Page 55 of The Bewitched Viking

“’Tis Torgunn…a younger son of King Sven Fork-beard of Denmark,” Bolthor told her. He had to bend over at the waist in order to place his mouth near her ear.

“Tykir!” a dark-haired man shouted from across the room. He stood abruptly, knocking over the ivory pieces of the Viking game knefatafl that he had been playing with several other men. The sinfully attractive man, no more than twenty, with skin burnished a dark brown like those of men residing in a desert clime, rushed across the room and up the steps. He wore the oddest garment, a sort of long white robe, highly embroidered along the edges with an ornate foreign design she could not identify. It was belted at the waist, with a burnoose hanging at the back of his neck. The attire was much like Alinor had seen on the Arab traders in Jorvik. He did not at all resemble the Vikings in this great hall, though they apparently accepted him as one.

“Adam!” Tykir said with a wide smile, taking the young man into a tight embrace.

So, this was the infamous Adam the Healer…the nephew for whom Tykir went to so much trouble.

After much back thumping, Tykir said to the young man, “You don’t seem much the worse for wear, despite having been a hostage these many months.” Alinor was fortunately able to hear their conversation, standing as they were at the bottom of the dais.

“A hostage?” Adam inquired, clearly puzzled.

Tykir quickly scanned the hall, his eyes latching on to the messenger, Bjold, who was slinking toward one of the exterior doors. With an expression of growing suspicion, Tykir turned on the king. “Did you not send a messenger to me several months past, urging me to deliver a witch to you?”

“Well, yea, but—” the king blustered.

“And did you not offer me your finest stallion, Fierce One?”

“Well, yea, but—” Anlaf shifted from foot to foot, obviously embarrassed about something.

“And did you not promise me the slave girl of the bells?”

“I did?”

“You did.” Tykir narrowed his eyes at the wily king. “Most important, did you not say that you would hold Adam hostage here till I delivered the witch?”

“Anlaf!” Adam accused the king. “Did you say such? ’Tis a lie, of course, Tykir. What kind of man dost think I am that I could not escape such ‘captivity’?”

A low growling sound began deep in Tykir’s chest and was rising upward, like an angry bear.

“The malady went away of its own accord. Is that not a miracle?” a beaming Anlaf informed Tykir. “But there is no harm done. Come share the feast with us.” He waved a hand magnanimously. “Mayhap I can even find the jingling bell maiden for you. Ha, ha, ha.”

“No harm done?” Tykir sputtered.

“Yea, no harm done.” Anlaf’s brow furrowed with bafflement over Tykir’s anger. “Dost thou disbelieve me? Wouldst thou like to see my newly straightened staff?” He turned his back on the great hall and dropped the front of his braies for Tykir’s perusal.

“Very nice,” Tykir observed with droll humor as his face flushed purple with fury. Meanwhile, Adam was laughing so hard tears streamed down his face.

These Vikings are the crudest men in the world.

“Anlaf, you have to be the bloodiest fool in all the world,” Tykir raged, not at all amused. “You did some lackbrain things to me when we were youthlings, but this time you have pushed the bounds of kinship. Have you no idea what you have done?”

“Me?” Anlaf asked, putting a palm to his chest in affront. “By the by, why do some of your men wear their braies backwards? Is it the new fashion in the Saxon lands? I always thought they were assbackwards. Now I know for a certainty. Ha, ha, ha.”

Tykir crossed his eyes with frustration. “You asked me to deliver to you the Saxon witch,” he pointed out, as if speaking to a dimwitted child.

“And?”

“You have her.” Tykir pointed in her direction.

All eyes turned then toward Alinor.

Uh-oh!

Rurik, the mean-spirited oaf, flipped Alinor’s hood back so that her bright red hair sprung forth. By the light of about a hundred candles and an equal number of wall torches, her numerous freckles were no doubt evident, too.

“There is your witch,” Tykir announced, his voice dripping with exasperation. “Lady Alinor of Graycote.”

Throughout the hall, like a ripple in a fast-moving stream, the word passed. “A witch. A witch. A witch. A witch…”