Page 74 of The Bewitched Viking

“What in bloody hell do you want now?” the surly knight answered her.

Well, I certainly feel no guilt now.

At first he paid her no nevermind, just murmured something about wenches having no business in a man’s workroom. So, she wandered around the room, examining the armor and shields and deadly weapons that lay about.

The rasp of a sword edge along the whetstone slowed, then stopped.

A bare instant later, Rurik emitted a loud masculine shriek, then a shout of “Aaaaack! Run, everyone! Run!” that reverberated throughout the castle. As Alinor scurried through the kitchen, tossing the eel skin under the table, paying no nevermind to a clucking Girta, she heard one of the young armor boys back in the guard room say, “The master Rurik ’pears to be having a fit. His mouth is sucking in and out like a fjord flounder.”

Alinor hid in the buttery for more than an hour, laughing till tears rolled down her cheeks. What had possessed her? It was the most foolish, impetuous, uncharacteristic thing she had ever done in her entire life. And the most satisfying.

The scent of roses drew Tykir from his deep sleep.

He tried to prop himself up on his elbows, but he was weak as dragon piss. His body weighed him down to the mattress, heavy and aching. Most of the ache was centered in his thigh, which throbbed painfully. But, in truth, he felt better than he had in days.

The roses pulled at Tykir’s senses…a memory tugging at him that he couldn’t quite grasp. Was he in an English flower garden? Or an eastern harem, where floral oils were often used by the hour is? He opened his leaden eyelids slowly and realized he was in the huge bedstead in his upper chamber at Dragonstead. The air was chill in the room, though he was warm as a babe in the womb under the layers of bed furs covering his body. And there was some heat generated by the roaring fire he heard crackling in the fireplace, though the hearth heat did not fill the entire chamber. Sometimes the walls were covered with ice in winter, even as the fire blazed.

Tykir turned his head slowly on the pillow toward the hearth. Ahhhh! Now he recognized the source of the rose scent.

Lady Alinor, of the rose-scented hair.

He licked his dry lips and tried to focus. He was not really surprised to see the witch standing there. Every time he’d awakened during the past three days of fever, she’d been in his bedchamber, leaning over him, pressing cool cloths to his forehead, forcing spoonfuls of chicken broth into his mouth. It wasn’t that the broth tasted vile; there was just so much of it. In his dreams, he’d taken to crowing like a rooster. At least he wasn’t laying eggs. Yet.

Had she really pinched his nose to force his mouth open? She would pay for that.

He’d been barely conscious…seeing everything through a filmy haze…sometimes flailing and muttering senselessly…but he’d recognized her as a continuing presence during his illness. And been strangely comforted.

It was probably a spell.

Alinor was combing her wet hair in front of the fire…thus the roses. Damn his sister-by-marriage for giving Alinor the hair cream. Just how much had she given her? Hopefully, Alinor would run out soon. Then again, mayhap he did not really want her to stop enticing him thus. Aaarrgh! I’m being driven mad by rose hair cream. Could Eadyth perchance be a witch, too?

Alinor must have just taken a bath because she wore a loose chemise, the type women usually donned after rising from their baths. Over and over, she raised the ivory comb—his comb, he realized by the by, with an odd tug in his chest—then pulled it through the waist-length strands. Each time she lifted her arm, the outline of her breast under the white linen raised, as well. Every time she followed through on the comb stroke, the breast relaxed into its natural, delicious shape.

Someday he would like to watch her perform this sensuous exercise nude. And he had no trouble imagining how she would look. He knew exactly how to picture the witch naked. It was an exercise at which he’d become adept.

He stared, mesmerized, at the rhythmic motion of her hand, and her body in profile.

And another part of his body reacted to the rhythm with a hardening rhythm of its own. Leastways the fever had not caused any permanent damage to vital organs.

He tried to smile, but his chapped lips cracked. He barely noticed, though, because his eyes were already fluttering closed. There must be some sleeping herb in that bloody chicken brew.

As he drifted off to sleep again, he began to dream. And they were very interesting dreams. Not just erotic, which were his favorite kind, but accompanied by their very own smell.

Roses, of course.

It was an odor that drew Tykir out of sleep once again. But not roses.

Chicken broth, he realized sluggishly and gagged. “Yeech.” Which gave the witch an opportunity to shove a wooden spoon sloshing chicken broth into his mouth, practically to his throat. He knew it was the witch because his eyes shot wide open.

It must have been some time since his last awakening because Alinor’s hair was dry now and hanging in a single braid down her back. Her chemise was covered with a dark green, thick wool gunna, covered with an open-sided Viking apron.

Too bad! He much preferred her earlier attire. Or non-attire.

Oh, well, I can always imagine her naked.

“You’re awake,” she said cheerily. I am not in the mood for cheerily. She shoved another spoonful of the broth into his mouth. I am not in the mood for more chicken broth. This one had a glob of dough floating on top. I am not in the mood for globs of dough.

“Glpugglup,” he sputtered as he attempted to choke and speak and chew at the same time. Then he grabbed the wrist of the hand dipping the empty spoon into a bowl on the bedside table and growled, “Yea, I’m awake. How can I not be awake with all that slop you are feeding me?”