Page 18 of The Caged Viking

Egil looked at Kirstin.

And Hauk laughed. He actually laughed. “Is this your halfbrained scheme, dog lady? Will we consummate the marriage in my cage? Mayhap we can even have babies right here in this cozy little space.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Silly? I swear, ne’er in my misbegotten life have I been called silly. Do you have a death wish?” He peered closer. “Why are you wearing my arm rings?”

Even in this dim light, he could clearly see the chasing hawk design etched on each of them. An exact match for the rings on Hauk’s own upper arms, though his were, of course, wider and bigger.

Kirstin crossed her arms over her chest and touched each of the silver rings on her upper arms. At once, she flinched at the mild shock, then shook her hands to clear the fingers of some invisible…something. “They’re not yours,” she declared. “They’re mine. My brother Storvald gave them to me for a birthday gift.”

He looked skeptical, then waved a hand dismissively. “Go. Away. You are going to ruin our plans for tonight.”

“Actually, m’lord, mayhap this is not such a…,” Egil started to say.

“Stop calling me a lord,” Hauk grumbled.

“You’re not a lord?” Kirstin asked.

“Aaarrgh!” Hauk said and pulled at his own hair, causing more fleas to dance around his head or were they lice? Maybe both. “No, I am not a lord. Egil just says that to annoy me.”

“Ye are sort of a lord,” Egil protested.

“Would you both stop this nonsense? It matters not a whit if I am a lord or a leper.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you were actually a leper,” Kirstin pointed out. “Leprosy eats away at the body till all your flesh is rotted away and—”

“Aaarrgh! I know what leprosy is.” Hauk was pulling at his own filthy hair again.

“As I was saying,” Egil went on. “Mayhap this is not such a bad idea. It would get you out of the cage far easier than me breaking out some of the bars without anyone noticing.”

“We’ve already half-sawed those bars,” Hauk pointed out.

“Still, we need to get out of the hall, through the corridors, pass through the scullery to the back bailey, and on to the woodland, without anyone noticing. If ye wed the wench, yer presence outside the cage would be expected, to some extent.”

Hauk pondered the possibilities. “Why would the king agree to this farce?”

Egil looked at Hauk as if he should know.

And he did. “Another source of entertainment for the idiots. Make a spectacle of the Viking. Pfff!”

“Plus,” Kirstin added, “he’s convinced that Sweyn and Duke Richard will be so impressed with his generosity in allowing a wedding that they’ll overlook the indignity of the cage and your ill-treatment, maybe even be misled into thinking that the massacre wasn’t really a massacre.”

He stared at her for a long moment before repeating his earlier assessment, “Idiots!”

She wasn’t sure if he was referring to the king or her as the idiot. No matter! “Use their idiocy to your own advantage,” Kirstin advised.

Hauk gazed at her with speculation. “Seriously? And what do you gain from this arrangement?”

She shrugged. “Angel points.” She looked upward. “I figure God sent me here to save you. Once you’re saved, I can go home again.”

“And your home is where?”

“You won’t believe this, but it’s America.”

“That country beyond Iceland? The far-off land discovered by Leif Eriksson?”

“Yes!” She was glad he understood without lots of explanations.