Page 13 of The Bewitched Viking

The expression on his face must have alerted her that she was treading a fine line. “Yea, I can ride, though I’ve never done it with my hands tied.”

He shrugged. “Either ride thus or on my lap.”

She looked as if he’d suggested her riding him, instead of his horse.

“I can ride my own horse,” she said in a strangled voice.

“Fine. Let us be off then.”

“Come, Beast,” Rurik called out cheerily to his wolfhound, who stood at Tykir’s side.

The dog lifted its head haughtily and refused to obey his master’s command—something he never used to do. The animal had switched his allegiance to Alinor ever since Rurik had taken her sheep and her mangy sheepdog, Beauty, to a far pasture. Thereafter, Beast had been alternately despondent and mad with frustration, howling till the wee hours of the morning. ’Twould seem Beast was smitten with Beauty. Their constant chasing of each other about the keep these past two days, with a dozen dumb sheep following after, had driven all the servants nigh mad.

“So be it then, traitor.” Rurik nudged his knees against his stallion’s sides to prompt him into motion. At the same time, he reached over and slapped Alinor’s mare on the rump.

The mare bolted.

And Lady Alinor slipped ignominiously to the ground, smack onto her bottom. Since she appeared merely chagrined, not injured, Tykir assumed her tail had buffered the fall.

All three men burst out laughing.

“I thought you said you could ride,” Tykir gasped out.

“You could have given me fair warning, you…you…”

Bolthor was laughing so hard that his one eye was watering, and Rurik smirked with delight.

“Curse you all, you heathen louts,” she shouted, scrambling clumsily to her feet. “I hope…I hope…”

Just then a flock of winter geese came flying overhead, honking loudly…and splattered the three men. Lady Alinor had the good sense, or the mental forewarning, to duck under her mare’s belly. Thus, she was the only one unanointed by the vile “rain.” Tears of laughter were streaming down her face when she emerged from her hiding place.

Tykir exchanged a meaningful look with his two comrades as they all attempted to brush off the goose droppings with scraps of cloth. And then they exclaimed as one:

“She really is a witch.”

Chapter Three

Five days later

“Tykir! Ty-kir Thork-sson! What in the name of heaven are you up to now?”

Tykir put his face in his hands at the familiar female voice addressing him from the steps of the royal palace in Jorvik. “Eadyth,” he murmured under his breath. “Just what I do not need!”

Standing near the entrance to the king’s garth, where his uncle, Eric Bloodaxe, the Norse king, resided, was Tykir’s sister-by-marriage, Eadyth. All of Britain was under Saxon rule, except for this incessant splinter, Northumbria, which was once more in the hands of the Vikings. And if Eadyth, a Saxon lady, was in Jorvik, the Viking seat of Northumbria, then that could only mean that her husband, his half-Viking brother Eirik, lord of Ravenshire, was close by.

With Eirik and Eadyth as witnesses, he would never, ever live down this misadventure. Never.

“What are you doing with all those sheep?” Eadyth started in on him. “You hate sheep. You always claimed your grandmother’s sheep smelled to high Valhalla. Are you trading in sheep now, instead of amber?”

He groaned.

“Who is that?” Alinor asked. The witch was astride the mare next to him.

“My sister-by-marriage, Lady Eadyth,” he informed her. “She is married to my brother Eirik, lord of Ravenshire.”

“You are kin to a Saxon lord?” Alinor’s eyebrows lifted with astonishment. “You have blood links to Norse kings and Saxon lords. What next? A Byzantine emperor?”

He would have said something witsome and biting back to her, but he never got the chance. Eadyth, fists on hips, was railing at him again. “Why are the hands tied on the woman sitting on that horse? Why does she have a rope dangling from her neck? And why is she glaring at you so? Are those fingermarks on her cheek? Did you strike a woman, Tykir? Did you? For shame!”