Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 05] (36 page)

Rurik’s only response was a growl of displeasure.

“But Rurik
Campbell?”
Tykir asked with that infernal grin on his face. And, really, Tykir had the most irksome grin in the whole wide world. Besides, what the Campbell name had to do with his blue mark, he had no idea. He suspected his old friends were jumping from one distasteful subject to another, just to throw him off balance. ’Twas a tactic he’d employed with them on more than one occasion.

“How could you … a fierce Viking warrior… become a Scotsman?”

“I told you,” Rurik hissed. “It was a misunderstanding. I did not become a Scotsman.”

“I suppose you will be eating haggis now,” Tykir commented with an exaggerated sigh, “and playing the bagpipes.”

“Nay, I have not developed a taste for haggis, and Bolthor is the one who has taken on bagpipes as his weapon of choice.”

“Odin’s Balls! Do not tell me,” Tykir said in an aside to Rurik, so as not to offend the skald. “Bolthor is playing the bagpipes …
and
reciting poetry?”

Rurik nodded and plastered an evil grin on his own face. “And I can guarantee you, he will be doing both
for you
back at Dragonstead this winter.”

Tykir looked as if he’d been poleaxed.

“But you have a son,” Eirik pointed out, still belaboring the Campbell appellation that Rurik had been given by Maire’s clan, “who will one day be a Scottish laird.”

“Yea, but being father to a Scots-boy does not make me a Scotsman. Oh, what’s the use! You men will believe what you want anyhow.”

“Rurik is right.” It was Bolthor coming to his defense, to Rurik’s surprise. “He did not become Rurik Campbell because of Wee-Jamie. He became a Campbell because he is their hero.”

Rurik groaned aloud. He could just predict what Bolthor would say next, and apparently so could everyone else, because they were grinning from ear to ear.

“This is the saga of Rurik the Greater,” Bolthor began.

“Hey,” Tykir protested.

“If you knew what was good for you, you would stop right there,” Rurik advised Tykir in an undertone.

But Tykir blundered on, “I thought I was supposed to be the great one. Remember, Bolthor, you always used to say, ‘This is the saga of Tykir the Great’?”

Rurik shoved his cup to the side and pressed his face to the table. He wished he could just fall asleep and waken when this whole nightmare was over.

“Ah, you are correct in that, Tykir,” Bolthor explained, “but Rurik reminded me that ‘Great’ was your title; so, we changed his title to ‘Greater.’ ”

“Except when he lost his knack,” Toste interjected with a chuckle. “Hoo-eee! He was not so much greater then.”

“His knack?” Tykir, Eirik, and Selik all inquired.

Rurik moaned against the tabletop, where his forehead still rested.

“Yea, he forgot how to or-gaz a woman in the bed furs, but not to fear,” Toste blathered on, “he got his knack back eventually.”

Tykir put his lips near Rurik’s ear and whispered, “Does or-gaz mean what I think it means?”

“It does. And I swear, Tykir, if you do not take your skald home with you to the Northlands, I am going to take away
your
ability to or-gaz.”

Tykir and everyone else at the table were laughing hysterically.

Bolthor was already launching into his latest saga, to Rurik’s mortification. Good thing no one could see his telling blush … for certainly then they would be
teasing him about being a blushing Viking, and Bolthor would be telling a poem about it for all posterity to recall.

A stunned silence followed Bolthor’s saga, which was the usual response. Finally, Tykir cleared his throat, then remarked, “You have refined your rhyming skills, Bolthor.”

Forsaking modesty, Bolthor nodded in agreement. “I must tell you, though, Tykir, Rurik has given me much more fodder for sagas than you ever did. There is: ‘Rurik the Vain,’ ‘The Viking Who Lost His Knack,’ ‘Rurik the Blind Viking,’ ‘Rurik the Scots Viking,’ ‘Sex and the Single Viking,’ ’Vikings Who Name Their Cocks,” “The Blue-Balled Viking,” and ever so many others.”

Rurik turned his face so his cheek was resting on the table top. Then he cracked open one eye. Sure enough, everyone was staring at him, openmouthed with incredulity. It took a lot to turn a Viking warrior incredulous. But he had. And it was no great achievement.

“Of course, I am thinking that Toste and Vagn might be good topics for some of my upcoming sagas,” Bolthor continued.

Toste and Vagn could not have appeared more horrified if he’d suggested they cut off their manparts.

“Yea, I can see all the
twin
possibilities. ‘Sex With a Wily Witch.’ ‘Vikings With Extra-Ordinary Endowments.’ ‘What Twin Vikings Can Do In the Bed Furs and Others Cannot’ ”

It was Rurik’s turn to grin widely. Mayhap there was hope for him yet. Mayhap Bolthor would decide to latch on to the twins and devote his poetic life to their escapades.

But then Selik tilted his head to the side and asked, “Why do all the men here have yarn bows tied on their middle fingers?”

“Well, actually, I can answer that,” offered Stigand, who had been quiet thus far.

Rurik stood abruptly, not even waiting for the lengthy reply that Stigand was sure to give… one which would somehow make him look even more foolish.

“Where are you off to?” Eirik asked with a knowing smile.

“The garderobe.”

But what he was thinking was he’d like to find Maire’s hiding place and hole up with her there for a day or so… or a sennight.

