Page 75 of The Blue Viking

Bolthor’s poem was so awful that she should have been laughing out loud. Instead, she was crying inside.

For the rest of the afternoon, Rurik avoided Maire. He was so angry—and, yea, hurt—that he feared what he might do or say in her presence.

Her protectiveness regarding her son was excessive. If Old John had taken the same action as Rurik had done, he doubted Maire would have been so furious. There was a puzzle here … why she feared hins contact with the boy…. that he could not solve. Apparently, she had come to the conclusion that he was a fit bed partner, but unfit company for her son. Why?

“Yer frownin’ agin. Am I the winner?” Jamie asked him.

They were playing the Viking board game, hnefatafl, which Rurik had just taught the boy. Before that, following a short man-to-man—or rather, man-to-not-quite-man—talk about the spanking incident, Jamie had taught Rurik how to use a slingshot. Rurik, in turn, had agreed to show him the Norse game, at which the youthling was already gaining proficiency. He was a very bright lad, Rurik thought with uncalled-for pride on his part.

“Nay, you are not the winner,” he snapped.

“Then ye mus’ be frownin’ ’cause yer still mad at me mother. Doona be. She likes you.”

“And how would you be knowing that?”

“Sheesh! Everyone kens that.” Jamie gave him an incredulous stare, as if his head must be very thick. “Every time she looks at you, her eyes go all big and cowlike.” He demonstrated in a way Maire would find quite unflattering. “I ’spect any time now she’ll start mooin’.”

Rurik choked on the cup of uisge-beatha he’d just put to his mouth. “I hardly think your mother would like you speaking of her in such a manner.”

“Why? Is there aught wrong with being smitten?”

Smitten? She didn’t act smitten when she berated me in front of one and all. Rurik shook his head at the child’s ridiculous question. He never knew what the rascal was going to say next and tried to remember whether he had been the same at that age. But of course he had not; he’d been too busy trying to find his next meal.

“Can I have a drink of that?” Jamie asked, reaching for the cup of powerful Scottish brew.

“Nay, you cannot!” he exclaimed and pulled his cup out of the way.

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“That’s no answer. It’s what me mother alius says.”

“It’s a good answer,” Rurik declared. Holy Thor! I sound like a bloody damn father.

“Ha! Will you teach me to use a broadax?”

“You couldn’t even lift a broadax.”

“Well, a lance then?”

“Nay!”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“ ‘Because I said so,’” he mimicked.

“Precisely.”

The whole time they were talking, the game continued, and the boy talked, and talked, and talked … when he was not petting his cat.

“I like cats.”

“That’s obvious.” The feline was sitting at Jamie’s feet licking its mangy fur … well, not quite so mangy now since Rurik had given it a good scrubbing in the loch. And, hell and Valhalla, hadn’t that been a sight… him with gauntlets on his hands and a fron-tispieced helmet to protect his face, handling the screeching, scratching, misnamed Rose. “I much prefer dogs,” he pronounced, “like my wolfhound, Beast. Now there is an animal! Man’s best friend, that’s what a dog is.”

“Rose is my best friend,” Jamie said in a wounded voice.