Page 25 of My Fair Viking

"But?" she prodded when he did not immediately ex' plain.

"But it is extremely dangerous. And once again, I find another person's life in my hands, and I do not want that responsibility. I do not!"

"What is the alternative?"

"There is always the possibility that someday your father would awaken on his own, but, frankly, that would be practically a miracle. 'Tis more likely that his brain would continue to swell within the confines of his skull, and his body will begin to wither away, and he will die a slow death."

"Nay!" she asserted, much too harshly. Realizing she was directing her outrage to the wrong person, she lowered her voice and told the physician, "My father would abhor that kind of death. He would rather die on the battlefield, but if not that, then under your knife."

"Do you have the authority to make that decision on his behalf?"

"I do."

"I just don't know. I did not think it would be this bad. I was hoping… well, I was hoping for something else."

"Please," she said, putting a hand on his forearm. "Try this trepanation."

He looked at her hand, big and callused; then he looked into her eyes.

"Please," she repeated… a hard word for her to say and one she could not recall using for years and years.

His face was rigid and unyielding. She could see that a myriad of emotions warred beneath the surface.

"So be it," he said finally. "God help me, but… so be it."

Chapter Five

"I'm thinking about joining a harem."

Tyra's sisters giggled at their sister Drifa's remark, but Tyra reacted quite differently. The remark was so unexpected and outrageous and out-of-character for her timid sister that Tyra just about fell out of the tub as she was rising from her bath.

The big brass tub that she and her sisters shared had been set up in the kitchen so that all of them could grill her with questions without pulling their sister Ingrith away from her cooking. Actually, there were a cook and several kitchen maids to perform such menial duties, but Ingrith's special interest was cooking and she made sure all her directions were followed to the letter. In truth, all the meals at Stoneheim were feasts, thanks to Ingrith's talents, unlike the unpalatable fare the men had eaten aboard ship. Some of Ingrith's dishes were basic recipes that appealed to all, but some of the frothy, sauce-covered concoctions had the big Norsemen blinking down at their plates with confusion… and a fear of ruining their fine physiques with excessive fat.

In most Norse households, the cooking was done on a large central hearth in the great hall, the site of most communal activities. Because of the large size of the resident population at Stoneheim—more than three hundred fighting men alone—most of the cooking was done in this separate kitchen with its immense hearth and stone ovens. Meanwhile, the five open hearths down the center of the great hall were there to provide heat during the cold winter.

But a harem? Drifa is thinking of joining a harem. "Drifa!" Tyra exclaimed.

Drifa might be half Arab, but that was as close to an Eastern harem as she'd ever been, having resided in Norway all her life. Tyra couldn't imagine her performing the wanton things a pampered concubine would do.

Drifa continued to arrange large bunches of autumn flowers in a pottery jug filled with water. Drifa loved to bring the outdoors inside with her numerous arrangements, which Tyra admitted made the keep look more cozy, but which the men hated for the same reason. Once, she'd even brought fifty rose bushes inside, to everyone's consternation, because they were looking frail and in need of special attention.

Her father had grumbled last year that soon she would be putting flowers in the privy. To which Drifa had shot back, "Let me marry and you won't have to worry about all my flowers marring the horrid rooms of your horrid keep." And then she'd run off, weeping. Her father, dunderhead that he was betimes, had looked at Tyra and her other three sisters and said, "What? What did I do?"

But now Drifa reacted angrily, to Tyra's surprise.

Well, why not? It appears I am never going to be a bride, and the way Rashid describes the… um, pampered position, it sounds like a very good life for a woman. Besides, flowers bloom in the Eastlands all year round."

I am going to wring Rashid's neck.

Vana was tsk-ing at the mess Tyra had made when she'd sloshed water about in the tub. She was on her hands and knees wiping the puddles off the stone floor with a thrice-folded square of linen cloth that she always carried on her person for spot cleaning. "Actually, I've been thinking about it, too… joining a harem, that is," Vana remarked. Even with her white-blond braids tucked under a scarf, and her slim figure barely hidden by her big, open-sided apron, Vana, too, had the physical attributes of a man's play companion.

I'm going to wring Rashid's neck.

"And what will Rafn have to say about your skipping off to some harem, Vana?" Tyra figured that question would give Vana pause to reconsider.

Vana blushed but lifted her chin with stubbornness—a trait all of Thorvald's daughters shared. "Rafn has no say in the matter. We are not wed, and may never be at this rate. If I want to join a harem, I will."

"Me, too," said Ingrith as she stirred a fragrant cauldron of fish stew with dumplings floating on the top, then checked the eel barrel to make sure there were enough of the slimy creatures for her special eel pie. "If you all are going to join a harem, I'm not staying here in this… this… prison. I want to cook for one man who will appreciate my efforts, not three hundred men who would just as soon have boiled possum, as long as ale abounds to wash it down."