Page 95 of The Blue Viking

He took a tentative bite. It was thin porridge, with chunks of apple. Leastways, he thought it was apples. It didn’t taste too bad. In fact, it tasted good.

“Why are you being nice to me?”

Cailleach laughed outright then, with more enjoyment than his question merited, in Rurik’s opinion.

“What’s so amusing?”

“Ye won’t think I’m so nice by the end of the day, Viking.”

Chapter Seventeen

By noon, the witch situation was totally out of control.

Despite her heavy heart over the strained relationship between herself and Rurik—he refused to speak to her at all—and despite her concern over Jamie’s reaction to his new father—he was ecstatic—Maire had other, more pressing matters to attend to. She stormed out into the courtyard and screeched, “Cailleach? Come here! Right now!” She might not be proficient at the art of cackling, but she certainly could screech.

Cailleach was in the courtyard before her, engaged in some kind of dance with five other witches… something involving jumping up and down and swaying from side to side, with hands joined and lots of cackling. Supposedly, they were doing a thanksgiving rite related to the defeat of the MacNabs, though it looked more like a bunch of old women engaged in fits. Several of her servants, some of whom had already threatened to run away, were white of face, as if they were viewing ghosts … though witches were probably in the same category as ghosts when it came to scaring people.

Maire’s screech apparently carried as far as the exercise yards, where the games were already in progress, and some of the men and women glanced her way, including Rurik, who immediately turned away. That hurt. But she could not dwell on that misery now. She had a more compelling problem.

“You have to get rid of all these witches,” Maire whispered urgently to Cailleach, who had come at her bidding.

“Why? Ye’re the one who called for them.”

“I… did … not,” she protested, as she had numerous times already. “I called for one witch… you … not fifty witches.”

Cailleach shrugged with unconcern. “What difference does another witch or two make?”

“Wh-what difference?” Maire sputtered. “I’ll tell you what difference. One witch showed the dairy maid how to milk a cow without touching the teats; now, Bessie is giving milk nonstop; we cannot supply enough buckets for all the milk. Furthermore, the milk has drawn all the cat-familiars who are hanging about the keep, which has caused the castle staff to turn skittish. Five of those cats were pregnant and gave birth, right in the rushes, and don’t think that didn’t cause a stink.”

“Is that all?”

“Nay, that is not all,” Maire snarled. “Effa, that witch from Skye, is searching high and low for the knucklebone of a virgin. She claims there are none to be found.”

“I been meanin’ to tell ye that ye must rein in the doings of some of yer young people. Do not fash yerself, though; have ye considered that perchance no one will admit to virginity when it means givin’ up a body part?”

Maire snarled once again. “Toste and Vagn have been taking turns in the bed furs with that young witch from Inverness, and I swear, if the stories are true, she is teaching them some really perverted things.”

“Naught wrong with that,” Cailleach opined, examining her overlong fingernails with unconcern. “A man can never learn enough things about the sex arts … a woman, either, for that matter,” she added, staring pointedly at Maire.

By the faith! Is she really advising me to learn sexual perversions?

“At least ten witches have offered to supply me with a love potion to lure Rurik back to my bed,” she complained.

“And that is a bad thing?” Cailleach’s gray eyebrows lifted. “Seems to me ye need all the help ye can get, lassie.”

“Old John claims that a love elixir was put in the barrel of uisge-beatha last night, which caused the men to be more virile and the women more passionate.”

“Surely, no one is complaining about that.”

“Some of the witches have gone into business … selling the men antidotes for lying and shrinking manparts. ’Tis a sham, and you surely cannot condone such chicanery.”

“Ye can’t blame a witch fer tryin’ to make a livin’. Times are tough fer witches, ye know. And who’s to say the concoctions don’t work?”

“There are rowan ashes on all the windowsills.”

“ ’Tis the best remedy for warding off the evil eye.”

Maire took a deep breath for patience. “Cook is practically steaming from the ears over all the cauldrons missing from his kitchen, and he says you have been roasting what resembles a dog in his fireplace. The place reeks.”