Page 7 of The Bewitched Viking

But it was the Viking in the middle—the apparent leader—who caught and held her interest. Alinor’s head had never been turned by a man’s pleasing countenance in the past. It was now.

His long hair was light brown streaked with pale yellow strands, giving the appearance of shimmering gold—the effect caused by the bleaching effects of the sun during many years on the open seas, she would wager. He was older than the rest, possibly five and thirty, and godly handsome. Blessed St. Bonifice! His years sat well on him, indeed.

His hair, too, was braided, but only on one side, where a silver earring in the shape of a thunderbolt dangled from one exposed ear. Dressed all in black—braies, tunic, belt—he was covered shoulder to ankle by a cloak of magnificent wool of the best quality, lined with black sable. The cloak was pinned off one shoulder with a heavy gold brooch in a design of intertwining snakes with clear chrysolite eyes. Hanging from a chain around his neck was an amber pendant in the shape of a star with a bloodred drop in the center.

“Well?” he said, his honey brown eyes taking her measure with icy disdain.

“Wh-what?” He must have been talking while her mind had been woolgathering.

“I said, my lady,” he repeated with exaggerated patience, “é heiti Tykir…My name is Jarl Tykir Thorksson, and I have not come this great distance for your food or drink.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Why then have you come?”

“’Tis for you I have come, Lady Alinor.”

“Show me your tail.”

“Ta-tail…?” Alinor reeled inwardly with shock. Oooh! She would like nothing more than to take a wooden trencher off the table and whack the thick head of the crude oaf, Tykir Thorksson. His reference to a witch tail was the latest in a series of outrageous remarks he’d made to her since they’d come from the sheep pasture, the first and most outrageous being that he’d come all the way from Norway for her.

She was sitting next to him at the high table in her great hall with an iron hand clamped on her forearm, locking her to the arm of her chair. Otherwise, she’d have risen long ago and exited his presence, forthwith. He and his two comrades had refused to leave her out of their sights since returning to the manor house, not even when she’d gone to the garderobe.

“Listen, uh…” The brute had informed her from the first of his title, jarl, which was one step below a king and similar in nobility to an English lord. He held this rank of the upper Norse nobility, thanks to bloodlines linking his grandsire, the famous, long-dead King Harald Fairhair. As if she cared whether he was a lowly thrall or a high jarl! Or whether he was Viking, Frank, or Saxon, for that matter. The man was still a crude oaf. But how does one address a Viking of higher station? My lord? My jarl? My barbarian? “Listen, my jarl—”

He let out a hoot of laughter. “Call me Tykir.”

Nay, a wooden trencher would be too mild a punishment for this one. Better a rock. A big one.

“Well, are you going to show me your buttocks and end these bothersome protests? If you have no tail, prove it…though I am inclined to believe that a true witch could make a tail appear and disappear at will.”

Despite her efforts at restraint, she bared her teeth and made a low hissing sound of affront.

He grinned.

“If I were a true witch, I would put a spell on you right now and turn you into a toad.”

He laughed. “Be that as it may, I have wasted more than enough time in pursuit of you. I expect to be aboard my longship in Jorvik three days hence. So end your senseless malingering.”

Aaarrrgh! She’d been trying to convince the stubborn blackguard of her innocence ever since he’d told her out on the fells that he’d come to Graycote for the witch who’d put a spell on some Viking king. A likely story! No doubt he was searching for a target to pillage. Well, he’d find naught of worth in her poor keep. Or perhaps he hoped to kidnap her for hostage. Little did he know that her brothers wouldn’t pay even a farthing for her return. Her only value to them was in the bride price they received for her every blessed time they arranged another marriage…along with the estates that ceded to her on widowhood, of course.

And her aging castellan, Gerald, would be of no hope. She grimaced with dismay as her gaze hit on her supposed protector, leader of her hird of soldiers. He was over there at the end of the high table, nodding off to sleep, and it barely past high noon. These Vikings must think they’d been handed a gift from their heathen gods on viewing the weak protection of her keep. Hah! That was a deliberate tactic on her part. Her prosperous farms and sheep pastures were in sharp contrast to the starkness of her keep, which was well-maintained and stocked with provisions, but with no embellishments or luxurious furbelows, like wall tapestries or silver tableware. If ever Alinor enlarged her timber and stone manor house into a fine castle, Egbert and Hebert would take it from her in a trice. The same was true of her hird of soldiers under Gerald’s leadership. Strong fighting men would just draw her brothers’ attention.

“Look at it this way, you have no children here that demand your presence,” the Viking said.

Huh? She’d been half-attending while the insensitive clod prattled on.

“You are free to leave your estate in the care of minions. Actually, you could consider this a pleasure trip to the Norse lands.” He folded his arms and puffed out his chest then, well pleased with himself for coming up with that ludicrous justification for his actions.

“A pleasure trip?” She could scarce keep her voice down to a low shriek. “Wouldst that be comparable to plucking out a person’s fingernails and calling it good grooming?”

“Probably,” he said unabashedly.

She thought a moment. “How do you know whether I have children?”

“Your castellan told me so.”

She was going to have a serious talk with Gerald about his loose tongue. In the meantime, if he could bring up children, then so could she. “What will your children think of you hauling an unwilling woman halfway ’round the world?”

His face turned a rosy shade of red under his deeply tanned skin. “I have no children…that I know of.”