Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 04]
Read Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 04] Online
Authors: The Bewitched Viking
Sandra Hill
To all those readers with a sense of humor who relish a hero who can make them smile. And to those women who have their very own rogues…men who know the value of a wink and a grin,
at just the right time
…well, aren’t you the lucky ones!
And to my husband, Robert, who made me smile the first time we met. He was a political aide then, and I a fledgling reporter. We were walking into the governor’s office when he did the most outrageous…well, that’s another story
And now in Norway
A branch
Of the god’s race
Had grown…
—Ynglinga Saga
“The king’s manroot took a right turn.”
The Vikings really were coming.
“Tykir! Ty-kir Thork-sson! What in the name of heaven are…
“Stop it,” Alinor hissed at Tykir.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Alinor contended. “I tell you, I’m…
More than two hours later, the seven ships were anchored…
“Thibaud is not Tykir’s child,” Rachelle informed her all of…
A kiss.
There is your witch.
Tykir felt as if his feet were planted in quicksand…
They arrived at Dragonstead two days later as snow began…
It was a cozy, familiar scene that met Tykir’s eyes…
“Wake up, witchling,” a voice said cheerily the next morning.
What was the troll up to now?
Two days later, in the middle of the afternoon, Alinor…
Springtime arrived way too soon, and they were leaving Dragonstead.
Tykir had been on the Samland Peninsula of the Baltic…
Birka, A.D. 952
“The king’s manroot took a right turn.”
“What? What root?” Blinking with confusion, Tykir Thorksson lifted his head off the alehouse table and gaped drunkenly at Bjold, the royal messenger.
“And he beseeches your service in correcting the…uh, problem.”
“
Me?
Do my ears play me false?” With a brain that felt like a mashed turnip itself, Tykir scratched the fine hairs on his forearm and wondered irrelevantly how the emissary of his cousin King Anlaf, had even tracked him to Birka. And why, for the love of Freyja, would he go to the botherment of the grueling trek from the far northern reaches of Trondelag to this bustling market town on the island of Björkö in Lake Mälar? To tell him about…vegetables?
“Blód hel!
I am inclined to take offense. You
see afore you a noted warrior and a trader in precious amber. Since when have I become a farmsteader, with knowledge of roots?”
Bjold’s jaw dropped at Tykir’s ferocious overreaction. Immediately, he clicked it shut and, with a snarl of impatience, tried again. “The king’s
cock
has taken a right turn.”
“His rooster?” Tykir was becoming more and more confused. First vegetables. Now poultry. Next this lackwit would be asking him for help in drying
lutefisk.
“Not
that
cock.” Bjold sniffed huffily, clearly repelled by Tykir’s mead-sodden state.
In truth, Tykir did not often drink to excess. Though he appeared to have a carefree nature, he detested any lack of self-control. He had reason to celebrate, of course, having just returned from a successful trip to the Baltic lands, where his workers had harvested a crop of prized amber for his trading ventures.
Still, this heavy cloud of depression had been hanging over him for days. No doubt it was just boredom. “A-Viking, a-fighting and a-wenching” had long been his life’s motto—leastways on the surface—but somehow those pleasures were fading.
Having seen thirty-five winters, Tykir had garnered more wealth than he could use in a lifetime. He’d lost count years ago of all the beautiful women he’d bedded, but now he no longer felt a youthling’s swift rush of enthusiasm at the sight of every comely wench who came within snaring distance.
Then there was the matter of fighting—a time-honored Viking pastime. From the age of fourteen, he’d fought like a wild berserker in the battles of various kingdoms, like his father afore him—
may his soul be resting in Valhalla!
But he found himself questioning of late the motives of
leaders who called for the rash spilling of blood from their underlings.
Well, there was a-Viking. Tykir had seen adventure in all his trading and Viking voyages. From the Rus lands to Iceland, from the Baltic Ocean to the English Channel, Tykir had visited and revisited, explored and discovered, even conquered. Never did he stay long in one place, though, by deliberate intent. ’Twas not good for a man in his position to form roots.
What else was there to draw a man’s jaded interest? What challenges that he had not already mastered?
Tykir sighed deeply.
“By your leave, Jarl Thorksson, ’tis the king’s
other
cock I refer to.” Bjold had been rambling on whilst Tykir’s mind wandered. Suddenly, the messenger’s words sank in, and Tykir’s eyes went wide with understanding.
Manroot. Cock.
He glanced down to the jointure of his thighs and winced in masculine empathy. “The king’s cock did
what?”
“Made a right turn. Halfway down.” The envoy thirstily quaffed a horn of ale, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He was clearly relieved that Tykir finally understood his message. “Looks like a flag at half mast, it does.”
“And he wants
me
to fix it?” Tykir gasped out with horror.
“Not you precisely.”
Tykir leveled a glare at the impudent lad. “Who precisely?”
The tone in his icy voice must have caught the lackwit’s attention. With eyes darting nervously from side to side, Bjold answered, “The witch.”
