Page 106 of The Outlaw Viking

“Did I not tell you to stay at Gyda’s ’til I sent for you?”

“Yea, ye did. Ye surely did, m’lord. But Gyda made us leave. Said to tell ye that she raised eight babes of her own and she be too old to have these noisy, pesky, dirty varmints raining havoc on her home. Oh, and coarse-mouthed, she called them too,” Ubbi added, leveling a look of condemnation at Adam who was gawking with interest at Selik’s exposed body.

Selik groaned, pulling the furs over his male parts, and glared at Rain, whose lackwit idea it had been to open an orphanage.

“And another thing,” Ubbi added, looking with offended eyes at Rain, “that Ella was hangin’ over me like a hungry dog on a bone. Didst you promise me to her, as she claims? Am I a side of beef to be bartered?”

“Rain! Oh, nay, do not say you are matchmaking atween Ubbi and Ella?” Selik said with astonishment. “Do you not know that Ubbi has been running from Ella’s salivating clutches for years?” But then he remembered how his loyal servant had betrayed him of late and added, “On the other hand, mayhap you need a forceful woman to control you better, Ubbi.”

Ubbi inhaled sharply with outrage.

“So, do ye like stickin’ it in her?” Adam interrupted them idly, one hand on a jutting hip and his eyes glued with undue interest to Rain’s half-exposed breasts where the fur had slipped. She immediately pulled it back up.

All eyes locked on Adam then, unable to believe he would ask such a blunt question.

“What? Why are ye all gawkin’ at me? I was only askin’. Bloody hell! How is a boy to learn things if no one will answer an honest question?”

“Someone ought to wash your mouth out with soap,” Selik declared ominously.

“The witch already did,” Adam snapped, glaring at Rain, then turned back to Selik, “Did she do the same to you—wash out yer mouth with soap? You use the same foul words as me.”

“I have to make pee-pee,” Adela said suddenly at Adam’s side. He took her hand, leading her to the chamber pot in the far corner.

“Pee-pee?” Selik choked out.

Adam looked at Selik over his shoulder. “The witch sez we cannot say piss anymore. ’Tis too crude.” The little boy’s voice rang with disgust. He helped his sister adjust her tunic and led her back toward the gaping group, adding disdainfully, “Pee-pee is bad enuf, but ye should hear what she calls it.”

“It?” Selik asked, then wished he had not.

“A too-too,” Adam declared flatly, looking down at the vee of his braies. He folded his arms across his chest, shooting an I-told-you-I-was-gonna-tell look at Rain before nodding in self-satisfaction. “And she sez we have to wash every day, every bloody day, and clean our teeth, and say our prayers, and learn to read and write, and do our chores, and so many damn rules me head spins.”

Selik looked at Rain’s blushing face, then put his head into both of his hands and groaned. His well-ordered life was crumbling around him. A short time ago, all he wanted was to kill Steven of Gravely and mayhap a few Saxons, then die. Now, he was saddled with a guardian angel from the future, a servant who believed he got messages from God, a dozen orphans, and a boy who had to be related to Lucifer himself. How would he ever escape this quicksand of a life?

Looking up, he saw Adam sit down before the hearth, stoke the fire, then proceed to ignore them all and play idly with Rain’s Rubik’s Cube.

And, worst of all, he solved the puzzle.

The next afternoon, Selik insisted on accompanying Rain to the hospitium for her usual rounds. They both wore the monks’ habits, as before.

Selik was not in a good mood. The weather had turned frigid last night, even for early November—too cold for him and Rain to sleep in the loft. Which meant twelve squirmy, squealing, curious bodies had slept beside them, not to mention a loudly snoring Ubbi on a nearby cot. And Selik did not even want to think about Adela, who had crept into the pallet between him and Rain during the night and snuggled up against his chest like a frightened kitten.

“I still say, it’s unsafe for you to be prowling the city streets with so many Saxon soldiers about,” Rain complained for what had to be the hundredth time.

“I would much rather face a troop of bloody Saxons than stay one more minute in that madhouse back there.”

“You’ve seemed restless all day, Selik. I’m afraid to ask this, but are you leaving soon?” She looked up at him from the shadow of her monk’s cowl with eyes so hopeful that Selik had to restrain himself from taking her in his arms and promising anything that she desired. But that he could not do, and not just because the sight of two monks embracing near the minster steps would horrify the passersby.

“I expect word today from Gorm on Steven’s whereabouts. He will meet me at Ella’s shop.”

He saw the fear in Rain’s eyes, but she bit her bottom lip, restraining her usual protests. He w/as oddly touched that she tried to curb her shrewish tongue for his benefit.

“Well, I’m not going to fight with you over this anymore. Oh, don’t look so pleased with yourself. I still don’t agree with you. I just don’t want to waste any more of the little time we have together.”

“What will you do after I’m gone? Return to your home?”

Despair flashed briefly across her face before she masked it and lifted her chin bravely. “No, as long as I know you’re alive somewhere, I’ll stay. Probably continue going to the hospitium every day and run the orphanage, if you’ll let us stay on your property.”

“And if I never return?”