Page 107 of The Bewitched Viking

“What?” she asked, looking up at the woman, who was tall as a man, wide-shouldered, thick-boned, and buxom as a ship’s prow.

“I need a love potion,” Gudny said furtively, shoving a few coins into Alinor’s hand.

Alinor tried to give the money back. “I have no knowledge of love potions.”

“Yea, you must. Witches know things we mortals do not.”

“But I’m not—”

“I’m desperate,” Gudny moaned. “Dost know what it is like to live on my brother’s sufferance? He makes my life miserable. And everybody laughs at me…to think I could not keep the attention of a husband, especially one as worthless as Alfrigg. But I want him back. There’s a ship going to the Irish lands that I could board, if only I was carrying a love potion with me to ensure that he will return with me.” Gudny exhaled loudly after that long-winded exhortation, then added, “Please?”

Alinor racked her brain for advice she could give the poor woman. For a certainty, she knew how Gudny felt living under her brother’s thumb. Suddenly, she inquired, “Have you tried bells?”

Gudny swiped at her tears and brightened. “Bells?”

And Alinor explained a most unusual costume that Gudny could make for herself to entice her wayward husband home. Alfrigg was either going to be overcome with lust or surprise when he saw the big woman adorned like a harem houri.

Alinor was still smiling over that picture long after a wildly thankful Gudny had left her. That’s when Signe, King Anlaf’s daughter, approached her.

“Uh, Lady Alinor, um…” Signe began awkwardly. “I was…uh…speaking with Gudny, and…”

Uh-oh! “Signe, you’re young and beautiful and you’ve only been married a few months. Surely you don’t need a love potion.”

“But I do,” Signe wailed. “I saw Torgunn talking with a Rus slave trader this morn. And ogling a young Slav girl, he was. I suspicion he is going to take her as a bed slave.”

The pig! Alinor thought. In the end, she suggested, hesitantly, “Have you tried feathers?”

When she was done giving her brief explanation, Signe was staring at her with such admiration you’d have thought Alinor had invented gold…or sex. “I don’t know if we have any peacock feathers about. Dost think goose feathers would suffice?”

“I daresay any kind would do,” Alinor said on a laugh. “’Tis the texture, not the looks of the feather that matter.”

“Ooooh!” Signe cooed and shoved a piece of gold into Alinor’s hand.

A number of other women showed up next, but Alinor put up a halting hand. Enough was enough. “I am not a witch!” she’d asserted firmly, and they’d gone off grumbling.

“Have you gained a witch following now, Alinor? A coven, mayhap?” Adam asked, coming up to embrace her in leavetaking.

“Don’t even hint at such a thing.”

“What is the cause of your sudden popularity then?”

“You do not want to know,” she said with a smile.

“Well, I am off then.” He gave her another fierce hug.

“Godspeed,” she answered. “Someday I will expect to hear news of your great fame. The Healing Knight. It has a good sound to it, does it not?”

He smiled warmly down at her. “Alinor, I hate to see you traveling back to Britain alone. Is that really what you want?”

“We’ve had this conversation afore. I have no choice.”

“But you love the oaf…I mean, Tykir…though why I cannot say, he is such a homely beast, unlike me who—”

He ducked when she tried to swat him on the side of the head for his devilment.

“You do love Tykir, don’t you?”

She exhaled loudly. “Yea, I probably do, but—”