Page 54 of The Outlaw Viking

“Scotland? But Ubbi told me he was unwelcome there.”

Tykir shrugged. “’Tis true, the Scots would just as well he go elsewhere, but he has been a good comrade. They cannot in good conscience turn him away from their doors.”

“Then why does he go there?”

“To protect me, and Ravenshire.”

“What!” That Selik might have a noble cause for doing anything had never occurred to Rain. What did that say about her? And her faith in the man she had been sent to save? Rain did not like herself much at the moment.

Tykir lowered his body to a nearby bench, rubbing his aching leg, and Rain dropped down beside him.

“Tell me,” she urged.

“When we returned yestermorn, I found a message from Eirik in a special hiding place we had as children. He warned me that King Athelstan plans a massive manhunt for Selik and that he will raze Ravenshire to the ground if he discovers Selik anywhere in the vicinity.”

Rain’s blood froze in her veins and her heart went out to her outlaw, who truly had no home—was, in fact, welcome nowhere. “Please go on,” she encouraged shakily.

“Selik figured that if he shows his face in the land of the Scots, so far from here, King Athelstan will direct his forces there. The Saxons will have no reason to invade Ravenshire. I am not big enough quarry for him to send a troop of soldiers.”

“So he intends to wave his body like a bloody flag in front of his enemies to save you,” Rain said, appalled.

“To save us,” Tykir corrected, his face reddening at her implied insult. “If the Saxons found him here, ’tis not just the keep they would destroy but all who are in it. That includes me, you, Ubbi, everyone.”

“But we could have left with him,” Rain protested. “Why didn’t he give us a choice?”

Tykir shook his head sadly. “I wanted him to stay. I told him so. Do you think I care aught for a piece of crumbling stone and a parcel of land? But Selik is set in his ways.”

“And I considered him a beast, brutal and uncaring in all his violence!” Rain was beginning to think she had a lot to learn about right and wrong. Perhaps these primitive people could teach her, with all her advanced education, a few lessons she’d somehow missed in her modern life.

“He is brutal, my sister. Never think otherwise. The truth of his berserk behavior cannot be honey-coated, but he is a good man at heart.”

“Why is he like this, Tykir? Please tell me what happened to him to change him from the carefree youth my mother described to this tormented shell of a man?”

Tykir stiffened and his face closed over. “Nay, I will not discuss Selik’s past. ’Tis for him to disclose—or hold in his soul, if he so chooses.”

“But if I don’t stop him—if someone doesn’t help him soon, he will surely die.”

“Yea, he will. For a long time, Selik has traveled the fast road to Valhalla, uncaring of his own mortality, wishing only to take as many Saxons as he can with him.”

“How sad to have violence as a life goal!”

Tykir shrugged and stood, leaning on his staff. “Know this, to the Saxons Selik may be naught more than a berserker. A demon gone mad from the bloodbath that has washed over Northumbria as they try to wipe all Norsemen from their soil. But to many a Norseman, Selik is a brave knight on a quest for noble vengeance. You would do well to remember that.”

“But—”

Tykir raised a hand to halt her next words. “Nay, that is all I will say on the subject. Ask Selik when he returns.”

But would he return? Rain wondered worriedly as the days, then weeks, went by with no word from her primitive soulmate. More and more, as she and the captives and Selik’s remaining soldiers worked to clean up the crumbling keep—a losing battle with their meager resources—Rain relived in her mind their last night together. If he died—Oh, please, God, don’t let that happen!—Rain knew she would forever regret not having had that one night of love with him.

When a month had passed and there was still no sign of Selik, panic set in. Rain had starting biting her fingernails, a nervous habit she thought she’d long ago conquered. Fighting a queasy stomach, she lost her appetite and at least ten pounds. Tykir and Ubbi, even Blanche and Bertha, avoided her company because they were sick over her endless questions about Selik’s safety and return.

“Gawd! I think I will empty me stomach if I hear ye ask one more time when the bloody outlaw will return,” Bertha complained in a whining voice as she helped Blanche dress the carcass of a fresh-killed deer. Gorm, one of Blanche’s most ardent suitors, had brought the doe back from his daily hunt and laid it at Blanche’s feet in the courtyard as if it were a dozen roses. Woman-wise, the wily Blanche had acted duly impressed and batted her eyelashes at Gorm in unspoken promise.

When Rain had shot a disapproving look at Blanche, knowing she preferred to cast her net in Selik’s direction, the maid had shrugged, without guilt, and commented, “A woman must cover all her options. Best you think of that, too, my lady, in the event The Outlaw does not return.”

Rain studied Bertha then, much pleased with her improving skin color, thanks to the special diet she had prescribed. Thank heavens it was only a Vitamin K deficiency and not a tumor or liver disease that had caused her yellowish skin tone.

“Make sure you save some of the liver for yourself. You still need lots of iron.”