Page 65 of The Reluctant Viking

“Your plan did not work, did it?” Ella asked gently when Ruby finally dried her eyes and blew her nose on a linen cloth.

“Yes and no,” Ruby snuffled.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I tried to seduce Thork and ended up the seducee.”

“Huh?”

Ruby suffered miserably that evening when neither Thork nor Linette showed up in the great hall for dinner. The next morning Ella informed her that Thork had gone off for several days to Jorvik where he would ready his ship for sailing.

“Linette went along fer the company,” she added, rolling her eyes dramatically. “And Gyda be spittin’ mad that Linette travels with her husband, sez she does not trust the witch with her man. Aud and the master bin’ arguing sumpin’ fierce all day and she sez she will not speak to him till he gets the wench a husbin. And the master Dar sez all the trouble began when you came to the manor.”

“Me?” Ruby exclaimed after Ella’s long-winded ramble. “What have I to do with Linette’s alley-cat morality?”

“’Twould seem Linette hid her doin’s better till this past few days when you arrived.”

Ruby realized as she looked up to the dais that evening that this time Ella had her facts straight. Aud deliberately turned her face away from Dar throughout the meal and talked only to her other eating companions. Dar’s face reddened as he downed one horn of ale after another, refusing food. Once he looked directly at Ruby and glared. It seemed Ruby had one more vote against her at the Althing.

The next morning, after breaking her fast on bannock and cheese, Ruby sought out Aud. She found her in the large, separate outside kitchen where she was removing several baskets from their pegs on the walls.

“I go now to gather mushrooms. Tomorrow we will dry them,” Aud told the cook.

“Can I come with you?” Ruby asked.

Aud jumped in surprise, clasping her chest. “Why?”

“I used to pick mushrooms with my grandmother. I was pretty good at selecting the nonpoisonous ones, but you may have different varieties here. You could show me.”

Aud looked suspicious and not too excited about her company, but she didn’t deny Ruby’s request.

“Would you object if I asked Eirik and Tykir to come with us? Perhaps we could bring a basket of food with us and eat our midday meal outdoors by the pond.”

A brief look of something akin to pain flickered on Aud’s face before she deliberately masked her face with blankness. “Eirik went with Thork and Olaf to help load the ships.”

“How about Tykir?”

After a long pause, Aud replied, “If you wish.”

When their baskets overflowed with the succulent fungi, they returned to the pond and spread their food over a flat boulder. Tykir played merrily at the edge of the water, trying to catch a frog which kept eluding his slippery grasp. Ruby saw Aud gazing at him with sad, yearning eyes.

Now that she had Aud alone, Ruby broached the subject that bothered her most. “Aud, I’m worried about Eirik and Tykir, especially since Thork will be leaving soon.”

Aud got up and started to clear away the food items, not wanting to engage in this forbidden subject.

“Aud, I wouldn’t bring this up if I didn’t truly care about your great-grandsons. If Thork insists on leaving them in someone else’s care, why can’t they stay with you?”

“’Tis Thork’s decision. Whether I agree or not is unimportant. ’Tis for their own safety.”

The look on Ruby’s face must have lacked understanding because Aud continued, “You have ne’er met Harald and his vicious family. Pray God, you ne’er do.” Tears misted Aud’s eyes and her voice cracked as she went on, “Our only child, Enid, a beautiful, gentle soul, went to him, despite our wishes. ’Tis not unusual for a Viking to have more than one wife, especially the high-kings. Two there were in Harald’s household afore Enid. She loved him so much it mattered naught, but when he put her and eight other wives aside for his new wife Ragnhild, in addition to numerous mistresses, the shame killed her. They say she took her own life, but, to my mind, ’twas the evil Harald who killed her.”

Aud wiped her eyes angrily. “We tried to get Thork after Enid’s death, to have him live here with us, but Harald would not allow it. Ne’er mind that he has bred twenty sons or more, not that many of them lived to manhood. The brothers kill each other right and left in their ambition to succeed their father as high-king.”

“That’s why Thork decided to become a Jomsviking, isn’t it?”

“Yea. How he lived to age fourteen in that bloody household, I will ne’er know. He will not talk of it. I do know his half-brother Eric…Eric Bloodaxe, they name him…vowed long ago to see Thork dead and all that he holds dear.”

“Oh, my God!”