Page 32 of The Caged Viking

“As if you have any say in the matter! As long as I have my arm rings, I can go wherever I want,” she asserted.

But that was her mistake, giving him information to use against her. “Is that so?” Hauk said, and before she could run away, he wrapped his hands in scraps of linen and pulled her arm rings off, tucking the bundles inside his tunic. “For safekeeping,” he assured her with a self-satisfied grin.

She attempted to hit him then, but he ducked and she ended up tossing the shield which she probably intended for his head but instead landed at his feet. He laughed, he couldn’t help himself.

“Where is that cockson Hauk Thorsson?” a male voice boomed outside the tent, interrupting whatever his wife intended next.

It was Sweyn and he was not in good humor, as evidenced by the sounds of Egil trying to explain their delay. “There was a family crisis, which required my master to handle some other priorities.”

“Other priorities? How dare he fail to obey my summons to council? How dare he force me to come to him?”

“I’m sure he will apologize profusely when he gets a chance—”

“Apologize? Apologize? I’ll give the loutling an apology with the side of my sword across his arse. And where is that blonde sorceress? The witch best not have flown away afore I have a chance to examine her myself. Legend says witches have three tits? What think you, Egil?”

“Um,” Egil said. “They are both inside the tent.”

“Praise the gods! I am in the mood to lop off a head, or two.”

Chapter 8

This was “Living History” at its best…or worst…

Kirstin was sitting next to Hauk in the midst of Sweyn Forkbeard’s war council. Under a large, open-sided tent, a huge makeshift table (the bed of a weapons cart) rested on several hastily constructed trestles. Thanks to two sets of planks from the sides of the cart, braced on a number of war chests, a dozen or so Viking hersirs lined both sides of the table. She was the only woman present, except for three maids serving munchies…hunks of flat manchet bread, slices of hard cheese, some ribs or legs of rare (okay, bloody) animals…boar, rabbit, whatever, or pouring many pitchers of mead or ale into wooden goblets or the men’s own horns which they carried on loops at their belts.

Wow! In her wildest dreams (and, yes, this was a dream, sort of, maybe), she…a professor of Nordic Studies… couldn’t have imagined such a living vision of the past. She wished she had her iPad with her so that she could take notes…better yet, a video camera… for when she got back home.

If I ever get back home, she reminded herself.

She immediately wiped that thought from her mind, not wanting to contemplate such a horrific possibility. Besides, there were more important, more immediate problems. She was still trying to come to terms with that magical out-of-body experience that had occurred last night during the wedding. The spin through space and walls that had landed them, not back at Blue Dragon, which is what she’d hoped would happen after rescuing Hauk, but outside the castle, and now in the middle of the huge tent city of Sweyn Forkbeard’s army, roughly five hundred warriors, who were preparing for the upcoming battle.

There were a numbers of issues Kirstin had to deal with, ASAP.

First of all, what had happened to her, and Hauk, last night was unlike her first time-travel experience, from Rosestead to Winchester. Just poof! One place to the other! Easy peasy! But this time, there had been no poof involved. Instead, it had been a whirling, wide-awake thrust over a short distance, from inside to outside a building. Not really time travel. More like teletransport, or something.

Aarrgh! Where is Spock or a scientist to explain this phenomenon? If there is any explanation. She was still leaning toward the celestial involvement theory.

Secondly, this latest event had happened without her being in charge of the rudder, so to speak. A dangerous thing, that.

Can I trust a man…a Viking man…an ancient Viking man…to determine my fate?

Hell, no!

Nothing personal, Hauk. It’s a female independence thing. I wouldn’t let my brothers arrange a blind date for me, let alone arrange my future. As for my father, he’d probably have me wedded and bedded and heavy with child, if he had his way.

Third, she was now without the arm rings that presumably were the key to her reverse time travel.

What will I do if Hauk gets himself killed and I can’t get to his body before the scavengers arrive to loot the corpses? Morbid, yes, but I’ve got to get those arm rings back before tomorrow.

All these were problems to be pondered or solved later. For now, she had to appreciate the irony of the moment, a professor of Ancient Norse listening to people speak Old Norse, the real deal. Actually, she probably would have understood most of it anyway because Old Norse (which in no way resembled modern Norwegian) had a sprinkling of English words in it. In fact, many English words stemmed from Old Norse. The closest there was to Old Norse in modern times was Icelandic.

Anyway, sitting here among these Dark Age Vikings, well, it was like being in a History Channel video on medieval warfare. Or a reality TV show. And she was the star. Or one of them.

The other star was sitting next to her, calm as you please, unlike how he’d been on the way here, upset over his encounter with his son and then several almost-fights with Viking acquaintances who’d made jokes about “a caged Viking,” calling out such things as, “How does a caged Viking have sex?” The answer made had been, “Like a dog. He licks his own balls.” And yet another fool Viking had remarked, “Hmmm. To develop that skill I might live in a cage, too. Ha, ha, ha!”

Although there had been no all-out brawls, several Vikings were now sporting bloody noses or black eyes. And Hauk’s knuckles were scraped and swollen.

Men!