Odin’s blood! ’Twas like pulling burrs from a wolf’s
tail, getting a straight answer from the dolt.
“Just any witch?”
“Nay. One in particular.” The messenger shifted uncomfortably under Tykir’s close scrutiny.
Tykir rolled his eyes heavenward. “Well, that is clear as fjord fog on a rainy day.”
If I were not so tired, I would shake the brainless cur till his rotten teeth rattled for such discourtesy.
Bjold let out a long whoosh of exasperation and disclosed, “The witch with the ‘Virgin’s Veil.’”
Tykir made a low growling sound, and Bjold, with belated wisdom, hurried to explain. “The witch’s name is Alinor…Lady Alinor of Northumbria. ’Tis she who put the curse on Anlaf’s manpart. All because Anlaf and his hird of soldiers stopped by St. Beatrice’s Abbey in Britain one day last year. The abbey is home to a nunnery where Lady Alinor was seeking sanctuary for a time from her bumbling brothers, the Lords Egbert and Hebert.”
Tykir wondered what would constitute “bumbling” in the mind of this bumbling idiot. But he did not dare ask, lest he face another long-winded discourse. Instead, he focused on Bjold’s other words. “Stopped by? Anlaf
stopped by
a nunnery? For a bit of raping and pillaging, I wager.”
“And if we did?” Bjold bristled, revealing his part in the marauding band. “’Tis neither here nor there whether we were a-plundering or not. I daresay you’ve done a fair share of plundering in your day, too. At issue here is the fact that the witch waved a relic in the king’s face…a blue headrail, which she claimed once adorned the Blessed Virgin Mary.” He paused, then explained, as if Tykir were a dimwit, “The Virgin Mary is the mother of the Christians’ One-God.”
Tykir fisted his hands to prevent himself from throttling
the fool. “I know who the Virgin Mary is.”
“Well, as I was saying…that’s when Lady Alinor put her curse on Anlaf, threatening, ‘Curse you, heathen! May your manpart fall off if you do this evil deed.’ Well, his manpart didn’t fall off—leastways, not yet—but it took a turn to the right.” Bjold took a deep breath after that long explanation.
“And?” Tykir prodded. “What has that to do with me?”
“The king wants you to bring the witch back to Trondelag, with her magic veil, to remove the bloody curse.”
“Is that all?” Tykir remarked. But what he thought was,
A Saxon. Anlaf expects me to stop in the midst of my trading voyage, go all the way to Britain to get the wench, who will no doubt be unwilling, take her back to Norway, by way of Hedeby, where I must needs drop off the last of my trading goods, then make my way home to Dragonstead. And all this afore the winter ice sets in. Hah! Anlaf ever was an overbearing lout, even when we were boys. But he goes too far this time.
“Nay.”
“Nay? Do you say to your liege lord nay? Where is your Norse loyalty?”
Tykir stiffened with affront. “Hah! Anlaf is no more my liege lord than the Wessex King Edred. You know well and good that Northmen pledge allegiance to a particular leader, not a nation. My uncle, Haakon, is all-king of Norway, and to him alone do I pay homage. Further, ’twas Haakon—then fostering in King Athelstan’s court in Britain and having seen only fifteen winters—who went back to Norway on King Harald Fairhair’s death and returned to all bonders the odal-rights to their land. My title to Dragonstead was reaffirmed to me by Haakon and will remain free and clear in my family name for posterity.”
Tykir felt an aching tug in his heart at the mere thought
of Dragonstead. If he was being truthful with himself, he would have to admit that Dragonstead mattered more to him than anything. And that was dangerous.
Bjold’s face flamed with the heat of embarrassment, but still he blundered on. “The king thought you might be reluctant.”
“Oh, he did, did he?”
“He said to tell you that you could have Fierce One for a boon if you wouldst do him this favor.”
Tykir sat up straighter. “Anlaf would grant me his prized stallion—the one gifted to him by that Saracen chieftain?”
“Yea.” Bjold nodded emphatically. “The black devil with the white markings on his hooves. That be the one.”
“Hmmm,” Tykir said, despite his misgivings. Still, he resisted. “Nay. I have too much to do afore retreating to Dragonstead for the winter.”
“In that case, King Analf directed me to offer the slave girl, Samirah, as well. The one with the tiny silver bells on her ankles, and the two silver bells dangling from the pierced rings in her…” He cupped two hands in front of his chest to indicate Samirah’s most noted endowments.
“Hmmm,” Tykir said again, but not because of the slave girl, enticing as he knew her to be. Truth be told, the horse held more appeal. In the end, though, he repeated his earlier refusal. “Nay, I have no time.”
Bjold wrung his hands nervously. “I had not wanted to tell you this, but afore I do…well, uh, tell me one thing. You are not the type of man who is wont to kill the messenger with bad tidings, are you?”
