Page 5 of The Caged Viking

All of this extravagant food was indicative of not just a royal household, but some special occasion. Easter, Kirsten guessed, when she noticed the rounds of bread with a cross imprinted on them. Hot cross buns, anyone? That and the mountains of hard-boiled eggs were clues that it was a holy feast. She recalled that the tradition had been for people to give up eggs for Lent back in the Dark Ages, but not wanting them to spoil during those forty days of fasting, they were boiled and preserved in brine or some other manner until Easter when there would be an overabundance of the suckers to be consumed.

But none of this was important to Kirsten. The main point of this dream, its star, was in another part of the hall. Carefully, she made her way toward the lower, darker end of the massive room where a large wooden cage was situated. There was a sputtering wall torch nearby which gave her just enough light to make out the hazy figure inside.

“Hello,” she said. Well, that was dumb. But, really, what does one say to a man in a cage? In a dream, no less.

No reaction. He just stared at her. Maybe he couldn’t see her either. But, no, he pushed away from the back wall of his cage and walked toward her, stopping about a yard away from the nearer bars.

He was tall, at least six feet three, Kirsten gauged by her own five ten. Filthy and reeking of BO. Long hair, which might be blond under all that grime, was roughly braided tonight in one long coil down his back. Pale grayish-blue eyes were startling, especially contrasted by oddly dark lashes. He wore nothing but a scrap of fur around his hips. The rest of his skin was marred with old and new scars and bruises. He was far too thin for his tall physique.

“My name is Kirsten Magnusson, and you are…?”

Still no reaction.

She repeated her introduction in Old Norse.

Was that a tiny flutter of his eyelashes?

“You’re a Viking, right? Me, too. Well, I like to say Norse-American. Same thing. You might have known my father at one time. Magnus Ericsson.” She, who was comfortable addressing a symposium of two hundred students or a conference of colleagues, was babbling with nervousness.

And he was looking at her like the babbling idiot she was.

“This is just a dream,” she said then, giving an unasked-for excuse for babbling. “I’m not sure why you’re plaguing me every night, like some ghost or spirit or something.”

That was definitely a movement of his eyelashes. In fact, she could swear he rolled his eyes.

“I think you’ve been calling to me to come save you.”

His eyes scanned her body, head to toe and back up again, obviously finding her lacking in the Knight-ess in Shining Armor category. He glanced right and left to see if she had someone with her, like maybe a small army, then shook his head.

“I know. I don’t have any troops to back me up. Not even my brothers who, believe me, are always up for a good fight. But I’m smart. Suffice it to say, I can probably figure something out.”

Her Viking spoke for the first time then, in a voice raspy from lack of use, or maybe he’d been choked at one time. “Did Sweyn send you?”

“Swane who?”

“Sweyn Forkbeard.”

“Oh. No, I came on my own.” But at least now she had a better idea of the time period. Sweyn Forkbeard hadn’t invaded England until 1014.

“Lucky me!” he remarked on her solitary rescue mission. “Key?” he asked.

She looked around but didn’t see any evidence of a key. In fact, she couldn’t imagine anyone entering this cage if they valued their life. They probably just passed food or water through the bars. Yes, there was that little door over there at the bottom corner, like a doggie gate.

“Knife?”

“No, but I could probably get one. Better yet, I could grab one of those swords off the wall over there, if they’re not too heavy. Don’t they have any lady swords? Ha, ha, ha.”

“Halfwit!” His word was harshly uttered and blunt, and oddly sexy with its hoarseness.

“What? You think I can’t do it?”

“Go. Away.”

“I wish I could.”

“Trouble!” he said with a snort of disgust.

She wasn’t sure if he meant that he was in trouble…