Page 111 of The Bewitched Viking

Pity? Is this what I’ve come to? He lifted his chin, but not because he wanted to keep tears from welling over in his eyes. He refused to believe he actually had moisture welling there. Nay, he wanted to show her that he could be stubborn, too. He wanted to show her that he could be as heartless and uncaring as she was now. He wanted…so many things.

Dashing his pride aside, he inquired, “Are you sure this is what you want, Alinor?”

She nodded, her eyes huge with unshed tears. Tears of pity, no doubt.

“You have other choices, sweetling.” God, I am pathetic.

She tried to smile at his endearment but could not. “Nay, I do not. It is my final decision…mine to make, not yours.”

He swallowed over the lump in his throat. “And you will be safe from your brothers’ machinations?”

She nodded again. “Try to understand. It’s for the best.”

Best? Whose best? he roared inside. I am dying, and she says it is for the best.

She put out a pleading hand, as if to touch his arm. He could not stand that now. It would be his undoing. So, he slapped her hand aside.

She put the hand to her mouth to hold back a sob. But he could see that she was not going to change her mind.

“So be it,” he said finally. Before he spun on his heel to walk stiffly away from her, he took Egbert and Hebert by the necks and cracked their heads together, just for the pleasure of it, for all their past misuse of Alinor and to ease this wild need to go berserk. “Hurt her and you hurt me,” he murmured under his breath to the two whimpering brothers.

Then, without another word to her or even one final, lingering look, he turned his back and stomped away.

As he left he thought he heard her murmur, “I love you.”

But he must have been mistaken.

Alinor arrived on British soil a mere two sennights later, and she was not in a good temperament. Her brothers probably wished they’d never come after her.

She’d done nothing but vomit with the seasickness, despite the placid seas. When she wasn’t emptying the contents of her stomach, she’d been eating everything in sight.

Or she’d been rushing for the chamber pot in a screened-off area to relieve herself. There was something to be said for the male anatomy, which allowed men to just whip out their manparts and take care of matters over the ship’s side, she’d thought on more than one occasion. And crying…Blessed Mary, she’d done more weeping and sobbing than ever before in her entire life. If she hadn’t been making water from one end it had been the other. Good thing she was inclined to sleep so much.

Furthermore, she’d taken every free moment to berate her lackwitted brothers for every infraction they’d levied against her in the past twenty-five years. And she had a long list.

They were walking through the Coppergate district of Jorvik now, heading toward the horse stables, where Egbert and Hebert intended to buy some steeds to take them to her—their—estate in Wessex and an eventual parade of prospective bridegrooms. ’Twas enough to make her vomit again.

Suddenly, Alinor came to a screeching halt, causing Egbert and Hebert to run into her back end, which had grown decidedly wider of late, she’d noticed. It was a smell that had drawn her attention. She glanced to the side and smiled. Gammelost. It was a Norseman’s booth in the craftsmen’s district of Coppergate. Amongst the intricately carved bowls and furniture, there was a linen cloth heaped with the smelly Viking cheese intended for the man’s midday meal. Alinor pulled a coin from the cloth flap at her waist and smiled.

A short time later, as she stood gobbling the cheese down as if it was ambrosia of the gods, Egbert and Hebert approached her with the horses in lead reins. They looked at her, then at each other, then blurted out simultaneously, “Are you with child?”

“Huh?” Alinor said, setting aside the cheese, which suddenly appeared disgusting. “Do not be ridiculous.” As she fought off the urge to vomit, or make water, or weep, all at the same time, she stared at Egbert and Hebert as if they were even more demented than usual.

Then she thought, Could I be?

Nay. I am barren. Three husbands have I had and never quickened before.

But what if Tykir’s seed were more potent? Or my womb more receptive? What if…oh, praise God!…what if I am carrying Tykir’s child?

But she would have known, wouldn’t she? Well, actually, she would not. Her monthly fluxes had always been irregular…’twas why she had reasoned in the past that she could not conceive. Plus, she had told Tykir once when he commented on her weak or nonexistent monthly fluxes that her body was probably affected by the cold, or the change of place, or all that lovemaking.

She felt foolish now, not to have suspected.

Then she put a hand over her stomach and remembered a night—’twas Christ’s Eve, less than four short months ago—when Tykir had made tender love to her after gifting her with the magical amber neck ring. Hadn’t she felt afterwards that something special had happened?

It had.

She burst out with joyous laughter. “Yea, I am pregnant. I have conceived the troll’s child. Isn’t that the most wonderful news in the world?”