Page 11 of The Reluctant Viking

She and Thork climbed a slight incline to a fortified area and passed through a well-guarded gate. All around the courtyard, nobly dressed Viking men and women stepped aside to make way for them. Thork nodded to those who greeted him. Curious stares fell on Ruby.

They climbed steps to a massive timber and stone building, its wooden eaves carved with intricate Nordic symbols. King Sigtrygg’s castle! At the top of the steps, Olaf stood, holding open a heavy oak door for her and his master. When she passed, Ruby glanced up at the giant and saw a gentle compassion there. For her! The terrifying realization numbed her.

The cold fear which had flowed forebodingly through her blood earlier turned into daggers of ice.

Chapter Three

Like Alice in Wonderland falling through the garden hole, Ruby felt as if she’d plunged into another world. Indeed, she had.

Olaf held Ruby back with a raised arm as they entered the great hall of the Norse palace, an enormous room whose stone walls were adorned with magnificent tapestries and primitive weaponry. Selik and Cnut joined a group of well-dressed Viking men who saluted them with hearty shouts and comradely slaps on their backs. She and Olaf followed several yards behind Thork, crushing fragrant rushes in their path. Thork strode toward a raised dais.

“Good tidings, Thork! Welcome to Jorvik.”

“Well met, Sigtrygg. ’Tis good to be home.”

An immense, hairy man stood and lumbered toward Thork, dwarfing his six-foot-three frame by at least a head. A wide chain belt dangled noisily at the waist of his knee-length purple tunic, which was embroidered exquisitely with gold thread and accented by three jewel-encrusted brooches at one shoulder. Soft leather cross-gartered shoes and tight black leggings covered limbs as big as tree trunks.

Despite the fine attire, the bearlike Viking was ugly as sin. Puckered and scarred skin, devoid of eyebrows and eyelashes, surrounded the one mutilated eye, which stared straight ahead endlessly. Other battle scars marred his face and neck and every area of exposed flesh. God pity Athelstan’s sister, Ruby thought.

Thick gold bracelets encircling the bulging muscles of Sigtrygg’s upper arms sparkled in the lamplight as he embraced Thork and drew him to an empty chair beside him, where Thork nodded to the men and women already seated there.

“’Tis overlong we have waited for you, Thork,” the king complained accusingly. “What news bring you?”

“Thank Thor for my delay and mayhap the mischievous Loki,” Thork responded quickly, unbending under the king’s cool question, refusing to apologize.

“More likely wenches from here to Hedeby and beyond still lay with widespread legs,” the king remarked snidely with an unpleasant snort of disbelief.

Thork’s face stiffened, but he wisely chose not to rise to Sigtrygg’s bait.

“I bring you greetings from my father Harald, as well as an important message from King Athelstan in Wessex.”

Sigtrygg and the others leaned forward with interest.

“’Tis naught of importance the Saxon bastard could say to me,” Sigtrygg bragged, taking a deep swallow from his goblet, then holding it out to a servant for a refill.

“He offers you his sister in marriage to strengthen the alliance between Wessex and Northumbria,” Thork blurted out.

Stunned, the king just gaped at Thork dumbly. Then he hooted gleefully and began to laugh loud enough to raise the roof, joined by the other Vikings. When he finally stopped, tears glistened in the giant king’s one good eye and he held his side.

“By Freya’s tits, the Saxon cub oversteps himself! Thinks he we Vikings are so starved for females in our beds that we drool over the maidenheads of their skinny bitches?” His crude remark drew guffaws from the men and blushes from the women before he continued, “Three wives I cover now. What need have I for another?”

“Nay, Sigtrygg. Think on it. ’Twould be folly to toss this offer in the midden without further thought,” Thork cautioned. “Much there is to be gained in this marriage for you.”

Sigtrygg appeared ready to argue but then demanded of Thork, “Explain yourself. What profit be there for me in the bedding of an English whelp?”

“Even as the Saxons grasp our hands in treaty, they plot our downfall,” Thork lashed out. “Alfred agreed to the Danelaw some fifty years ago, but, at the same time, he launched a plan to fortify towns so that no part of Wessex would be more than twenty miles from a military center.”

“We know all that.” Sigtrygg disregarded Thork’s information with a wave of his hand.

“Know you that Alfred’s son, King Edward, and now his son Athelstan continue that fortification plan? Know you that more than thirty walled military burhs dot the Wessex countryside and more are planned?” Thork’s angry voice echoed loudly across the silent hall. He boldly looked Sigtrygg in his one good eye and informed him bravely, “I mislike being the butt of any man’s joke, least of all the bloody Saxons. A favorite saying amongst them these days is, ‘Edward broke the back of the Norsemen. Athelstan will cut off their balls.’”

At those words, Thork looked directly at Ruby’s shirt logo and frowned, as if wondering for the first time if the Saxons, not Ivar, had sent her. Pensively, he studied her.

“Thor’s lips! You go too far!” Sigtrygg bellowed, standing to his full height like an outraged grizzly. Spittle flecked his thick, reddish beard.

“Nay, ’tis not far enough.” Thork stood, facing off his outraged leader. “’Tis time someone bespoke the truth about the weakness of your position and—”

Sigtrygg let out a bull-like yell that echoed through the hall, and his face turned purple with rage. To Thork’s credit, he didn’t cower.