Page 46 of My Fair Viking

"Can't you put these children to work?" he begged Breanne, who was working alongside some cotters that afternoon. "After all, what trouble could they get in while helping you apply wattle and daub to those huts?"

At the end of the day, Breanne showed up in the great hall where he was about to share an ale with Tykir and Rafn. She was madder than a bull in mating season. Without ceremony, she dumped the children in his lap.

"You try cleaning them up. And take note of this, Saxon, that was the last favor you ask of me."

And she stormed off. Thorvald's daughters were wonderful at storming off, he was beginning to notice.

He and Rafn and Tykir looked at the children more closely. They were covered from head to toe with mud and straw… even little Besji. At least there weren't any injuries that he could see. He had taken to counting small blessings these days.

Tykir was, of course, laughing uproariously… even when he caught sight of a white, devilish grin under the thick layer of daub on one of the stragglers and noticed his own son, Thork. Adam doubted that Alinor would be so amused.

To cap off the moment, Bolthor walked up, took in the whole scene with his one good eye, and announced, "Adam, you give me the best ideas for new sagas. I think I will title this one 'How Adam the Rooster Gained a Brood.'"

Thorvald awakened in the evening, feeling weak as a newborn babe. But alive! Praise be to the gods!

"Drink," he said, pointing to his mouth.

Rafn, the only one in the bedchamber, jumped with shock. "You are alive! You are alive!"

Thorvald would have laughed if he were not weak as dragon piss. Instead, he squeaked out, "Of course I am alive, you lackwit. Now give me some water."

Rafn raised the king's head slightly from the pillow, then lifted a goblet of water to his parched lips.

Water! What kind of drink is that for a Viking lord? But he had not the strength to argue, and in truth the water tasted wonderfully delicious.

He dropped back down to the pillow and choked out, "What happened?"

Rafn told him, "You were hit in the head with a mace ball by that Danish rat, Ivan the Ugly. Your brain apparently swelled up, and you have been unconscious for weeks."

He still didn't understand. He raised a trembling hand to his throbbing head, where linen cloths seemed to be covering some wound.

"Adam the Healer was brought here from the Saxon lands. Yestermorn he drilled a hole in your skull to relieve the swelling. 'Twould seem that it worked."

Drilled a hole in my head? Amazing! But then something else Rafn had said jarred him. "Brought him here? Who brought him?"

"Tyra. Whacked him over the head with a broadsword, she did, and carried him off over her shoulder." Rafn was grinning as he spoke.

Thorvald grinned, too… or tried to. That's my Tyra. Just like her father.

"I suppose the healer is hell-bent on killing her now," he mused.

"Actually, I think Adam rather likes her."

"He does?" Thorvald's brain might have been injured, and he might not be thinking as clearly as he should, but he was too crafty not to recognize an opportunity when it stared him in the face. "How does she feel about him?"

Rafn shrugged. "I think she likes him, too. Oh, they exchange word-jabs at every turn. But when she is not looking, he stares at her like a hungry wolf, and when he is not looking, she stares at him like a hungry wolf, too."

Thorvald couldn't have been happier. He had given Tyra, his firstborn and most beloved, a free hand in choosing if and when she would marry… to the detriment of her sisters. Was the long wait finally over?

"What of his bloodlines?"

"You remember Selik and Rain… from Jorvik? Adam was their adopted son. Tykir of Dragonstead—who is here now, by the by—and Eirik of Ravenshire are his stepuncles, or foster uncles or some such thing.

"Good enough!" Thorvald nodded his head, although his eyes were already beginning to close with weariness. "Although I had always wanted her to find a fierce warrior to take over for me when I am gone."

"My lord!" Rafn said with affront.

"Oh, do not be getting your braies all in a knot, Rafn. I know you and Vana will wed the moment Tyra is settled. And I know full well that you want the kingship more than any other. It may very well come to that."