Page 10 of The Bewitched Viking

“Did you or did you not proclaim, ‘By the Virgin’s Veil, may your manpart fall off if you do this evil thing’?”

There was a long, speaking silence during which Alinor let his words sink in. Her face heated with embarrassment, then, as she asked, with awe, “And did his manpart fall off?”

“Nay, it just took a right turn.”

“It?”

“His manroot.”

“It did what? Oh, I can barely credit what you say. His manpart took a right turn?” Alinor choked with laughter.

“It’s not funny,” he protested, slapping her heartily on the back to stop her choking.

“Oh, yea, it is. But please,” she said, wiping at her tears with the edge of her headrail, “please do not tell me that you and that cloddish king think I would touch his…root.”

Tykir waved a hand airily. “I know not of witchly rites for straightening a man’s lance. Touch it or touch it not, for all I care. Just remove the spell.”

“And if I cannot do so?”

“There are laws held sacred at the Things—our governing bodies—where witches can be stoned or drowned. If they are bad witches, that is.” He slitted his eyes to study her for a moment. “By the by, are you a good witch or a bad witch?”

“Aaarrrgh!”

“It matters not, actually. I misdoubt that Anlaf would wait for a Thing to be called if you cannot remove the curse.”

“Oh?”

“Anlaf will, no doubt, just lop off your head.”

“You don’t have to watch me every blessed minute.”

“Do I not?”

“A big, fearsome warrior like you! What have you to fear from a harmless little female like me?”

You were not harmless from the day you came squalling from the womb, I wager. Seems to me, I’ve heard that red hair and a shrewish temper go hand in hand. Or was that just something Bolthor put in one of his sagas? Enough! I waste my thoughts on nonsense.

“’Tis good you noticed my impressive stature,” he said.

Thor’s toenails! The nonsense in my head is spewing out my mouth now.

“How could I not? You block the entire door.”

He was leaning his shoulder, casually, against the open door frame of the Lady Alinor’s bedchamber, his arms folded across his chest. Block was a good choice of word on her part because he suspected she would bolt in an instant if he were not acting as the barrier to her freedom.

He tapped one booted foot with impatience as the wench…rather, the witch…or the lady…arranged a neat pile on her high bed of the garments she intended to take on her journey to Trondelag. Worst of all, there were four blue headrails, and none of them looked magical, or, for that matter, old enough to be the Blessed Virgin relic.

I swear, if she folds that gunna into one more perfect square and smoothes out every single wrinkle, I am going to stuff her belongings in my saddlebags and be done with it. Mayhap I will stuff her scrawny body in there, too, all neatly folded into squarish parts.

Clearly, she was employing a delaying tactic, but for what purpose he could not yet fathom. She appeared to be an intelligent woman…or as intelligent as any woman could be. She had to know her fate was sealed; she would be delivered to King Anlaf, willing or unwilling.

Still Tykir held his temper in check. A good soldier knew to wait for just the right moment to pounce. Lady Alinor didn’t deceive him. The witch was up to some mischief. He saw the evidence in the nervous fluttering of her fingertips, and this was a woman not prone to flightiness. She had given in too quickly, in the end, to his demand that she accompany him to the Norse lands. Being a mite stubborn himself on occasion, Tykir recognized a fellow mule. He grinned to himself at that mental picture, and how the missish Lady Alinor would hate that he put her in that animal category.

She cast him a sideways glance through narrowed, speculative eyes. “Wouldst consider a danegeld?”

“Aha! You think to bribe me now? With what? Mutton?”

She bristled at his ridicule of her precious sheep. On the way back to the keep, he’d noted with amusement that she had names for each of the bleating animals.