Page 37 of The Bewitched Viking

“God’s teeth! I didn’t steal your dog, Rurik,” Alinor asserted. “Beast merely shifted his affections.”

“Affections?” The sound of mirth was in Tykir’s voice.

“Affections?” Rurik shouted, not a hint of mirth in his voice. “I will give you affection. I swear, woman, I could cleave you to your clacking teeth with a single blow and feel not a lick of remorse. With a swing of my sword, Death Stalker, you will get affection.”

“Yea, affection, Rurik. You should learn to be more affectionate. Mayhap then your dog would love you again. Furthermore, if you had shown a bit more affection to the Scottish witch, you might not be wearing her mark for life. And personally, I do not think that woad design is half so unattractive as the scowl you wear all the time.”

“I am going to kill her, Tykir. I am sorry if that offends you, but I cannot help myself.” He was already releasing his sword from its scabbard.

“Nay, Rurik, leave off. The witch will be with us only a short time longer. Then Beast will gladly come back to you. Go now, find yourself a wench. You know ’tis the best way to cool a hot temper. That and a tun of mead.”

After Tykir soothed Rurik with more cajolery, he proceeded to leave, reluctantly. At the last moment, though, he shot daggers of icy promise at Alinor from his blue eyes. Beast stayed behind, unrepentant at his lack of loyalty.

Soon Alinor and Tykir and Beast were walking purposefully toward his home and place of trade in Hedeby. The wood-paved streets cut in an orderly fashion at right angles or parallel to a channeled stream, which ran through the center of Hedeby, west to east. Some of the buildings on these streets were small, less than three-by-three ells, while others were as much as six-by-fifteen ells. The neat dwellings were stave-built with vertical or horizontal planking, or frame-built with wattle-and-daub panels. All of them had reed-thatched roofs and uniformly low doorways. In general, the buildings were placed so that the gable end faced the street, and the attendant outhouses stood behind them. The structures were fenced-off neatly from their neighbors and had their own gates and pathways.

Large numbers of men and women passed by, but Tykir assured Alinor that this was a much-diminished number. Winter approached, and many traders had already left for their homelands. Even so, Alinor could see that a large contingent of people lived here year-round, as evidenced by the young children scampering about at some of the residences. Visible in the backyards were small vegetable patches, bare now of their autumn harvests.

Hedeby was a center for craftsmen who had quarters of their own, much like the Coppergate sector of Jorvik. In front of some of the structures, both homes and businesses, rude stalls had been erected—wood tables with cloth canopies overhead. Here were offered for sale the foods of many lands. Hares, pigeons, chickens, joints of venison, mutton, pork and wild boar, and every fish conceivable. There were also sticky sweets from the east, breads of many different grains, pots of honey, exotic dried fruits from the warmer climates, jugs of the much-prized Norse mead and potent wine from Frisia. There was even gammelost and lutefisk, which Tykir pointed out with a laugh.

“People actually pay good coin for that?” Alinor turned her nose up with disdain.

Many people addressed Tykir by name as they passed, and a few came up and clapped him heartily on the shoulder in welcome. They gave almost no attention to the fact that she was bound to him with rope, but they did stare at her backside. Rurik, or Bolthor, or the seamen from Tykir’s ships must have already spread witchly tales of her tail. No doubt the passersby deemed her a personal thrall, or a slave about to be sold in Hedeby.

In fact, on one street, Alinor saw a group of chained men and one woman being led toward a large structure with a wide yard. The men were of dark complexion, possibly of Moorish background, but the woman’s skin was pale. Her wails of anguish rose above the din of the crowds as she told her beads and sang psalms aloud in the Frankish tongue.

“Oh, blessed Lord!” Alinor cried. “That woman could very well be a nun.” She attempted to rush forward to offer aid but was pulled back short by her restraint.

“You will not interfere,” Tykir said firmly. “’Tis none of your affair.”

“But…but she is clearly a woman of religious conviction…a Christian.”

He arched a brow at that. “Ah, so you are saying that it is acceptable for only non-Christians to be slaves?”

“That is not what I am saying.” Is it?

“Nay?” he inquired mockingly. “Then you must be implying that your fellow Christians do not keep slaves.”

“Well, yea, they do, but—”

“Slavery is a fact of life in every land. Accept what cannot be changed,” he advised.

Alinor would have argued that point with Tykir, except that an even more outrageous event was taking place before the eyes of one and all. In the courtyard of the slave mart, where dozens of slaves were restrained in chains or tied to vertical posts in the ground, a young woman was being offered for sale. But worse than that, her clothing had been stripped from her body and the prospective buyer, a seamen—mayhap even from one of Tykir’s ships—was examining her intimately. All the while, he was being encouraged by the guffawing crowd of men.

Tykir dragged her away from the scene, cursing under his breath at her kicks to his shins and her attempts to scratch him with her free hand. When they were far enough away from the slave mart, Tykir slammed her up against the side of a building and used their bound hands as a brace against her neck. “I’m going to release my hand from your mouth now, and if you so much as let a whisper escape your lips before I am done talking to you, you will be next in line at the slave mart. This I swear on my father’s grave. Furthermore, whilst my men may have avoided you and your witchly aura like the bloody flux, there are many men who would pay highly for the unique privilege of tumbling a sorceress. Do not doubt my word on that. Are you listening to me, you stubborn witch?”

She nodded her head, fighting back tears of pain at the constricting press of his forearm against her neck.

“You are not in your own land, foolish lady. Nor in mine. What you see and hear may not be to your taste, but no one—least of all me—bloody well cares. I can protect you whilst here…to a limit. If you step over that line, you are on your own.” He inhaled sharply, as if to control his roiling temper. His smoldering eyes met hers. “Have I made myself clear?”

She nodded again, and he released his arm. Her knees felt soft as butter, and she almost sank to the ground. Tykir caught her with a hand on each side of her waist.

In the distance, she could hear the continued sound of male laughter and a woman’s scream.

“Come,” he said, more gently now. “There is an ale house over there, which I recall to be reasonably clean. We will have a cup of mead and a plateful of gammelost.”

She refused to laugh at his rough attempt at jest. Never would she forget that scene at the slave mart, but she couldn’t really blame Tykir for failing to intervene. Slaves were sold in Britain, as well, though she’d never witnessed it firsthand. At the back of her mind was the thought, It could be me.

Alinor thought she wouldn’t be able to drink or eat, but she had been wrong. Despite her horror at what she’d witnessed, the mead tasted cool and honey-rich. And she ate three thick slices of warm manchet bread, their centers hollowed out halfway and swimming with chunks of rabbit and leeks in a thick broth.