Page 67 of The Last Viking

“I’ll show you overwhelmed,” she raged.

“You will? Ah, I can scarce wait. Will it be a sexual trick?”

“Let me loose,” she demanded.

He tightened her linens, instead. “Is it wise to turn your face so red, my love? I don’t want you to swoon with the vapors afore we settle our other obstacles.”

She went still with suspicion. “What other obstacles?”

“The divorce.”

“I beg your pardon. You asked me to marry you only a few moments ago. Now, you’re planning the divorce. Oh, no! You’re not talking about a prenuptial agreement, are you?”

“Prenuptial what? Oh, that. Nay. I meant that I will be leaving your land in a few short weeks, and—”

“You intend to leave? But I thought—”

“You thought I would stay now that we have acknowledged our love?” he finished softly.

She nodded.

“It cannot be. My mission remains the same. I have to return the relic as I promised my father. I’ve been researching tenth-century Norway in your library and on the Internet. There are references to a famine late in the tenth century.”

“That may well be, but I keep telling you, I don’t think you can change history.”

“Mayhap not, but what of changes within history?”

She waited for him to explain.

“Since the books give no date when the famine ended, perchance my intervention will cut it short by months or years. And there is another concern.” He worried his bottom lip with his upper teeth as he contemplated something that clearly alarmed him. “I discovered in one of your history tomes that Aethelred, the slimy bastard, intends to slay all Norsemen in Britain five years hence, in 1002, including the Viking settlers and hired soldiers in his own service. Amongst those to fall under his blade will be the sister and the brother-by-marriage of King Svein of Denmark. Duty compels me to give my fellow Vikings fair warning of Aethelred’s evil designs.”

“Now, that is changing history. And you must know, if you read farther into those texts, that there will be massive retaliations against Aethelred in subsequent years. And ultimately, around 1017, a young Viking knight, Cnut, will conquer all of Britain. England will be under Viking rule for twenty-five years after that. So, in a sense, what goes around, comes around.”

“I am unfamiliar with this go around—come around rule. I just know I must return to my homeland, to complete the circle.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” she decided suddenly.

His expression hardened. “It cannot be.”

“You made the offer to me before,” she pointed out.

“Yea, but that was afore I loved you. I’m not even sure that the Demon Moon time hole will work for me. And I would never, ever risk your life in the effort to perform my mission. Besides, you’ll have your own grandsire’s quest to carry through when I’m gone. I can build your longship, but I’ll not be here for the sailing.”

“So, what does all this have to do with a divorce?”

He swallowed with some difficulty, and then proceeded, “When I am gone, I do not want you to grieve…leastways, not overlong. In time, you’ll want to wed again.” He raised a palm to stop her objections. “That’s why we’ll exchange only the Norse vows. No Papist rite, which is more binding. Divorce is simple in my society. A mere declaration of intent afore witnesses and a stating of the grounds for complaint.”

“Like?” she said through gritted teeth. Lord, he was a thick-headed ass if he thought she’d do any such thing.

“Any number of just causes. Impotence, the woman wearing men’s braies, the man donning feminine apparel, miserliness—”

“I’ll bet a wife’s being barren is one of those just causes.”

“I thought I told you not to mention that subject again. By the by, did I neglect to tell you, a willful wife is one of the biggest reasons for divorce?”

“How about a husband who refuses to listen to his wife?”

“That, too,” he said with a grin.