s wedding years back.”
“Yea, I remember you, Drifa. You decorated Adam’s house with so many flowers we all smelled like perfume,” he teased.
She grinned. “So, are you the person getting all the rosebushes?”
“Drifa!” Ingrith said, apparently listening to their conversation, while she’d been pretending to be absorbed in something Geirfinn was saying.
At the same time, John said, “Ingrith!” and grabbed for her hand on the table, though she tried to tug it away. “’Twas you who sent me all those bushes and cuttings? I thought it was my mother.” He kissed the knuckles of the fisted hand, just before she yanked it away.
