Page 88 of The Bewitched Viking

“Ty-kir?” she inquired in the giggly sweet voice she had heard the housemaids use with Rurik and Adam.

“Hmmm?”

“Would you mind”—giggle, giggle, giggle…Lord, I feel like I’m going to upheave my stomach’s contents—“uh, would you mind if I combed your hair now?”

He stilled. “I already combed my hair.”

She forced herself to giggle again behind a palm pressed coyly over her mouth. “Well, I was thinking that mayhap I could braid your hair because…” Her words trailed off in what she hoped appeared to be shyness.

Alinor did not know how females did this pretend dimwittednesst with men all the time. But she did understand why.

“Because?” Tykir prodded.

“Just in case you get particularly enthusiastic in the mating…well, you know, it would help if your hair did not get in the way.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Tykir exhaled.

Alinor hoped that his use of a Christian expletive was a sign of disorientation indicating that he liked what she’d suggested.

A short time later, Alinor threw the comb to the floor and ran for the doorway. “Do not be upset over being bested, Tykir. ’Tis for the best. Really.”

“Aaarrgh!” Tykir roared like a trapped bear as he stood, intending to come after her, but found that his hair had somehow been braided to the back of his new chair.

She scurried down the second-floor corridor toward the small treasure room, for which Alinor had found a second key several days past while exploring the keep. The last thing she heard before unlocking the door and hiding herself away was Tykir’s ominous message, as he clunked across his bedchamber, the chair obviously being dragged behind him.

“Alinor, you will not have cause to worry over your freckles ever again,” he shouted, “because I intend to skin you alive.”

Five hours had passed, and still Tykir had not found Alinor.

“Mayhap the lady really is a witch. Else how could she have disappeared from the castle unseen?” Girta commented with her usual garrulousness as she placed a trencher of cold pork sausage, leek pie and manchet bread before him on the table, along with a large cup of mead.

“She is not a witch,” he said, surprised at his own firm conviction. “Just a foolhardy woman with a witchly disposition.”

Girta frowned at that seeming illogic.

“There is a difference,” he contended, but declined to explain.

“Bodhil says she saw a cloud of smoke pass over the midden this morn and it resembled a black cat. Some might say ’twas the witch’s familiar come to rescue her. Best you consider the possibility of a curse having been placed on Dragonstead. Have you checked your manpart recently?”

He choked on his mead. “For what?”

“Curves.”

“Alinor is not a witch,” he repeated.

“But where could she have gone? You have had a dozen and more of us searching every corner of the castle, to no avail. Even Rapp. And you know I do not like him wandering about in my clean keep. He leaves a malodorous trail behind him, that he does. Methinks he does it apurpose, to avoid work. That’s why I sent him out to scour the lakeside in hopes the lady was taking her usual walk. Even Beast would not go along with Rapp, such a stink does he make.” On and on Girta went till Tykir thought her gossipy ways would turn his ears numb. Finally, she concluded her rambling with a question. “Wilt thou kill the witch when you catch her?”

“What makes you think I will catch her?”

“Oh, there is no doubt about that. Are you not Tykir the Great, as Bolthor always says?”

“Yea, I am feeling extremely great now,” Tykir said dryly. “But as to your question, yea, I will kill her once I catch her, but there will be a massive amount of torture beforehand.”

“As there should be. As there should be,” Girta commented. “Not that I do not like the Lady Alinor. A fine lady she is. But we cannot have the master of Dragonstead bested by a mere woman, can we? What would the skalds say of that? What will Bolthor say in his next saga?”

“Don’t you dare tell Bolthor about this,” he sputtered.

After Girta left him, Tykir picked at his food and let his gaze wander the great hall. He was alone. No doubt the few soldiers left behind from the hunt were hiding from his unpleasant self. For a certainty, the female servants would not come near him, except for the hearty Girta. He did not blame them, with all the roaring and shouting he’d done this half a wasted day, searching for the elusive wench.