Page 77 of The Bewitched Viking

From the kitchen came the chattering voices of house carls and maids at gossip and the delicious scent of meat roasting on a spit. Tykir sniffed several times. Not chicken, thank the gods! Probably reindeer.

He sauntered over to Rurik, who was whittling shards of wood off a chunk of oak and forming them into crosses on leather neck thongs. Tykir shook his head in amusement at his friend, who appeared to be amassing a fortune off the back of Lady Alinor…or rather her tail.

Tykir was still chuckling over the tale Rurik had regaled him with the night before in his bedchamber, something about a grand jest the witch had played on him involving an eel skin. He had to give the lady her due. He had not thought she had a bit of humor in her bones.

Bolthor, who’d accompanied Rurik to Tykir’s room, had then burst into a new saga:

“Slippery and slimy

The rascal was…

The eel,

Not the blue-faced warrior.

But the witch was

Smarter than both of them.

For she got the last laugh.”

“I swear, Bolthor, someone is going to slice off your tongue one of these days,” Rurik had raged. “Your sagas get worse and worse. And I’d better not hear that particular one being recited belowstairs. I’ll not be the jest of any more of your stories.”

“Why should you be any different than the rest of us?” Tykir had remarked with a chuckle.

But now Tykir was making his first trip downstairs since his illness began. His fever was gone, and his leg felt better than it had in years…flexible and pain-free. He supposed he had the witch to thank for that.

“Where is she?” he asked Rurik as he dropped down to the bench beside him.

“Well and good you should ask!” Rurik growled and continued with his whittling.

A maid handed Tykir a cup of mulled ale, along with a trencher piled high with several slices of flat bread and some skyr. At least it was not gammelost, he thought, though he would not tell the Saxon wench that he, too, was sick of the smelly fare. Then he berated himself for always thinking about the wench. She was ever on his mind these many days, and he did not know why, nor care at all for the obsession.

“Where is she?” he repeated to Rurik.

“Walking.”

“Walking? Where? The parapets?”

“Nay, not the parapets. That would be the choice of a normal woman.”

A long silence followed. “Well, speak up, man. Where is she walking?”

“Around the lake.”

“The lake! ’Tis colder than a witch’s tit out there.” He immediately realized the fitting nature of his choice of words when Rurik slanted him a look of approval and said, “Indeed!”

“Really, Rurik! Lady Alinor could get lost, or freeze to death in these strange surroundings.”

“Oh, that we would be so lucky!” He continued his infernal whittling and added, “Beast is with her. Of course, Beast is always with her. The animal is no longer my pet. In truth, he gives me the same condescending, I-am-better-than-thou looks as the witch when he passes by. Furthermore, Beast laid a pile of dung in my bedchamber yestereve after I yelled at the witch for her eel prank. Methinks it was deliberate.”

Tykir put a hand over his mouth to hide an unbidden smile. But, actually, Rurik’s continual criticism of Alinor was starting to annoy him. Not that Alinor didn’t annoy him, too. But it was not Rurik’s place to…well, never mind. He cut those wayward thoughts short and took a long drink of mead. Once he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he commented, “I have been thinking…I am not so sure the Lady Alinor really is a witch.”

“Easy for you to say! You have been lying abed these many days whilst she conjured up trouble hither and yon.”

“Like what?” he scoffed.

“The chicken soup, for one.”