Tykir was waiting for him in the corridor outside the garderobe. Not a good sign. Nor was it a good sign that Tykir wore a serious expression on his usually mischievous face.

“I am worried about you, Rurik,” Tykir said right off.

“Why?”

“You are not yourself.”

Hah! That is an understatement!
“It will take some getting accustomed to fatherhood, that is all.”

Tykir smiled. “ ’Tis a wondrous thing, is it not… being a father?”

Rurik smiled back. “Yea, ’tis. I ne’er thought to be a father… I am not sure why. Nor did I crave the passing of my blood on to another. But I find myself grinning in the most ridiculous fashion whene’er I gaze upon the child.”

Tykir nodded in understanding. Then he brought up the topic that Rurik had been avoiding. “About Maire?”

“What about Maire?”

“Do you love her?”

Rurik refused to answer. He was not being deliberately rude. In truth, he did not know the answer.

To his dismay, Tykir began to laugh uproariously.

“I cannot imagine why it should be so funny that I might conceivably be in love with a Scottish witch.” He looked at his friend, who was so much like him, then admitted, “Well, all right, ’tis rather funny. A joke on me. In fact, the supreme joke from the gods in a lifetime of jests at my expense.”

Tykir shook his head at him, tears of mirth rimming his eyes, “On the other hand, perchance it is a
gift
from the gods.”

Now there was a thought.

It was evening, and they were celebrating another feast… this time in honor of their guests. Good thing there was lots of food left over from the night before.

Rurik sat beside Maire, dressed in richly embroidered garments that would do a prince proud. She had managed to drag out an old
arisaid
of the softest emerald green wool with gold braiding that predated her wedding … a perfectly suitable garment… but she hated the fact that Rurik was more beauteous than she was, both in form and apparel. Her hair was a mass of red curls since she’d been unable to dress it properly after her impromptu bath in the loch.

Tykir, Rurik’s friend from the Northlands, had taken the liberty a short time ago of tugging on a lock of Maire’s hair and watching with a bemused expression on his face as it sprang back into a tight coil. He’d glanced at his wife’s red hair, then back to her,
before he’d commented to Rurik, “Another flame-haired goddess!”

Rurik—the oaf—had muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “Redheaded women… God’s plague on man.”

She’d elbowed Rurik in the ribs, hard, at that insult, but it had barely fazed him. Not only was he thickheaded, but he was apparently thick-skinned as well.

Rurik’s friends had seemed to find her actions vastly amusing.

She would like to wring Rurik’s neck … not just for forcing her out of seclusion but for sitting at the high table with her now as if everything between them was just fine and jolly, when he knew as well as she did that everything was a shambles. Oh, she’d managed to seduce him in the loch, but look how that had turned out. And, truly, she didn’t think she had many more seductions under her belt… so to speak.

Under ordinary circumstances, she would have enjoyed herself. A person couldn’t help but like Rurik’s friends. They were attractive and charming and full of teasing mirth.

Even the older couple, Selik and Rain, who had to have seen close to fifty winters, were surprisingly fit and pleasing to the eye. Rain, who was allegedly a famous healer in Britain, equaled her husband in great height, and their blond hair matched as well, even to the sprinkling of gray strands. They’d brought four of their eight natural children with them, between the ages of ten and seventeen. They’d left behind the other four, plus many foster children, in an orphanage they operated outside the trading city of Jorvik in Northumbria, under the care of a young woman
named Adela and an elderly man named Ubbi.

Already Rain had taken Maire aside and asked whether there might be a place here at
Beinne Breagha
for some of the young people searching for trades. Maire had readily agreed, especially since so many men and boys had lost their lives the past few years to wars or feuds with the MacNabs. They had a need for new blood in the Campbell clan.

Then there was the darkly handsome Eirik, Lord of Ravenshire in Northumbria, who must have seen close to forty winters. Not as handsome as Rurik, of course, but then no one was that handsome. The half-Viking, half-Saxon man brought with him his wife Eadyth, who had to be the most beautiful woman Maire had ever seen, with silver blond hair and violet eyes. Over a silk headrail, she wore the Norse
kransen
, a gilt circlet with embossed lilies on it. Though in her mid-thirties, Eadyth’s creamy skin showed no sign of aging. This couple had brought with them Eadyth’s illegitimate son, John, a sixteen-year-old boy who was already causing Scottish lasses from miles around to swoon. He had been adopted by Eirik, of course, as had Eirik’s two illegitimate daughters, seventeen-year-old Larise and fifteen-year-old Emma. John and Jostein had apparently become great friends, and both of them had eyes on two of Selik and Rain’s daughters. In addition to those three children, Eirik and Eadyth had also brought four they had had together, all boys, and all full of rambunctiousness.

Jamie was having the time of his life with all this young company. Beast and Rose were enjoying themselves, too, if all the yipping and meowing were any indication.

Maire was amazed that this noble couple openly acknowledged the illegitimacy of some of their children, but she was equally amazed when she was told that Eadyth was an accomplished businesswoman who sold the products of her beehives in the markets of Jorvik—mead, honeycombs, and timekeeping candles.

Finally, there was Tykir, Eirik’s half brother and Rurik’s best friend in all the world. Oh, what a wicked-eyed, mischievous fellow was Tykir, despite being of middle years … about thirty-five or so. As vain as Rurik, he had his hair plaited on one side only, where a thunderbolt earring dangled from his ear.

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!”