Tykir drew himself up alertly. “Speak, wretch, or I will slice your tongue from your mouth and send it to Anlaf on a bread trencher.”
Bjold’s face went even brighter. “’Tis Adam the
Healer,” he squeaked out. “Anlaf holds him as friendly hostage till you deliver the witch.”
“What?” he roared. “How did Adam end up in Trondelag? I thought he was in the Arab lands. And what in bloody hell is a ‘friendly hostage’?” Adam was a young man of no more than twenty years who had been studying medicine these past five years in the Arab lands, where the most noted healers practiced their arts. He was the adopted son of Tykir’s half-sister, Rain, and her husband, Selik, who resided in Jorvik. Adam was like family to him, a nephew by adoption.
“Friendly hostage means Adam will come to no harm. He just cannot leave Anlaf’s court.”
Tykir made a low, rumbling growl of outrage in his throat.
Bjold shriveled under his obvious wrath and concluded in a rush, “It all comes back to the witch and your mission to capture her.”
Standing abruptly, Tykir leaned across the table and grabbed Bjold by the front of his surcoat, lifting him off his bench and half-leaning over the table toward him, knocking horns of ale hither and yon. The boy looked as if he might soil his braies, so afeared was he. “Start from the beginning,” Tykir said icily, “and leave naught out.”
He settled back for what he hoped was not an overlong tale. Especially since his head was pounding like Thor’s mighty hammer,
Mjolnir.
Especially since he was in dire need of a bath house to rid himself of the fleas that infested his skin and clothing after a long sea voyage. Especially since his good friend Rurik raised his equally mead-sodden head from the table next to him and grinned, silently mouthing the words, “A witch-hunt?”
Rurik had good reason to relish the prospect of a witch-hunt. Being godly handsome (second only to Tykir, in
Tykir’s not so humble opinion), Rurik wore his long black hair, as well as his beard, in intricate braids. His mustache was a daily clipped work of art. But Rurik’s overblown vanity had been dealt a blow two years past—by a witch, no less—a Scottish witch, who’d dyed a jagged line down the middle of Rurik’s face, whilst he slept, from hairline to chin, with the blue woad of the Scottish warriors. Thus far, Rurik had been unable to wash the color from his skin, or find the wily witch.
Yea, Rurik would be encouraging him to undertake Anlaf’s witchly mission.
Then things got worse.
Before Bjold could begin to talk, Bolthor the Giant, Tykir’s own personal skald—
may Odin have mercy!
—slid onto the bench next to him. Tykir could not suppress the groan that escaped his lips. He needed a skald almost as much as he needed a witch, especially a skald as tall as a small tree.
But what was a man to do when a fellow warrior saved his life in battle? When said life-friend lost an eye at the Battle of Ripon five years past, Tykir had felt compelled to offer work to the despondent knight. Thus far, Bolthor had tried—and failed—as cook, blacksmith and armorer on Tykir’s northern homestead. Finally, Tykir’s household had revolted at the unpalatable food, burned-down smithy and broken swords.
Tykir gave Bolthor a passing sideways glance, then looked again. Uh-oh! Too late, he realized that Bolthor had that certain dreamy expression on his face that foreboded the versemood coming upon him. Too late to escape now.
“Hear one and all, this is the saga of Tykir the Great,” Bolthor began. It was the manner in which all of Bolthor’s
sagas began. They didn’t get any better than that opening line, unfortunately.
Rurik’s lips curved upward with mirth. With a hand over his mouth, he murmured to Tykir under his breath,
“Hver fugl synger med sitt nebb.
”
“Humph!” Tykir said in reply. “Every bird may very well sing with its own voice, but Bolthor’s birdsong is the most unmelodious I have ever heard.”
Unaware of their opinions, Bolthor adjusted the black patch over his one eyeless socket and took a stylus into his huge hand. Squinting through his good eye, he began painstakingly to press runic symbols onto the wax tablet he had set on the table in front of him. ’Twas not the norm for skalds to write down the sagas, but Bolthor’s head was thick, and he often forgot the words to the tales he had composed.
“Methinks a good title for this one would be ‘Tykir and the Crooked Cock.’ Let me see, how shall I start? Hmmm.
“In the land of the Saxons,
An evil witch did fly.
To Anlaf’s proud duckling,
She set her evil eye.
Now, alas and alack,
His furry pet can no longer
Quack…
Nor with his mate
Fly straight.”
Bolthor paused. “How does it sound thus far?” he asked hopefully.
“Magnificent,” Tykir said, patting Bolthor on the shoulder.
Horrible.
Tykir barely stifled a grimace of distaste.
I hope my brother Eirik never hears of this one. He
will fall over laughing, almost as much as he did over the “Tykir and the Reluctant Maiden” saga Bolthor concocted last winter. Somehow, Bolthor’s overlong tales almost always end with me looking the fool. And best that Anlaf does not hear of Bolthor enhancing his wordfame by referring to his manpart as a duckling, or there will be sword dew spilled aplenty.